MUSIC FOR LIMINAL TIMES IS AVAILABLE AS AN ALBUM WITH COMMENTARY

I decided to make Music for Liminal Times into a concept album already. You can listen to an audio with my commentary here. Oh and if you get all the way to the end, there is a funny surprise there... This is also a bonus track on the album.

The whole album is now on Bandcamp:

WHY USE SYMBOLS? SYMBOLISM AS A GENRE IN THE ARTS

Hugo Simberg: Wounded Angel, 1903
A Finnish Symbolist painter.
This image can, among other things, be seen as depicting the dichotomy between ideals 
connected with other worldly matters and the reality we face in our daily lives.

WHY MUCH OF MY ART IS SYMBOLIC

When I started out as an artist, the way I best felt I could express my views was through the use of universal and personal symbols. I had a desire to make every bit of my art meaningful and my messages quite specific, and so preferred to employ a symbolic language. In an image, the first and foremost mode of expression is the immediate visual impact - it defines whether you want to stay with the picture or not. I do feel, however, that once you feel intrigued by it because it makes sense to you aesthetically, it also needs to carry meaning that you can relate to. This meaning can reveal itself through a conscious analysis, or a more subconscious process. All the elements in the work obtain a semiotic quality when their subjective and objective being-in-the-world are highlighted simultaneously. There are many ways in which we understand art work, but it seems to me that conceptual art often operates on a fairly shallow level of meaning that mainly stems from rational analysis - it may be relevant as a mirror of our time, but it's also one that comes today and is gone tomorrow. It seems to me that symbols have the greatest universal appeal to humans over time. I want to express myself succinctly and symbols present themselves as the best way in which I can do so. Read more about the actual process of making symbolic art HERE. The following is a discussion about the value of symbols.

THE VALUE OF SYMBOLS

You may ask what the point in using symbolism to convey a message through art really is. Those who are familiar with art history know that Symbolism is a movement that started up with the paintings of Gustave Moreau around 1860 but was deemed useless and out of date by the beginning of the First World War. It was a movement that was mainly concerned with the other worldly, and to a surprisingly high degree was linked with Catholicism. Some symbolists were interested in esoteric world views, and wanted to convey these beliefs through their art as has traditionally been done in religious art. These artists felt that the best way of conveying their view of a more spiritual realm was through the use of symbols as it was a way of pointing towards realities that you couldn't otherwise describe. Many artists were, however, not necessarily expressing very complex truths. In simple terms, this artistic genre came about as a reaction against the industrial upswing and a wide spread interest in realistic art as social commentary. The war crushed a lot of idealism and made introspective and solipsist art seem self-indulgent - the art that followed was mostly socially orientated. 

Nothing in art history is, however, straightforward and subject to a strict chronological time line. When it comes to symbolism, it pops up here and there in various forms and for various reasons. In the modern era, artists often use symbols without making much of a point of it. You find it in all genres of art. Various forms of fantasy art are alive and well, and some of these artists of the imagination employ symbols to a very high degree. Almost anyone who is interested in investigating the deeper layers of the human psyche or spiritual visions will use symbols. The problem is that this kind of symbolism is often lacking in personality and originality. 

Symbols have always been around in the form of mythology, fairy tales, as well as esoteric and alchemical explorations. These depictions of the human condition and how humans relate to the other worldly have been informative and necessary for the evolution of the human psyche, and there is no reason to believe that this has come to an end. It may seem that cynicism and a fragmentation of spirituality is here to stay, but I don't believe it. Art that expresses such disillusion is not life-affirming and constructive, and is therefore in the long run an unsatisfactory way of dealing with life's deeper issues and the human condition. In the end, the really big questions in life are the ones that live on forever, though our interpretation, experience and way of expressing them evolves over time, becoming more informed and sophisticated.

While the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud paved the way for dream interpretation, his disciple Carl Gustav Jung made a great job in researching the deeper meaning of widely recurring symbols and archetypes. The Depth Psychology that he and others instigated is still inspiring a great many psychotherapists who are interested in the subconscious mind and importance of dreams and archetypes in people's lives. Mythology isn't out dated - myself and many others believe that the human consciousness is constantly creating new myths and ways of story telling that help us come to terms with our lives. While the basic themes remain the same, they are being re-created, no doubt to fit new perspectives and higher levels or orders of collective understanding. I believe that we are constantly aspiring towards higher and more comprehensive levels of comprehension. Though inspired by C G Jung in the past, I am not a Jungian, as I find this strand of psychotherapy somewhat limited to archetypal ideas and dreams. I think a human being is a lot more than just a collection of inner archetypes.

So what are symbols, exactly? According to Wikipedia a symbol is "something that represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning." The way I see it, symbols have levels of meaning. There are symbols that are pretty deep and universal because of our joint collective experience of these elements of life. For instance, a snake represents the other end of evolution, i.e. very primordial or basic instincts and affects. From primordial myths and belief systems we can also see that the meaning is also attached to the universal life force and sexuality. Most people are scared of snakes so in a dream it's usually about feeling threatened by basic instincts such as sexual feelings and related issues.

The same symbols also have a shallow level of meaning which is dictated by cultural meaning and individual experience. A snake may not be threatening to someone who is a snake charmer. Someone who is a Hindu and familiar with theories about the Kundalini force would be more likely to associate the snake with religious beliefs than a Westerner would. Of course, we all know about the "one eyed snake", the male organ, which is yet another reason it tends to be connected to sexuality.

I believe that the best way to learn to understand the language of symbols is by engaging in dream interpretation (you can also study and compare myths). This is no easy task as you have to understand the parts as well as the whole, i.e., how the various elements of the dream (the symbols) relate to one another and what the context of these elements is. You need to reflect upon the associations the symbols offer as well as be able to grasp the overall feel of the dream in an intuitive way. The dream also has to relate to the dreaming person, as one has to distinguish the universal meaning of the symbols from possible individual interpretations. Intuition is truly paramount during this process. The language of symbols is not quite like an ordinary language because it relies so heavily on intuition. You also have to keep in mind, that all the symbols in your dreams associate with aspects of yourself. For instance; familiar people you see in your dreams represent qualities in yourself, and buildings usually (unless you're a gypsy traveller, one would assume) symbolise the different levels of the psyche.

People often say they dreamt about something they saw on TV before going to bed, and this becomes their reason for dismissing the existence of any deeper significance attached to the dream. There's a fallacy in this thinking because you don't dream about something because you saw it on TV, but because what you saw on TV reminded your psyche of something significant that it consequently wanted to resolve through your dream. Nothing in your dream world is haphazard. The key to successful dream interpretation is that you take into account every single aspect of the dream with the understanding that it all makes sense in some deep and significant way. We also tend to remember dreams that really are significant to us, while less important dreams are forgotten. If you're grabbed by a dream, it means it has something to say to you that you may not have realized during waking consciousness. I have personally not found anything terribly revelatory within my own dreams, but that's because I'm very interested in my inner life while I'm awake and so nothing much comes as a surprise. I find that dreams can clarify some issues, though. There is nothing quite like having had a vivid and deeply emotional dream that really tantalizes your imagination, points to great potential, and promotes contemplation about your life situation...

In order to get your imagination going, you might like to consult a book on dream interpretation. Books cannot explain everything for you and it's very important that you choose your book well! A good Jungian style book (E.g. The New Dream Dictionary by Toni Crisp) can give you ideas and impulses, and thus aid the process of understanding the way your psyche functions and what it's communicating to you.

I'm quite a literal person, and I like to communicate in a precise way. Creating images and soundscapes is a personal challenge in this respect. While pictures say more than a thousand words, and this vastness of meaning is sometimes hard for me to embrace, I also like for them to be subject to a rather literal interpretation. I don't see a contradiction in terms here, nor do I have any problem with the fact that some people will prefer to take in my images without the involvement of intellectual analysis. Others will be interested in a semantic interpretation. My experience is that both work just as well, and what really matters in the end is what resonates with people, i.e., what people feel attracted to because it mirrors themselves, and it really doesn't matter whether they are aware of the reasons for this feeling. I expect that people recognize the meaning of the symbols I use either intuitively or directly, and that they strike a cord in the attentive audience because of their relatively universal appeal. 

Artistically speaking, I started out by learning the logical language of symbols, and expressing my own inner development and the formation of a world view through symbolic art. I was intensely interested in esoteric view points while I was learning about the basic nature of reality. It was a rewarding time in my life, and I got much positive response from people from all walks of life. But things changed and I started to feel that making art about the tension between the spiritual and mundane was limited. There is work to be done in the realm of our day to day life, and I now feel compelled to do what I can to help alter people's perception of those who are marginalized in society. 

Symbols continue to be my preferred way of expression nonetheless. Through symbols I communicate a vision of life and know that it's a visual representation of something that I could also write about if I wanted to. Yet the impact is different and hopefully a more direct way of saying what I want to say. I have recently found that I can also make symbolic sound art. Symbols are endlessly versatile and a visual language based on symbols can be updated to suit a contemporary audience and crucial topics of the modern day.

The two birds and the circle is a variation on a theme of basic symbols 

that recur in all of human history.

The birds could be compared with the Yin and Yang symbol and was my logo for a long time -

 my art is generally speaking about the paradoxes that arise from the inherent dualism of life.

SOME ALTERNATIVE ART IN TIMES OF DECADENCE AND EXTREMES... MAYBE

Vivi-Mari Carpelan: "The Heart's Desire", copyright 2000
I believe our hearts may look something like this.
This was just before muscle spasms made it difficult for me to draw.

I decided not to add to my previous blog post, which is about a specific problem, but write a few words as a follow up. There's a discussion on LinkedIn in response to the article I posted her on my blog at the very end of the last article, but I don't find the viewpoints very clear. One thing seems quite obvious, though, and it's the fact that the big money making names in the art world are domineering the art scene, but also what is being taught in the art schools. You may recall my post about the exhibition I visited in Cardiff - it looked like a graduate show made up of ideas from a text book about conceptual art, and it was very clearly young and immature. There are alternative artists out there, but they don't get very much support as far as I can see. For instance as Martin has been looking for funding, he has found very little that addresses the needs of the individual artist. The funders, especially the Arts Council, are often more interested in supporting events that bring in large audiences so they can count the number of seats that were occupied. The other problem is very obvious; if you do work in 2D you're "passe". This is ridiculous, since human beings will never stop putting their thoughts and feelings onto a flat surface.

Michael Schwartz is a distinguished art critic in the USA who has abandoned the usual contemporary art scene in favour of a more spiritual and uplifting kind of art. I had the honour of having my art seen and written about by him when I was accepted into the integral art gallery at intergrallife.com.  Here is a video in which he explains "what is so special about integral art". I don't find it very comprehensive but if you're interested you can look up a lot of articles and talks on the site (some of which you have to be a member to see). The art galleries are all available to the public and you'll find that the artists are often very articulate and obviously highly intelligent beings. Although I keep these aspirations and attempts to promote a new kind of art in very high regard, I do sometimes wonder if it's still a bit limiting. These people obviously shun art that only reinforces all that is sick in society. However, they are also adamant about the presence of the "shadow", that darker side of all of us that needs to come into the open so that we can evolve as spiritual beings. What concerns me is that art such as my Project X would not go down well with the integral community because it might be seen as negative. My object is not to dwell on negativity but to inform an audience about the existence of certain problems within society. These problems need addressing very urgently.

I have digitally remastered photos of some of the art I did back in the 1990s. Back then, I was consumed by my research into spiritual matters and Eastern philosophies in particular, but it's also true that there is always a tension in all of my art between what I believe life to be in a deeper sense and the situation I find myself in this particular body, in this particular reality. This tension may be part of the reason why people wanted to buy my art back in the 1990s in Finland. At some point I felt that I had come to the end of my mission to talk so explicitly about what we can be and I thus started to look for an alternative. It took me a good ten years to specify what I felt I had to do. While my disability or issues of marginalization in general were at the back of my art in the 1990s and my spiritual world view was at the forefront, the concerns are now turned around so that invisible illness and similar issues are at the forefront and my spiritual world view is at the back of it all. I feel no urgency to talk about my world view with anyone and therefore I know that it's not my job to do so. 

Michael did say to me that it's not very common for artists to be able to talk about their own art, and that he found me unusually articulate. I enjoyed his interpretation of my art but I'm not sure I want it to be as much about memory as he suggested. I have to say that I often find myself lacking in words and less articulate than I used to (considering I'm a very literal person and sometimes behave in a straightforward, incredulous manner almost as if I had Asperger's syndrome like Saga Noren in "The Bridge"!). Perhaps it's a good thing, perhaps we should not always be able to pick our art apart. After all, a picture or other visual experience is supposed to say more than words can describe. However I was reminded that the bad philosophy I was talking about in my previous blog post also is a problem because artists are being pushed to being verbal and while I personally like a bit of explanation, it's possible to explain art to death. 

I think the pendulum has swung far into two extremes as we now find a contemporary art that is fragmented, contrived and shallow while mirroring only the worst aspects of society (both in terms of context and the way it's being treated by the "authorities"), and a spiritual art that is all about subtle and causal energies and Eastern deities, or the tree of life. While the latter can be elevating, it often lacks a direct connection to mundane life as we know it, and therefore I don't really see how it can make a difference to the layman. I say let's find a golden middle path. This has always been my ambition, no matter what I do. I also believe that the pendulum of human evolution eventually finds the middle. This is a Hegelian concept that I fully believe in - thesis/antithesis>synthesis are an inextricable part of the evolution of consciousness). All art forms and expressions must eventually be found equal, this I believe to be one aspect of the golden middle path. Another thing is, the idea is not to make everything the same shade of grey, but to appreciate diversity. As for contents and meaning, I do feel that art should be constructive and helpful, rather than just depressing and the perpetuating of negative myths or behavioural patterns. I personally believe there is a compromise to be found, one where art can point towards anomalies but also inspire (I'm trying to achieve this myself). But before that we will see a lot of extremes and finding the balance might take a bit of time. One of the extremes we will see a lot of these days is decadent art that copies other artists and art that has been before (the robotic artists in China being a great case in point, but that's the extreme of the extremes). As I found in an investigating documentary I watched the other day, this is the era of an extreme indulgence in the copying of things we have already seen and experienced before, as if that brings human some comfort in a disconcerting world.

AP

China's Art Factories

Here is the art of the past that I have edited so far. The text is from an artist's talk I'm doing soon for the Disability Arts Cymru. I think it's alternative art, at least it's art about the human psyche that the authorities never cared much about and I soon learnt to keep away from them.

"The Realm of Water - Level I" 2002 mixed media collage, sold
This piece is about the subconscious mind

In “The Chrysalis” (mixed media drawing) 1998), there is the idea of the possibility of slowly coming to life while on the other hand feeling boxed in by the limitations that my condition was imposing on my life. The figure is waiting for change. Tension, stress, tiredness and pain were all part of my daily life while I was struggling to keep up with everyone else. 

In “The Sacrifice” (mixed media drawing 2002) you can see that while I believe there is something greater behind us, so to speak, I also felt that the acquisition of a greater understanding of life was a kind of sacrifice. It was like Eve eating the fruit of knowledge, yet it was necessary as ignorance was not a choice. I was tied to the Earth, and I had to let go of any resistance towards life. In fact a greater acceptance of my situation helped me overcome some of my physical and emotional problems. It seemed increasingly important to focus on the issues here and now, in this reality.

"Those Who Wait Will Be Rewarded", (mixed media drawing 1999). One of the most important ideas was however that reality is fundamentally a paradox. In this picture, two realities are intertwined. There is one in which the communication between humans is difficult, there is a block of ice between them and the atmosphere is cold. The other is warm and sensuous, symbolized by a cat and a tree of life with roots deep into the ground. In other words, there are always two sides of the coin, but it's the same coin. In a deeper sense, life is not divided into opposites as it seems to the human mind, but one integrated whole. 

This picture is called “All the World is But a Stage” (mixed media drawing 2002), which not only explains that I think of life as a kind of theatre or school, but it also depicts the opposites of summer and winter and the idea that there is a unifying element and life force behind life as we normally see it. Being in touch with this life force is vital to our well being regardless of how disabled we are.

VIVI-MARI'S ART AT INTEGRALLIFE.COM

FROM DIALECTICS TO INTEGRATION

While images express perceived reality in a most delightfully nuanced way that leaves room for individual interpretation, symbols tell a story in a more accurate way. It's in the combination of these that I have found my most potent form of self-expression. As I started to see that life is truly paradoxical, the idea of dualism and the equality of the two sides of a story crept into my artwork. Chronic illness and various other personal issues that needed to be solved gave rise to the expression of loss and despair, but these are always teamed with hope and faith that Spirit knows the way forward. Struggle and tension is thus resolved in higher understanding and a letting go of pretensions. It's a dialectic process, a seemingly never-ending roller coaster with endlessly varied viewpoints on my own development and relationship with the rest of the universe. Pride and humility are ingredients that need to be tried and tested during the journey. Theoretical knowledge is a good thing to carry in one's rucksack, but ultimately life has to be lived and emotions must fully develop for the experience to be complete. Who said it would be easy? While surrender to joy and experiences of pure consciousness are wonderful, it's in the encounter of darkness and in the uncovering of the shadow that life is often at its most interesting. By expressing this dualistic process as I know it in a visual form, I hope to help support greater acceptance of all that is painful in this reality, for everybody. This I wish to do without losing sight of the 'other' reality, the one that we all know in the depths of our hearts. " (Vivi-Mari 2011)

I had the honour of being selected as one of the artists who represent Ken Wilber's integral philosophy at www.integrallife.com. My presentation is called " From Dialectics to Integration ". In the 1990s, I read everything Wilber wrote, and felt deep affinity with his spiritual views. He talks not only about the evolution of consciousness and the various stages the individual and the collective are going through, but also about the Jungian concept of the Shadow. In a nutshell, the Shadow what we have gathered in our subconscious. Read more in my essay " Do You Have To Suffer for Art ". My life has been chaotic and messy over the last ten years and have not managed to engage in Wilber's newest theories, but have noticed that he and his team have begun to focus on the arts as playing an important part in the human development. They are still debating what integral art is exactly, but generally speaking it is art infused with a sense of deeper meaning and a higher more spiritual perspective that encompasses a broad view of what life is all about.

Michael Schwartz wrote a mini essay on my art:

The Times of Memory

Collage—an art technique which blossomed during the twentieth-century—displays on a two dimensional surface images and texts from various sources, constructing these into a complex and dynamic whole, the component images retaining their own independence as recognizably distinct in style and origin.

Vivi-Mari Carpelan's contemporary collages are profoundly noteworthy. In their enactment of deep symbolic logics, they do nothing less than re-configure time.

Some of the source imagery comes from Hindu art, evoking an ancient and ongoing tradition. Other imagery originates in advertisements from past decades, evincing a nostalgia where loss can never quite be recovered or redeemed. Still other imagery comes from prints of Neo-Classical architecture, a building style that resurrects the antique past in producing stone monuments that defy the ravages of time. More haunting and playful are skeletal images of extinct species, tokens of the arising and perishing of all particular life forms within a vast and mysterious evolutionary unfolding. The esoteric and alchemical diagrams dispersed throughout key an anticipatory time proper to secreted promises yet to be revealed.

The space of these collages is thus the arena of a profound mode of Memory (an inflection of Consciousness itself)—a Memory that is prior to any given form or feel of time, and which accommodates all such forms, allowing them to reverberate with each other through the part/whole dynamic of the collage construction. This is an Art of Memory that is not simply retrospective and receptive, but powerfully and profoundly Creative: the interplay of the imagery sparking novel senses of time—transforming the Self-sense so tenderly and vulnerably at stake in these works.

Michael Schwartz,

April 2011

I had added this bit but it wasn't published, presumably due to restrictions of space:

“When I look out towards the world, the world comes to greet me. The moment I perceive myself in the vast mirror of reality, I come to being. I am able to see myself - my shape, my features, my thoughts, my feelings, and my soul. All this is being born in the interaction between me and my environment, because it is the experience of this constellation that helps me redefine myself. Books, pictures, objects, people... all these things help me see and understand myself. The encounter lends me the mirror. Without this mirror I am not able to grow, change and become whole.

Life is an encounter, a play of opposites, a breathtaking dance where we unite and pull away, in the whirlwind of life, inwards and outwards, in oneness and in separation.... Like the natural flow of breathing or the play of the waves, like the gushing power of creativity from a well of life that never dries up. Do I dare to encounter life? Do I dare to encounter you? With an open gaze and an open mind? Perhaps the answer to the riddle of life is in the open gaze in the mirror that I encounter? (1999)

Artwork: "Where There Is Hope -  There Is Life," copyright 2008 


Read more about integral theory: 

Finland  (in Finnish, with posts about my art), 
Ken Wilber's website  (English)