INTRODUCTION TO "WALKING IN DIFFERENT WAYS OF SEEING"

WALKING IN DIFFERENT WAYS OF SEEING.

            Somehow, this title is difficult to understand, but once I can explain what the project consists in, I´m sure the word game will be understood.

While trying to go back and see where this idea comes from, I discover it´s very intertwined with many other experiences, although this particular form of the experiment came to me while I was in Vienna last June.

             I have a very special connection to this city and have spent a lot of time there. I´m fully aware how biast I must be, to always seem to see the good parts of it.

            Anyhow, this time, for some reason, (probably because I was happy to continue working in my studio in Ibiza and didn´t really “need” to travel there and had no working materials with me) when I arrived and went walking in the city, I saw it all looking dirty. People looked unhealthy, and overall I had quite a negative impression. What also added to this was the heat wave that makes me useless. 

            The next day, same thing happened, same impressions. So this time I thought I needed to stop and see why this was happening, I suspected it was more to do with me and my perception, than the city itself.

            I sat down in a café and started downloading all these impressions in my booklet, analysing and comparing my past experiences with this one.

            I came to the clear conclusion that it was me. I wasn´t in the mood to just be on holiday and do nothing,  when I preferred to be painting in my studio.

            I was once again confronted with this feeling I hate of absurdness and pointlessness. I know this, and find ways to put myself in these situations to train myself to tolerate it. But there is a quicker part to me that always finds a plan to fits both my interest in tolerating doing nothing and my neverending urge to engage in interesting projects.

            The idea that came to me this time, was to walk in the city with no plan, defined direction or purpose. Looking at the streets beyond their content, as if I was from another planet and had never seen it before.

            While walking, try and look at it all from a fresh point of view, as if I had never known the use and context of each of the elements. As I had this idea I returned to the concept of a labyrinth. Life lived in the Labyrinth, as we take choices and move through it.

             I suddenly conceived an experiment for a large painting. The painting as such would only have one initial idea to work on once the smudges were on the canvas.

             I´d have to work it into being a labyrinth, but not in a traditional sense, just keep the concept in mind as being a space one can move through being limited by the walls of phenomena we perceive.

            This painting, (or more than one if needed) will be the visual support that I hope can reflect a mind changing exercise I want to practice on myself for approximately one year.

            Every day I will work on this piece I will first go on a walk for an hour with no purpose other than train myself to see what I already know, as if I had never seen it before. Then when the time is up, sit down and write in my booklet about everything that I felt and perceived that I can remember, whether it is relevant, interesting or boring.

            Write it all down with no judgement. Who knows if I might find any sense in it later. After I´m done with the writing is when I can get down to the painting of this panel.

            I don´t intend to paint what I have just experienced, or illustrate it directly. I hope to have expressed it all in the writing. Once empty, I can just paint with no intention again. Listen to music as I do usually and just let it happen. 
      See what occurs.

            Since I came up with this idea I have been practicing it regularily.

 It immediately changed my perception of  the city, while in Vienna. It was no longer unpleasant or lovely, it became different and interesting.

I spent hours walking in this way. 
Some days were easier to do than others. 
Some days I kept getting distracted all the time by whatever I was seeing and thinking in normal ways.

            It has been similar to keeping the discipline of meditation. Every time I was back on the old way I had to correct my attention and keep focused. I found that listening to music in my headphones was a very good way of keeping a distance with the surrounding.

            Music helps me see it all from a different point of view. I used a lot of Marconi Union tracks, Brian Eno, Robert Rich.

            Some days I just heard one track in a loop for one whole hour, just to not change the mood.

    I have walked though well known streets, new streets, in Vienna and in Ibiza. 
    I have also done it while sitting in a park, a café or in the tube.

            On days I have trouble concentrating I find starting off by siting is an easier way. There is more control over an image that is somehow fixed. When moving though space, things don´t last so long to keep the attention on.

I originally thought this might be an interesting to have an MRI test done at the beginning of the year and then a second one at the end of it and see if there would be any tangible evidence of change. I haven´t yet found collaboration and I am not fully convinced it might be necessary. 
As this experiment is only practiced on one individual the scan doesn´t seem to be worth trying.

If anyone who reads this blog and follows some of the experiences I describe thinks this work might be of use to any other study, I am very willing to hear about it´s details and quite probably would like to take part, if it compliments this work in any way.

   

Some details of the process of this painting...

TREE OF POSSIBILITIES

              

          Another idea comes to me almost at the same time, while Walking in Different ways of Seeing. It will be the other painting.

            A "Tree of Possibilities" that explains visually where I feel I´m at in this life I´m experiencing. The image comes to me like a map I can trace where I have been, where I aim, based on where I am at present. Something like that.

            The society I live in affects me, as much as I try to work from my own criteria. When I was a teenager and most of my friends were into partying, I was into philosophy and trying to understand the world I was supposed to live in. I have observed how, from a young age we are taught to aim for wellbeing in ways like you need to study a good career, or get a good job, make money to live well, may be get a good home, may be a mortgage, find a good partner, a good car and be able to go on nice holidays, then of course, have a family when you have all the rest worked out and so on and so on.

            Then there are those who reach my age now, around forty, and have failed in most or all of these aims and at times feel like life went by too quick and didn´t get all of that on track. Others who have done all of that are now facing a “where do I go from here” situation. The Children no longer need them so much, the partner in life is now boring, the job is no longer challenging and one feels slightly empty.

       
     From and early age I have been driven by the love for discovery and curiosity. As I grew older I kept this alive though each decision I was able to make, trying to never get into  non stimulating jobs, relationships or situations .

I never want to loose that fascination for discovery.

          
   I never decided I wanted to be a painter. I just discovered that while painting I could access this subconscious mind that gave me so much information to work on. I found a certain freedom inside me while putting myself in the state of painting. Painting only complements or enhances a way of discovering, coming from a kind of collective unconscious. It´s new for me, even if it has already been experienced by others.

            This Tree of Possibilities Map I quickly drew in my notebook was sketched to not forget this initial idea.

          I felt we start life in this body at the trunk and whether the decisions are taken by us, out parents or by life itself, we can trace a line from one branch to the other.

            A way is marked. We think, as we grow up that we have free will to decide either this or that way, but in this illustration I see it´s free only in a limited frame of possibilities we are given in life.

Our decisions are really shaped by our attractions and repulsions (represented by the little faces and beings in the background), these also being a product of our automatic response to life.

            Anyway, by seeing this image I then saw there are so many branches of this Tree of Possibilities that I haven´t taken. Somehow I feel they also are a part of me. I also live with all the things I know I haven´t done or felt.

             I asked myself what happens when I reach the end of the branch and look into the abyss. Is this where those people are who have done all the ambitions in life and now are stuck waiting for life to grow the branch for them? Is that the place the successful artist or scientist reaches after a great breakthrough and feels there is nothing important left in life to make a difference? Is that the point they become depressed and unmotivated? Is that the place they are waiting for life to surprise them?

This is the point I reached in this image when I decided that if I was to reach this place, I´d like to be the spider who connects and threads all those ends of branches to create a rich and fulfilling now. 

         By connecting, I mean to bring all those other possible presents to the now, accept all the paths that didn´t become active, and include them in my present.

       I was explaining this to someone and they asked me, “what does that mean in practical terms?”. 

        What it means is that usually one limits ones moves to only slightly stretch experience, in ones possible world. I never went to University, I might have been limiting my academic knowledge to this fact, but the reality is that I can share my knowledge in this field. I might lack many structures for this but I shouldn´t limit myself. The other example is that haven´t had children. I could exclude myself from certain circles and experiences because of this. Or I can choose to embrace the experience of others and be an important part of their lives also. These are two quite large issues, only briefly mentioned, but then there are others like the society one chooses to live amongst, it could be any other I crossed and was a part of for a time. I can also make that a part of my present.

          It´s all about transforming a memory that would naturally go stagnant over time (nostalgia) and turn it into an alive experience of the present that nurtures me now.

        This second painting that is related to the first, is all about a very personal experience of life. 

 It´s about bringing out all those details and feelings. 

A kind of exorcism to the phantoms of the past. Bring it all forward and clean the space of old dust. Symbolically.

       While painting it, I go back and rescue memories and play them through, to reach different versions of myself, welcome them to the community and make them part of me now. 

       Each moment I recall a decision I made, or life made for me, is represented by a symbol in the bark of the branch and then kept in a dictionary for myself. 

Each symbol has been created while visualising the moment of change, the moment just before I took the other path, when it was still present. 

(at the moment only in my Dictionary of symbols and moments, still not transferred to the painting)

Empty circles that will contain the symbol for each path crossing.

         I guess the part where I can see the roots will be the baggage from family passed down for generations.

         An other aspect this Tree shows me is that many of my discoveries I find so valuable and special, others have already discovered. I can feel quite disillusioned when this happens, but this graphic of the tree shows me that I´m still digging common grounds. When I find others have discovered the same as me before I should take it as important information to grow on the subject and then will be able to grow further knowledge upon these discoveries. It´s a push forward to go even further. 

      Good answers to questions bring more good questions. If the answer brings comfort it´s not real. It is suspect of not seeing the whole thing. Something is missing. Nothing is only comfortable if real.

        During these months I have been working on both these paintings quite consistently. The days I am able to go and walk for an hour, then write and then spend a long day painting, I usually work on the Labyrinth. 

       The days I have to fit in other work and can get a couple of hours work in the morning and a few more in the evening and can´t be so focused, Im only able to work on the Tree of Possibilities. Some days I work with phenomena and other with full subconsciousness.

PROCESS IN IMAGES:

First stages:

Next phase:

THEN: