The Via Sophia -project is approaching the plateau of visual quality, wherein objective improvement no longer brings much subjective accuracy. This was to be expected, of course, as physical limitations eventually catch up to any art-endeavour. When this inevitability occurs, one must look into other directions - which I have already done in the past, as explained in previous blog-posts. The eventual branching into music and more experimental short-form storytelling is only a natural progression as things keep evolving. Nevertheless, the harrowing question lingers: are we any closer? One's feet keep wading the mud and moon travels in the sky as time passes, yet the horizon remains the same. I feel this theme of "making progress, going nowhere" will be best represented in the upcoming "The Moon and The Sea" -story, which will be a conclusion to the earlier "The Swamp and the Moon" experiment. We will see how that one turns out, when I eventually get to writing it.
On the other front of things, the youtube/art-station experiment keeps similarly trudging on. The "inexhaustible well of useless insights" -machine continuously produces fleeting thoughts to feed into the algorithm - more empty shouts into the void. In other words, I do not expect much to come out of this experiment. However, it has felt like the logical thing to do, even if the futility of reaching any sort of worthwhile (in numerical terms) audience is clear. The incessant need to connect is never going to go away, as it is part of the annoying human condition, and so for now, I have taken this activity as a compromise to quell the yells of this part of the mind. So far it has worked, somewhat, even if the yells seem to amplify as the view-counts remain in the flatline. Like hunger itself, it keeps coming back, always back for more. No rest for the wicked. It is curious, though, how exceedingly persistent this little voice is. So much so that I had to take it as one of my topics for videos - well, by now, I suppose it's been in a number of videos - but most accurately expressed in Even If They Cared, They Would Not Understand and All The World's An Empty Stage - indeed, one can shout all they want into the void, but due to many kinds of repressive mechanisms of the world, it is quite guaranteed that no amount of shouting will ever make a difference. The good news is that this presence (or lack) of audience makes no difference for the project itself... for if it had been dependent on external validation, it never would've been born in the first place. Fortunately for me the only audience needed, is Sophia.
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I have written a lot about AI development in the past few months. Not only this explosive progress continue shifting fields and professions, it also radically shakes our place in the universe - no doubt soon forcing profound spiritual implications for us to ponder. What will be humanity's role in the world as more and more aspects of life get superseded by the machine? Who knows... but there's no halting the avalanche now, as the floodgates have been opened. For me - contrary to many artists and writers - I simply welcome this change, as it enhances the possibilities for hermit-type individuals to explore their arts. Take, for example, reading out loud (voice acting, audiobooks) and music (vocals, vocalization). Professional voice actors are extravagantly expensive, and singers as well... perhaps moreso. Even if I could afford such luxuries, to hire someone read my stories or sing my tracks, good luck trying to persuade said person to actually work for me - an isolatated artist of no renown. Sadly, as everyone well knows, the world runs via connections (those ever-so-annoying human connections), and so, for the hermit-artist, these possibilities are out of question... or at least were, until now, with the sudden appearance of AI magic. In the last post I introduced my Via Sophia -project, which aims to combine all these fragmented fields under one umbrella. Now, as the AI technology continues progressing, more objectively accurate art is reachable without unreasonable hours of tinkering in editing (to go along as visuals for the stories) and so, I have already translated the first long-form story into audio-visual format... the short story The Swamp and the Moon. As of writing this article, I'm in the process of translating the next story of equal length (about 8000 words): The Arrival of Doctor Kross - a story a bit older and darker in nature, but of equal quality in technical terms. Future readers can assess the ultimate value of these attempts. No doubt in the future they will look like childish scribblings, similar to my earliest attempts at visual arts; but as they say... one must start somewhere. On the musical front, I have heard rumours that AI will soon be capable of mimicking vocals, and so, as I continue learning the cello and writing songs (that hopefully I'll be able to play as well some day), blending the AI-vocals into them will prove an interesting experiment... and so, similar as with the audio-visual storytelling, the end result should be a seamless mix of man and machine, two artists who may, in collaboration, creep ever closer to the ultimate Hermeneutics of Beauty - the most accurate, and loyal, portrayal of Sophia. As a last word I will include here my most recent experimental poetry-piece that I wanted to attempt in the new audio-visual style. Recited by Mia, as always - my ever tireless reader and reciter of stories and fleeting thoughts. For Sophia. In the past I have focused largely on the arts-side of things when it comes to AI development, but now, as the field is suddenly exploding with innumerable applications, from arts to finances, to sciences, to programming and (soon) gaming, social interaction and even "societal experience" as a whole, it seems like there is no end to this revolutionary new force. It is too tiresome to go into detail about all of this vast, and logarithmically fast, progress, so instead I thought musing on something concerning the future, and what this all means for my own project of Via Sophia. In my last post I touched on the new possibility of formatting stories into audio works, thanks to the new audio generation system. It marked an important milestone for me, personally, as for a long time I had wished for audio readings of my stories in order to experiment with new methods of storytelling, but this had always been impossible due to financial restrictions. Since the writing of last blog-post, the new Via Sophia -youtube channel is now well underway... even if beginnings are always rough at first. On the visual side of things, I have progressed considerably as well, although I haven't yet fully adopted any new AI-methods - although, I think there will still be plenty of time for that, especially as even newer possibilities will soon emerge. In the meantime, as I continue learning the technicalities of image editing and hone my own subjective accuracy, the overall project will slowly continue heading into the desired direction... especially now, with spring progressing, yielding time and space to continue the frame-project as well, in addition to digital editing. It seems like last year's experience will repeat, as I am just more mentally alert to work outside when the sun is shining and it isn't quite as low as -30 celsius in the garage. Moving on - there has been a lot of backlash for the AI development in the field of arts, as I examined in my post Reflections On the Past Year. This is understandable, but I feel like repeating my earlier stance about it - in short, every time there is any new radical innovation, there will be shock & confusion about it. People are concerned about being replaced, their jobs becoming obsolete, and so on. This is easy to understand in any manual labour field where "rough field work" is taken over by technical progress... but still I adamantly hold the "field of arts" being an exception from those 'real work' realms. In fact, I have thought a lot how to succintly put this into words, and the closest I have gotten, is:
If your art isn't strong enough to withstand the onslaught of progress, then your vision wasn't strong enough - or there wasn't one to begin with. This is to say, in other words, that if an artist isn't able to adapt (something that I consider being the most crucial aspect of an artist's personality) then the person just "did it for the money", which should be a sacrilege for any true artist, or, alternatively, the artist wasn't creative enough to sublimate the new tools for their arsenal. In either case, the loss of that particular artist would be no grand tradegy. Quite the opposite, in fact, as it only shows - or reveals - the shallow nature of that person and their vision. In this way, the emergence of AI actually acts as a burning spotlight, decimating any unworthy individual, giving way for more... well, should I say, truly artistic essences, to shine. By the way, same goes for the objective value of arts, which will be, undoubtedly, in turmoil soon... no great tradegy there either, as I've already well expressed my disdain for that whole retched business in previous blog posts. Leaving that aside for now, what about the future of all this? Well - the future is here, that much is certain by now. The velocity into singularity is accelerating, as we've witnessed in the past few months. This is to be expected, of course, as a fall into a black hole - physical or metaphysical - is never a linear, but a logarithmic one. Near future will prove what kind of changes the society will face. In my opinion, it will either be a quick apocalypse, or a quick utopia... well, at least as much an "utopia" can be reached in realistic terms. We will most certainly not see flying cars or replication machines, but we might see unparalleled productivity, societal change, and cultural shifts. All this is already happening - only the direction remains unclear. My path, nevertheless of direction, will remain the same. For Sophia. Last month I opened a new avenue for this ongoing art-experiment, but when I stepped back and saw the coming scale of it all, I thought of pausing for a moment to give some thought for... everything, when it comes to this project. As is well known, the artistic personality is the opposite of the personality trait conscientiousness, and thus not well-suited for anything dealing with structure or form. Nevertheless, as the experimentation continues, and moves into new territories, there comes a time when it all is in danger of fragmenting into too many directions at once, decohering altogether into nonsense... and so, giving it a proper name seemed to be in order: Via Sophia.
This naming coincided with a new audio form that recently opened as a possibility - that is, thanks to the technological advancements of this modern society, it is now feasible to translate text into speech, believably enough, and with sufficient eloquence and expediency. I immediately thought taking advance of this sudden... "advancement", and created a youtube channel for this purpose, naming it as aforementioned "Via Sophia". With this new possibility came the wider concern about this project - namely, what is it, all, exactly? By now, it has been over five years since I first began, in writing. In the beginning, it opened up as an explosive outburst of obsessive storytelling, fueled by sudden onset of severe enantiodromia, but since then, after dozens of short stories, hundreds of visual artworks, the whole frame-project (bringing the visuals into physical reality), one experimental text-adventure game, and now recently music and a youtube series... there comes a point where one needs to step back to re-examine the whole thing. So, what is it all about? It's difficult to say. If we begin from the very beginning, the stories started as a fragmented storyline about a man awaking from a coma in the modern age, which then quickly spiralled into victorian era gothic-stories. Then, with the emergence of the Anima-Sophia, it turned into examination of that phenomenon, a wider investigation of Jungian psychoanalytics - an attempt of understanding these underlying psychic forces. Then, when things slowed down on the writing front, the experimentation turned into visual arts (of which there's still only a fraction available online - maybe some day I will dumb them all somewhere, for all to see... those few who might care, anyway). Then, as the field of AI-arts progressed, it evolved into that direction, giving more opportunities to experiment... and finally, now, as the psychic forces of developing Anima have steered thought more towards audio (from visual), I have begun learning music composition and cello-playing, and have translated some of the stories into audio form, and widened the overall storyline from there. Is that where the most potential lies, then - in music and audio? Who knows. A strong intuition hints at music being the ultimate form of art, and I do not disagree. Then again, mastering the cello - for example - takes more than one lifetime, even if one begins from childhood... and I'm personally far beyond that age by now. So what avenues or possibilities remain? I do not know. All I can do is continue the experiment... and one thing is for certain: continue I shall. For Sophia. AI can now be used to produce an endless line of fast-food of meaningless & shallow aesthetic pleasantry - but it can also be used to create something with a purpose. The role of the artist will always be to instill that purpose into the thing that's being created - the "intent", or the "soul", something that a machine still cannot do. At the turn of the year, thoughts inevitably return to past accomplishments - or lacks thereof. When it comes to evaluating "artistic productiveness", it is always difficult to judge what can be deemed as suitable progress. Certainly the field of visual arts was shaken by the introduction of AI arts - well, its emergence wasn't entirely novel, as I (and many others) had been using AI-experimentation for quite some time already. No, it was the speed of progress, the appearance of more intricate and accurate models that shook the artistic world. When before the models were quite crude in their approximation of the human form, now, even lacking a base image input they can produce uncannily accurate depictions, oftentimes surprassing real-life artists. That's not to say that these AI models are perfect, of course, as more often than not they still introduce unnatural distortions and artifacts that normally have no place in a - supposedly - realistic image. Nevertheless, the models keep improving, and traditional artists continue growing increasingly more alarmed of this progress.
Such concern is understandable, if one has spent their lifetime honing the skill, and suddenly some cold machine comes out of nowhere and conjures breathtaking artistry in seconds. Yet I differ in my view from the traditional artists when it comes to this topic. In my mind, the most important trait of the Big Five for an artist is the trait openness, and this should include openness to change, particularly the changing landscape of tools. In other words, I see the AI "aid" as an intriquing new tool to experiment with, especially with its numerous differing models and their combinations thereof, both of the models themselves, and in conjunction with existing artistic pieces. The possibilities are, as they say, endless, and it is up to the artist to experiment and value the products of this new phenomenon, and create something new that - hopefully - ends up representing their intented vision. For, after all, what is an artist without a vision - no artist at all, and thus, since AI itself lacks the Soul & Spark needed to instill meaning into the works it conjures, it will still be up to the artist to breathe in that Spark, such that the "seemingly soulless" AI creations will end up emerging as something unique, with some purpose or meaning - beyond the simple aesthetic pleasantry. *** Now, as the AI arts' "fifteen minutes of fame" phenomenon is slowly dying out, it will be interesting to see what will follow. Will it be as with the invention of a camera, when artists feared being out of work? I think the future will look like something akin. There will be not much need for "quick and easy" art, as it will be done by the AI. However, portrait painters still exist, albeit in a novel form - and why is that? It is because the camera fails at the same job the AI fails - that is, it being an entity entirely existing in the Objective realm, it cannot capture the subjectivity of human experience. As a portrait painter brings his lenses (lived experience, skill, signature, etc - the entirety of their "personhood") onto the frame, so will the artist in a more broader sense bring his or hers personhood to any art piece. The camera captures reality "as is", without a will on its own, its lenses cold and devoid of emotion (other than what the human editor contributes in choosing the settings), and so, too, will the AI image creator create the image without a will, soul, or intention, and these aspects can only the human "editor" instill with their editing and choice of models & combinations. So, in essence, the AI-artist is akin to a photographer, using a device from the objective world to "capture" something without a pre-existing will, but as the editor-artist tinkers with the product, the end result will be a combination of both these Subjective-Objective endeavours, thus retaining the original intention needed, such that the resulting piece, can, in the end, be called true art. Well, at least that's my view on the subject, as I continue to tinker with these AI experiments. -For Sophia. In an earlier post titled Mirrors of the Psyche I touched upon my newly-formed concepts of Authenticity, Accuracy, and Originality. I then wrote some rambling thoughts as to how they might correlate with each other, and how the messy business of AI alteration fits into the picture. Now with the recent explosion of interest into AI arts - with the emergence of projects like Dall-E and Midjourney - I thought of revisiting this topic, and going over the relationship what an artist might have towards these new inventions.
First, it might be pertinent to write a few words concerning this new feature, Text-2-image, which allows AI to conjure forth new images simply from text prompts. In short: type a word or a sentence for the AI to process, perhaps put in some parameters such as "beautiful" or "award-winning" (couldn't help but laugh at that one when I saw it recommended), and lo-and-behold, you get an intricate representation of human-like art, albeit often in a weirdly distorted form. With multiple attempts and tweakings of parameters one can, nevertheless, create very impressive images that seemingly reach the level of master painters. Even more, by adding something like "Van Gogh", the AI can mimic the aforementioned artist and twist its digital brush to resemble his style. A mockery of man's capabilities, or a new dawn for the world of arts as a whole? Or perhaps neither, but a flash-in-a-pan style of spike in interest, something that will soon fade like fifteen minutes of fame. Only time will tell. In any case, this was not the point of this post, as the whole "seemingly radical" new phenomenon is not much of interest to my own project, for I consider these "text-2-images" prompts like fast food of the art-world. It allows for creation of images in an instant, without effort, similarly as if one was to take a job at McDonalds and subsequently claim himself as a master chef. In the creation of (purely) AI generated art, there is no human intention or direction beyond the command one gives for the algorithm to work its magic. Like man shouting for a dog to fetch its stick, the dog obeys, and brings the stick obediently upon the throw. The man can then smile and say "see how well the dog brings the stick", but no effort has the man made to better himself, or made any attempt at conveying any deeper meaning concerning the human condition, as he has merely subjugated this task for someone else. Anyway, I digress, as I tend to do, for AI alteration is not entirely without its merits. It can work as a valuable creative tool when used correctly - well, at least this is my subjective opinion. I have explained reasons for this in previous posts, so no need to repeat all that. What's interesting, now, is that I've noticed when "text-2-image" is used in conjunction with pre-existing images, it allows subtle "enhancement" of the image, not altering it 'too much', but such that the objective quality of it heightens. This, I think, also enhances the "accuracy" part of the trinity of "Authenticity, Accuracy, Originality" - without sacrificing either of the two remaining aspects. Furthermore, these Text-2-image alterations are quite finicky, and often result in worthless failed experiments, and so, it isn't such that there's absolutely no skill required in its use... perhaps yielding some alleviation in assenssing as to how lazy one is in his art-exploration path. * * * Going further with the "Authenticity, Accuracy, Originality" -issue, it can be said that, with enough AI-alteration and skillful editing, the "Accuracy" part can be honed to near perfection, as evident by the beginning example of this post. Of course this is just my own opinion, but I think that "maximum accuracy" for this particular art piece has been reached with this newest iteration. This boost in accuracy mainly concerns the Objective-side (again see my earlier post about subjective-objective divide about art-exploration), but the Subjective side can also later be perfected in editing, giving it the necessary artistical (human) intent. With this, I think one can get as close as possible in honing both sides of the Accuracy -issue without spending one's whole lifetime in mastering the world of visual arts, and doing everything the old-fashioned way. Side-note: and even if spending one's full lifetime in practising, it could very well be that necessary Accuracy still remains unreachable, depending on one's mental and physical predisposition. How does this Text-2-Image experimentation relate to other parts of the trinity then? Well, it obviously does not affect Originality much, if the source image remains the same - that is, if it's taken from somewhere else than the artist's own collection. It does alter the characters or actors - if there are any in the image - and so it might give some room to argue in a court, but that's about it. What of Authenticity? That's a bit harder to assess, but for what I can tell, the original images and edits were "intentioned" with enough Authenticity in mind already - and if one uses just "Text-2-Image" without any initial image, then naturally there's zero authenticity or originality involved. In conclusion, I can say that if "Text-2-image" is used solely by itself, it can serve as a quick but soulless fast-food dispenser of pleasant imagenary, but if used in conjunction - as an additional tool - with pre-existing pieces that are "good" but nevertheless lacking final touches, it can be an interesting feature that yields much-needed aid. Indeed, like a welcome new tool to a toolbox, something for fine work, it can enhance Accuracy of an art-piece, bringing it closer to perfection. After all, any aid is permitted when so much is at stake. For Sophia. This was to be a continuation for the earlier post On Subjective Resonance & Artistic Isolation, but something else came to mind while rewatching John Vervaeke's Awakening from the Meaning Crisis -series. In the episode forty-eight he explores the infinitely "both receding and shining qualities of saliency landscape", which is a complex and lengthy topic to explain, but in short, he details the infinite nature of reality, where things are "inexhaustible" (versus something like a VR simulation, where, no matter how immersive, the 'unreal' nature of it becomes apparent when the player has exhausted all its features/possibilities). This, according to Vervaeke, is one of the hallmarks of "reality", or more precisely, one of the main qualities of what makes something "real" - our reality being of prime example.
In the same episode he also discusses how the imaginal acts as a mediator between the material world and the potential of aforementioned inexhaustability. Even if the potential of the real is infinite, only a set amount of things get actualized, and for our mortal, mundane world, only a finite amount of possibilities can ever get realized. Thus, it becomes of paramount importance to hone our relevance realization to perfection, such that we do not waste our time on trivialities, and that "truly relevant" things shine forth for us in our salience landscapes. All this is well and good, but certain things began vaguely harassing me as I was pondering on these concepts. First, the purpose (or intention, which I already touched on in "On Authenticity, I: The Intent"), for, as is apparent from Vervaeke's series' name of Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, his intention with this project is to explore the contemporary meaning crisis and potentials for its solution, approaching from the perspective of cognitive science. I cannot know from where he got his calling for this path, but I suppose it must've been a calling of some sorts, since great thinkers rarely end up as they are by "accident". Perhaps exploring the ultimate motivator behind the purpose, calling, or intention - whatever one wants to call it - was outside of his series' scope. Perhaps he expands on it in some other video, or perhaps I was just too unfocused and simple-minded to grasp it. Nevertheless, it is this hidden intent that operates the "shining forth" of concepts and ideas that was left vague for me (from the series). By now, it should be clear to everyone following this rambly blog that I've taken on calling this force Sophia, already years prior, for reasons I've explained plenty elsewhere. To me, it is no longer a question of finding the exact "reason" or explanation for why my particular salience landscape works as it does. It is the workings of Sophia, and I've learned to be content at that. Or have I? I cannot say for certain. The fact is, nevertheless, that these days it is rather the technical and metaphysical limitations of mediation (actualization of the imaginal) that are the main concern, and the ensuing frustration upon understanding that full potential of Sophia's guidance concerning my salience landscape may never be reached. The second concern I've had with the series is to do with the actual topic of this post - that of limitation within perspectival knowledge. Now, I only have my intuition guiding by stating this (although this intuition is steered by Sophia, as aforementioned, so I've learned to put a significant amount of trust on it), but I suspect that Vervaeke's "faith" on perspectival understanding of someone - or something's - point of view might be over-reaching. Sure, I have experienced deep insights and truly felt like "seeing the world Spinozistically" - as he puts it; just in my case, "Ligottianly", upon reading (and truly understanding [grasping in Vervaeke's terminology]) his stories and the nonfiction work The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Nevertheless of this deep perspectival understanding, I would argue I cannot ever truly "see" the world like Ligotti - only through Ligottian lenses. This is where I think I ultimately disagree with Vervaeke (though only slightly, since I agree on the general power of perspectival understanding). That much I already explained in the previous post. It becomes highly relevant though when combined with a later episode where he talks about this style of understanding concerning Heidegger and Corbin's theories. More precisely, if we apply this mechanism of being able to empathize with something (not just someone) well enough - in this case, Being itself (which could be seen as analoguous to the Self, or God) - we might reach such grand perspectival understanding with this Being/Self/God, that it might start an upward spiral into Agape - a union with God, as the religious types would say. The Perfect mode of existence, the ultimate mode of Being. This is exactly what some mystics claim to have achieved. But it is exactly what I intuit not being possible due to our mortal limitations. There can be no perfect understanding or union, since both our minds and our bodies are fallible. In the case of arts, the skill is always lacking, the technique always sub-par, and even if by some miracle these aspects were perfect, it would still fall on deaf ears. Perhaps purely within their minds some mystics truly have reached such states of perfection - but at the same time they necessarily cut connections with the mortal realm, since such experience can never be perspectivally understood by another person, even if mediated seemingly perfectly (by arts, writing, speech, etc), due to the aforementioned limitations, and because this experience is so completely unique to the individual. Thus, any attempt at doing so is ultimately a foolish one, and only deep isolation within one's "personal revelation" remains. I claim to be no such great mystic, but I've seen enough to understand the tradegy of being unable to mediate these things to any sufficient degree - and being blessed with just enough intelligence to understand the ultimate futility of it. I have purposefully avoided much of the academic research into arts for the purposes of personal uncovering and subsequent deeper understanding. This approach was largely the same I took with philosophy, although as I later learned, at some point a wall rises in the solitary introspection of any given subject, and one must turn attention to the world to see what others have learned and then left, as texts and manuscripts, in their wake. As expected, this way of investigating is much more difficult and time consuming, but the plus side is that learning of complex topics - such as philosophy or depth psychology - is easier when having to come to some personal understanding of it beforehand. In philosophy, for example, more than once I've come across some term that felt impenetrable at first, but transformed into triviality once I figured out that it was something I'd already thought about on my own, and the author simply chose to invent a new word for it.
Within philosophy and psychology, the step into more academic research isn't as foreboding as with arts - for, after all, there's agreed upon "categories of understanding" and a whole history of thinkers to learn from, and whether their methods or conclusions have been "objectively correct", it is not that much of an issue, since one can always take something that works, and leave the rest, or at least put in hold, without it affecting one's overall view of the world too much. Naturally, there are exceptions, authors whose works can be truly life-changing after truly understanding them, authors who blend genres between art, philosophy and psychology (Thomas Ligotti), but as aforementioned, I had largely done my thinking in solitude prior to venturing into these worlds, and thus my grounding was already relatively fixed - solid but flexible enough to not disregard any possible points of interest. Why is it different with the tenuous world of arts then? Simply because the academic research has the possibility of poisoning both "the method" and the "inner work". I was once asked had I not read this or that author's opinions on the subject I was writing of - and fair enough, a lack of academic knowledge may force one to reinvent the wheel... sometimes incorrectly so. However, this is precisely the issue I wanted to avoid - for had I read the particular author prior to my personal investigation, I may've later turned on this author for explanation of said issue, and forevermore disregarded the whole question altogether, considering it "solved" by this author who had conveniently provided the answer for me. Now, as I'm forced to work through it, I have to think and re-think my position through these blog-posts (rambly as they may be) in addition to personal offline writing. Now then, when I eventually, perhaps inevitably, stumble upon this author in question, I have a working theory on my mind that of which I'm relatively comfortable about, and so the fear of taking the author's words "for granted" is lessened. One can never fully alleviate this issue of "parasitical thought influence", but the resilience against it is strenghtened by one's own better understanding of his own position, and so... well, hopefully an overall better understanding of the thing has been achieved and possible mal-adaptive future path avoided. One such large question, that this whole preamble was aimed for, is the one posed in the caption-text: what is the purpose of art (or, as I think of it, The "Why" of Art)? For me the answer has been clear; an authentic representation of unconscious or collective unconscious forces (as far as the author can "see" into them) for the sake of Sophia. I still hold this position as a deep subjective truth - ie. this is what art means for me. Others may view artistic endeavours as a simple political tool, or as a device for reverse empathy (that may or may not have anything to do with the grander unconscious forces). Or it may be sublimative art therapy, used in specific settings for specific purposes. Or it may be something else, a multitude of interpretations and methods that I'm sure myriad authors have expressed in their writings, authors that I'm currently unaware of due to my lack of academic understanding. All I know is that now might be the correct time for venturing outside of isolative exploration, into a more academic, standardised research of the grand topic of Arts; sole purpose being the possibility of it leading into better, more accurate representations of forces of the unconscious. For Sophia. In this post I thought further elaborating on the subjective/objective divide in art, more specifically, the intentionality of each side. Of the subjective, it is becoming increasingly clear that by creating stories and artwork, the unconscious is being actualized and formalized from the abstract mental phenomena into the objective side, to be again examined and reflected back for the artist - hence the term "Mirrors for the Psyche". These mirrors, after being actualized, can then be be pondered of their meaning and to be hypothetized as to why they take the form they do. This elusive intentionality was first discussed in On Authenticity, I: The Intent post, where I mused on the seemingly random nature of the abstract artworks, as they, despite their erratic nature, seemed to contain some kind of hidden - and very exact - intentionality.
Since then, after moving further with art-experimentation, I've partially figured out this intentionality, the above image being the first noticeably successful attempt in helping to understand this process. That picture, as such, most likely speaks nothing to any other outside observer - perhaps it produces mild subjective resonance, perhaps not - I could spend pages explaining the connections of the mental framework in a propositional manner... but, since the full perspectival understanding is impossible as already explained, it would be a waste of time. So, in short, let's just say that with this image, two key components happened to align, namely; 1. The reason for why AI enhancing seems to work well, mostly as the background. 2. The reason why this particular female image is so subjectively resonant. Of the first (AI alteration) I could say that - for this specific image - it aids producing a chaotic forest-like ambience that aligns well with many of the stories. This is particularly evident when mirroring with "Gloom in the Mortuary of Melancholy", in which deep, confusing woods play a major role. These woods then have their own corresponding meaning within the unconscious, something that's too long to go into here - nevertheless, the effect I've noticed AI alteration to do, is to add the necessary chaotic and unplanned effect for the image, something that one fully cannot represent otherwise. It is the cold, Lovecraftian force of the universe that I feel like being a crucial part in this whole art project, in other words. There is much more to be said of AI alteration, particularly of different blending images and algorithms, but since much of that is still to be explored, I shall leave it for later. Of the second (The female character/image), the reason is two-fold: on one hand this character is obviously an anima-representation, something that the unconscious very clearly affiliated itself and resonated with, such that it insisted to be actualized in a multitude of differing forms (both in stories and in artwork) - this much should be evident by this blog itself, since so much of it is discussing about the difficulties of accurately representing this figure. So far, the best - or purest - attempts are these latest ones, which are made using the "less original, more accurate" -method. With this most recent image though comes the second aspect, and following realization; that by slightly altering the original image (from which it is created), the result can steer into a specific representation of the anima... and sometimes even coalescending into two archetypal representations as one - here, both as Sophia - the young anima image - and the divine child of "Gloom in the Mortuary of Melancholy". With the child-like appearance of the character (but one which is also distinctly feminine), it was quite a realization to understand that some very specific images, with practise and experimentation, can "distill" into something more potent than a singular representation of an unconscious force. If this distillation is taken even further, hypothetically many iterations over, it may end up as something like a holy symbol, such as the Christian cross - and this, indeed, is powerful... powerful enough to potentially deeply resonate with a large number of outside observers. If the artist was capable of its creation, of course. Most likely the creation of such powerful images would require tapping into the collective unconscious, thus moving away from the personal, and so, for me, it will most likely be such that my art will remain obscure, the dividing chasm of subject/object understanding unbridged. Addendum: While writing this I realized that I didn't even get to the objective intentionality. Perhaps there's no need to say of anything that, after all, since I'm only interested in what subjective insights these "mirrors of the psyche" will bring to me, and at least for now I'm largely uncaring whether or not they produce any effect in outside observers. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. It's all so tiresomely subjective that it's pointless to ponder. Perhaps in time I will get an answer, but for now I will continue this experimentation in solitude. For Sophia. Subjective resonance occurs when a particular piece of art or song resonates greatly in accordance to one's perspectival understanding. This phenomenon, in its truest form, is exceedingly rare, but its lesser versions are universally experienced by everyone at some point in life. The factors leading up to resonance - perfect or otherwise - are complex, and almost entirely up to the subject's own frame. In short, the reasons for something feeling like it (the art in question) is speaking to me are as complex as people themselves.
There are a few key components to this resonance that can be discussed, however. Most prominently; nostalgia, personal temperament and cultural affect. Of these, I would argue, nostalgia is both the most prominent and best understood by general populace. It is also something that doesn't have much at all to do with a song or art-piece's actual depth or quality. To the contrary, in fact, as the more widespread something is (the larger an audience it can reach), the less complexity it tends to have, and baser the instincts it tends to target. Leaving that aside for now, the point of this post was to explore how subjective resonance between an observer <-> art piece, or between two observers of a singular art-piece (observer 1, <-> art-piece <-> observer 2) functions, and how the artist, the creator, when attempting to convey his or hers "inner world experience" is irrevocably distanced from the audience. We can begin with a simple example of music, where a group of people are listening to a particular piece. In this party - lets say of five - someone chooses an old song that someone else recognizes; perhaps they have shared similar thoughts and feelings when listening this song back in the day, decades ago, and by communicating these memories they notice they have a shared degree of subjective resonance with the song - and now, thanks to this new experience, each other. This brief moment of subjective resonance is one of the most widespread utilizing nostalgia, as many pop-songs tend to be tied to certain eras and periods of peoples' lives, and so, it is no wonder they can form these kinds of bonds, and are easy to resonate with, thus producing easy topics for conversation. All goes well as long as the people share a degree of similarity in temperamentality and overall psychological make-up, along with cultural background. No resonance can be achieved if the person choosing the song is not "fitted" to this social environment with his song-choice - in other words, if the song is too esoteric for others to recognize, or the person too obtuse in his demeanor of self-presentation. Proceeding with this simple example to a more complex one, let us consider a work of literature or visual art. For this one I'm writing through personal lenses, since I cannot probe into others' motivations in creating highly abstract arts. For me the reasons are twofold: 1. Authentic expression of the unconscious forces, and; 2. Creation of mirrors for the psyche. For the first I could say that the attempts at both literature and visual arts are simply a journalist reporting of mental phenomena and picturing said phenomena. Unfortunately one cannot simply bring a camera into the unconscious and take pictures, and so, it must be mediated through imperfect skills, and some (a lot) of information & accuracy is lost in the process. Now, granting for the sake of argument to the artist that his intentions are genuine, his efforts nevertheless are largely in vain due to aforementioned imperfections in technical skill. Even more alarmingly, even if the artist was to reach literal perfection in capturing these unconscious currents, no other observer can ever fully subjectively resonate with it due to the inherently impassable subject/object divide. They can empathize, subjectively resonate with a great amount of perspectival understanding, but they will never be able to truly see (for the lack of a better word) through the artist's eyes, of what he actually experienced and wanted to convey. Overall, there are so many obscuring filters in the way of art-mediation; the artist's imperfections, the audience's imperfections, the great chasm that divides us all - the subject and the outside world - and so, even the genius artists will always remain misunderstood and ultimately "unreachable". This is not the artist's, nor the audience's fault. It is simply the innate nature of things. This truth, I have realized, is one of the aspects of The Essence of Isolation. The imperfect version of this truth I already mediated - entirely unconsciously - in the early story of "Crawzinscky's Theory of Isolation" back in 2018, when being at the nadir of Dark night of the Soul, in the depths of shadow-work. I will perhaps expand on the other aspects of this truth in the future - or maybe explain this one in greater detail... but I think this shall suffice for now. For Sophia. |
A.K
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