Patience

"Nature does not hurry,
yet everything is accomplished"

- Lao Tzu (6th century – 4th century BCE)

Distortion of Reality

"Mysticism tends to combine the strictest concept of the Absolute, one that points to transcending any polarity, duality and distinction, and a vision of relativity that both denies the reality of the world of manifestation, when considered independently from its Source, and affirms an essential continuity or unity between the Ultimate and that which is not in an ultimate sense.

The Absolute is literally ab-solutum, which means that it is 'unbound,' 'detached' and 'free.' Although most often understood as 'complete' and 'self sufficient,' and therefore also 'cause of itself,' the Absolute must also and consequently be approached in terms of its perfect freedom, which is itself a dimension of its transcendence vis-à-vis any “relationality.” In this connection “relationality” entails an aspect of 'obligation' or 'reciprocity' by virtue of the 'relationships' and 'relations'  it involves. Therefore, our understanding of “absoluteness” as utter freedom immediately brings the central question of this inquiry to the fore by highlighting the apparent logical impossibility of positing concurrently the ontological reality of both the Absolute and “non-absolute realities” –including ourselves.

...

Metaphysical relativity is, in Advaita Vedānta, primarily identified with Māyā. Now Māyā is most often approached by Shankara as an epistemological phenomenon of superimposition upon Reality.  In other words Māyā is that which makes us mistake 'the rope for the snake.' It is a principle of distortion of Reality that stems from one’s inability to recognize Reality as it is, that is as the non-dual Self or Ātman. On the one hand, Māyā is the 'epistemological' fruit of a false identification of the Self with the body, on the other hand it is Māyā itself, or more specifically tamas - the lowest, most opaque of the three cosmological elements that enter into the composition of Māyā’s world of relativity, that is constitutional of delusion as such: 'The power of tamas is a veiling power.  It makes things appear to be other than what they are.  It is this which is the original cause of an individual’s transmigration and is the cause of the origination of the action of the projecting power.'

It must be noted ... that the ontological status of Māyā is incomprehensible: 'She is most strange. Her nature is inexplicable,' to use Shankara’s words. Māyā is fundamentally the unintelligible, and this lack of intelligibility is a function of  the 'obscurity' or uncertainty of its origin, as well as being bound to the  undecidability of its ontological status. "

- Patrick Laude
Shimmering Reality: The Metaphysics of Relativity in Mystical Traditions

Imperfect Concepts

"To Taoism that which is absolutely still

or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead,

for without the possibility of growth
and change there can be no Tao. In
reality there is nothing in the universe which
is completely perfect or completely still;
it is only in the minds of men
that such concepts exist."

- Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

Taoist Wisdom (To Get Us Through the Day)

"There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. 'Such bad luck,' they said sympathetically. 'Maybe,' the farmer replied.

 The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. 'How wonderful,' the neighbors exclaimed. 'Maybe,' replied the old man.

 The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. 'Maybe,' answered the farmer.

 The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

 'Maybe,' said the farmer."

The Story of the Chinese Farmer
As interpreted by Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

"Murky Water, Dusty Mirror"

"Murky water is turbid;
let it settle and it clears.
A dusty mirror is dim;
clean it and it is bright.

What I realize as I observe this is
the Tao of clarifying the mind
and perceiving its essence.

The reason why people’s minds are not clear and their natures are not stable is that they are full of craving and emotion. Add to this eons of mental habit, acquired influences deluding the mind, their outgrowths clogging up the opening of awareness – this is like water being murky, like a mirror being dusty. The original true mind and true essence are totally lost. The feelings and senses are unruly, subject to all kinds of influences, taking in all sorts of things, defiling the mind.

If one can suddenly realize this and change directions, wash away pollution and contamination, gradually remove a lifetime of biased mental habits, wandering thoughts and perverse actions, increasing in strength with persistence, refining away the dross until there is nothing more to be refined away, when the slag is gone the gold is pure. The original mind and fundamental essence will spontaneously appear in full, the light of wisdom will suddenly arise, and one will clearly see the universe as though it were in the palm of the hand, with no obstruction.

This is like murky water returning
to clarity when settled,
like a dusty mirror being restored
to brightness when polished.
That which is fundamental is as ever:
without any lack."

- Liu Yiming (1734–1821)
Awakening to the Tao
(also available on the Internet Archive)

The Celestial Way

"So it is said, the life of the sage follows the celestial way, and in death he dissolves and merges with all things. In stillness he is at one with the virtue of yin; in movement he flows with yang. He does not bring fortune and does not cause misfortune. He only responds when external circumstances call for it. He only acts when pushed. He only rises up when there is no other alternative. He throws away the whys and wherefores, and follows the celestial way. Therefore, he does not meet with disaster. Nor is he burdened by material things. He is not slandered by people nor punished by the spirits. He floats with life and rests with death. He does not worry and does not scheme. He is like light that does not dazzle. Completely trustworthy, he does not need to make promises. His sleep is dreamless and his waking hours are free from worry. His spirit is pure and his soul is not tired. In emptiness, nothingness, and simplicity, he is in harmony with the celestial way."

- Chuang Tzu (c.369 B.C. - c.286 B.C.)
Translation in Teachings of the Tao by Eva Wong

I Am

"Silent friend of many distances, feel

how your breath enlarges all of space.

Let your presence ring out like a bell

into the night. What feeds upon your face

grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.

Move through transformation, out and in.

What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?

If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

In this immeasurable darkness, be the power

that rounds your senses in their magic ring,

the sense of their mysterious encounter.

And if the earthly no longer knows your name,

whisper to the silent earth: I'm flowing.

To the flashing water say: I am.""

- Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)
Translation by Stephen Mitchell (The Enlightened Heart)

All Things End in the Tao

"The Tao is nameless and unchanging.
Although it appears insignificant,
nothing in the world can contain it.

If a ruler abides by its principles,

then her people will willingly follow.

Heaven would then reign on earth,

like sweet rain falling on paradise.

People would have no need for laws,

because the law would be written on their hearts.

Naming is a necessity for order,

but naming cannot order all things.

Naming often makes things impersonal,

so we should know when naming should end.

Knowing when to stop naming,

you can avoid the pitfall it brings.

All things end in the Tao

just as the small streams and the largest rivers
flow through valleys to the sea."

- Lao Tzu (6th century – 4th century BCE)
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 32

Wu Wei

"When we learn to work with our own Inner Nature, and with the natural laws operating around us, we reach the level of Wu Wei. Then we work with the natural order of things and operate on the principle of minimal effort. Since the natural world follows that principle, it does not make mistakes. Mistakes are made–or imagined–by man, the creature with the overloaded Brain who separates himself from the supporting network of natural laws by interfering and trying too hard.

When you work with Wu Wei, you put the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. No stress, no struggle. Egotistical Desire tries to force the round peg into the square hole and the square peg into the round hole. Cleverness tries to devise craftier ways of making pegs fit where they don’t belong. Knowledge tries to figure out why round pegs fit into round holes, but not square holes. Wu Wei doesn’t try. It doesn’t think about it. It just does it. And when it does, it doesn’t appear to do much of anything. But Things Get Done.

When you work with Wu Wei, you have no real accidents. Things may get a little Odd at times, but they work out. You don’t have to try very hard to make them work out; you just let them ... If you’re in tune with The Way Things Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time. Later on you can look back and say, "Oh, now I understand. That had to happen so that those could happen, and those had to happen in order for this to happen…" Then you realize that even if you’d tried to make it all turn out perfectly, you couldn’t have done better, and if you’d really tried, you would have made a mess of the whole thing.

Using Wu Wei, you go by circumstances and listen to your own intuition. "This isn’t the best time to do this. I’d better go that way." Like that. When you do that sort of thing, people may say you have a Sixth Sense or something. All it really is, though, is being Sensitive to Circumstances. That’s just natural. It’s only strange when you don’t listen."

- Benjamin Hoff (1946 - )
The Tao of Pooh

Dynamic Interconnection

"The basic recurring theme in Hindu mythology is the creation of the world by the self-sacrifice of God—"sacrifice" in the original sense of "making sacred"—whereby God becomes the world which, in the end, becomes again God. This creative activity of the Divine is called lila, the play of God, and the world is seen as the stage of the divine play. Like most of Hindu mythology, the myth of lila has a strong magical flavor. Brahman is the great magician who transforms himself into the world and then performs this feat with his "magic creative power", which is the original meaning of maya in the Rig Veda. The word maya—one of the most important terms in Indian philosophy—has changed its meaning over the centuries. From the might, or power, of the divine actor and magician, it came to signify the psychological state of anybody under the spell of the magic play. As long as we confuse the myriad forms of the divine lila with reality, without perceiving the unity of Brahman underlying all these forms, we are under the spell of maya. (...) In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid and ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play. The world of maya changes continuously, because the divine lila is a rhythmic, dynamic play. The dynamic force of the play is karma, important concept of Indian thought. Karma means "action." It is the active principle of the play, the total universe in action, where everything is dynamically connected with everything else. In the words of the Gita Karma is the force of creation, wherefrom all things have their life."

- Fritjof Capra (1939 - )
The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels
between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism

Order of Thought

"But spontaneity is not by any means a blind, disorderly urge, a mere power of caprice. A philosophy restricted to the alternatives of conventional language has no way of conceiving an intelligence which does not work according to plan, according to a one-at-a-time order of thought. Yet the concrete evidence of such an intelligence is right to hand in our own thoughtlessly ordered bodies. For the Tao does not 'know' how it produces the universe just as we do not 'know' how we construct our brains."

- Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

The Way of Zen

Only in the Mind

"To Taoism that which is absolutely still or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead, for without the possibility of growth and change there can be no Tao. In reality there is nothing in the universe which is completely perfect or completely still; it is only in the minds of men that such concepts exist."

- Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

Force of Creation

"The basic recurring theme in Hindu mythology is the creation of the world by the self-sacrifice of God—"sacrifice" in the original sense of "making sacred"—whereby God becomes the world which, in the end, becomes again God. This creative activity of the Divine is called lila, the play of God, and the world is seen as the stage of the divine play. Like most of Hindu mythology, the myth of lila has a strong magical flavour. Brahman is the great magician who transforms himself into the world and then performs this feat with his "magic creative power", which is the original meaning of maya in the Rig Veda. The word maya—one of the most important terms in Indian philosophy—has changed its meaning over the centuries. From the might, or power, of the divine actor and magician, it came to signify the psychological state of anybody under the spell of the magic play. As long as we confuse the myriad forms of the divine lila with reality, without perceiving the unity of Brahman underlying all these forms, we are under the spell of maya. (...) In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid and ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play. The world of maya changes continuously, because the divine lila is a rhythmic, dynamic play. The dynamic force of the play is karma, important concept of Indian thought. Karma means "action". It is the active principle of the play, the total universe in action, where everything is dynamically connected with everything else. In the words of the Gita Karma is the force of creation, wherefrom all things have their life."

- Fritjof Capra (1939 - )

The Tao of Physics

Wave - Particle Duality

"Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated “building blocks,” but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object's interaction with the observer. "

-  Fritjof Capra (1939 - )

The Tao of Physics

The Left-Brain looks at what the Right-Brain has been doing for the last 10 years

"The great pleasure and feeling in my right brain is more than my left brain can find the words to tell you." - Roger Sperry

As readers of my blog must surely know by now, my "day job" consists of being a principal research scientist for a naval operations think tank. (Operational research - or "OR" for short - has a long and interesting history, some early days of which are wonderfully recounted in a recent biography of Patrick Blackett, who was a pioneer British OR pioneer in WWII; see Blackett's War: The Art of Warfare). So, being an OR analyst/physicist by day, fine-art photographer at all other hours, I am a veritable textbook exemplar of a broad class of creatures best described as quantum superpositions of their left and right brains. While my left brain is immersed in data, equations, computer code, and endless Powerpoint slides full of those d&#n military acronyms and nested lists of bullets (here is Richard Feynman's take on Powerpoint bullets in his autobiographical What Do You Care What Other People Think?, from the passage in the book in which he describes his role during the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster: “Then we learn about 'bullets' - little black circles in front of phrases that were supposed to summarize things. There was one after another of these little goddamn bullets in our briefing books and on the slides.”), my right brain is looking forward to when it will next look through a camera viewfinder, work in Photoshop, and/or do some printing. Normally - actually, almost always - I deliberately keep my conscious self focused on either one or the other side, but never both at the same time, though I appreciate the inevitability of the "other" - inactive - side quietly lurking in some dark corner of my unconscious, never quite "letting go" completely. After all, human-crafted distinctions like "right brain" and "left brain" are crude categories at best and meaningless at worst, and next to useless in providing a genuine insight into who "we" are fundamentally. 

Still, every once in a while, it is an informative exercise to welcome the cooperation of both sides of one's brain. To wit, and while "in between" projects (a horrific euphemism for "I've just completed a major project and am in dire need of recharging my creative batteries!"), I've applied some very basic skills I use in my left-brain "day job" - namely, that of data collection and visualization - to help my right-brain better understand what it has been doing for the last 10 years. Note that I use the word "doing" here to embody only those qualities of a portfolio that potentially say something about the type of portfolios that have arisen during this time, in the self-defined context of other portfolios that came before and after a given one, and emphatically not - at least in this blog entry - anything about any aesthetic or philosophical concerns. That is to say, this exercise consists of using exclusively left-brain measures (about my portfolios: their number, subject matter, size, and so) to help my left-brain discover possible latent patterns in what my photographic body of work reveals about what my right-brain has been interested in over the last 10 years.

Toward this end, I've recently let my left brain examine my right brain's last decade's worth of photo portfolios - I count 21 major portfolios (I've left off a few that overlap with prior years), many of which have been published in various magazines - and cataloged the results according to where a given portfolio falls in each of five categories: (1) duration of time of actual shooting using a camera (= x-axis), (2) duration of time spent processing in Photoshop (= y-axis), (3) the size of the final portfolio, measured by total number of images that make up the given portfolio, not the number of raw images from which that final set was eventually distilled (= size of the "point" that is plotted; the overall scale is set by the 125 images that make up my "synesthetic landscape" portfolio), (4) the relative age of a portfolio (the lighter the shade of grey of the point being plotted, the older the given portfolio is), and (5) whether the portfolio has been published and/or (a significant portion has been) exhibited (indicated in red).

The "infographic" shown at the top of this blog entry summarizes my findings, which reveals a few interesting trends (the x and y axes are both expressed in years). First, the durations of my portfolios essentially span the entire 10 years period of my little experiment, with examples that range from literally a day (such as my Luray Caverns portfolio) to a perpetually ongoing series that, not so coincidentally, matches a core theme of my blog (namely "Tao"). Second, except for the Synesthetic Landscapes series, my most recent portfolios (denoted by "disks" that are nearly or close-to being opaque) are relatively short in duration - about a year or less in duration - but cover a wide span of processing times (from about a week to more than a year). For example, while my Scotland portfolio was - of necessity, of course - captured during the 3 week period my wife and I were in Scotland, it consumed significantly over a years' worth of time to process (and still provides many happy hours "reimagining" past shots now, years after our trip in 2009). The same can be said about my Tetons and Yellowstone portfolio. Third, neither the duration nor processing times have much correlation with whether or not a given portfolio was published, as there are representatives of the published set (highlighted in red) that span both sets of axes. Fourth, except for a few small (Megaliths - labeled "5" in the infographic, for no good reason other than it was the fifth portfolio I counted statistics for and its size is too small to permit the title to be shown - and Entropic Melodies) and large (Synesthetic Landscapes) sized outliers, essentially all of my portfolios contain between about 40 and 80 images.

Finally, two observations present themselves about portfolio publications. The first is an obvious but still amusing "insight" that the size of my portfolios has little if anything to do with whether it was published, as both small and large efforts have appeared in print, albeit the result is skewed by a number of publications in Lenswork magazine (whose editorial policy is to either accept a portfolio "as is" in terms of size - whatever the size - or not at all). I am glad to see that I've persevered in completing fairly large sized portfolios (e.g., "Trees" and Swirls, Whorls, and Tendrils) without the "reward" of publications (though, here again, the result is perhaps not all that surprising, given that that is rarely my goal as I work toward completing a given project).

The second observation, and more surprising insight, revealed itself only after digging a bit deeper into what the infographic shows directly. I noticed that each of my portfolios belongs to one of three general types of content, as made clear by their titles. The three types are place (Luray, Hawaii, Greece, Scotland, and Tetons), thing (Ciphers, Glyphs, Megaliths, Flame, Portals, Swirls, and Water), and theme (Entropic Melodies, Metaphor, Micro Worlds, Spirit and Light, Synesthetic Landscapes, Tao, and Geometry). What is surprising is that, of the 9 portfolios that have been published, 7 come from the themed portfolios set; indeed, all 7 in that category have been published! While my sample set of 10 years' worth of work and 21 portfolios is much too small to yield anything but the most rudimentary of observations, it is tempting to speculate that themes generally resonate deeper with viewers (and editors and curators) than do places and things.

Churchville Photo Club Talk Slides

This is a short note intended mainly to provide a link to the slides (about 5 MB, Adobe pdf) I used for a talk I gave on June 20 to the Churchville Photo Club in Pennsylvania.

My presentation used selected images and portfolios to illustrate (and give at least some credence to the sincerity of) my ongoing journey toward self-discovery as shaped by physics, tao, and photography.

I'd like to thank the club's president, Felix Gomes, and Vice President, Marty Golin, for their kind invite and hospitality; and all the attendees who endured not just the 2+ hours worth of (what must surely have been less than completely intelligible) "babble-speak" about the philosophical dimensions of fine-art photography, but did so in a non air conditioned room that barely shielded all those enclosed within from the 90+ deg(F) heat and 90% humidity outside. (By the time I finished, I felt - and looked - as though I had just escaped from an unsupervised sauna set to an inhuman "Danger: lethally hot and humid" setting!).

But while the conditions were far from ideal, the venue itself - nestled within a wonderful nature center about an hours' drive from Philadelphia - could not have been more idyllic. My 12 yo son, an avid naturalist, and I arrived about an hour early, and had an opportunity to walk the grounds and just revel in the quiet gentle ambiance of the center. We both promised to return here for some quality time whenever the opportunity for such a trip next arises: he, to just explore and look for insects and frogs; his dad to train his "other eye" on the beauty of the park (I was sans camera gear for this entire trip, and felt, as all photographers do, considerably less than whole).

Later that evening, and after my talk (that I was happily surprised to see my son sit through in its entirety; this was the first time my son had heard me speak on photography - his take: "Not bad, dad." I'll take it ;-), he and I shared a magical moment of shared bonding, punctuated by a few hugs and a hint of a tear or two on our cheeks. And this experience had nothing at all to do with my talk!

After many handshakes, discussions, and chats with people as we all made our way to our cars - I should mention that my talk ended fairly late, way after sunset - the last car except ours finally left, and my son and I turned to our own car parked in a corner. At this point, it was essentially pitch black, with but an insignificant light some distance away. As our eyes adjusted to the dark...

...we both froze in our tracks; jaws dropped. An otherwordly event was unfolding before our eyes. I briefly entertained the scary thought that I must be having a seizure! There, in front of us - to the sides; all around us - were more fire flies than my son and I have likely seen in all our combined years on this planet! Clusters and clusters of hundreds upon hundreds of fireflies; flying, spiraling, blinking, flashing, and - collectively - putting on a dazzling fourth-of-July-like display that would put to shame (as my son later described) any fourth-of-July show that we'd ever seen.

My son and I just sat in revery on the grass, not speaking, not thinking; mindlessly - dare I say Tao or Zen-like? - absorbed in one of nature's wondrous dances. After 20 minutes or so, my son turned to me to give a hug, and said, "Dad, I'll never, ever forgot this day!" (And neither will his dad :-)

Gates and Journeys

"Those who seek the truth by means of intellect and learning only get further and further away from it. Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate." - Huang Po

"The longest journey

begins with a single step."

- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

The Mystical Way of Photography

I have just about finished preparing a set of powerpoint slides for a presentation I was invited to give early next year by the Silver Spring Camera Club (in Maryland). My "guest appearance" is scheduled for 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm on January 7, 2010 (a thursday) at the Marvin Memorial United Methodist Church (33 University Boulevard E., Silver Spring; corner of University and Colesville Rd.).

My talk consists of a brief bio (of myself as a "work in progress" photographer), a summary of my artistic journey thus far, a few "lessons" I've learned, a sampling of old and new portfolios, and ideas on how Eastern philosophy can help aspiring artists nurture their creativity. It is in regard to this last set of musings that I'd like to devote this blog entry to.

One of my all-time favorite quotes appears in the Ching-te Ch'uan Teng lu ("Transmission of the Lamp," assembled by Tao-Yuan of the line Fa-Yen Wen (885-958):

“Before I had studied Zen for thirty years,I saw mountains as mountains,
and waters as waters…
When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge,
I came to the point where I saw
that mountains are not mountains,
and waters are not waters.
But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest.
For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains,
and waters once again as waters.”

This sage insight describes not only life but - recursively, self-referentially - every aspect of the creative field that defines and nourishes it, including, of course, art and photography.

Now, anchored by the Buddhist quote above, consider the corresponding stages of growth of a photographer:

Stage 1: At first, the photographer sees mountains as mountains and waters as waters...

...the photographer searches for the picture. The slide shows an image I took last year when my wife and I visited Santorini, Greece. Why did I take this particular shot? What creative energies and motivations, internal and external, compelled me to point my camera in this direction at this time to record this emphemeral reality? Perhaps, being a physicist, I was drawn by the geometry, or entropic decay of the door? (In truth, the more meaningful question to ask is: "Why has the universe evolved in such a way as to have this image materialize at a certain point in time and space?", but please read on...) Of course, different photographers have different backgrounds, are motivated by different needs, and have different aesthetic temperaments and creative urges. One photographer might be attracted to light and geometry; another to history and culture; still another to textures and contrasts. But in all cases, the aspiring artist is in search of some "thing," and happy when she stumbles upon an object of interest.

While the resulting pictures are undeniably products of individual needs and aspirations, and thus necessarily reflect some part of the photographer responsible for creating them, they stand alone - at least at this early juncture (in the photographer's evolution as an artist) - as objects essentially of their own creation. They are what they are: a landscape, a portrait, a family picture, ... Some are better than others, but each is also more likely than not "yet another instance" of a picture that has been taken by countless other more or less talented photographers (though - importantly - for very different "reasons"). Trees are trees, portraits are portraits, and few, if any, of the images - as individual images - reveal much about the photographer that created them. The connection between creative energy and created "object" is not yet visible, and exists only in latent form.

Stage 2: Later, the photographer no longer sees mountains as mountains and waters as waters...

...instead, the photographer begins losing herself in her pictures, thus freeing the pictures to discover their - and her - path. (Instances of a given) tree grow into trees, of different kinds, in different light, at different times - of year and of the photographer's own inner state. The growing set of images evolves to encompass other, related aspects, of the shifting reality the photographer - partly consciously and partly unconsciously -immerses herself in. Perhaps rocks appear, perhaps water, then fog, then leaves, and - later - by an emergence of entirely new "nonphysical" categories - like abstraction, or tao; perhaps the photographer finds herself experimenting with color, or doing away with categories altogether.

Aesthetic meaning transitions from individual pictures to collections of interrelated imagery, which itself evolves - sometimes backtracking, sometimes taking lateral, seemingly "stagnant" unproductive steps - weaves in and out of itself, but also inexorably, inevitably, forges a unique path. One that is unmistakably and uniquely of the artist. Others that are allowed (even a partial) glimpse of the growing work - of the waypoints along the living path - can see past the "individual images" (that "anyone" with a requisite amount of talent and experience could also have created, but - again - for vastly different reasons) to see the first hints of a unique creative field at work. Paradoxically, the best artists are almost always the last to "see" these faint stirrings of new levels in their own work, even as they keep reaching upward. No path is the same as any other, and the path that emerges for a given artist is as much a product of the artist as it is of itself. The perceived duality between creative field and created form is much the same as all dualities; which is to say it is illusory. But the artist is not yet at the stage to see past illusion. Indeed, the artist uses the duality between self and world - exploits it! - to forge a path that others in the world see as uniquely hers.

Stage 3: Eventually (if the artist has journeyed on a sincere - and sincerely discovered - path), she once again sees mountains as mountains and waters as waters...

...and, in the end, finally discovers herself. The (unending) path defines the photographer! Not as a passive collage of "photographs taken," but as an active embodiment of the artist's spirit. The creative field awakens to a new reality in which all divisions between self, path, and creation have no meaning, save for the unending process and timeless yearning to create. There is only the creative field, journeying into the infinite depths of its own self.

The photographer finds a picture, that discovers a path, that defines the artist, that is the photographer, that finds a picture....

Now look deeper still, beyond even this "last" step; beyond the "Ouroborian" synthesis of self and process (which is an important portal to the ultimate ground of all being, but not an end...), a place where words - and even pictures - begin to fail....now, what do you see?

Note: Interested readers can download the full set of powerpoint slides of my upcoming talk (in Adobe pdf format): low-res version (4 MB), high-res version (16 MB).

On the Art of Observing Gallery Viewers Observing Art

The NY Times recently published a fascinating article on the subject "how people engage art" in art galleries. As one might expect, there are a variety of "approaches" people take to viewing art. Some walk around slowly, savoring each artistic morsel on a wall. Some walk through the gallery quickly, hardly glancing at much of anything save for the watch on their wrist (in hopes of escaping, perhaps). Some bring their sketchbooks, look around a bit, then find a spot to rest for a while and try to "take away" a bit of what they've seen (or are looking at). Some come in groups, that congeal and disperse in rhythms, punctuated by periodic outbursts of comments and discussion, as they weave their way through the displays.

The article reminded me of my own experiences of watching "people passing through a gallery" while I was still a member of the Lorton Arts Workhouse Photographic Society (WPS). Part of my Co-op duties included gallery-sitting, for which I had to come in to open the gallery, greet guests, photography admirers and/or potential customers, answer questions, conduct sales, and so on. In truth, apart from the motivation to "do more photography" while I was part of the Co-op, my most enjoyable experience was in greeting and schmoozing with passerbys and interested observers. As I write this blog entry, two months or so removed from my last such sitting, I must admit to missing the opportunity to experience this on a regular basis.

For context, the WPS gallery (Gallery W-6 at Lorton Arts), contains about 120-130 prints at any one time, (new hangings occur at roughly 8 to 9 week intervals) and the main gallery is about 100 feet by 20 feet in size (there is a smaller space for pictures at the front entrance, that contains an additional 15 or so prints). Here are some of my miscellaneous observations about how "people wander through the gallery," culled from nine months worth of informal record keeping:

(1) People are generally quiet - very quiet, as though they are in a library - as they walk through the gallery. In many cases, even if I attempt to initiate a conversation in a regular tone of voice, the response is muted, hardly above a whisper.

(2) The average "walk through" time (of people who choose not to interact with me after my greeting them; this class makes up only about a quarter of the people who enter the gallery) is about 3 minutes, plus/minus a minute or so. It's pretty fast. A short look is all that most prints get, even as the people are moving on to the next picture. Another interesting statistic: about half the people entering the gallery choose to look at only about half of the pictures; they leave before completing a full circuit around the gallery! (Personally - speaking as both photographer and gallery viewer - I also tend to move quickly through a gallery, giving most pictures about 10 secs worth of attention. However, I have rarely been to any gallery, of any kind, in which at least a few images/paintings did not grab my attention and hold it for long stretches. Indeed, it is the anticipation and possibility of encountering such "grab your eye/I/mind/soul" art that brings me to galleries in the first place.) Note: thoughtful readers who may be musing about the role that "thin-slicing" (= rapid cognition) may play in art viewing will find interesting reading in Malcom Gladwell's Blink.

(3) About half the people who enter the gallery are happy to reciprocate in an exchange of pleasantries and otherwise ask questions about the art and engage my presence in the gallery. Indeed, for this class of gallery observer, the interaction with me only seems to spur their own interest in the art, for they spend, on average, at least two to three times the length of time simply "viewing the art" than does class one (as defined above). (Of course, this may simply be a correlation between the type of person who is both more interesting in photography and, simultaneously, more predisposed to engaging others in some verbal exchange.)

(4) A small minority (about 5-10%) appear interested only in the fact that there is a human being in the gallery with whom they can speak about photography, rather than the photographs themselves. This class of observer enters the gallery, looks around not for the prints on the wall, but for the gallery-sitter, makes a bee-line toward that person, and is the one to initiate contact. Also, about half the time, the ensuing conversation is more about their art, rather than the prints they have yet to see in the gallery they've just entered.

(5) 10-15% of the people passing through are also photographers. Sometimes they are identified by the cameras strapped to their neck; sometimes it is revealed through conversation. However, in almost all such cases, the affect is one of humility on their part. And often, from my point of view, in a quite unjustified manner, for many turn out to be accomplished photographers. Strangely, this fact is more often than not revealed only after some gentle coaxing (by the gallery sitter/gallery-photographer); most (even those that are obviously carrying a camera!) are reluctant to reveal their talents. My impression is that by virtue of being inside of a gallery alone, and by being in the presence of a "photographer" whose works are on the wall, somehow their own abilities, skills and accomplishments are lessened or outright unimportant. It is truly a strange phenomenon, but perhaps not all that surprising, psychologically. Objectively speaking, there is no deeper meaning to, say, having my pictures hanging on the wall in the room they are in than the objective fact that my pictures happen to be there. It is not, in any way, a statement about or reference to the photographic skill possessed by the humble gallery observer. As I write this entry, I am no longer a member of the WPS, and therefore have no pictures on their gallery walls. I'd certainly like to believe that my photographic skills, such as they are, have not diminished. (Though I secretly wonder, too, whether I'd be a wee-bit more reluctant to "reveal" my photography side were I to enter some new gallery?)

(6) 10-15% of the people wandering through the gallery take their time, seemingly with every picture. I cannot over-state how this makes the gallery-sitter's heart soar, because - speaking as one - I could palpably feel in their manner a genuine interest in what was displayed on the walls. This class of observer takes a sincere delight in each and every artist, taking the time to read our bios, the titles of the works, and slowly - sometimes with hands clasped behind their backs - relishing the images near and far, craning their necks for a closeup, and stepping back to admire a print from a different perspective. Somewhat surprisingly, only about half of the people in this group overlap with the class that loves to chat.

(7) I just mentioned that the WPS has short "Bios" up on the wall next to each artist's exhibit. However, we did this only many months after opening, and initially had nothing but titles by the individual works, without so much as a marker informing the viewer that "this wall" has photographer X's works, and "that wall" has works by photographer Y. The week after we put up the bios, interest in particular photographers' works (depending on the predilections of the viewer of course) and likelihood of engaging the gallery-sitter sky-rocketed. Intuitively, it makes sense that if a viewer can learn something of interest about a given artist - - and even more so if he or she learns something of interest about an artist who happens to be the gallery-sitter that day - that the viewer is that much more inclined to react to that artist's body of work and also enagage the photographer/gallery-sitter in conversation. (Before the bios went up, I was amused by how often I'd be asked, incredulously, "Are all of these works yours?")

(8) Most people are not attracted to, and do not resonate (on any discernible level) with abstract photography. Please keep in mind that is a strictly personal observation, and in reference to how I observed people "react to my own work" (which is frequently deep into the abtstract dimension). It is not a statement about aesthetics, or what is "good" or "bad" in photography. I state it purely as a matter of "fact" that I've consistently observed over the run of my nine-month membership in the WPS. (FYI: Brooks Jensen, co-editor of Lenswork magazine, has an interesting podcast on this subject.) On many more occasions than I am willing to admit (though, implicitly, I'm doing so here;-), particularly when - by chance - my own pictures were hanging near where the gallery-sitting desk and chair are stationed, I would see a prospective buyer approach one of my abstracts, muttering (though loud enough for me to hear): "Whoa, what in the world...?" (followed by what I could have mistaken for either a look of horror or disgust or both, as he or she or they quickly made their way to someone else's picture of something more recognizably "real looking"). Note: readers interested in abstract photography are urged to look out for a wonderful new book on the history of abstract photography called The Edge of Vision (by Lyle Rexer).

(9) A very small minority (maybe a handful of people over the entire nine-month period I'm summarizing) were - ahem - less than gracious and humble. With an obvious chip on their shoulder, they would march toward the gallery-sitter desk, announce their arrival (at least by their manner, the loud clop-clop of their shoes banging the floor, and their wide-open staring eyes, seemingly daring anyone in their path to a fight), and proceed to "explain" to the gallery-sitter (i.e., me) that while some of the photographs here are interesting (though they barely even glanced at any of them), it is really their art that belongs here instead of the photographers' who were juried into the WPS. On a positive note, once I politely explained that they too can easily become members of the WPS, provided they assemble a portfolio, and submits prints, a vitae and an artists statement - and are selected by the admissions jury - they all turned on their heels and stormed out the gallery.

(10) There is one final class of gallery viewer whose membership totals exactly one person (at least during my time as gallery sitter): the person who is herself an artist and who deliberately seeks out a particular photographer in hopes of engaging in an aesthetic dialectic. I was introduced to this class during WPS' 08/09-holiday open house and small works show. I saw a woman, about my age, enter the gallery, take a quick look around, and then immediately head for the wall that had my pictures hanging. Naturally curious (as this seldom happens to my pictures), I quietly approached her and introduced myself. She was shy, but smiled, and started asking a few questions about my photos. I started giving my (by now practiced) general overview, but soon realized there was increasing depth to her questions; none were of the basic "So, what is this supposed to be?" variety. She mentioned how some of the images were very Tao-like, and my approach reminded her of some Chinese landscapes (and mentioned a few artists' names I have forgotten). As we talked, it became increasingly irrelevant as to who was "viewing" and who was "the photographer." She eventually confessed that she too was an artist (and teacher) at Lorton, specializing in Chinese art. She explained that she had seen some of my smaller works, that were at that time hanging in the main gallery (Gallery W-16 at Lorton Arts), and heard about our open house; she came specifically to meet the photographer behind the pictures she liked so much. Shoot forward a few weeks, after I had a chance to visit my new friend at her own studio (and admire her art), and we were both rewarded with new art for our walls: she, with an image of mine she so admired at the photography show; I with an exquisite little Zen Frog that adorns my "day job" office and who has himself become an inseparable part of me. A beautiful example of art meeting art, and art sharing of itself to inspire more art.

Postscript #1: My dad, a lifelong artist who lived art 25 hours out of every 24 (incredible, but somehow true!), carved out a niche all his own as a gallery-viewer. His approach was simple, direct, and pure: gallery day was gallery day, meaning that the entire day would be spent viewing art, in a preternaturally transcendent state that rendered him utterly oblivious to everything around him. My mom and I both saw first hand how my dad would arrive at a gallery - any gallery - reposition his glasses slightly as he entered (his traditional "I'm now in a gallery" maneuver), clasp both hands behind his back (where they would unmovingly remain throughout the tortuously long day), walk up to the nearest exhibit, and look, and look, and look...and there he would remain - at that first exhibit! - for hours at a time! Eventually he would move, but only a few feet either to the left or right of whatever he was just viewing, and only to plant himself in front at an adjacent painting. (It was not unheard of for him to suddenly remember something he had forgot to "look for" at the last painting, and - frantically, as though this oversight would somehow deprive him of a morsel of divine truth - side-step his way back to the previous exhibit.) At times, my dad would stand motionless in front of an artwork for so long, that gallery visitors could easily be forgiven for mistaking him for a newly scultpured artwork on display! By the end of a typical day, in a gallery with ten rooms adorned with, say, 300 pieces of artwork, my dad would still be looking (meditating, absorbing, reflecting, musing, comparing, composing, digesting, pondering, philosophizing, ...) at maybe the 7th or 8th picture in the first room. And at the end of a typical gallery day, as the guards began begging us to leave, my dad would invariably turn to my mom with his own soulful plea: "Katie, please, please, can we come back tomorrow?" (Never did I see anyone remotely resembling this unique class of "gallery viewer" in all my days of gallery sitting at the WPS.)

Postscript #2: All of the images of "gallery viewers viewing art" are from one of my dad's last exhibits before he died, held at Adelphi University (Garden City, Long Island, NY) in June 2000. The viewers are looking at some of his amazing abstracts. The image directly above Postscript #1 is of my dad at his Adelphi exhibit.

Postscript #3: The artist with whom I exchanged some artwork (and whose "Zen Frog" is my faithful office companion) is Hsi-Mei Yates, and she specializes in Chinese watercolor brush painting. Her work is exquisite.

Traversing an N-Dimensional Aesthetic Space

I've been musing lately about a problem that has stubbornly resisted my attempts at solving it for quite some time; indeed, I sometimes wonder if I've made any headway at all in all the years I've spent reflecting on it. Perhaps I should pay heed to the title of my own blog - namely tao - and plumb a bit of tao's timeless wisdom. To wit, maybe I ought to treat my problem not as a "thing" that needs solving, but as a transient stepping-stone on a timeless path toward gradual self-enlightenment.

"What is beauty?" I [S Nachmanovitch] asked him that night. He [Gregory Bateson] said, "Seeing the pattern which connects." (quoted from Old Men Ought to be Explorers, by S. Nachmanovitch)

My "problem" is to find the "optimal feature space" in which to describe the aesthetic sensibilities of particular artists; that is, essentially, to find an objective language (or, least as objective a language as possible) to describe the subjective propensities of, and differences between, individual painters, musicians, or photographers. We all "know" the difference between, say, Mozart's music and that of Beethoven; or the difference between a painting by Matisse and another by Picasso. Sometimes the differences, as in these "obvious" cases, are striking. In other cases, the differences may not be so clear cut: if one was, a priori, unfamilar with the works of Minor White and Brett Weston, for example, some of their respective abstracts may appear - superficially at least - as aesthetically indistinguishable.

Somehow, perhaps in the way that Malcolm Gladwell calls "thin slicing" in his book Blink, we all make quick, largely unconscious, assessments about makes one work different from, or similar to, another. We can sometimes analyze - after the fact - why we made the decision of similarity or difference that we made. But (as Gladwell also points out in his book), we are not always able to articulate the precise feature-space decomposition we used to make our rapid-fire decision (because our subconscious thought-process does not always percolate up to the conscious level); nor can we really be sure that whatever feature-space decomposition we are able to articulate is an accurate reflection of what our unconscious information processing. Of course, often our thin-slicing attempts are also simply wrong.

The larger question, even if only as a thought experiment, remains. Let's start small, and not yet all-encompassing - a bit later I will generalize the question from photography to all forms of creative expression - and confine our analysis to photography alone, as an exemplar of a broader class of "art" and its associated larger class of aesthetic possibilities. We ask: what is the optimal set of "features" (to be defined shortly) of "photographs" such that - in the N-dimensional abstract aesthetic space defined by these features as (roughly) orthogonal axes - two conditions are simultaneously satisfied: (1) the differences among photographs is maximized (with respect to sets of photographs produced by individual photographers), and (2) the differences between photographs produced by the same photographer (i.e., between any two images within a given photographer's own oeuvre) are minimized? In a sense, I want to perform a "simple" exercise of mathematical pattern recognition, but without any (or little) initial sense of what space I'm performing it in, or even what I'm setting out to "recognize."

What do I mean by features? Well, any reasonably well-defined "parameter" that can be used to describe a photograph (which may, implicitly, involve both its physical attributes, as a print, and nonphysical attributes, such as subject matter or other contextual primitives). Of course, many different features exist (indeed, the set of possibilities is enormous); but not all features are as important in describing a work as others. More precisely, different sets of features will be better, or worse, at simultaneously identifying the works that are produced by a given photographer and distinguishing among bodies of works produced by different photographers.

Thought Experiment #1. Schematically, we can imagine a 3-dimensional space (in general, the dimension D can be very large) consisting of the features f1, f2 and f3. As a thought experiment, imagine we have the collected works of three of photographers (A, B, and C; that we "code" using the colors red, blue, and green). We classify each photograph, of each photographer, according to where in the feature space in lives. It does not matter whether the "points" in this space are cleanly defined or not; the only thing that matters for this thought experiment is the fact that every work by each of the three photographers is classified according to the values of the three features we have used to define this particular "aesthetic space" F = {f1, f2, f3}. As a concrete example, the three features might be: f1=average hue, f2=degree of local constrast, and f3=number of triangular shapes. And, indeed, as we might expect of such a loose (random almost) set of parameters, we would not be surprised to learn (if we actually went to the trouble of performing this experiment) that these features do little to distinguish among our three photographers. Our plot of their respective oeuvres might look something like this...

But now, suppose we are a bit more clever than this. Suppose, after carefully studying the works of these three photographers, we discover a new set of features - {f1', f2', and f3'} - such that, in this new aesthetic space, F', the same body of work now appears considerably more tightly clustered:


Here we see - by direct visual inspection - an "obvious" distinction among the photographers A, B, and C. Moreover, we see that work produced by a given artist is itself clustered around a relatively small volume of the full aesthetic space. "A" is obviously confined to one region, separate from (in this case) the volume of space occupied by "B," and both are distinct from the volume occupied by "C."

My point here is not that a feature space within which such a decomposition is possible exists - it may, or may not, for a given set of artists; but only that it suggests an interesting and deep question about what such a set of features - that simulataneously minimizes the differences among a given photographer's works and maximizes the distinction among the works of different photographers - might actually look like! I suspect it may not be like anything we would intuitively expect; if our intuition is anything like what we learn in the standard art and graphics design books. I doubt very much whether the "core features" would include such standard-issue measures as "contrast" and "tone" (though they may very well these). I wonder, too, at just how far separated the artist's "oeuvre clusters" can be made to be, while the spread of each artist's own cluster of works is simultaneously minimized.

One can play other thought games too, of course, For example, having defined some aesthetic space, and having plotted a given artist's current oeuvre - say, what the artist has produced during the last five years of work - we can trace how the artist evolves, using the first plot as a reference. Does the work remain more or less in the same "cloud" of points, so that the artist does not stray too far from his (possible innate?) aesthetic? Or does the cloud slowly dissipate, and reform in another region of the same aesthetic space? Or does the cloud diffuse outward to fill most, or all, of the "old" aesthetic space, thus suggesting that a new feature space - some F'' - exists, and in which the same artist's evolving oeuvre again assumes a cloud-like form?

Thought Experiment #2. Here is an even deeper question; and, truth be told, the real object of my rambling quest. Suppose we have managed to find a special "core aesthetic" space that does precisely what our thought experiment imagines. That is, imagine we have an aesthetic space defined by a special set features (whose relevance, for the moment, is confined solely to photography) that both maximizes the difference between different photographers, and - simultaneously - minimizes the differences between individual photographs of a given photographer. Suppose, further, that we carve out of that space a special set of photographs (and, by association, a special set of photographers) which maximize - for lack of an objectively better-defined word - photographic beauty. Now, imagine we do exactly the same thing (i.e., play the thought experiment as described above) for all of the different kinds of creative endeavors that exist: music, sculpture, literature, mathematics, physics, ... The analog of (generic) "beauty" in art or photography might be - in the case of mathematics, for example - "truth" (as in the truth of theorems); in physics, "beauty" may be aligned with "physical laws" (the "truths" of nature), and so on. What is the underlying meta-pattern that connects the patterns?


Here is my question (and I'll stop at this point): might there be a "universal aesthetic meta-map" that transforms the set of features of one aesthetic space (that describes art, say) to another set of features that describe a different aesthetic space (mathematics, say) but which leaves the measure of "beauty" that is appropriate for each kind of space invariant?

"We do not want merely to see beauty...we want something else which can hardly be put into words; to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it." - C. S. Lewis

"Beautiful" art or music, "physical laws" in physics, and "theorems" in math may be - in a truly fundamental sense - indistinguishable, but only if the analog of "beauty" is correctly defined , and interpreted, in each respective space. Indeed, I suspect that if only we were clever enough creatures to be able to simultaneously apprehend and reflect upon vast multidimensional features spaces, it would only be a matter of "shifting our perceptual / aesthetic axes" (so to speak) for us to be able to transform our endeavors from one creative space into another. Imagine being able to "prove a mathematical theorem" by working on the problem as though it were an art project (and the object of which - in the art space - is to produce a "beautiful work of art"). But whatever space we happen to find ourselves in at a given moment, the object of our quest (and the ultimate arbiter of our creative progress) remains indefagitably the same: truth.

Postscript #1. The way I presented my thought experiment, a (God like) external agent is needed to view the universe of artists and their work to construct (and plot the creative progress in) a D-dimensional aesthetic space. In fact, one can argue that each artist (indeed, each living being) is doing precisely that, ceaselessly, tirelessly, throughout its existence. We are all seeking to be as distinct as possible from all other living beings, even as - at the same time - we desire to be be as integrated into our local cultural / creative fabric as well. It is this insoluble yin-yang tension that drives all self-motivated dynamics; and perhaps all creativity. This fundamental idea of the universe consisting of simultaneous and seemingly antithetical tendencies of integration and distinction (or assertiveness), at all levels of a multidimensional hierarchy, was introduced by author / philosopher Arthur Koestler in a book called Janus. He called all such creatures that strive to do this holons.

Postscript #2. The idea that there is a core universality that underlies all forms of art - all life - is certainly not born in this humble blog entry. In fact, much of my thinking on the subject derives from, and has been shaped by, a magnificent four volume work called Nature of Order by architect / visionary Christopher Alexander (about whom I've written before on my blog).

Postscript #3. A similar idea to the one presented above as thought experiment #1 (but in the context of cosmology) - and developed more completely on a semi-rigorous mathematical level - was proposed a few years ago by physicists Julian Barbour and Lee Smolin. They called it extremal variety. Barbour has published another article on this subject in the Harvard Review of Philosophy.