investigation into the architecture of gothic

the beginning of a thought...

I like the idea of immersiveness. the installation. work that connects to all senses.
a piece maybe of this or that, that combines together with other pieces to make a whole.

thats why i like the idea of the film set. Its a creation of another world.
a fantasy world. escapism....

reality or unreality, maybe unreality that becomes reality.

the film set can be very interesting. not just the scene, but the lights, the camera, the construction. it is full of acts of looking.

Gothic as a genre is full of conflicts. it questions answers rather than answering questions.
there is an overlapping between the 'upper' and 'lower' worlds. it paradoxes the sacred and profane. most studies of the Gothic recognise architecture as the "pillar" of the genre. the verticality of the cathedral as it stretches upwards and outwards to reach heaven is also contradicted by the downward secret passages and catacombes descending into the earth.
There is light struggling with darkness.

the cathedrals towers are a symbol of 'political arrogance' and reflect the coming alliance between the ego and the phallus. they are a watchtower from which the voyeur can sit and watch.

I wonder if there is something of the watcher being watched. a film set... to watch the watcher watching, though there is no one to look at.

the gaze, looking.

Mulvey [1975 p 208] has identified three forms of looking in cinema: the look of the camera as it records events, the audience's look at the image and the looks between characters within the diegesis. The look of the camera is, wherever possible, denied or suppressed in the interests of verisimilitude. But it is always apparent due to the confines of the frame.

The look of the audience at the screen is one which reproduces the lively curiosity of the infant deriving pleasure from what it sees. As Mulvey [1975 pp 200-201] puts it, "looking itself is a source of pleasure, just as ... there is pleasure in being looked at". The look has a darker side however.

then we get to panopticism, scoptophilia, the erotic connotations of voyeurism. relationships of power and submission. A lot of Foucault, Freudian and Lacanian philosophy. but must be addressed as it is so prevalent in gothic literature.

Jacques Derrida... deconstruction.... who knows what that is about? not even Derrida
(i think he just made something up, so he could have something to philosophise for years and have everyone else still trying to figure it out long after he'd gone)
but somehow its relevant to Gothic architecture...

the gothic always returns to unconventions, which dissolve boundaries between outsiders and insiders, victims and victimizers, the watched and the watcher.
Gothicism seems to lack any closure, and any gothic 'closing' in fact makes a new beggining.

Ann Radcliffe - "terror and horror are so far opposite; terror expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life while horror contracts, freezes and annihilates them."

....oh the fragments of my thinking will come together concisively one day....

thoughts from berlin

Berlin is Amazing. If i was gonna be a real artist i would want to come and live here. in some ways it is unique; it is cheap to live, the buildings are intersting not all glass and skyscrapers. there is an intersting culture here. the arts are thriving. there are many great pubs and clubs and cafes and music.
but in other ways it is just the same as anywhere else. i was in a department store and i felt like i was in London, the shops arent differnt from anywhere else not like in Italy or paris where they seem to have unique shops of their own, none of this franchise business.

i like communist architecture. it can be found all over germany, there is something intersting about it. i think its the way the window frames contrast and offset from the rest of the building. they are much more intersting than in holland.

there needs to be an integration of the best things from various styles. seeing the kunstgewerbemuseum was really cool, because it showed the contrast of style between functional objects like plates and vases and furniture, from the rococo baroque period to modern design times. it was a fascinating contrast and there are things that i like aout both eras and things that i dont like.
the decoration and ornamentation of rococo or baroque is really lively and emotive, sometimes the decoration on plates etc is in colour, but the actual objects are generally white or grey or brown. because the materials that were available to them were things like wood or clay or stone, maybe some gem stones, silver or gold
silver is too cold, reflective.
gold is too tacky
wood is really boring, can be beautiful but has no pizazz.

the modern stuff is cool, its bright, its funky, the materials used are more interesting and have potential to be more textural. but the designs are harsh and plastic and they also give a cold feeling.

where one style is emotive the other is cold and visa verca, what needs t happen is an integration of the two styles.... well ive seen in a design shop an attempt at this. it was an elaborate style chandelier, but colourful, bright and with differnt materials, the result: kitsch. it was tacky, and this is going to be a problem with plastic type materials i think.

ROCOCO VS MODERN DESIGN

the architectural model, always looks cooler than the real thing. why is that? i dont know, maybe its because the change of scale plays on different emotions. the real life building shows largeness, impressiveness, its tall it makes u feel small, its powerful. but the small version containing the same elaborate details creates more wonder and amazment. it brings it to a more personal level, you can see the structure of everything thats going on all at once, nothing is hidden.





















music and film are the two most powerful tools for influence. it can be good influence or it can be bad influence, like in the case of pushing political propaganda.
the moving image is a powerful visual tool for learning and remembering. music affects your inner being, it creates emotion, it manipulates them. mixed with moving image and you forget to realise it. film is captivating.

There is a Time for Everything

There comes a time when i must stop thinking.

Don't get me wrong, i like to conceptualise and try and get a grasp on some knowledge.
I love to really get stuck into theology and really discuss what the bible is trying to say to us. I love to have those debates about whether God is a trinity or about angels and demons
I am always wanting to gain more knowledge. I like my art work to be rooted in something, to mean something, not just art for beauty's sake. I like learning about philosophy and pyschology and art theories. I am enjoying having political conversations with various people, and learning about the beliefs of other religions. I want to be well informed

but it can get too much sometimes... to think to much can suck you dry

When i get stuck in my head for too long, i forget myself. If i allow my brain to analyse too much, wether it be God, or philosphy or art, or anything related, i feel like something in me is being repressed.
I really notice it. My spirit isnt being allowed any freedom. i guess many people dont think about it, and aren't that aware of it.
We often talk about us being made of mind, body and spirit, to me they should be equal. To work out each part of ourselves takes a lot of work and it takes discipline, but i guess some things come easier to some than others. Like there are natural born intellectuals and natural born athletes or those who seem to be 'spiritually' gifted. But still these things require work and discipline.

But we are MIND, BODY and SPIRIT. its a shame because what is most pushed in school is the mind, we must learn learn learn.
And we also must exercise our body, if we dont exercise our body we become unhealthy, we must look after our body, be careful what we consume and the way we treat ourselves. in the same way we must exercise our mind in order for us to stay 'sharp' or on the mark. a dull mind is such a terrible waste.
But what about the spirit? it is too often neglected. What happens if we do not exercise our spirit? there are not many societal lessons on how to exercise the spirit, only the mind, go to school, get educated, form opinions... and the body, push play for 30 minutes a day, 5+ fruit and vege a day...

well anyway i really notice when i spend too much time thinking and analysing. and i get really frustrated, God is something you cannot analyse...
As much as i can try to figure Him out, there is no way i could possibly. The majority of us humans think in a way that is only logical. GOD IS NOT LOGICAL. There is no way our tiny brains could ever understand the complexities of God.
Love is one of these things, these complex things that we try and try to understand, there are so many songs written about love. I dont think anyone can truly know what love is... ah i could quote so many songs here 'i just wanna know what love is' but that is the only one i will. God is LOVE.

So it can't be understood, it can never be fully comprehended. When you take away the human structures of christianity and just have God to analyse and just have the fundamentals of what and who God is, what he's done and what he's said, then the only way to really find any answers is to stop. Stop intellectulising. He said, "you will seek and find me, when you seek me with your whole heart" The HEART is part of our inner person, what i like to call the spirit.

Many people can get by on the strength of their mind and their body, and wouldn't even know what their spirit was.

The spirit doesnt need to be 'super spiritualised' or some kind of supernatural phenomenon, my spirit is nourished by some of the most simple things, like waking up to the sun streaming in your bedroom window or the smell of daffodils on a bright spring day or good theatre or films, my spirit is awakened by good music, there can be something that 'stirs' in me.
I think art and music are two of the most powerful things to hold spiritual energy, and it can be good energy or bad energy.
I want to be able to create something that can speak to people on more than an intellectual level, there are many theories about the spiritual in art, and it is good to know these, but there comes a point when i must forget everything i have learned. Put it on the shelf for coming back to another time. and i must create from the thing that is from within me.

Perhaps things that are created only from the intellectual, are things that are cold.
art that holds something of the person that created it, contains more life, there is spirit in it.

I think this blog really jumps around a bit in my thoughts, just shows how tired my brain is getting. I really need to revive my spirit again, feed it a little bit. take in some really good music or something.

I wish there was a time to do everything all at once, there are so many things i wanna do and not enough time to do them. If i could spend a couple of hours a day writing, a few hours researching, an hour to read the Holy Book, a few hours drawing, an hour singing, an hour playing guitar, five or six hours art making, a few hours hanging out with friends, an hour exercising, a couple of hours to eat, a couple of hours relaxing and doing absolutely nothing, there would be no time for sleeping....

a half blog...

so with my new found direction along the path of becoming a real artist!!

'No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. its an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.' - picasso

i will strive to make art that captivates and challenges the way we think.


There is a Dutch artist, Marinus Boezem, who made a large cathedral out of trees. I thought this would be a really cool thing to see. but its not really.
trees can create natural gothic arches, but not the ones he used. He used Italian poplars, to represent to pillars of the church. Poplars dont exactly represent strength or durability, they will gradually become a ruin. I think he's criticizing the integrity of the church. This is similar what i am doing , but im not condemning the church, im trying to bring about a re-establishment of integrity.
He's laid it out the same as the floor plan for Notre Dame de Paris, and so it can be easily seen that some thought the cathedral was a subverse phallic symbol, and Boezem highlights the fact stating, the power of the church is in a state of degradation. Perhaps...




but there is something about this idea that i like, the naturalness and openness of the cathedral, not dark and closed in cold stone...

...my brain hurts

no more

What is it that i want?

well....
i have a lot of disjointed thoughts...
and i feel a little dis illusioned at the moment

i went to Rotterdam, the city of modern architecture...
i found the buildings square, minimalistic, cold, too angular or harsh looking, unemotive.
too much glass. there's a fine line between this kind of design and design that although is formal and structured, actually looks cool, i think colour has a lot to do with that.

but still there's no expression in that kind of design, colours can be emotive, but it is impersonal because you take away the hand of the artist.

i like kandinsky's work, but the more expressive stuff, not so geometric. i don't want to be a designer even though there is the potential or it to look cool, there's too much structure, even more so with architecture

I wanna make a cool cathedral, but how can i avoid the structure of architecture?

ive already tried the design stuff, last year my work ended up being too 'try hard' because it was art trying to be design, but it didnt work cos it ended up looking like sloppy design work. What i need to do is use the hand of the artist, (where there simply cannot be precision), to my advantage.
As much as i want to make a really well made, elaborate and intricate architectural model of a cathedral, i think i should not even try because i know im not good at that kind of stuff. And anyway, to do so i think would take the life out of it.
So... The hand of the artist has to become important.

architecture is quite solid. in fact a lot of design, like the geometrical stuff (squares especially, not so much circles though) is really solid. And what i want to deal with is lightness and transparency, so why not push that as far as i can while using architectural conventions (if that is the right phrase??)

A lot of sculpture is quite solid. and peoples preconceptions of what scultpure is, i found is carving, and bronze etc and stuff like that.

Rotterdam had a lot of public sculpture... ugly... no apparent piont...
disgraces the name of sculpture. im not sure if im allowed to have this opinion but i wouldnt call it art, just a large object with no skill and no imagination.

i came across a quote
" skill without imagination is craft, imagination without skill is 'modern' art" this is hilarious and quite possibly the most truthful explanation of art vs craft. but when i see these sculptures that appear to have no skill or imagination, i dont know what to think...

Simone and i were talking about maybe there being a place for the term high art and low art.
this would definitely be what i would categorise as low art. I dunno if y'all can see this pic very well, (click on it to enlarge) i decided it was a marshmallow, Simone said it was a cow roasting a marshmallow!!! well anyway whatever the hell its supposed to be, the only distinguishable thing is a bucket (top left)

there was many many other examples of ugly and pointless sculpture.
the bad thing about public art, is it often doesnt get the ongoing maintenance it needs to stay cool. So where art is seen to be something that is beautiful, this kind of art just contaminates the beautiful landscape. Dunedin has better public sculpture than this... There was quite a lot of kinetic sculpture, which can be quite novel, but none of it was colourful, it was all boring...


Ok well this in comparison...
this was in a gallery (i dunno if that gave it more integrity... maybe) but i think it definitely held more weight as being higher art. The slap on technique appears to be similar to that of 'the marshmallow', but it is a more considered messiness. The materials are crude, maybe what some would call ugly, but i think there is a beauty about it. And i don't fully understand it, or rather didnt take enough time to understand it, but i think it is an image from a Bosch painting. There's something about this art work having a conversation with an older art work, a comment perhaps, that gives it more weight.

High art i think is something that makes a comment. That tries to make some kind of difference. High art should be different from elite art, where only art theorists understand what is going on. Good High art should speak to the 'commoners' on one level as well as the 'intellectuals' on another level. High art should give the fingers to commodity.
Low art perhaps at some point crosses into the area of craft, but this is a grey subject. Low art is 'pretty' it hangs on your wall, doesn't necessarily have some great proclaimation, maybe just some colour painted on a canvas, maybe its a nice landscape that you pay thousands of dollars for, (now im not completely bagging landscapes, a lot of people like them, thats why they pay ridiculous amounts of money for them, i can appreciate a landscape that is painted with a high degree of skill, but i wouldnt hang it on my wall, id take a photograph) Bad low art, perhaps is low art trying to be high art but not doing so well, haha, and ends up being only fit for the dump.

Also at this same gallery was some other intersting sculpture installations, i liked a lot of them. they first were interesting on a basic level, wether it was visual or auditory. my attention was held for a while, some slow understanding of what the work perhaps might be about followed but not necessarily completely. What is good about these works is that i will keep coming back to them and perhaps comprehending a little more each time, because i was grabbed by them on a basic level first.
There was also one work in particular that while could be, in my opinion, considered high art it wasn't good high art. It was making a comment on the iraq war and 'the man' having control over us, wether it be hollywood, or the government or big companies, labels etc. this work i understood as soon as i walked in, sure it was visually interesting, but it was too literal, and there was a mirror, bringing the viewer into the work, asking the question where are you in this? Oh dear, i have used this cliche device before... I have no need to revisit this work, and will forget it soon, because it spelt it out for me the first time i saw it.

But i really think sculpture is where it is at these days. its taking a little while for the rest of the population to catch on, to realise sculpture can be inclusive of installation and peformance and materials other than oamaru stone. I guess because in history sculpture was easily defined, it is taking a while for us to redefine it. Sculpture is where it is at because it has more potential to influence than painting or other mediums. I think it is a more powerful medium. I just hope people can see past the 'bad' sculpture.

I went to a forum last year where Malcolm McClaren was speaking, he said when he was in art school his lecturers told his class to be prepared to fail. He was talking about life as an artist. a real artist, wether it be a musician or writer or whatever, a real artist comments on society and often are not liked, a real artist would never produce work that anyone would buy.
To give into commodity is a disgrace.
To be a sculptor (in terms of being a 'real' artist), you really have to turn your back on commodity. nobody wants to buy sculpture anyway, so why not make really big controversial stuff that really makes a statement

Now to make a controversial statement... controversial doesnt necessarily mean loud, it can be subversive. all controversial art seems to be about Sex in one way or another, im sick of art being about sex, theres too much of it, its been overdone already.
Here is Santa Claus with a 'christmas tree' NOT
Bother... Art school has made me lose my innocence, my mind is perverted to see the phallic in everything. Why is it that artists have this fascination? beats me.
was it orginally to raise the issue of what is taboo? well its not really that taboo anymore, we even speak openly about it church!!! A homosexual santa claus??


so what do i want to be? well i dont know, when i see too much elite art, that i just dont understand, i kick the wall and say 'I HATE ART, I dont want to be an artist.' or too much ugly art. or art that is violent, and gruesome. When i see too much 'cold' design i say 'I dont want to be a designer' (of any kind).
you know art doesnt have to be pretty to be beautiful. it can be sad and beautiful at the same time.


well.... ive decided again what it is i want, ive gone around in circles to get back here to where i started from. I want to be an artist

Ive wanted to be an interior designer, an architect, a fashion designer
All through high school i wanted to go to art school, that is what i was working towards, but i didnt really have any vision of what would happen after that, and it didnt really matter to me, cos i like to go with the flow and see where it takes me. I dont think ive ever thought of being an artist, in fact ive always said i dont want to be an artist, well not the kind that is so isolated and works all day by themselves in their studio. and going to art school reinforced that a lot. If i was going to be an artist, id have to do it properly, work that actually meant stuff, and not just prettiness for someones wall.
So i thought maybe i could be a designer, furniture or product design, but not design just for commodity's sake, it would still have to mean something. Like Gaetano Pesce, he was an artist/designer and he designed some cool alternative furniture and architecture. Then for various reasons i didnt want that anymore.

So i want to be all these things, but how do you define it. Salvador Dali was an artist, but he was a painter, and a sculptor, and a furniture designer, and a fashion designer. Miro was a painter, but he also made ceramics and did some set design and costumes and even made huge tapestries in his old age.

But these descriptions aren't enough in themselves for example; If you describe yourself as a movie director, you get instant stereotype as making mainstream movies. i think anyway... you have to say 'i make art films...'
The term artist is broad and inclusive of many...

I want to be an artist:
a sculptor
a set designer
a costume designer
a film director
a songwriter
a singer
a rock star
a furniture designer
an interior architect

i don't want to do these things in isolation, collaboration excites me. i love the brainstorming that happens when you get different specialists together. The work ive been doing on the DCBC productions were great, to get the director and the sound engineer and the set designer and the make up and i, the costume designer. you can get everyones ideas and they're so much more developed, a group of brains is better than one.

but hey i'm only 21 years old, i have to keep telling myself that. ive got at least 50 good years of art making left in me... i hope that is long enough

a grey hope

The church: a place of worship, spirit filled a holy/sacred space, a place for hope.
well this is what most people would associate the church building to be.

this is also true of cathedrals to an extent, there is no doubt that some of the most famous cathedrals are breathtaking, the architecture is stunning and the decoration elaborate. the interiors are amazing and the stained glass windows are heavenly. but a lot of this stuff cant be seen from the outside. What always strikes me the most is the greyness of the cathedral, the lack of life that it portrays from the outside.

Notre Dame is a good an example as any, in paris, where all the buildings are grey there is not much that makes this cathedral stand out, the architecture of the surrounding buildings are just as elaborate if not more. i would decribe the appearance as being cold.
The interior has more warmth, but the vaults are so high, it is impossible to truly light the place, so while the invention of flying buttresses allowed for thinner walls and stained glass windows, and the cathedral became 'light filled' i still feel like it is such an oppressive and dark space to be in.

i propose to create a cathedral that is coloured and completely transparent to allow as much light in as possible. the church should be a place that is lively.

The warmth is a tendency to yellow, the coldness a tendency to blue. The yellow and the blue form the first big contrast, which is dynamic. The yellow possesses an eccentric movement and the blue a concentric movement, a yellow surface seems to get closer to us, while a blue surface seems to move away. The yellow is the typically terrestrial color whose violence can be painful and aggressive. The blue is the typically celestial color which evokes a deep calm. The mixing of blue with yellow gives the total immobility and the calm, the green.

Clarity is a tendency to the white and obscurity a tendency to the black. The white and the black form the second big contrast, which is static. The white acts like a deep and absolute silence full of possibilities. The black is a nothingness without possibility, it is an eternal silence without hope, it corresponds to death. That’s why any other color resonates so strongly on its neighbors. The mixing of white with black leads to gray, which possesses no active force and whose affective tonality is near that of green. The gray corresponds to immobility without hope; it tends to despair when it becomes dark and regains little hope when it lightens. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky was an advocate of the way colour could effect the spirit. From his book 'On The Spiritual in Art', ...but this effect can be much deeper and cause an emotion and a vibration of the soul, or an inner resonance which is a purely spiritual effect, by which the color touches the soul.

The red is a warmth color, very living, lively and agitated, it possesses an immense force, it is a movement in oneself. Mixed with black, it leads to brown which is a hard color. Mixed with yellow, it gains in warmth and gives the orange which possesses an irradiating movement on the surroundings. Mixed with blue, it moves away from man to give the purple, which is cooled red. The red and the green form the third big contrast, the orange and the purple the fourth one. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

I want to create a 'holy space' where the presence of God can be felt even more because the spiritual resonance has more lively freedom and isnt oppressed by the greyness of surroundings.

Kandinsky also had his theories on how geometry affected the spiritual.

Kandinsky analyses in this writing the geometrical elements which compose every painting, namely the point and the line, as well as the physical support and the material surface on which the artist draws or paints and which he calls the basic plane or BP. He doesn’t analyze them on an objective and exterior point of view, but on the point of view of their inner effect on the living subjectivity of the observer who looks them and let them acting on his sensibility.

The point is in the practice a small stain of color put by the artist on the canvas. So the point used by the painter is not a geometric point, it is not a mathematical abstraction, it possesses a certain extension, a form and a color. This form can be a square, a triangle, a circle, like a star or even more complex. The point is the most concise form, but according to its placement on the basic plane it will take a different tonality. It can be alone and isolated or on the opposite put in resonance with other points or with lines.

The line is the product of a force, it is a point on which a living force has been applied in a given direction, the force applied on the pencil or on the paint brush by the hand of the artist. The produced linear forms can be of several types : a straight line which results from an unique force applied in a single direction, an angular line which results from the alternation of two forces with a different direction, or a curved or wave-like line produced by the effect of two forces acting simultaneously. A plane can be obtained by condensation, from a line rotated around one of its ends.

The subjective effect produced by a line depends on its orientation : the horizontal line corresponds to the ground on which man rests and moves, to flatness, it possesses a dark and cold affective tonality similar with black or blue, while the vertical line corresponds to height which offers no support, it possesses on the opposite a luminous and warm tonality close from white and yellow. A diagonal possesses by consequence a more or less warm or cold tonality according to its inclination according to the horizontal and to the vertical.

A force which deploys itself without obstacle as the one which produces a straight line corresponds to lyricism, while several forces which confront or annoy each other form a drama. The angle formed by the angular line possesses as well an inner sonority which is warm and close to yellow for an acute angle (triangle), cold and similar to blue for an obtuse angle (circle) and similar to red for a right angle (square).

The basic plane is in general rectangular or square, thus it is composed of horizontals and verticals lines which delimitate it and define it as an autonomous being which will serve as support to the painting communicating it its affective tonality. This tonality is determined by the relative importance of theses horizontals and verticals lines, the horizontals giving a calm and cold tonality to the basic plane, while the verticals give it a calm and warm tonality. The artist possesses the intuition of this inner effect of the canvas format and dimensions, which he chooses according to the tonality he wants to give to his work. Kandinsky even considers the basic plane as a living being that the artist "fertilizes" and of which he feels the "breathing".

Every part of the basic plane possesses an proper affective coloration which will influence on the tonality of the pictorial elements that will be drawn on it, which contributes to the richness of the composition which results from their juxtaposition on the canvas. The above of the basic plane corresponds to the looseness and to lightness, while the below evokes the condensation and heaviness. This is the work of the painter to listen to know these effects in order to produce paintings which are not just the effect of a random process, but the fruit of an authentic work and the result of an effort toward the inner beauty. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

It would seem that Kandinsky was interested in a similar kind of abstraction that lead to baisc absolutes that related to the spiritual that Mondrian was interested in. But his thinking is more elaborate and complex. These basic geometrical elements that we associate as having a modern design bent were revolutionary for the time. But perhaps not so revolutionary on a historical scale.

Here is where we come to the issue of the graven image.
There was a division in the church between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox.
As you will know the Roman Catholic church, what so many of the European cathedrals are, are filled with 'icons', saints have their owns statues and alters for prayer, there are countless cathedrals devoted to Mother Mary and the martyrs, people pray to these saints and light candles for them. This doesnt make any sense to me, why do they not feel the freedom to go straight to the Almighty, he has given us access through the Saviour, he said come to me, come as little children, a child knows nothing of politics and rules and restrictions, they'll run to the throne room with a naivety and the Father will welcome them with open arms.

You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; Exodus 20:4

Well to say they are bowing down and worshipping these statues is a bit extreme, thats not what im saying. But it all does seem a bit unnecessary.

The other extreme is the Eastern Orthodox churches, who dont tolerate any images of any kind, not even that of Christ. Instead their churches are decorate with design like mosaics.
I think there is value in the design like nature of some things, and what kandinsky was getting at. Like for example, the geometrical construction of the rose windows in cathedrals are totally amazing, and the colour, and transparent nature add to the heavenly nature of them. i find it is my inner being that is affected when i see something like this. you can call that inner being your spirit, or life force, or essence, or soul, or whatever you want.

but there is also value in the representational image, the image i think speaks more to the intellect. colour and form are perhaps more unconscience but image is conscience. images have the power to teach and edify. they engage both the mind and the spirit. just because we create an image of Christ doesnt mean we are worshipping the image itself.

light or dark

This is an msn conversation, i had with my good friend Simone.

Simone says:
had a wee think in the shower
Simone says:
i seem to be really really intrugued by the whole idea of 'opposites'..ad 'contrasts' and things like that
rosy says:
hey me too
Simone says:
theyre just so fascinating and theyre everywhere around us
Simone says:
and they are never equal in my eyes, theyre always fighting against each other, and one always will triumph over the other
Simone says:
for example with your cathedral thingy. how on earth can darkness complete with light?
rosy says:
mmm interesting... i like your thinking
Simone says:
darkness flees at the flicker of light
Simone says:
demons tremble at the sound of jesus name
rosy says:
this is an abstract concpt becuase it is intangible
Simone says:
dang intangible stuff
rosy says:
yeah
rosy says:
so how do you visualise it in a way that is tangible
Simone says:
well im not too sure what you mean
Simone says:
what do you exactly mean by tangible
rosy says:
well intangible is incapable of being touched
rosy says:
you cant hold light
Simone says:
hmm. well its not just light im interested in
rosy says:
you can draw it in a tangible way but im wondering how can you visualise the concept of light vs dark
Simone says:
huh?
Simone says:
by visualising it...?
rosy says:
like you can put a black square next to a white square and you have opposties and constrast but not the idea that the light is better than the dark
Simone says:
okay
rosy says:
thats what i was trying t do with my optical stuff, and ina way the light squares jump forward and the dark recede,
rosy says:
but tis not the same
Simone says:
okay so if you put a tiny bit of light in a pitch black room..who wins then?
Simone says:
you cant put darkness into a lit up room...unless you turn out the lights?
rosy says:
a tiny bit of light would repel some dark, but not all of it
Simone says:
but then its not a fair contest
rosy says:
so you light up the room and then theres no darkness
rosy says:
so you lose your concept
rosy says:
i dont know
Simone says:
hmmm
rosy says:
maybe a tiny bit of light is enough to portray the concept
Simone says:
but thats what i mean. they constantly fight against each other and one will always win
Simone says:
doesnt matter which one
rosy says:
ah
Simone says:
oh yeah...so i guess once they win the concept is gone, youre right
rosy says:
darkness will win
rosy says:
light needs a source, but when the source is gone then you have darkness
rosy says:
darkness doesnt need a source it just is
Simone says:
thats right
rosy says:
interesting
rosy says:
im goign to blog this
Simone says:
but what is the source of light?
rosy says:
i think there are many
rosy says:
sun, electricity, fire,
Simone says:
and what is the source of those?
rosy says:
these things are more tangible
rosy says:
then when you start talking about the light of the world
rosy says:
well how do you define that
Simone says:
you cant
Simone says:
its too powerful
rosy says:
in fact how do you define darkness?
rosy says:
darkness is defined by the absence of light
Simone says:
right, and so satan fell into darkness because he rejected gods ways
Simone says:
hes my source of darkness
Simone says:
ahh im going to let you blog it.
Simone says:
im over it
rosy says:
haha, funny
Simone says:
my brain cant compete
rosy says:
that was a good conversation, im not going to think about it either, my brain cant handle the absract
Simone says:
my brain can handle parts
Simone says:
but when it comes to ideas of light and dark, and good and evil. i am biased
Simone says:
and i dont particularly think god wants me to question his power
Simone says:
i accept it as it is
Simone says:
the bible says that light is more powerful than darkness. the bible says that good ultimately overcomes evil
Simone says:
i dont care if its untangible or what the worlds view of the concepts are because the world is contaminated and will be constantly questioning it forever.
Simone says:
so im done with it
rosy says:
well i dont doubt that light will ultimately win, but i still want to grasp the concept in a visual way
Simone says:
oh
Simone says:
i dont think thats too hard. just put light in a dark space
Simone says:
which is what youre doing

Design vs Art

It seems major influences in todays modern design world have come about because of the De Stijl movement that exploded on the scene in 1917. Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondriaan the most influential of the movement wanted to express a new utopian ideal of spiritual harmony and order, pure abstraction showed universal absolutes that underlie reality.

Theo van Doesburg was intersted in reconcieving the entire living environment and instigated his theories in architecture and furniture. These influences can b seen today in a lot o the buildings that we have and in a lot of modern design theory. Because of advancements in technology, artists were becoming aware of the possibilities to design and mass produce, it was artists mainly who were bringing their fine art practise into the area of design. Now we have artists who are trying to reclaim fine art by extracting themselves from what we know as design.

"In architecture, Functionalism meant the elimination of ornament so the building plainly expressed its purpose, and the principle led to the idea of designing buildings from the inside outwards, letting the essential structure dictate the form and therefore its external appearance. Functionalist ideas about design became the dominant design philosophy and language of the first half of the century." - http://www.qdesign.co.nz/designhist_destijl.html

What is it i am trying to do? im not sure, thats what im trying to figure out. A lot of the time i hate art. 'fine art' that is, the kind of art that is ugly and takes too much intellectualising to figure out. If its art that you look at and are not captivated by it, and all you get from it is "what the hell does that mean?" then i get really frustrated and vow that i dont want to be an artist. So i thought that i could do better to be a designer, to make work that was visually stimulating yet could still hold some depth of concept. And then i went to Singapore and was immersed in a design world, and now i vow i dont want to be a designer. The designer is also creating something for the elite, not the intellectual elite, but elitism of the rich. The designers job is to tell the people what to think, to inform them of what colours are hot, what clothes they should wear etc etc, and only the rich can afford it.

This seems to be one of the big questions these days, what is the line between design and art? And my lecturers have asked me what do i think about that, and where does my art practice fit in the art world. I really dont know...
I can relate my art easily to the De Stijl artists and to some of the Abstract Expressionists, because of their philosophies to do with colour and design relating to spirituality. But it was these artists who had major influences in the design world. maybe itsjust that the design world has degraded....

Anyways i dont just want to base my ideas on these people before me, and likewise neither did they. Mondrian took a lot of ideas from other movements like Futurism and Cubism and the Fuctionalists of architecture, he experimented with them before inventing a new movement.
I guess this is what i want to do as well, i want to start my own avant garde.
Van Doesburg was interested in reconceiving the entire living space, i am also interested in that but not just on the physical level, i want to extend these philosophies into the living area of the spiritual. While Mondrian would only use straight lines and primary colours to talk about a universal spirituality and utopian ideal, i think the circle holds more weight to engage the spiritual. So im building on and expanding to create my own philosphies of a new style of art making.

does freedom mean we are free?

I had a friend ask me what the word freedom means to me...
she said i would be good at it because i was a thinker. well, a few people have his opinion of me i think, and im not sure that i really am a 'thinker' when half the time my brain seems to draw a blank, if i get asked a question on the spot, rarely do i ever give an intelligent response.

i would say i am a slow thinker. it is always afterwards that my intelligent response decides to form in my tiny brain. and then quite often my intelligent response never gets the chance to be aired, so gets caught in the web of disjointed information that floats around in my mind and seldom makes any sense.

However i do tend to be able to think when i am by myself, and have the luxury of undisturbed contemplation. the best place to think is the shower!!! one of the reasons why i am notorius for taking long showers and driving the power bill up :)

ok freedom....
freedom is to be free, a quality or state of being free, and condition of being free without constraints. to have freedom is to have the capacity to exercise choice - www.dictionary.reference.com

we in the western world amongst the top 8% of the richest people have a lot of freedom,
freedom from slavery, freedom to vote a democracy, we have academic freedom, freedom to learn, freedom to choose our occupation, freedom to be an individual, freedom of belief
freedom from prosecution... well mostly, thats a debatable topic
our society would say we are the epitome of what it is to be free.

the capacity to exercise choice... we certainly have a lot more freedom than that of our third world nieghbours who more often than not dont have the freedom to live their dreams
we have a lot more freedom than that of our ancestors; this modern age, has given us the freeom to communicate, to increase knowledge, to travel, to coexist in other cultures...

i like the idea that freedom is a state of being...
the above kind of freedom, capacity to exercise choice, freedom in society, is what the israelites thought freedom was, but Jesus said this is not what true freedom is.
He said ' if you obey my teachings, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.' The Israelites said 'what are you talking about, we are not slaves' they thought they were already free, so what is Jesus talking about?

i like the idea that freedom is a state of being because to me it implies that it is to do with your whole being; that is your mind, your body and your spirit.
the freedom the world talks about deals a lot with the body and mind, but never the spirit.
So often the spirit gets neglected, in a world that is blinded, and very little realise this is the most important part of the being.

Jesus was talking about the freedom we can have in the spirit. He was talking about freedom from the law of sin and death. "if you obey my teachings..." "you will know the truth..."
It is by the Law(the commandments) that we know what sin is, if you knew the law, you would know the truth that you are a sinner, and then that truth would set you free.
because in knowing the truth of your sin you would know the need for Jesus. Jesus paid the price of the law of sin and death so that we dont need to. And it is by confessing our sin with our mouth and believing in our heart that we are free.

If you think about it this way, to have freedom from a law is obsurd, whoever heard of being exempt from a law of nature? I can not have freedom from the law of gravity, i cannot choose at any time to jump of a building and not fall flat on my face and break my neck. the law of gravity simply does not allow it. So if Jesus is saying we can be free from the law of sin and death then we are truly free.

But nobody said freedom was easy....
many people have died fighting for the freedom we know today, they paid the price of their lives to abolish slavery and to stop evil dictators from taking over the world.
and Jesus never said his freedom would be easy either. To be free from the control of sin in our lives, is really hard work, it is an everyday choice, and often we fail. and still we are not condemned, the freedom of jesus is eternal.

He said "it is for freedom that you have been set free."
This is not the easiest statement to understand, but i came across an analogy, if perhaps a little abstract...
- A guilty man is in prison, his sentence is for death. One day he is pardoned from his sentence and released from the cell he has known for so long. he has been handed his freedom, he has a responsibility to now live as a free man.


I dont think we can ever truly be totally free, to have freedom in our whole being. there are always things we cannot control.
we dont truly have the freedom of speech becasue there will always be people who prosecute. we dont truly have freedom of the mind, because there are always people telling us what to think, even if it is in only subversive ways. we dont have freedom of our body, maybe we can control the shape of it with a little discipline, or in not so healthy ways, and to a degree we can control our health but there's no stopping some diseases...

in fact now that i think about it, the only freedom we can be totally sure of is freedom of the law of sin and death, which can only be found in Jesus.

and that is my conclusion :)

misguided

Well ive always been one to be totally ignorant of history and politics....
Ive just been reading about the Christain crusades of the middle ages. Animals!!!!
all i knew about the crusades before was they were bad, and we killed people.
i didnt know why or how much blood was shed.

oh the things that were done in the name of religion! What a sad world we are living in.
and the christian crusades, done in the name of Christ. were they completely blind. idiots.
a lot of men went into battle, ignorant, how could they know the Law of God if the pope didnt tell them and instead told them God wills it. "God wills it" they cried as they killed tens of thousands of jews and muslims and witches and anyone else who dare not believe in the Christian God. Fuckers. No wonder the world has turned to secularism, the church has defiled to name of God.

it seems ive got my work cut out for me, if i want to create work that will re-establish some integrity for the church. But all things are possible with Him who strengthens me.

Religious Politics

the following are first drafts of my thoughts, not considered to be concise or definitive and not necessarily what i ultimitely believe.

it wasnt till i was in amsterdam and there were some muslim protesters running around with black flags and green scarfs over their mouths, and police arrived at the scene pronto that i became aware of the denmark cartoons, and from then on ive been checking the news on the internet. trying to keep informed etc. being in a foriegn country means you have to be much more definitive in choosing to keep well informed, because news reports are all in another language.

well it is my goal this semester to be well informed. Well in formed with whats going on in the world, especially religious politics, because it is very topical at the moment, always it is at the forefront of the news, when terrorism and civil war is done in the name of religion it becomes political and complicated.
im trying to understand what the hells going on with the world.
I want to informed of the history that has lead up to these events. sometimes it is too much, we really are a complex peoples, and with globalization our mixing of complexities seems to end in disaster.

knowing about these things is really essential to my art practice, for the last three years ive been trying to visualise some really abstract concepts about God and truth.
and i think im finally getting somewhere. somewhere that i want to be. a position where i can make really resolved work that is visually stimulating, that reaches past the intellect that is so often presented in the elite art world, and can grab your emotive side and really hold you for a while and command your attention, your emotion, your sense of complacency. A work that first stimulates your spirit before your mind.
Yet it can still speak to the intellect if you want it to. Becasue it is well informed and aware of similar art practices, and it is founded on what has gone before, the history that is related to religion and religion in art.
Well for these last three years ive been avoiding the issue of politics because i wasnt convinced that my work was associated with it. but it has become clearer and clearer to me that the path i am going down in my art practice can not avoid politics no longer, and in fact if you are making work around any issues of religion then it is essential to be well informed of reigious politics.
because as much as we hate our beliefs to be connected to something as ugly as politics it has been entrenched in it for centuries and cannot be sidestepped.


it is my opinion that 'the church' has done a lot of things in history to present untruths about God...
a lot of these things have been political and do to with power over the people, in terms of money and education and telling the people what to think. religion like this is based on fear and submission and not on the reality of what it is to encounter God.
it has been 'the church' that sent out men to kill in the name of God, to start 'holy' war
(these people are arrogant and ignorant of God, although God allowed and commanded war in the bible, something i dont understand but however... it was only the israelites he gave this authority to) in western society we think we are so much better than everyone else. becasue we are well educated and can speak english and are rich and can travel and live in nice houses, but oh how ignorant we are of reality.

the denmark cartoons.... well
we say we are open minded and tolerant people, and that we should embrace freedom of speech. but the reality is this simply cannot work. freedom of speech implies that you can voice your opinions and beliefs with freedom. without being prosecuted for it. this has never been true. what is true is, 'you can have your belief if you want to, i wont judge you for it, as long as you dont force it on me'
this prosectution has been seen time and time again, with the clash of civilisations and differences in belief and societal systems.
- christian have been prosecuted for centuries
- but they've also been the prosecutors
- white people taking over indigenous civilisation and killing thousands because they believe they are better
- and recently the european nations banding together to make fun of islamic religion.

in denmark there are only 200,000 muslims living there, not really enough to make a big uproar, it is with globalisation that they were able to implore larger muslim sanctions to defend them. Freedom of speech creates the environment for reaction and retaliation.
Nobody likes to be made fun of or told they are wrong.
What we see here are two bullies fighting in the playground of the world. The european bully
makes a dig at the Middle East bully and gets a reaction, which is what they wanted, with all his mates egging him on. The white man thinks he is better than the coloured man, he says this is done in the name of 'freedom of speech', whats wrong with that? Smart alec hiding behind conventions... And the Middle East bully reacts in the way they know best, using the institution of fear, and all his mates egging him on. and before not too long, we'll see the build up of all these tensions explode and we'll have full fledged war.

The western idea of freedom of expression seems to have been borne out of a growing tolerance to wickedness.
but i guess these things have been a rebellion of the things the church was telling them for years they could not do

if everyone everywhere were to exercise this freedom of speech we would live in a hell hole larger than the one we are already living in. the streets would be full of chaos as religious and cultural differnces were aired and spoken aloud.

The Law says ' love thy neighbour as thy self' a fundamental guideline to knowing what is sin.
the Law also says ' thou shall not murder'. A law the church has broken. A law the muslims have broken. it seems these things were done for political gain in the name of religion.

if we kept the law, we would live better, the law is good and set for our benefit.

one of the comments that is being talked about is the sensitivity of the islamic religion.
The conservative paper Die Welt "Is it possible to satirize Islam? How much humor is compatible with the religion of Islam...
While the paper agrees that there is a certain "threshold of shame" in regard to the satirization of religion, "The standard of measure set by the Muslims nonetheless is a challenge for an open society."
Indeed, we think why can islam not handle the jandle when it comes to making fun of their weaknesses. Christianity gets a lot of criticism and you dont see their retaliation to the same effect, in fact they are quite often criticising themselves, a healthy way to live i think.

Berliner Zeitung - The paper concludes,"In a free Europe critical, even derogatory speech about religion belongs to the heart of freedom of opinion, this freedom was wrested from the Church hierarchy. About race one can speak less freely. Christians and Muslims are easy to satirize, but one doesn't speak so loosely about Black Africans whom used to be called "Neger". Those are the fine shades of freedom of opinion, of which our Muslim trading partners are making us aware. And this is how trade indeed contributes to enlightment.



the work i want to make is rational, it criticises the christian systems, it doesnt 'bible bash' or force upon the viewer the christian message, and yet it is more than just corporeal or political because it has the ability to touch the spiritual.