Vivienne attended the Guardian Climate Change Summit this week, and was encouraged by the commitment to taking action from individuals and the enthusiasm of businesses. She was reassured to realise that the urgency of the ecological problems is not being doubted. It is from business alone, however, that the incentive for change is coming – not the Government.
Can you sum up the Manifesto? – I find it hard –can you help?
The pursuit of art is a practice which leads to the cultivation of our best self. We become more human. The method of this practice is imitation, both on the part of the artist and on the part of art lover. We say that the standard measure of imitation is Representative Human Nature (RHN), the power by which we recognise ourselves in others. This shared experience gives culture: culture is the antidote to propaganda.
Propaganda we define as Nationalistic Idolatry, Non-Stop Distraction and Organized Lying (NINSDOL - have you had your daily pill?) By this practice on the part of several individuals – art lovers and freedom fighters – we will achieve a more human ethic. Our purpose is to understand the world so that we may act in harmony with GAIA and a new civilization will break through.
Second question:
Is art today a part of business?
The answer is embedded in the Manifesto which states: “Without judges there is no art” In other words, we get the art we deserve. Today’s ethic, represented in AR by Pirate Progress is the pursuit of profit as an end in itself. This view is shared by our attitude to art.
Third question:
How do you see the Internet?
Pressing buttons can become an obsession which takes the place of thinking. In extreme cases it can take the place of living. Children should not be exposed to this danger. The Internet cannot read the book for you: it does not give knowledge. It can be a tool of research. What do you think?
Answer: It is not so easy now for our leaders to lie. Individuals have the power to expose them via the Internet.
For example every time a politician mentions “growth” we know he is lying. Growth isn’t possible except in direct relation to the suffering it causes to people and the planet. I don’t watch TV but take for example the radio program – ‘Any Questions’ –usually chaired by Jonathan Dimbleby –there is only one possible answer to any of the questions or rather, it’s like two sides of the same coin – you can answer ‘heads’ or ‘tails’. We could script the show; we’ve heard it all before. Even if we ask the right questions we get the wrong answers, - we are so limited in our frame of reference. Like the denizens of Gulliver’s Lilliput we have no concept of a world larger than our world of uniform opinion and perverse blinkered vision.
Thank you to everybody posting their comments on the forum and for all e-mails and letters.
I try to read as many as I can and below you’ll find my reply to an e-mail from Peter Hollinghurst.
I have also been asked to recommend books to read so here is a list with a few titles to start of:
“Brave New World” - Aldous Huxley (greatest writer of the XX century - all novels by him)
“The Memoirs of Hadrian” - Marguerite Yourcenar
“Madame Bovary” - Gustav Flaubert
“The Gods will have blood” - Anatole France
“1984″ - George Orwell
Bertrand Russell or Marcel Proust (”Time is luxury” - the greatest novel ever written - read it when you are young or you won’t have time for it)
The Greek Tragedians - Euripides (”Hippolytus”), Aeschylus, Sophocles
Shakespeare -all his work (try to read it loud as you will understand it better)
On my recent visit to Brazil - during the manifesto reading - I was asked a question:
“How people that don’t leave in a big city engage in culture?”
Read books - as many as you can and learn about the history and background of a painting, work of art and a great artist. Looking at pictures in the book isn’t the same as looking at the work of art in the gallery but one day you might be able to so prepare yourself to appreciate it fully.
My reply to Peter:
” I recently heard of one realistic painter inspired by Caravaggio yet he has never understood that to paint like Caravaggio you need to rediscover the painting technique of Caravaggio which is the indirect method of oil painting practised by the great masters Titian, Vermeer, Frans Hals (some of them took a long time and some were quick i.e. Frans Hals who did his paintings in couple of hours).
Otherwise you just pushing paint around and you can’t create the illusion of reality. By contrast Picasso who did not practise this indirect method took 70 sittings to do the portrait of Gertrude Stein (but then he was probably after something else). This is a problem for a modern painters that Picasso and everybody since (going right back to Manet) that they did not have access to the old technique and had to invent their own. Trouble for modern painter is that you can’t copy Picasso or Matisse - the only thing available to you is to rediscover the techniques of Caravaggio because it gives possibility of infinite expression to every individual talent and if you so wish from this you can forge an original technique.”
Vivienne
Chaos Pointby Ervin Laszlo
Some scientists claim that the tipping point has already happened and that damage caused to the earth is irreversible. ‘Chaos Point’ explains that a crucial factor is missing from the scientific equation of doom: the ability of human nature to respond to crisis. We need a new set of values, a new ethic if we are to avert disaster, for as Einstein said, “We cannot solve problems with the same thinking that caused them in the first place. Chaos point means that we have choice between breakdown or breakthrough.
The book identifies a group which it calls ‘Creative Concerned’. These people are privileged enough to have cut back in pursuit of income in exchange for a higher quality of life and raised consciousness. They like art and hardly watch television. Twenty years ago in
The art lover of the AR manifesto has an even more positive role to play, he is more active in the pursuit of art and resistance to propaganda. The great thing is when he is visual: Wear your badge, dress up! By living the new ethic he becomes a figure of aspiration. People who want to copy our lifestyle will want to be art lovers and freedom fighters instead of consumers of crap – that privileged 1% in
“The most important thing about this manifesto is that it is a practice. If you follow it your life will change. In the pursuit of culture you will start to think. If you change your life, you change the world.”
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