.____Nature/.____Growth

 

 

One of our practices in this first unit of the MA was to create a performance through collaboration. We were divided into groups with an abstract mutual theme that we made up together, just to have one name of the performance. Each group could added to this name, it would be like : dots, lines and…something. Dots and Lines was an allegory.

 

 

 

The groups that shown this allegory in different perspective were:

• Invisible/ structure lines: what are physical and non physical connections, what lines make our visual perception, what invisible lines are between people, family etc

• Nature/ growth lines: what are the lines of nature, how can we explore them, how things change through development/ growing/ evolution…

• History/ memory lines: what is a timeline, how are memory plus with it, how our life lines change through memory…

• Cosmos/ predestination: lines of future, faith, connection with a bigger reality (space)…

• Human connections: identity through lines. What makes us be us, what take with us through different periods of time…

 

My group was the .___ Nature/.___Growth.

 

 

The main aim of the group was to create and re-create an environment , a ‘natural’ environment from our own perspective and experience exposing questions such as what lines are organic and what are human made? Are we still able to distinguish between controlled versus untouched environment? How does your need to manipulate, define and re-purpose nature affect how we perceive it?

‘We all like to think we appreciate the beauty of nature. But to really know it and appreciate it, we need to keep in perspective a critical understanding of what may be termed the human fixation. This is the modern mindset of constantly putting our human-oriented concerns, desires and schemes first.

We want to acquire or grab material things and experiences to maximize short-term comfort and gratification. Nature becomes invisible or abstract. Why? We are besieged by man-made vibrations, toxic drugs, impure food and water, and poor air. So we’re being deviated subtly from even wanting nature, and are programmed for just more corporate advertised products. We are left with trying to buy happiness, without realizing or caring that this tragically and dangerously consumes nature. In contrast, when we spend time in nature, this brings happiness, and many of our human fixations subside.

Modern humans revolve each day around technological tasks in our artificial environments. We go about our ambitious days filled with errands, spending most of our days on questionable work, obsessed with the urge to possess an attractive human (for an hour or a lifetime). Is a beautiful human body a human fixation for someone else, or the beauty of nature? We easily forget that the entire basis of our lives is the whole natural universe. We fail to enjoy the amazing sights, sounds and smells of non-human nature that are still around us. At indoor work places there are coffee breaks but not nature breaks. Some of us are so oblivious that we fixate on seeking a disproportionate amount of money and property by developing nature out of existence.

… the entire basis of our lives is the whole natural universe…’

 

 

According to this notion the first idea was to create a dark room-path in which the visitors would be able to use their senses in order to feel and remember the beauty of the natural environment. However due to some safety restrictions the idea changed and we decided to create three exhibition spaces.

 

• The green dot in the floor plan, refers to the natural pure environment and the essence of the forest in the night, where sometimes the shadows can create interesting visual illusions.

• The blue dot refers to the live art exhibition. The live art exhibition had to do with demonstrating the idea of how the human being can transform and re-create the natural elements into an artistic form, into a variety of structures, into a ‘living’ abstract painting.

• The red dot refers to a museum type exhibition. This area exposes the results of the growth and the human’s intervention.

 

 

The following images present the development of this idea: