Reclaiming Hyperreality, our life in art.

I want to reclaim the hyperreal. 

Hyperreality is an inability to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Hyperreality can be described as enhanced reality. Some people become more engaged with the hyperreal world than with the real world.
Hyperreality is thought to be a consequence of the age that we live in.

Hyperrealism is a postmodern philosophy that deals in part with semiotics, or the study of the signs that surround us in everyday life and what they actually mean. For example, a king may wear a crown that symbolizes his title and power. The crown itself is meaningless, but it has come to take on the meaning that society has given it. The reality of the crown and the hyperreality of what it stands for are interwoven. *

These definitions of hyperreality are inadequate, because the philosophers who came up with these ideas are refusing to recognize the role of imagination within "hyperreality". Artists live in hyperreality, because they are creating as well as actively choosing which symbols they will live by. Hyperreality is always given negative connotations- but the negative connotations exist as long as the population at large live under symbols of other people's choosing.

One could argue that it is imagination that separates humans from animals, that is how intrinsic imagination is to humanity as a whole. Our ability to create a vision in our minds is what enables us to control and change reality as it is, instead of merely living at nature's mercy. Imagination is what fuels architects, artists, mathematicians, scientists, religious leaders, and politicians, because they envision a world that they can possibly create, or control. Of course this can occasionally have negative connotations, people might say that Hitler was an artist who had a vision. But the truth is that people are allowed to be idealists, people are allowed to dream. It only gets dangerous when so many people share the same dream, because then they are only creating and recognizing one reality, one Truth- instead of living out multiple dreams, multiple realities and ultimately, multiple truths. I argue that the universe is created to show potentiality, and that there should be as many dreams as possibility will permit, otherwise one Truth becomes Dogma, and dogmas become constricting laws which stop us from living out our full potential as individuals and as a society at large, making us no different from mere animals.

It is far more dangerous for us to live without a vision, because whether we like it or not, we will inadvertently fall prey to other people's visions. Here is a quote from an article on hyperreality that summarizes this point, "Every time we enter a large shopping area with a certain theme, we are entering a hyperreal world. Theme parks such as Disney World, or the casinos in Las Vegas are hyperrealities in which the public can get lost for as long as their money holds out. Hyperreality no longer exists just in our heads; it is being force-fed to us nearly every time we leave our homes." Yes, other people's imagination is force-fed to us, until we fully develop our own imagination, just like children who need their parents to tell them what certain things mean. After a certain age we won't need other people to guide us. If we cultivate our own imagination then we won't be interested in what other people's imagination has to offer us.

Hyperreality is not some thing that we just happen to live in, it's a lifestyle choice. We can choose to go to Disney World, we can choose to go to the mall, or we can choose to create fucking fantastic art and do whatever the hell we want [within reason], [although reason might also be some sort of dogma]. All that this requires is imagination coupled with action- that is the only difference between "Artists" and "Other People".

"Artists" create the reality that they live in, while "Other People" live in a reality created for them by someone else. More people need to actively engage in making their own myths and theories and art. Since we live within a world of symbols, we can change the symbols to our own liking. It all depends on how great a person's imagination and passion are to drive them towards their vision or great work. If a person has little ability to cultivate imagination, then it is likely that they will play a minor role in someone else's simulated reality.  That's okay, sometimes we can be part of a dream that's bigger than ourselves, but that's besides the point. The point is that hyperreality is not negative, it is a power that when harnessed gives us the ability to transform mundane reality.

One example is the artist Roger Dean who created the album artwork for many bands during the 1970s. Here is a piece of his art.

Here is the home he created.

What would the world be like if everyone became truly visionary? And what is stopping us from creating a reality that we want to live in?

Jean Baudrillard suggests "that the world we live in has been replaced by a copy world, where we seek simulated stimuli and nothing more." That might be a reality for some people, but I think that it should be a wake up call. Let's create a synthesis where we work together as artists to create the reality that we want.

*http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hyperreality.htm

Love, Alchemy and Transformation

We've all seen it in the movies, Love enabling a wounded warrior to fight for his beloved. Sometimes the protagonist fights against fantastic creatures, sometimes he fights against wicked witches, and yet other times he fights against typical bad guys, bullies who want to take everything away from him. The reality of love is that it allows for us to deal with the bad, it enables us to look past flaws that could easily transform a beautiful woman into a hag, and to remain steadfast in our dedication. Love enables us to grow and change. When someone truly loves another person they want to actively change themselves- to ultimately become a better person. Love is hope, and love is endurance. Love is dealing with the hag, melting away her cold artifice and wicked guile, until the woman within has been completely liberated from the illusory world of emotions and again made real. It is the caress and the kind ear that liberate the man who cannot express his emotions. Patience is another attribute of Love.

It is necessary to understand what Love truly is before understanding what it is not. Love is one of the ultimate keys to transformation and enlightenment. By creating a bond with another person, we should, ideally be creating a bond to constant growth. The sad fact is that love is commonly misunderstood, and instead of creating a life together based on these higher ideals, people pervert and destroy all the love and hope that they could create. It is hard, because not many people want to constantly look within all the time, be reminded of and realize their own faults, or grow- change can be difficult and frightening- we get used to thinking of ourselves a certain way. As part of the vision of Monad Photography, I am a proponent of always striving to see oneself in a new light, a manifesto that helps one to break cyclical thoughts or behavior, and to strive towards new experience.

Recently I have seen the demise of relationships that had lasted more than twenty years. At first it was a shock, but then I thought about all of the things that I had noticed over the years, and that was what initially spurned my urge to write about the subject of Love. Do I feel hokey writing about it? A little. Do I realize the necessity to address this subject? Absolutely. Especially because people tend to repeat the same patterns over and over again, until they learn their lessons, a concept commonly referred to as "eternal return" or "eternal recurrence". How would you like to repeat the same scenes over and over again for all eternity? The truth is, whether we like it or not, we do. Sometimes we have such a strong unconscious tug to live out a certain question, that we end up focusing on one small element in our past, these actions could be in relation to choosing a partner to work out problems we haven't solved since childhood. Sometimes this means being in an abusive relationship, or a codependent relationship. I have often seen this occur with drastic, and unhealthy results. If people have committed to each other but don't pay attention to the inner alchemy going on, or the reasons why they are together, then they are simply just reliving the trauma they experienced in the first place. Part of the reason that I am writing this article is because I want to see other people transcend their trauma instead of being mired in it. The first step in avoiding trauma and experiencing Love is to become your own witness and to actively pay attention to the decisions you make.

Often in relationships people will unthinkingly do things that hurt the other person in an arbitrary fashion. This is one of the first obstacles to actual Love, especially if they are just repeating the habits shown to them by their parents. It is unfortunate that many people never think to try new concepts, and inadvertently limit themselves, but that is also a result of our society, because our society tells people that if "somebody doesn't love them just the way they are" then that somebody should be kicked to the curb. We are not supposed to stay "just the way we are" for all eternity! We are supposed to grow, we are supposed to change. Love is certainly about a degree of acceptance, but most of that applies to self-acceptance and self-love. If we don't love ourselves, how can we expect someone else to love us? Self-love also allows us to be self-critical of our own actions and ideas. If we cannot see the truth behind what others say, whether in the relationship or elsewhere, then we cannot grow. By accepting criticism, we start our path towards Truth, as well as Love. 

Sometimes when experiencing difficulty in my own relationship, I would have dreams that my partner would be with an alternate version of myself- a more actualized, healthier, and more talented me, or in other words, my higher self. This was during a long period of unemployment, which is always stressful and depressing. The dream was my way of understanding that although my partner loved me for who I was, that I would still have to go through quite a few more transformations and take more steps towards my goals in order to continue on this path. This was hard for me to realize because even though I was stressed, I had also begun to adopt self-limiting behavior as a defense mechanism, and I was beginning to get too comfortable with being miserable. By eventually becoming critical of my own situation, and spurred to action by my dream, I was able to transcend that lower aspect of myself- even though it was very hard to do. Love is not two people who stay together even though they are miserable. Love is all about alchemy as well as inward and outward transformation. Love is about being with someone who will challenge you to grow with them, otherwise someone might get lost along the way. Love is also the patience our partner bestows on us when we are going through our inner alchemy, as we do need to occasionally rest along the path and allow these changes to occur.

In the beginning paragraph, I said that "Love [is] enabling a wounded warrior to fight for his beloved. Sometimes the protagonist fights against fantastic creatures, sometimes he fights against wicked witches, and yet other times he fights against typical bad guys, bullies who want to take everything away from him." In essence we are the hero, and we are the beloved, and we are the monsters that we have to fight. Love is simply having a companion on that journey. We don't need to be in relationships where we have to be the "hero" or the "princess" or even the "monster", because all of those things are really just inside of us. One dimensional roles are passe.  There are many layers in love, but one of the most profound layers exists where there are no masks, and roles are not designated willy-nilly. I'm tired of the blame game, I'm tired of false epithets that accompany false prophets of "love". Love occasionally is a battlefield, but usually when we need to fight against ourselves, and our own preconceived notions. 

Dissecting the Hag

How would one describe the Hag? The Hag is an archetype we are all familiar with, the overbearing mother, the frightful wench, the over-emotional PMS-ridden woman who is incapable of rationality, and a Succubus who castrates a man of any and all desire. Personified, the Hag is Judith who chopped off Holofernes head, Medusa the woman whom no man could look at without turning to stone, and the stepmother from Snow White who persecutes her own stepdaughter because she is so consumed with her own need to be loved. Below I have posted a picture of Judith beheading Holofernes.

One might ask why the Hag archetype is something most commonly attributed to women. Some might say that it is a malicious accusation, or a sexist mental preconditioning based on Medieval literature. I argue that men are also capable of this archetype. Men are just as capable of emotion as women, because they are ultimately human. They would be recognized as the overbearing father, the abusive husband, people who refuse to be criticized, thrive off of self-righteousness, and are fundamentally feeling-types*, that are not capable of logic. This might be due to the fact that these people have in fact suffered an injustice, or perhaps multiple injustices, which would make sense since their emotional function is in auxiliary mode.  In this essay I would like to address the women's role within the sphere of the Hag, since I am a woman, and I am familiar with this role in relation to myself.

In modern day culture, the Hag is seen as monthly by-product, something that women are incapable of controlling. The truth is that anyone is capable of exuding the Hag characteristics. The Hag creeps up on people who are tired of looking inward, and are tired of self improvement. Self improvement requires a constant awareness and desire to grow, which can be exhausting and results in many ego deaths. Everyone dons the Hag persona a few times during their lifetime. They want to relax, they want to be told that they don't have to grow any more, they want stasis. The reality of the situation is that nothing reaches stasis, everything is always growing and changing, and the world is just one big alchemical oven that takes substances and changes them from one form to another. As we are changing form throughout the continuous cycles of life, it makes sense that we would cling to the archetype of the Hag. Who doesn't occasionally want to feel self-righteous or self-important? The Hag in it's most base form wants to be worshipped, desired and needed. The Hag claims to have reached enlightenment or to be perfect as is. The Hag can hide under the guise of the Succubus, but not for long, because eventually the beautiful mask will be taken off to reveal the monster within.

The truth is that the Hag is just a person who is afraid. Afraid of what they will discover if they look inside or in the mirror, they pretend that the only thing that matters is their relationship with the Other, [the Other being their boyfriend, husband, girlfriend, or child]. The truth is that despite the facade that they create, each person is fundamentally Alone. That means that all relationships are illusory, ultimately they Change. People die, people break up, etc. By pretending that the Other will be with them forever, the Hag attempts to escape reality for what it really is. The Succubus does this by being consumed sexually, the emotional wreck does this by blaming their current exterior situation instead of looking inward to see where the problems truly lie, and the Medusa-esque Hag does this by avoiding the situation altogether and never looking inward- the one time when she does peer into her reflection she dies instantly. The overbearing mother gives so much attention to her children so that she doesn't have to look inside, or deal with her exterior circumstances.

The Hag might not even seem that bad, maybe she wants to bestow so much love that she smothers, instead of scaring all small children in the vicinity, but ultimately she is still a Hag. And the Hag is a powerful archetype to be reckoned with. The Hag can turn a man to stone, she can ruin relationships, destroy friendships, and alienate everyone in her general vicinity. She can also teach people valuable lessons about themselves, or stand up for her rights or the rights of other individuals that have been trampled. Judith seduced and then murdered Holofernes to save her people*, but could there have been other, more valorous ways to achieve a better end?

Judith appears in many relationships, many times when women perceive a threat they go out of their way to seduce someone else, or purposefully cut their boyfriend off at the knees. I often see women strike out against men in relationships because of some perceived wrong that the men might or might not be aware of. Sometimes the women do this through sexuality, sometimes they do this with emotionality. Many women often see men as the perpetrators, and abusers. And many men are, but the truth is that it takes two, and often many women allow for abusive relationships to continue. But the women need to realize why they sought out those relationships in the first place, or perhaps why they've seen a cycle of abusive relationships. By looking within, a woman might be able to transcend the Hag archetype altogether.

If a woman is too transfixed on her children, to the point where she smothers them and they begin to avoid her or harbor bad feelings, shouldn't she stop and consider what might be the source of their vexation. If a woman feels threatened because she is not the most beautiful of them all, should she stop herself before wreaking vengeance on a fellow woman? Should a woman who alienates everyone around her, perhaps stop and think, why are people afraid to make eye contact with me? Fierceness and bravery are definitely positive traits, but sometimes bravery is simple brashness, and fierceness is a defense mechanism that stops other people from getting too close.

The reason why I am writing about this is because I don't think that Medusa, or Snow White's wicked stepmother were really happy people. I think that they were people who wanted to be loved, but didn't know how to. They were so overcome with emotion, that their beauty was distorted, and deformed they were turned into the Hag that people so vehemently hate and fear. For men who are overbearing or abusive, they are just like those women- so afraid that they resort to violence and petty wretchedness. Men who are abusive were usually abused- they are weak and sensitive creatures that through fear destroy what they love. It is a very unfortunate condition, and it is toxic for the Hag and the Other involved in the situation. That is why I think writing about the Hag is so important. We all need to deal with our inner Archetypes. By dealing with, and recognizing our own inner Hag, we give ourselves the power to transcend the Hag altogether. By tempering emotionality with rationality, love for the Other with love for the Self, we enable ourselves to avoid painful and unnecessary situations. The truth is that nobody wants to be the Hag, but in order not to become the Hag we must know ourselves and avoid the temptation to act in a way which truly shows our weakness. We must be strong, even when we are afraid. In the act of pretending to be strong we forget our fear.

As Frank Herbert said so eloquently in his novel Dune,

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."







*"Feeling types" are a category of the Meier-Briggs personality types. Go here http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm for more information.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Beheading_Holofernes