Not surprising that our internal worlds are all completely different and as unsettling as that may be for some, it’s also true for our external world as well. It’s difficult to demonstrate and we can’t see through each other’s eyes, but reasonably intelligent people coming to completely different conclusions about the same stuff are an indication they’re probably seeing different things. The equipment we use is fairly standard and we can wear glasses or have surgery to bring it up to par, but what we notice and pay attention to is something else. Seeing is a highly subjective and done by each person in their own way. Two people naturally grow closer when they can take a walk and see the same things.
The first rule of the mechanism itself is that you can’t see something you’ve never seen before. There’s no template in your memory and your search for one will draw a blank, so an alien could sit down next to you and you wouldn’t know. Native peoples at Vera Cruz couldn’t see the european ships at first, and thought Cortez had risen from the sea. This built-in limitation is good reason to travel when possible and to look at stuff all the time, it’s like increasing your vocabulary. More important are the lenses, the filters and modifiers that determine how you see anything. Political parties and religions, career choices and family obligations all attempt to tint the light, to bend the beam until what we see is really a very personal version of the world we all share.
There’s no reconciliation for people trying to deal with each other from different planets even though they may live side by side. These days the rules are gone and the eye gouge and groin kick are on the table, thanks Andy, as the peculiar tribalism of the internet shunts us into ever more diverse realities. This would be a good time for undercover hometown artists wearing actual paint stains on clothes with real holes to start hanging their work on fence posts, in any restaurant with an empty wall, lit at night in vacant storefronts and in that sweet bakery down on main. People want the truth and it’s the artist’s job to rattle expectations, to jostle seldom used templates and rummage through dusty memories with an image that says it’s real, but obviously isn’t. The successful work of art in a representational mode alerts the attention each time it’s seen, and after a while the lenses begin to loosen up and drop away, and the world in general can be perceived more directly.
Do scales fall away from the eyes in a biblical sense, the viewer transfixed with tears streaming, to then stumble out into a world fresh and new as they’ve never seen it before? That’s a lot to ask, although the typical gothic mentality must have been severely torqued when confronted with a renaissance painting for the first time. It’s enough these days just to create a marker folks can compare to their own lived experience, like a life saver for people lost at sea to swim toward. Art engages dusty machinery we all have on board and identifies our points in common, speaking in our inner ear about the world we live in and share.
The first rule of the mechanism itself is that you can’t see something you’ve never seen before. There’s no template in your memory and your search for one will draw a blank, so an alien could sit down next to you and you wouldn’t know. Native peoples at Vera Cruz couldn’t see the european ships at first, and thought Cortez had risen from the sea. This built-in limitation is good reason to travel when possible and to look at stuff all the time, it’s like increasing your vocabulary. More important are the lenses, the filters and modifiers that determine how you see anything. Political parties and religions, career choices and family obligations all attempt to tint the light, to bend the beam until what we see is really a very personal version of the world we all share.
There’s no reconciliation for people trying to deal with each other from different planets even though they may live side by side. These days the rules are gone and the eye gouge and groin kick are on the table, thanks Andy, as the peculiar tribalism of the internet shunts us into ever more diverse realities. This would be a good time for undercover hometown artists wearing actual paint stains on clothes with real holes to start hanging their work on fence posts, in any restaurant with an empty wall, lit at night in vacant storefronts and in that sweet bakery down on main. People want the truth and it’s the artist’s job to rattle expectations, to jostle seldom used templates and rummage through dusty memories with an image that says it’s real, but obviously isn’t. The successful work of art in a representational mode alerts the attention each time it’s seen, and after a while the lenses begin to loosen up and drop away, and the world in general can be perceived more directly.
Do scales fall away from the eyes in a biblical sense, the viewer transfixed with tears streaming, to then stumble out into a world fresh and new as they’ve never seen it before? That’s a lot to ask, although the typical gothic mentality must have been severely torqued when confronted with a renaissance painting for the first time. It’s enough these days just to create a marker folks can compare to their own lived experience, like a life saver for people lost at sea to swim toward. Art engages dusty machinery we all have on board and identifies our points in common, speaking in our inner ear about the world we live in and share.
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