A project in trans-atlantic conversation, trans-continental observant creations, and trans-cultural edifications. Two minds and more investigating the subtle enigmas of Difference in an artistic, cross-cultural and metaphysical experiment.
An Allegory
You are sitting atop a house, that sits atop a hill, that sits atop a small village. You look down to the landscape around. You see the dark woods scattered about, where the drug-offenders, along with the practicing philosophy and art students of the small village, tend to congregate. You see three distinct lights in one patch of woods. One is the flickering of a lighter, another is the turbulent wandering of a flashlight, and the last is the still and ambient spot light aimed at a blank canvas. You see silhouettes of people and nothing else. You wave, they all wave back. You move on to the next sight.
You see City Hall Plaza, decorated with the protestors of the small village, dancing-chanting-flailing torches. The protestors paint lucid moving paintings of dancing shadows with their enflamed lanterns’ gesticulations. You wave, but because of the erratic movements of the protestors, you cannot tell if the are waving back to you or not. You move on to the next sight.
You see the cars parked at the point just over the ridge, filled with the Faceless of the small village. 1950’s American Doo-Wop echoes through the night air, coming from most of the cars, while the others lay silent. Most of the cars have their windows down, lights off, and all are tuned into the same radio station. The abundance of cars with antennas pulling from the same station, you see Doo-Wop textured radio waves, dark blue and reddish yellow fog, lingering from the invisible Ionosphere and into the antennas of the cars. You hear the results. You wave but, expectedly, no one waves back.
You lean back on the lawn chair atop the roof, bathe in moonlight and stare at star clusters. While looking at the deep blue sky the stars form into visceral reenactments of all the those you had seen moments before, succinctly, in your eyes. You see these visceral portrayals of those you had waved to moments before, succinctly, in your eyes.
You wonder who is righteous.
“A genuine artistic creation stands within a particular community, and such a community is always distinguishable from the cultured society that is informed and terrorized by art criticism.”
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Day One
One day in, and many a green pasture awaiting in tomorrow’s rising sun. 7:00 P.M. in Boston, 1:00 A.M. in Enschede. Does the same language change when it’s spoken over a large ocean? Do the same things mean the same things, does the aura of a given language, be it English, Dutch, Photographic, Poetic, refashion in some way or other at such a large distance? We shall find out in the coming months.
