Navigating Global Connections

The Cultural Dissolve

2012-02-08T13:45:00.000-08:00

The Internet offers a dilemma to the culture wars. It is both an instrument of preservation and destruction. ISALTA advances Living Traditions in the Arts, preserving the past and promoting the present, evidencing the emergency of new traditions.

But cultural tolerance that once formed the basis for exchange of and understanding of differences, is yielding to cultural dissolve and cultural obliteration. This appears to be occuring within and outside of cultures. Cultural dissolve occurs by the gradual transformation of a culture into something totally different. This actually a natural process that occurs over Time as cultures evolve, but now through the rigorous application of dialectical process, cultural dissolve can serve to manipulate dominant practices and render them impotent and irrelevant. Thus a phenomenon such as HipHop can replace aand transform the previous popular music culture. This latest transformation has been so complete as to completely destroy the fabric of the music business culture in terms of CD distribution of musical materials.

Some see this as an ominous future force, the end of history:

History is ending. I mean, we are to be the generation that witnesses the revelation of the purpose of the cosmos. History is the shock wave of the eschaton. History is the shock wave of eschatology, and what this means for those of us who will live through this transition into hyperspace, is that we will be privileged to see the greatest release of compressed change probably since the birth of the universe. The twentieth century is the shudder that announces the approaching cataracts of time over which our species and the destiny of this planet is about to be swept. (Terence McKenna. Re-Evolution)

McKenna continues:

The emphasis in house music and rave culture on physiologically compatible rhythms and this sort of thing is really the rediscovery of the art of natural magic with sound, that sound, properly understood, especially percussive sound, can actually change neurological states, and large groups of people getting together in the presence of this kind of music are creating a telepathic community of bonding that hopefully will be strong enough that it can carry the vision out into the mainstream of society. I think that the youth culture that is emerging in the nineties is an end of the millenium culture that is actually summing up Western civilization and pointing us in an entirely different direction, that we're going to arrive in the third millenium, in the middle of an archaic revival, which will mean a revival of these physiologically empowering rhythm signatures, a new art, a new social vision, a new relationship to nature, to feminism, to ego. All of these things are taking hold, and not a moment too soon. (Ibid.)

For McKenna, cultural dissolve appears to be cultural transformation and the disappearance of Western values, institutions, and art. Albeit, this appears to be written a decade ago, and perhaps the context of technological connections, extensions, and exchange might temper the millenium madeness that consumed us then.

But the most important agent of cultural dissolve is globalization, a political and corporate ideology that is being implemented to deliberately erase boundaries and create a vast class entirely dependent on corporate suppliers for survival, either for employment, goods and materials, and food. It is difficult to understand why this value is being promoted and thrust upon the world as a fait accompli. This is an old idea, Wendell Willke's One World, anticipated the United Nations as a best seller in 1943. But Willke would be astonished by today's version which has economic fangs from governments and corporations that transcend such documents as constitutions and rule of law within national boundaries. At the heart of globalization is the dissolution of boundaries and transformation of cultures by absorption.

I am particularly attracted to what this means for us as artists. Technology is erasing the boundaries and distinctions among the arts, and process moves art and artistic production more and more to a less materialistic, process-based arts making. The cultural dissolve is extended in the dissolution of traditional arts into a radically different stance, still undergoing change and transformation.

What does it mean to compose, collaborate, perform, and connect beyond boundaries and time through these digital media? The technology we are working on is the technology of ourselves as Pirsig described in Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

ISALTA ASSAULT?

2007-06-12T03:51:00.000-07:00

Some have interpreted the recent flurry of Blogs on ISALTA as a negative assault on the organization. This is simply a misunderstanding. The descriptions and critical comments of several posts reflect my enormous respect for the idea behind this organization, which at best is a very loose confederation of a large number of practicing artists, art critics, art teachers and professors throughout the world.

When I first heard of ISALTA from David Ecker in the 1980s, I regarded this as one of the greatest concepts taking a courageous and creative stance on the nurturance of living traditions of the arts in the 20th Century, an idea ahead of its time. ISALTA's mission was brilliantly crafted and became manifest in the doctoral research of artist practitioners/researchers for two decades at New York University. It was a perfect idea to find a presence on the World Wide Web which had not yet emerged as the versatile medium that it is today. However, as powerful as this idea is, it has operated almost invisibly as a force in the contemporary world of art.

To its credit, ISALTA, through the admirable efforts of Dr. Carleton Palmer, created a website which assembled the many distant and scattered projects and work of its membership into a website that finally provided a summation of thirty years of research and events that is extraordinarily impressive.

My disappointment stems from the fact that such an eloquent concept and dynamic pursuits have not attracted wider support and acknowledgment. I am also disappointed that the NYU School of Education (now named Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development) seems blithely aloof to the incredible work of so many of its alumni. It is especially disturbing that the art department in the School of Education marginalized art education, dropping its undergraduate program, and discontinuing its brilliant doctoral program that was interdisciplinary and phenomenologically oriented in favor of a terminal MFA program. The "political" choices that occurred after the retirement of David Ecker and later, Angiola Churchill, transformed the art department from its unique status in the world to one that looked like just about every other university art department, a somewhat respectable conservatory of studio art. It seems a travesty that the professors and leadership of the art department trivialized the work of its alumni and past professors, largely unaware of the incredible era of ideas that launched the concept of ISALTA and generated such a wealth of substantive inquiry.

My commentary has been directed at the need to find a way to establish the advancement of living traditions in art on an expanded scale, independent of institutions of higher education, forging ISALTA's own destiny while encouraging research by establishing awards for the best research in the arts, and providing a means for students at all institutions to become members of ISALTA while creating a forum for these new students. ISALTA might establish chapters at universities and continue to be a force for preservation and change in the arts for the 21st Century.

ISALTA and Navigating Global Cultures

2007-06-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

ISALTA (International Society for Advancement of Living Traditions in Art) was born in the imagination and vision of David Ecker. Almost three decades ago this organization grew from a need to focus the research of serious artists who went to New York University from all over the world. In the past few years, the art department at NYU has become a more traditional studio art program and the ground-breaking research characterized by artists in that department dwindled to practically nothing at the turn of the century and is now full dormant. Although the program has become a respectable MFA venue for the terminal degree, the Ph.D. that brought innovative artists with a world vision no longer inhabit that art department.

A recent post by Wyzard challenges ISALTA to renew its vision, but it is not likely to emerge in the context of the new, sleek, streamlined Steinhardt which has replaced the the multi-headed School of Education, Health, Nursing, and Arts Professions at NYU. Instead, ISALTA needs to become its own institution through a more dynamic interactive web presence as suggested by Web Arts Collaborative. Perhaps members can work together to create opportunities for fundraising through mutual efforts in writing proposals for activities of their common cause. Such efforts might renew projects such as Navigating Global Cultures.

Navigating Global Cultures emerged as a web presence in the early days of WWW. It was born through the efforts of Sandro Dernini of Plexus, David Ecker of NYU Art, Carl Schmidt of NYU Humanities, and John Gilbert of NYU Music. It emerged from cross cultural and interdisciplinary initiatives in celebration of the 500th year of Christopher Columbus' discovery of America.

NGC was intent on linking children in different cultures throughout the world and succeeded in establishing projects in China, South America, Italy, Upstate New York and Harlem. It was ambitious and daring and worked under the primitive conditions of the early Internet, but it was creative, compassionate, and visionary.

NGC has disappeared in the ephemeral vagaries of the WWW, the graveyard of good ideas that went unsupported in the new political atmosphere that often characterized institutional WWW publishing as the web grew in popularity and authority. It is clear that such projects need adequate funding to be successful. NGC had no funding, but it had the commitment of imaginative students and faculty.

New Practices Emerging as a New Consciousness

2006-07-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

Connectivity has done more than create a more convenient way to stay in touch with others. It is developing a consciousness of inter-relatedness and a disposition to share on many different levels.

This consciousness of sharing has the potential of transforming peoples around the world. What appears to be emerging is a global consciousness that is collective sum-total of human beings connected around the world. Eventually this will impact on the nature of government and commerce worldwide.

Navigating Through the Milieu of Millions

2006-03-28T08:28:00.000-08:00

There is a new world emerging... the energy comes from individuals building communities that rest upon the foundations of the imagination.

We will keep you up to date on blogging and connecting with the world. This newsblog will be changing hourly. Come change with us!