Art

As Art Descends Into It’s Grave So Goes Humanity

Posted on by Helena

AS ART DESCENDS into its final grave, so goes humanity.  Humans are the only species capable of artistic expression whether through a canvas, clay, stone, music or the written word.  We are in awe of ancient stone carvings that date thousands of years in history.  Eastern countries are replete with magnificent carved rock formations. Centuries later we wonder how such sculpting was of such profusion.  And yet, the answer is quite remarkable in its reality.

There are numerous examples of cathedrals, monuments, caves, and palaces built into solid stone dating from 17,000 years ago to 650 AD.  Ornate. Meticulously carved. Without error or mistake. Perfection. The Ajanta Caves of India, the Lycian Tombs of Turkey, the Longman Caves of China and Petra, Jordan, among others.  Each unique – and yet similar. Some majestically, others archeologically, while others seem to be more advanced in their knowledge of environment and architecture meet as one.

The ones we have unearthed are scattered across the globe and yet they share a theme; built to withstand extremes. As though planet earth was experiencing weather anomalies requiring humans to shelter inside mountains and underground to survive.  Entire cities sprawling as much as 11 miles and capable of housing 20,000 with a regulated constant temperature and access to underground streams.

Today, we build boxes on open land subject to every imaginable extreme – hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, ice storms, etc… The box tends to require constant repairs and is typically abandoned after 100 years.  Why? 

Art is a Mentality.  Psychologists tended to register art with a person’s use of right brain matter.  An over-simplification.  Today, neuroscience shows that training and practicing art actively rewires the brain. Learning to draw or paint builds new white-matter pathways and restructures brain regions over time, meaning an artistic brain is shaped by a mix of innate inclination and dedicated practice. 

Dedicated Practice.  In ancient times, the activity of building majestic cathedrals, and cave palaces adorned with intricate design, was a dedicated practice wherein all participated.  The concept of ‘it takes a village’.  Tasks did not include driving to an office and sitting in a chair for 10 hours. They did not include driving trucks, building highways, data entry, etc…  With each advent of another task, added to our log of tasks, our brains white matter was continually reduced simply out of nonuse. Tasks thus replaced Art.

Could these ‘humans’ have permanently moved underground as less evolved humans began the endless ritual of war and killing? 

That last shred of white matter is now facing its final shovel of dirt in the grave as we give over this last vestige to AI.   

The very people building AI are the most likely to have little white matter left in their brains. Their focus is not in creation, but in the task of replacement. And therefore, they cannot grasp the unholiness this will cause. Instead, we are given a graphic, a hologram, or a virtual reality that bears no resemblance to the majestic. And with each evolution our brains will become smaller and smaller due to neglect or even abandonment. Which elevates the concept of how ancient peoples may have actually had significantly of higher IQ’s – measured by their power to create.

Idleness softens the brain’s intellectual capacity.  Thus, when Musk claims that humanity will have absolutely nothing to do and make a high income… it is a dystopian future, not utopian.  Consumed with nothing but tasks taking care of robots, we will become the machines. As AI expands book-burning is yet another means of not just altering facts and truth to fit a programmed narrative, it destroys the art of the written word. Only a person whose white matter had dissolved would envision a bored, useless society as utopia.

The Death of Art has gone through various plagues throughout history.  Hegel claimed, “Art “ends” or reaches its historical peak with German Romanticism, as human thought transitions into a phase where philosophy and conceptual reflection replace sensory artistic representation.”

Modern aesthetics paint a circle on a canvas and call it art.  Or erect a glass and steel skyscraper and call it architecture. Or frame a banana and call it sculpture. The phase before the final AI death.  Modern art is defined by absence and minimalism with little to no actual talent. The brain’s fusion is not even sparking in such a creation. And society accepted these transitions as philosophical evolution because the ‘experts’ tell us to. Yet another subtle mass hypnosis.

The nostalgia we feel when looking at ancient art is due to absence.  Art no longer is an extension of nature, it is a battle against nature. Which is an extension of a battle against God as humans attempt to become a new version of god – a replacement.  We call them government.

Beauty.  The beauty of nature, of talent, and of women is lacking, creating a vacant and sometimes grotesque version that is unrecognizable. Modernists instead look for ugliness, thrill, and Brillo boxes wherein skill is manufactured through snake oil salesmanship.  Art becomes a monetary business with little true aesthetic value while museums and galleries promote it’s awe for consumerism. And the skillful are left behind to blow in the wind

                          …

Dedicated To ~ Rick 

Confederate Monuments; Art, History and Censorship

Posted on by Helena

I think we have lost sight as to what a ‘Monument or Sculpture” is, what it represents, and it’s value as antiquity. Destroying history is exactly what ISIS is attempting to do in Syria as they ravage entire museums and coliseums filled with the representation of a society hundreds and/or thousands of years ago.

During the time of Michelangelo, bronze sculptures were melted down for their iron content to make cannonballs, and art was lost for the call to war. A culture, a society, died with that decision just as thousands of cultures died at the hands of ISIS.  And now the lefters in the US want to expunge historic remnants of civilization, as though expunging these antiquities will have any impact at all other than the censorship they foment

Having dabbled as a sculptress, I appreciate the art, the labor, the time, and the love that is poured into each unique piece.   Destroying a piece of art is criminal.  In the world of dance, Balanchine was an amazing choreographer.  He was also a purported liar, cruel and has been accused of requiring many of his dancers to engage in  sex with him.  Should we ban all his ballets?  We can look at nearly every leader in history and find the faults, the imperfections, the sin.   No one human is sinless. And therefore, in parallel to the thinking that anything that is not perfect must be destroyed, we would have left only one sculpture, Jesus Christ.

Siddhartha/Buddha was a King’s son filled with gluttonous ways and royal greed – sinful.   Caesar was a military general who defied orders and instituted a coup in order to assume power…   King David was an adulterer who sent his mistress’ husband to his death on the front lines of war.   Nero had his mother murdered.   Should all their sculptures be destroyed?

It is no different than the burning of books, a form of censorship that has only one purpose, the destruction of a cultural heritage through violent means. The Nazi’s used book burning to try and eradicate history. In researching ‘book burnings’ the number of accounts in history is horrifyingly massive. This form of obliteration has been used for thousands of years to incite violence – not to quell it.

The Ruins of Rome. They represent thousands of years of slavery and death. Yet they also represent art, culture, history and a view into an era long gone. Should we raze the ruins and build an apartment complex?   In Denver at DIA, visitors driving into the airport are greeted by a 32 foot rearing blue Mustang horse with crazed red eyes that glow with evil. The horse fell on it’s sculptor, killing him, before it was erected – the eyes were added by the son. It’s creepy, but it’s also beautiful and it is art.

We commemorate thousands of people and industries and companies with sculptures – firemen, policemen, and even Genghis Khan known for his brutal genocide and for his fathering of thousands of children whose descendants today number somewhere in the range of 16 million!  That’s history.

The US has roughly 40 million people of Irish descent. They were slaves before the Africans. They aren’t protesting and rioting and demanding destruction of antiquities and artifacts. They aren’t calling for book burnings and censorship. The logic of what is happening is quite bizarre as it has crossed lines and tributaries in directions that make no rational sense at all. Perhaps we should simply destroy all sculptures and books and media because by and large they are the product of ‘Men” and well, men have a history of enslaving women…  Shakespeare?  Gone!   Plato?  Gone!  Aristotle?  Gone!   T. S. Eliot?  Gone!  Michelangelo?  Rembrandt?   Mozart?   Gone!

The absurdity of chaos has seemingly drugged our water, and logic and rational thought have been vanquished. Censorship was the tool of the Nazi regime, destruction of history is the tool of ISIS. These are facts.