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| The chain of time |
(Work in progress)
The Global Complexity Art system
Seizing the synthesis of
authoritative researches, seen in the historical perspective of the third
millennium the whole humanity has to confront with three interconnected
themes: GLOBALITY-COMPLEXITY-EVOLUTIONARY CREATIVITY. Within
these themes deserves special mention the new concept of "time creativity"
theorized by the Nobel prize for physics Ilya Prigogine: a scientific theory
that drives the new cosmology of universal creativity, stimulating a general
reflection on the dimension of time, which represents, after the conquest of all spaces on
Earth, a "new frontier" yet to be explored. In short this is the
paradigm of propulsion, the common denominator in the creation of the future,
with which interacts the Global Complexity Art in realizing its expressions, including
this text. This artistic approach is based on the neo-humanistic relation between art and science, which follows the way opened by the great german artist Joseph Beuys with his concept of enlarged art.
The Global Vision
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Performance: Shamanic journey trough time
|
Coming to consider the analytic
methodology underlying the Global Vision, since the beginning a primary tool consists
in the Systems Theory, an interpretation of "the world as a system of
interactive systems" evolving over time. This was also the method applied
by the System Dynamics Group from the famous MIT in Boston (USA), who actually
elaborated the above mentioned report. After the inventor of the Systemic, Ludwig
von Bertalanfi, the world's most relevant theoretical and philosopher of the
General Systems Theory is represented by the charismatic figure of Ervin
László. Already a member of the Club of Rome and proponent of the
notorious Report, László founded in his country, at Budapest, the General
Evolution Research Group, which points out the essential link between Systemic
and Evolution. As a matter of fact the systemic interpretation of the world
requires the right tools to define the evolutionary dynamics which systems
manifest in time, therefore the System Theory finds its natural complement
in the latest evolutionary concepts going under the name
"General Evolution". With the crucial conclusion that, similar to how
the Systemic interprets each sector of reality, the General Evolution is
based on the discovery of evolutionary laws manifesting similarity in all
spheres of reality, from the nature of Earth to the nature of the universe, not
less than in social and cultural systems of human history. In this way the
System Theory and the General Evolution, together enact the Global Vision in
viewing the world over space and time.
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The Complex
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Actually there is still an important element to complete the set of parameters sustaining the
Global Vision. The missing point is that evolutionary dynamics are neither linear nor
deterministic, but rather show a character of "creative
complexity" better described by the Science of complexity, in particular by the new theory of time formulated by Ilya Prigogine, who describs evolutionary processes in relation to specifics dynamics of time. First of all
he observes that evolutionary processes manifest themselves objectively by an
increase of complexity, just as the evolutionary level of systems corresponds
to degrees of complexity. For Prigogine the relevant question in this process
is that the evolutionary dynamics are not linear but interrupted by bifurcations with two options: decay or evolution. To be more clear, evolutionary dynamics come to dangerous
points of saturation which offer two opposite ways to be overcome, each with a different
type of complexity: entropy and syntropy. The entropy indicates the decline of a
systems, evident by a state of chaotic complexity inherent to a stadium of confusion
between its components, as characteristic of systems in phase of decay, degrading
toward collapse or death of the conformation; while syntropy
corresponds to the potential capacity of systems to reverse the decline in renewal, the confusion in a new order
of more complexity. The key point is that chaotic instability is suitable for
evolutionary creativity, making it possible to reorganize the contrasting components
in a new coordination by creating a system of higher complexity, a conformation in which the
classical term "union of differences" finds an actual meaning.
According to the new theory of time formulated by Prigogine, the degenerative
phase of systems, the entropy, corresponds to the traditional concept of "devouring
time", while in the creative phase of systems, the "syntropy", shows
a complementary function of time before unknown, the "creative time"
pointed out by Prigogine. This new way of considering time goes to change the traditional continuum space–time
defined by Einstein, opening to the “post-einsteinian” cosmology with important
changes for the future. As the relations between dynamics of time and dynamics
of evolutions touches far reaching arguments, opening also to new interpretations
of ancient concepts of time.
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Entrop & Sintrop
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The mentioned approaches are the main
operational coordinates implied in the Global Vision adopted by the Global
Complexity Art. The image of reality they offer is profoundly altered compared
to the traditional view of the universe, the earth and man himself. They reveal
that growing complexity of chaotic degradation on one side, and development in
organizational complexity on the other, are both dynamics interacting in
evolutionary creation. They show that everything is transformed under the
impact of universal evolutionism and that, trough its indetermination, the
universe of all evolutionary processes has essentially a creative character, an
aspect described by Bergson long ago with his concept of “creative
universe”. One can say that this universal dynamism recalls the statement of
Heraclitus "everything flows", now to be completed with “flows
towards decay or evolution”. In conclusion this dynamic vision of
universal creativity requires, first of all, to recognize a certain continuity
between the creativity of universal nature and the cultural creativity of
humanity; in other words, how through human creativity the universal creativity
drives, with analogues laws, the cultural evolution of mankind. In particular
we must recognize that the socio-cultural evolution on Earth, specifically
during the time of globalization, has all the characteristics of a
fast-approaching bifurcation: the options are either an entropic catastrophe of
incalculable proportions, or the coordination of human creativity leading a
global emancipation towards a planetary system of higher complexity. The same
logic guided also the conclusion of A. King in his book “Questions of survival”
describing the dawn of a “planetary society”, written 20 years after the
notorious rapport, edited with his participation, by the Club of Rome.
In the dramatic terms of contemporary evolution
of the world, we have the key point giving actuality to all evolutionary projects dealing with a
global organisation of mankind, which undoubtedly forms the next historical
step of human evolution. Actually there are important indications, on high
financial and political level, calling for a “new world order”, while others,
like Ervin László and the Club
of Budapest, try to spread the idea of a "global shift" towards a new
culture based on planetary consciousness. Considering the leading trend of
contemporary history, there are also good reasons for concern, since the
evolution towards a global system admits potentially different models of a more
or less democratic inclination, which can be condensed in two types. One is the
evolution of world's power structures coordinating into the high complexity
superpower of a Global Empire, fulfilling the "dream of all empires"
of the past. The hypothesis of this new pyramidal hierarchy of a centralizes
global power system, not legally formalized nor geographically localizable,
which delimitates largely national sovereignty and real democracy, has been
well described in “Empire” by Antonio Negri, a well known Italian professor of
political science. The other option consists in the possibility of an
anthropological evolution of humanity interacting with a creative evolution of
global democracy, which finds its highest level trough a generalized culture of
complexity; in a trend comparable to "The first global revolution and the
future of humanity", as entitles a book written by A. King and B.
Schneider, describing the evolutionary process towards the “first planetary
society”. This kind of world project, which represents the higher
complexity level of a socio-cultural democracy on global scale, vaguely defined
as "union of diversity", has one of its most authoritative prophets
in the french sociologist Edgar Morin, who discusses all connected scientific
and anthropologic questions in his books like “Fatherland-Earth”. In “The way.
For the future of humanity” Morin underlines the necessity for a political
development towards global cooperation “in the prospective of a new humanism”,
on global scale of course. In this context should be referred that for
neo-humanistic thought, as for Beuys, any historical prospective leads towards
a Global Humanism; so for the Global Complexity Art. Farther on, speaking about
humanism obliges referring to European cultural history, from ancient Greek with
the invention of democracy and first freethinking philosophers, to Renaissance
humanism, which, with the Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution,
created the bases of Modern World:
the point is that now the new European Union composed of states with different
cultures an languages, once enemies now cooperating, on a longer view, with his
unique cultural background, has the best premises to develop as first model of
a higher complexity system of society called “unity of differences”. However, in conclusion has to be mentioned also a third way, since in a realistic view of the
future exist probabilities for a variable combination of the two hypothesized models
of world systems, where the first option predominates in the short range of
time, while the second option develops to its maturity on the longer term.
Ultimately there remains only to say that in a creative connection to this kind
of historic crossroads the Global Complexity Art has its larger reason of
being.
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Window on the world 3
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The eyes of Janus
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The eye of Janus
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Undoubtedly the Global Vision seems to
incorporate the bi-perspective vision of the ancient god of time Janus, but in
addition it presents the propriety of a temporal compression, in harmony with
the time-space implosion, already defined by McLuhan, due to the rapidity of
global transportation and instant information. Therefore we can talk about a
historical time-compression, as a culturally activated extension of real-time communication,
or a part of the cultural evolution of an "extended present"
advancing with global instant information systems. No doubt we are dealing with
the generalisation of a new level of conscience, but surprisingly similar to an
ancient biblical text: “Thousand years are for you like one day”. In this new
vision of time-compression, just to make an example, the contemporary melting
of glaciers, caused by atmospheric warming connected with industrialisation, appears
to be the last phase of the dissolution of Ice Age which started 10.000
years ago with the rise of present Solar Age. Similarly the contemporary destruction
of the last archaic tribal communities represents the end of the primal social
form of humanity, in force during the Palaeolithic Ice age until the Neolithic
revolution gave rise to city-states, in fact the destruction of tribal
communities began with the grow of historic city-state systems which, by
evolving, gradually came to dominate the entire world, and still continues to eliminate
the remains of archaic cultures near to extinction. In conclusion it is with
the same Global Vision of space-time compression that the Global Complexity Art
composes the dynamic image of contemporary humanity, to paint a virtual fresco
depicting the advent of "global man" and the renewal of his habitat in scale of man and nature.
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-The felt hat-
Performance "The art of seeing the world" |
For the interdisciplinary approach, together with
the Global View on humanity inspiring its creative activity, one can say that the
Global Complexity Art continues the path indicated by the great German
artist Joseph Beuys. “Passing on the torch” was an image he used to refer at. Along
with its charismatic figure of shaman and great teacher, his work of great complexity is considered the highest artistic expression of the second half of twentieth
century, while his teaching continues to be basic to the future of art in the
world. According to Mario B. Montandon "the entire third millennium will
have its roots in the thought of Beuys". In summary the work of Beuys is
based on the interdisciplinary relationship between art and science elaborating
the connection nature-culture; with an approach definable neo-humanistic not
only because it recalls the versatility of the genial artists-scientists of Renaissance
Humanism, but also because it involves equally the varied issue of human
emancipation. "It is important -says Beuys- that humanity emancipates to a new
humanity." Also if the language has changed between old humanism and the neo-humanism
of Beuys, for both the anthropological evolution of humanity is seen in
proportional relationship to the development of human creativity; a creativity not
to be induced but to be "liberated" as a innate and therefore natural
human faculty. "I try to bring to light -he said- the complexity of
creative areas." Therefore Beuys gives great importance to the
relationship art-man, demanding the development of social systems the necessary
cultural space to exercise what is a peculiarity of mankind, his free will, to
which Beuys referrers as a prerequisite to release the innate creative
potential that is rooted in the anthropological identity of every human being.
What is well expressed in his famous motto "every man is an
artist." In logical connection with his evolutionary view of humanity’s
potential creativity, Beuys developed the concept of "extended art",
a generalisation of human creativity, aimed to involve the entire spectrum of
human activity in a evolutionary dynamic that elevates human labour to the
level of art. A comparison could be seen in the relationship between art and
handicrafts in the Middle Ages. For Beuys the new concept of "extended art",
since it involves progressively the whole society, in a historical perspective it
will equally engage a creative evolution in the global conformation of human
habitat, trough which the entire world will turn into a "work of global
ecological art". In this sense Beuys considered each of his works a
conceptual step farther towards the collective “global art work” of the future
world. According to Beuys only in this direction of creative evolution will gradually
fades the contrast culture-nature, the alarming ecological situation build up
by modern industrialisation and associated positivistic frame of science. In
fact the matching of natural creation and cultural creation is a basic pattern
of humanistic thought. The originated can be traced back to the Platonic
concept of nature "as a work of art", quoted also by Lorenzo de
Medici in one of his sonnets, to be considered a basic paradigm for the beauty
of art and architectonic structures in ancient Greek and renaissance, created
to mach the beauty of nature by adopting the “golden proportions” that underlies
natural world: this reflection between natural or divine creativity and human creations
achieved the great harmony between culture and nature in Ancient world as well
in Italian renaissance. In a contemporary view, elaborations of this kind of concepts are sustained by the Science of complexity, trough which the Global Complexity Art gives
particular relevance to evidences of creative continuity between the
natural universe and the artificial world of humanity. For more details I advice to read "The felt
hat" written by Lucrezia De Domizio Durini (Secret Cards Editions
1991).
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The Psiche
(from the video: "Veil-Unveil-Reveil") |
What can be defined as the neo-humanist utopia
of Beuys finds some interesting comparison and anticipation within the
Renaissance humanism. Starting with the enlarged artistic creativity extended in
many different fields, with the creation of an admirable set of works generally considered
an utopian model of the future; where has to be considerate that renaissance imaginary went from the
beginning to the end of history, meaning that the utopia regards a world project. This historical experience
represents exactly what Beuys called "concrete utopia", since it was an
utopian model that in reality created the foundation of modern European
culture, which trough its colonial exportation extended in the evolution of the Modern World. In
addition it is not said that the propulsive energy of Humanism come to an end, considering
that neo-humanistic thought involves many intellectuals and artists who
believe in an humanistic evolution of the future. Similar comparisons apply to the relationship between
creativity and human evolution, considering that for Renaissance humanists the artwork
has the effect to stimulate and cultivate our five senses, raising man
from the gross state to higher levels of refinement. In practice, the senses
are called "gates of the soul" through which the works of art refine and purifie the soul from obsolete remains of animal instincts, raising the
emotional impulses over the sphere of reproduction, trough that the soul enlightens
to universal creativity in the likeness of the Creator. In that sense Renaissance
artists, as universal creators,
were considered closer to the human model defined by the Bible "in the
image and likeness" of the Creator. In fact some great painters of the
time painted themselves in the likeness of the Creator; see Perugino, Dürer,
Leonardo etc. In practice the artist is the anthropological model of humanism. In fact, under the anthropological profile, it is exactly the visual
creation, the imaginative creation of images, to find a specific relevance in humanistic thought, trough the evident connection between human creativity and the capacity to create images, where imagination is the faculty enabling man to create images. The old texts speak about the basic function of the "Imaginatio",
operating through an inner eye similar to the enlightened "third eye" in Hinduism, which in the Western culture
finds analogy with the "Eye of God", equally represented as only one eye, denoting
the Creator, in whose likeness artists create their images. In fact, the
inner eye of imagination, sensitized and cultivated to interact with all senses and therefore defined as "common sense", meaning all senses concentrated in the sense of vision connected with the light of consciousness, that
illuminates the perception of images created out of the invisible reality behind the phenomenological
surface of things: here we have the human creation as intermediary of divine
creation. Not surprising that in all traditional cultures it was with the works of
artistic creativity that people honoured the Creator, which made the ancient relation between art and religion. While the psychological
existence called “soul” is securely in a main consideration of all religions,
not the less the soul is a central reference in the world of art, starting with inner inspiration to conclude with artworks involving our emotions. As the soul is the object of religions defined “way of salvation”, so in
humanistic art the soul is the object to deal with, to awake, cultivate and refine its
emotional pulsation, to “sublimate” our animal instincts said Freud; in other words the artistic input reconditions conditioned reflexes by recoding the lower “appetites” moving the soul, as taught Plato and
Aristotle. Those ancient philosophers wrote important books on this subject, elaborated in humanistic thought, by defining the structure of the soul like a pangenetic memory, we could say a semi conscious
DNA, interacting with the analogous “soul of the world”, another important segment of traditional cultures. One can conclude there
is no anthropological evolution without involvement of the interior world, the
deep going layers of the psychic sphere. No surprise if Joseph Beuys, in his neo-humanistic intends, enacted
particular emphasis on involvements of the soul by interpreting his figure as
artist projected in the image of a Shaman, the prototype of healer in archaic animism to
which the underlying reality is composed by interacting souls; it is also the common
ground from where evolved historic religions, between which Beuys imagined to create interaction of epistemological renewal. With this complex meaning Beuys symbolized
the Shaman with his gilled as “fisher of souls” and his famous “felt hat” as
guiding healer of mankind on the path of evolution.
The Total History
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Hand of fate
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With the complexity of interdisciplinary tools employed
for a larger space-time vision of the world, the Global Complexity Art wants to
stand out from the superficiality of much post-modern aesthetics. To this
purpose goes the attempt to create an artistic imagination of contemporary world
trough a deeper perceptions and a more consistent anthropological profile of
the past, with the objective to guaranty an essential continuity, not only in stylistic
themes, with the history of visual arts applied on global scale. Using the
parameters of Global Vision also in detecting the global history of visual
arts, the Global Complexity Art finds its most suitable ally with the concept
of Total History. This term was coined in the 30s by one of the masters of
historical research, Fernand Braudel, who applied it to his new multidisciplinary
approach to historical research, the Novelle Histoire; while more recently the
concept of Total History has been reformulated in the practice of research by
the Italian archaeologist Emmanuel Anati, who added the connotation of global
space and the totality of human history. Of course, similarly to the global
space, also the approach to global history implies a mental shift. Practically
the research of global history requires a different outlook than used by
traditional history. The first peculiarity of Total History appears in its
little interest on ethnically or historically differences and its causes, to
say emperors, kings, generals, religions and the infinite numbers of connected
battles. Instead the main effort goes to detect common denominators and main
streams of cultural patterns interconnecting events over time and space,
dynamics which underlies the whole of cultures appeared on Earth since the
existence of mankind, connecting beginnings and ends. Well go the words of
Roger Caillois: “Every civilization appears as a part of a totality” because “a
community of destiny embraces the entire humanity”; something that Teilhard de
Chardin called “the great irreversible spiral of Live that rises, from age to
age, following the mainline of evolution”.
Coming to speak about common denominators, by
observing the whole of pre-modern cultures, to say ancient cultures and
“traditional” cultures of our days, a first common pattern appears in the fact
that the ancient and traditional art forms, always and everywhere, represent explicitly
or implicitly the mythological-religious system of the respective ethnic
group. In other words, ahead the
circumstantial motive of representation, the true subject of artistic creation
is always the founding mythological pattern. More in detail has to be
considered, first, that single mythological stories are segments of a whole
which is the respective cosmological concept, the vision of the universe, really
of high complexity and known only by initiated, in respect of which the artistic
representation have to be understood as popular images of divulgation. Secondly,
within the cosmological structures, essentially static, there is a dynamic
component of greatest cultural importance that is the cosmogony, the story about
the creation of the world. Of course, the idea of creation or procreation of
the world implies the divine figure of the Creator, demiurge, great mother
and/or great father, ancestors, hero, etc.. The myth of "creation" or
"birth" of sky and earth, occupies an absolute central position
because it is only trough this pattern that every traditional culture
recognizes its particular significance in terms of ancestry, identity and
relevance in the world. Therefore it should not be surprising that the creative
act which gave birth to the world, the cosmogony, was everywhere reactivated in
the rite of "fertilization-foundation" of any sacred space, as in the
foundation of a city, temples or palaces, as in mere settlements, huts,
etc. Everywhere "human creation mimics the divine Creation,” pointed
out the well-known historian of religions Mircea Eliade. In fact, this
relationship cosmology-company calls the old saying "down as above,"
which is reflected in the analogy between social hierarchies and celestial
hierarchies, not the less than between the connected urban structures and
the “holy mountain” of the planetary system, the reason why many old cities were
called "mirror of the sky ". The same homology between cosmic
creation and human creation is largely covered by the system of diagrams going
under the concept of "Mandala", a pattern that the great Italian
orientalist Giuseppe Tucci called "psycho-cosmogram". The Mandalas
trace the spatial scheme used in above mentioned rites of foundation and following
ground plans. The principle of Mandala,
for Jung related to the “collective unconscious”, has been traced worldwide and
since most ancient times; as in India still now there are governing the
configuration of all traditional arts and buildings. One may consider also that
the Mandala system is part of the ancient and universal conception regarding
the analogical relation between the microcosm of the human body and the macrocosm,
linked to the idea of a living universe, to which goes the specularity between
human soul and the World soul, which is equally underling the Mandala. In this
complex network of interactions is also to be found the logic of analogy
between cosmic creation and human creation, so that Mircea Eliade could write
that in the Ancient World "human art imitates the art of God." This
kind of concepts, which under varies formulations related to different cultures
in different times, originated from archaic animism and terminated as leading
idea only, but specifically, with the evolution of modern science from Galileo Galilei
to Albert Einstein, with the mathematic formulation of a mechanical universe
similar to a “great machine”, actually a “mechanical clock”. But also this
leading configuration of modern science, partially in crises, has in the
science of complexity a potentially different future. It is exactly the new
concept of creation, with the laws of creative evolution discovered to be similar
in natural cosmologic systems as in human cultural systems. In other words, the science of complexity rediscovered
in new terms the ancient continuity between universal creativity of nature and
human creativity, as explains the concept of General Evolution. The same scientific pattern, considered
in terms of art, are projected in the expressions of the Global Complexity Art, along
with its view towards a possible future and the re-evaluation of common denominators
underlying the arts of the past.
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Speaking hands
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Another particular
aspect of Total History is that its investigation reaches back in time long
before the development of "civilization" described by “written
history”, to explore with equal attention the immense time laps of cultural
evolution in territories inhabited by mankind during the First Age. With other
words, the Total History includes, besides the history of civilisations, the cultural
becoming of humanity during a period categorically discriminated as pre-history.
Equally the Total History includes
the relative continuity of First Age’s social and cultural patterns extended in
archaic tribal communities, which, always fewer in number, have lived next to
the great historical developments, discriminated as "primitive". A more correct definiscen wuold be "primary", which implies a different
connotation of value in respect of the “secondary” evolution track, that of
urban civilisation. In the view of Total History the
ideological barrier between prehistory and history begins with the invention
and diffusion of the social system based on the city-state, whose origin lies
in Mesopotamia around 3.500 years BC with the foundation of the temple-city of
Ur, dominated by the pyramidal construction of the great Ziggurat; an
architecturally elaboration of the “sacred mountain” as perfect symbol of the
new hierarchical structure of power destined to dominate the world. Afterward, with a mythical
transliteration, this construction has been identified with the "Tower of
Babel", built by the Babylonians who where the direct heirs of the
Sumerian culture. In terms of Total History the city-temple-state of Ur is a
great common denominator of the world history. It is the original model
of the city-state system, a set which developed as a new social-cultural organism,
at the same time urban organization of living and material structure of
hierarchical power. It is exactly
the history of evolution of this system that is the real subject of
"history" defined as such. In fact Ur is the prototype of a
city-state, which from the Latin word for "civitas" is the
etymological origin of "civilization," born with the declared vocation
of creating a "new world order", trough a growing in complexity and
enlarging in space which ultimately is the "history of civilization."
The present world order, as many common aspect of our daily life, have their
origins in Ur. To give some short examples: at Ur was compiled the first systematic
computation of time based on the sexagesimal system, the same we use practically
everywhere, with twelve months a year, 2 times 12 hours a day, 60 minutes the
hour and 60 seconds the minute; to the same concept goes the circle of 360°,
not the less the systematic use of the wheel; from Ur came also Abraham, the
common father of the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Islam and the Judeo-Christian
tradition of the West, besides the stately structures and metropolitan
concentrations, deriving from the ancient city-state, that govern the whole
planet. Coming back to consider Ur and its evolution trough city-state
systems as the chronological border between history and prehistory, the first most
visible aspect is the considerable imbalance existing between the two
shores of time, with only 5,000 years of history compared to about 50.0000
years of the prehistory of our species. What is even more remarkable in our
context relates to the fact that "written history" of civilization has its precursor in a
“description” of prehistoric time transmitted by the great world heritage of works
of art created by our “primitive” ancestors anywhere they lived. This is the
most surprising aspect of primeval time, that its main heritage consists of
objects and sites of highly artistically expression, that have lasted over
thousands of years, not casually but because created manly on rocks, many protected by caves, or objects made of ivory, coming to form an immense archive of
pictographic character that describes the history of prehistory. It is exactly
the global documentation of this artistic heritage from which the Italian archaeologist
Emmanuel Anati could draw his conclusions on Total History seen in a
global prospective. In his role as
director of the Camunian Centre of Prehistory, from the headquarters in
Valcamonica (Italy) he used to organize numerous international symposia among
archaeologists, anthropologists and paleoanthropologists from around the world,
besides his interaction with the World Archive of Rock Art on behalf of UNESCO.
In this context, given by the development of technological means of
communication and storage of digital documents from all over the world, where Anati
was undoubted a leading central organizer, it become possible for him to gain a
global vision, finally appropriate, to trace a first approach to a Total History of the world.
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Traces of becoming
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The considered prehistoric time goes from
Neolithic period back to the Upper Palaeolithic, starting about 45,000 years
ago, with the first forms of art together with the first genetic appearance of
our specimen, the homo sapience-sapience. The humanity of this first age lived
in communities of hunter-gatherers, adapted to the cool weather o the Ice Age,
dislocated in lands at the edges of the last Würm Glaciations. With the raise of present Sun Age, which created great climatic changes with melting of ice and biblical floods, about 10,000 years ago ended the long lasting
Ice Age, giving start to the New Stone Age as an adaption to the new climatic
situation. The main event of this time segment is the “Neolithic revolution”
with the invention of farming and breeding, creating a new social-cultural
pattern which evolved over about 4-5 thousand years, creating the base for the
grow of city-states signing the end of prehistory. This evolutionary step was first local than expanded in a long lasting contrast with primal cultures, as the not written part of history.
By over viewing the remains from prehistoric
times, a first stunning fact is that over 90% of the finds show expressions
of visual art. The represented images are in part figurative and in part abstract
symbols and diagrams. Taken together, those artistic findings represent, better
than any historic annals, the coded illustration of their cultural worlds. To
the more tempered New Stone Age belongs a large production of pottery art, plus
megalithic sculpting and graphite made on rocks in the open air. While the arts
of the Old Stone Age have been found mainly inside natural caves, dominated by
the most fascinating animal paintings and reliefs, such as in the great cave of
Altamura described as the "Sistine Chapel of prehistory"; together
with micro-sculptures and engravings on boons and ivory, with the most
beautiful female sculptures known as "Venus". But what appears as
naturalistic figurations of animals and woman body, in reality is based on
symbolic structures of high complexity, like the dominating binary system
discovered by the great french paleoanthropologists André Leroi-Gourhan, or the
evident use of the “golden proportions”, plus cosmologic connotation of the
“holly mountain” connected to shamanic trances. Many are the aspects of
primeval art expressions. From the more general view of Total History the most important
aspect of the Upper Palaeolithic Ice Age is that the great manifestation and
the expanding of visual arts during this period is synchronic with the birth
and territorial diffusion of the present day’s human gender, the Cro-Magnon
called also sapiens-sapiens. For
the relative speed with which visual arts appeared and expanded on our planet,
Anati speaks about an "explosion of art"; while the famous
paleoanthropologist Richard E. Leakey, considering the cultural centrality of
art in this period, defined the Upper Paleolithic as the "Age of
Art". Thos aspects underline at best the deep ancestral connection
existing between artistic creativity and anthropological identity of mankind. This
facts testify that visual arts where originally a determinant factor
in cultural humanizing of our most distant ancestors. Rather, we should speak about
this founding artistic culture as the first "humanism" in the world. Equally important is to realize that this primary cultural layer
of our species contains not only the common root of human creativity but is
also the “mother culture” of all mankind. In this context, André Leroi-Gourhan
described the Palaeolithic culture of art "the roots of the world." There
remains only to point out the significance of promoting awareness of this common
anthropological identity: since the Primal Age underlies all cultural divisions
created trough history, it represents a common reference for the anthropological
evolution of humanity towards a planetary society, composed of citizens of the world who feel united by a common origin, similarly to any ethic group.
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Per concludere si può ribadire che la Global Complexity Art si definisce neo-umanista anzitutto per il fatto di porre l'arte implicitamente in rapporto all'emancipazione umana. Non per dare una finalità all'arte che sia esterno alla sua natura, ma al contrario, per liberare la naturale creatività dell'uomo che sottende ugualmente all'arte, facendo leva su questa relazione di reciprocità. Oltre al fatto che l'immaginario creato nella dimensione globale, in quanto traduce una realtà comune ma non acquisita comunemente, mette in moto una potenziale elevazione di coscienza collettiva, insieme a quella di una nuova sensibilità caratterizzata da un più ampio raggio di empatia. Ciò che in vari ambiti si definisce "global shift", ossia una "svolta globale" per intraprendere il percorso evolutivo verso una coscienza planetaria. Parlando, invece, del più stretto legame tra umanesimo e arte, il problema artistico a cui si vuole dare risposta -come già indicato da Beuys- è quello di creare "l'immagine dell'uomo", non il modello antropologico di una cultura in particolare, di un'epoca o di un settore sociale, ma l'icona dell'umanità intera, a sostegno, appunto, del percorso evolutivo verso una futura cultura globale. In tal senso la Global Complexity Art procede a comporre l'immagine dell'uomo inseguendo la sua metamorfosi nello spazio e nel tempo, per comporre un ologramma cronotopico che, per le sue interazioni globali, include tutto lo scibile. Ovviamente è un'operazione complessa che richiede l'ampio spettro multidisciplinare indicato dal connubio arte-scienza. E' in questi termini, sia per l'obiettivo sia per il metodo, che la Global Complexity Art tende a riattualizzare l'antica impostazione umanistica che sottese alla fioritura rinascimentale del XV sec.
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Homo Schizofrenicus
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A questo punto va chiarito che i ripetuti riferimenti alla multidisciplinarietà dell'Umanesimo rinascimentale è una scelta calibrata che si associa a uno sviluppo significativo avviato dalla Scienza della complessità, quella di coniugare cultura scientifica e cultura umanistica sotto l'emblema "scienza come arte". Si può dire che è in atto la tendenza a risaldare la storica separazione tra scienza ed arte che subentrò con la fine del Rinascimento. In effetti, la situazione fa pensare ai "corsi e ricorsi" teorizzati da G.B.Vico. Il fatto è che con la fine dell'Umanesimo rinascimentale, l'Europa fu l'epicentro di una epifania storica che, sul piano politico militare sospinse la colonizzazione del mondo intero, mentre sul piano scientifico culturale dette luogo ad una progressiva specializzazione settoriale delle discipline che, dopo un'evoluzione di circa 500 anni, è giunta all'apice della sua funzionalità. Questa è una convinzione diffusa, espressa sia da Beuys che da Prigogine, mentre da anni è stata dibattuta dal noto sociologo francese Edgar Morin, argomentando come la differenziazione sistematica delle conoscenze innestò un crescente suddivisione del saperi, parcellizzato in discipline sempre più specialistiche, per cui l'immagine del mondo e dell'uomo si è frastagliato nei tasselli d'un mosaico di cui nessuno è più in grado di vedere l'insieme. Si è perso il sapere del sapere. Dalla constatazione di questo stato di contraddizione tautologica si è sviluppata la tendenza di invertire il processo dissipativo, avviando un processo implosionale che sostituisce le divisioni disciplinari con approcci interdisciplinari propri alla cultura della complessità. A questo processo di riconversione dell'organizzazione disciplinare s'innesta un altra inversione di rotta, per sopraggiunta saturazione, che riguarda la tematica complessa della progressiva distanza tra cultura e natura. In pratica l'avvento dell'universo meccanicistico inaugurato da Galileo Galilei e gradualmente sviluppato tramite Newton fino ad Einstein, aveva sancito la fine dell'antica cosmologia dell' "universo vivo" dando forma concettuale all' "universo macchina". Secondo il famoso biologo francese Jaques Monod, in questo modello cosmologico la fenomenologia della Vita non ha una sua collocazione logica come tale, ma solo nella attraverso la sua riduzione omologata al modello universale della "macchina". Con una tale impostazione di fondo fu inevitabile il progressivo contrasto cultura-natura fomentato dall'evoluzione dalla civiltà industriale, le cui ripercussioni drammatiche coinvolgono ogni aspetto della vita, tanto nella natura ecologica quanto nella natura biologica e psicologica della vita umana. Anche in questo campo dominante, che è la cosmologia, la Scienza della complessità e in testa Ilya Prigogine, hanno provocato una "rottura epistemologica", un ribaltamento epocale che porta a spostare il baricentro concettuale dalla interpretazione meccanicistica del mondo a quella termodinamica che, avendo il calore della Terra origine nel sole, comprende chiaramente i parametri della vita terrestre. Deriva da questo ribaltamento anche una nuova relazione cultura-natura, ciò che uno scienziato come Prigogine ha sintetizzato nel titolo del suo libro "La nuova alleanza", con una visione del mondo indubbiamente neo-umanistica, indirizzata verso un rinnovato connubio di arte-scienza e cultura-natura.
This introduction summarizes the basic concepts
of the Global Complexity Art, to which the following documents relate as a progressively
more detailed illustration of what has been mentioned until now.
