Global in Natural and Human Terms

We, humanity, are once again compelled by circumstance to develop further in order to counteract the social and environmental demands that lay at our door. Our Worldwide Peace Marker Project (WPMP) is designed to be a working model that directly responds to this great need for such counter-activity.

I hope to illustrate to you why this project matters so much now.

If you think about it, social and environmental demands have been the driver of the course and direction of our civilization from its beginnings. Our predicament today is the latest result of a long series of "improvements" overlapping previous "improvements" that goes back millenniums. These "improvements" include some with good results and others with bad results.

In fact, much new evidence suggests that most of these improvements have yielded an over-all negative effect that closely approaches the definition of catastrophic. More and more we are coming face-to-face with the realization that humanity's activity is proving to be unsustainable.

Art is a part of our social equation where government, science, industry, mysticism and media organize human activity. As an artist, I chose early in my career to develop my aesthetic skills and to explore those organizing themes to address this sustainability challenge and to counteract the entrenched problems at its roots.

I realized that many of our civilization's "improvements" were predicated by new ideas implanted into our culture by artists. For example, Jules Verne embedded the trip to the moon into the culture. Edgar Alan Poe embedded the expansion of the universe into the culture. Arthur C. Clark embedded space exploration into the culture. Science came in afterward and added the hard numbers that made these ideas workable.

But now, for the first time in our history as a species, the challenge demands that our improvements meet an altogether new level of activity. Improvements must now be global in scope and scale to be of service.

Humanity is new to the idea of “global.” Based on the recent developments in Copenhagen, for example, it is not a stretch to surmise that "global" entails much more than we know at present. To begin with, we have yet to employ a way to preserve national sovereignty while participating in a diversified “global” community addressing planetary issues.

WPMP is doing very well on that aspect as it provides us with fresh insights into what “global” can mean in the light of an organizing principle like Sufficiency. WPMP brings the aesthetic considerations of "global" up to the surface for observation and scrutiny. Already, the work-in-progress has opened a dialog that suggests that workable global consensuses in benefit of crucial survival issues are possible and quantifiable.

The importance of WPMP resides with the fact that it is a global work of art. It is a project where the idea of Sufficiency is explored and presented as proof of concept of an organizing principle that conclusively addresses the core issue. Thus, the idea of “global” is clearly conveyed --physically, consciously and at that precise scale.

Scale is the key. As a species, we are entering a new era that requires that we become familiar and acclimated to the global scale of which the new improvements to our activity must be designed. This is the only way that global improvements can become effective and realistic to our own senses no matter where we live in the world.

Anything less than this will invariably toss perfectly good efforts into a spin of circumstances that are doomed to end in failure. Without models like WPMP, “global” is just another vague idea lacking an adequate experiential reference in an understandable context.

In Copenhagen, earlier this month, this was the case. The difficulties of forming a “global consensus” between the 193 nations attending the UN climate change talks played dramatically in the shortcomings of the summit. However, this was just the latest instance when the ability of humanity to act as one species was needed but was not available.

Of course, the reasons for failure in Copenhagen are many and are case specific to this particular summit. But, overall, they gravitate to one nucleus or central reason. You've guessed it. We lack experiences that illustrate acts of global consensus. These acts are required by our senses in order for us to grasp the implications.

We, humanity, are trying to address huge problems without the tools to do so. I’m saying that it is futile to continue to try to address global concerns from a local (national) perspective alone. Yet, that is basically all that we know to do. And, that is why we continue to get such poor results. For global problems of a magnitude or scale never known before, a new tool kit is required.

I understand that the globality problem is unbearably complex. But my point is that we will not do any good about it if we do not have a basic cultural model (or mirror) in which we can look at ourselves as one species reacting to issues that affect us all and have the experience to see what happens.

WPMP is a work of art designed to illustrate, model and to bring about those specific objectives. Therefore, humanity can have a foothold onto the cultural reality of what acting as one species entails. Through its example we should be able to see and understand the advantages and possibilities that emerge from such activity.

WPMP reveals with clarity and simplicity how members of a single species can remain local in relation to their culture, tradition, and geographical position and, at the same time, become global as an extension of their new relationship with the rest of the planet.

I know I seem to be going on and on about the project. However, please notice that I'm not trying to sell you anything. My purpose and insistence is only to show you and the world that we can still do the right thing for our children and lose nothing that is really vital to anyone in the process.

WPMP is becoming an aesthetic triumph for the human spirit. Upon completion, the amazing first visible effect of our working model of world peace is a “global consensus” of 198 nations. And, to sweeten the deal, the consensus reached is nothing less than the beginning of a culture of world peace validated by the unique global presence of a Peace Marker and a native WPMP Artist/Ambassador in each of the world’s nations.

It follows that, a fundamental model of world peace in these terms is a direct example of Sufficiency and further evidence of why Sufficiency seems to be an organizing principle of great promise.

One can only imagine the impact that Sufficiency might have had on the quality and results of the dialog in Copenhagen and its influence on the outcome as a “global consensus.” Perhaps by the time of the next summit in Mexico, WPMP would be nearer to completion and its aesthetic will be better known so as to serve as relevant reference by then.

Dear friends, the reality is that art must also develop to suit the perceived demands of the time in which artists create their art. As an artist, I feel obliged to build my practice as a continuation of the work of my predecessors. I consider their work to be my inheritance as well as my responsibility to explore it further, to take it to the next level.

Consider the following comparative instances, please.

If looked at from the accepted point-of-view of the conceptual art canon, WPMP is a complete work of art already. To that end, all that is required is the recipe (in this case, the description of a global work of art and its purpose) and a prototype (the Peace Marker) to vouch for the physical aspects of the work of art.

WPMP is not too far removed from the large environmental works by Christo and the late Jeanne Claude whose works helped pave the way to establish the scale of WPMP. A difference is that I can now adapt my works to our emerging new cultural needs. Such requirements were not apparent or required to the aesthetics of Christo's and Jeanne Claude's practices. But now they are and must be included.

I was deeply influenced by the late Robert Rauschenberg who I admire greatly. His observations that “painting relates to art and life, although, neither can be made..." and "...I try to act in the gap between the two...” led me to a great realization. If art and life cannot be made, then art and life can certainly be reconciled. And, it follows that the artist may now act in the gap of such reconciliation.

That is another point of vital significance to the role of art (all art) in the 21st century.

The reconciliation between art and life now taking shape in the 21st century is not between art and whatever lies outside of it as it was perceived in the 20th century. Rather, it is the reconciliation between human nature and Nature's processes.

The reason for this reconciliation is that a proper combination of human activity and Nature’s activity can secure the future for both. In other words, the reconciliation I seek in my work, is between humanity and the natural world. Therefore, as an artist I can act in that gap. The result of this activity is Data A art.

As its name suggests, Data A is information at a new level - level-A. Data A art informs humanity that we already have an abundance of the right words, perfectly good reasons, proven abilities, unbelievable technology and a universally expressed desire to do everything we need to do to provide our children with a future. And, Data A art brings into view (through the aesthetic of that reconciliation) the organizing principle that can assist us to put it all together.

Now, we can activate and add credence to new dreams like Planet Earth 2.0 where efforts like the Worldwide Peace Marker Project can have a place and where its ideal, “world peace,” can develop and flourish. As always, art is perfectly suited to do more. And, it is.

For your own copy of the image above, "Global in Natural and Human Terms," click here.

Tiité

Edited by Brent Scheneman

The Great Seal of the Worldwide Peace Marker Project

The imperative needed to achieve a "global consensus" is heard everywhere these days. In contrast, however, the imperative to find, sponsor and nurture ideas leading to obtain such consensus is rarer still. The Worldwide Peace Marker Project is an effort that is leading the way through art to create a simple and crystal-clear example where global consensus can be experienced by all at a planetary scale.

But, this search for common-ground leads to one sobering fact. Despite having been, for some time now, completely wired up as a global and interdependent civilization, we, humanity, have yet to operate as "one." Nor, have we even approached the point where we have stood as one species about anything in response to the many social and environmental issues that affect the entire human and world biosphere.

This deficiency is a formidable barrier to action of any kind. The barrier must be eliminated if we are to have an opportunity to react intelligently and on-time to the real needs of civilization and of our planet.

I have been writing about the reasons, situations and the cultural climate that surround our predicaments as a species. As an artist, I have endeavored over the last half-century to establish a role for the arts in the shaping of the cultural assets needed to effect the transition between the current cultural (unsustainable) model that leads to our next best alternative.

But, as an artist I'm only one component in the overall effort to create a workable alternative, one that must include the efforts of science, government, industry, mysticism (as religion) and media in order to have a realistic cross-section of the operative human culture in the creative process for an alternative future that affects us all.

And, as an artist, for me to do otherwise would be to attend to the already nauseating pattern of more of the same to the end. I said it before on this blog that I want to focus on the stuff that helps and leave the itemized list of what is wrong, conspiratorial, dying and unattainable to the experts in those fields. I think we are all beginning to suffer from apocalypse fatigue.

The attention I pay to Sufficiency is because it is not only a new idea but because it is an idea that holds a great promise. It will help us to organize humanity with a measure of intelligence beyond the norm and help us to act along natural directives that address better the misfortunes caused by our "youth" as a species.

Allow me then to preface the comments that follow by saying that Sufficiency is about determining the proper amount of information or quantity that is required for a specific purpose. Sufficiency goes a little further than that. It also allows for adjustments to be made (on those quantities) as the requirements change through time.

Since Sufficiency now has the favor of a notable scientist (as I mentioned in my last post) as is the case with Professor Thomas Princen and his book on the subject "The Logic of Sufficiency," I will defer to him the hard science. I will carry on with my part as an artist in creating ways to communicate Sufficiency through the use of "Data A art," a direction in art that has been suitable for the construction of proof of concept models and solution models to problems where Sufficiency can be experienced at work.

At this critical moment in our history there is, to my mind, no project in progress anywhere in the world that is more relevant to the issue of gathering proof of a global common ground than the Worldwide Peace Marker Project. The evidence being gathered as we move toward completion of a verifiable model of world peace reveals that we are closing in also onto the actual experience of this elusive "global common-ground" imperative where global is everyone.

I invite the reader to consider the fact that few if any of the issues that are universally acknowledged to be of crucial global significance can attest to this. Across the board, most global initiatives are in a perpetual state of dialog, negotiations, talks and more talks.

The Worldwide Peace Marker Project (WPMP) is a work of art. But, it is a work derived from an art that is as new as our current survival challenges that the art was specifically created to address. The guiding ideas are new not for the sake of being new but because real hope for the future of humanity must come from ideals that have not been defiled and corrupted by the innocence of human short-term ambitions.

I have the pleasure today to begin to unveil at length to you the Worldwide Peace Marker Project. In the process I will point out Sufficiency as it appears. Its presence in the project is made conspicuous by virtue of the effect Sufficiency has on the activity that creates the project.

The basic assumptions of WPMP

If the idea of peace is ever to be realized, then it must first be made to exist materially.

The Worldwide Peace Marker Project is a deliberate act designed to make the idea of peace exist in a unique physical form that can be incorporated within a new cultural context. This follows the long-held notion that if something exists then its possibilities can be examined and can be acted upon. If it exists, it's possible.

For the last 5,000 years we have elaborated on the idea of peace but we have yet to produce neither a physical presence of it nor a culture of peace to match it. If you doubt this fact I suggest that you visit your local library and ask directions to the "peace reference section" or to ponder why is it that the "Department of Peace" has not been created in any government on Earth.

The first indication of Sufficiency in the WPMP is provided by the existence of the Peace Marker, a key sculptural component made from stainless steel in order to secure the long-term longevity of the object and of the idea. As the name indicates, it marks a geographical "point of peace" created somewhere in the world. Therefore, it has the Sufficiency (of one) to describe itself as one unique individual object unlike any in a world of millions of other objects, none of which can be mistaken for a Peace Marker.

If a worldwide peace project is to be global then it must indisputably include the entire world.

At present time we (the collaborative that is WPMP) are considering the accepted total count of 198 sovereign nations as the point of Sufficiency (or known quantity of existing recognized nations) where 198 Peace Markers or, more clearly, 198 points of peace, one in each nation, constitutes the presence of peace in each nation of the world and thus, a simple model of world peace emerges.

That is to say that with peace represented in each of the world's nations the idea of world peace is thereby created. It is made to exist and to become experiential by their presence as "points of peace" in each and every sovereign nation in the world.

It gets better. If the project is to be truly global it must also integrate all of the cultures in existence across the world.

Consider the fact that each peace marker or point of peace is embraced by a native citizen of each nation acting as a WPMP artist/ambassador. In this capacity he or she incorporates the Peace Marker into the context of the nation's unique cultural identity.

As the artist/ambassador consecrates the peace marker as a national point of peace, something marvelous that has never occured in the history of humanity also takes place. This new point of peace joins the other 197 points of peace in as many nations to consolidate the existence of a working model of world peace based upon the Sufficiency of 198 nations contributing their own culture to structure its presence.

Now then, let's see what we have so far. We have created a work of art that generates a simple model of world peace that is brought into the real world by the presence of 198 Peace Markers or points of peace, as introduced by 198 artist/ambassadors to each of 198 nations in the world. What do you suppose the immediate meaning of that is?

Allow me to elucidate on that point. The basic assumptions of the WPMP are as follows. The Worldwide Peace Marker Project is a deliberate act designed to make the idea of peace exist in a unique physical form that can be incorporated within a new cultural context.

Well, the action of the artist/ambassador introduces the Peace Marker as a point of peace to the cultural context of his or her nation. However, the combined effect of 198 nations introduced to the idea of world peace in this new context constitutes the creation and institution of a new global culture of peace. It begins with the Peace Marker as the "root precursor" for peace (on its own) a kind that we have never known but that now exists. The fact that peace can be made to exist as mere points of peace in the cultural context of the whole of civilization and in every sovereign nation in the world clearly signals the existence of a new and unique global culture of world peace.

The total package is a unit of Sufficiency (for world peace) capable of further development as a culture of peace locally and at a planetary level.

It is only the beginning. But make no mistake about it. It is a beginning of something that we have been waiting for at least 5,000 years. It is a beginning of something for which millions of lives have been offered at the altar of war for hundreds of generations.

In a broader sense, it is a beginning of a much needed cultural asset that is invaluable to a species like ours that must confront the critical survival issues at hand. It is the beginning of a global culture of peace with a fresh spiritual and moral perspective capable of providing a favorable directive as we enter the future.

Above all, WPMP will show us, humanity, that we can reach a common-ground agreement about something we want and transform it immediately into a global cultural pattern to enable us to act as one species and thereby secure the future of all.

I've always known that art can do more than what we are used to. Now that it does, I can't wait for more artist's to discover Data A art and join in the creation of a new world.

This dialog will continue on the next post. Please feel free to make a comment. The future is yours, too.

Curious about the WPMP model, click here.

More about the Peace Marker here.

For your own copy of  "The Great Seal of the Worldwide Peace Marker Project" click here or on the image above.

Tiité

Sufficiency Step No. 2

The title of this and subsequent posts about Sufficiency are presented as a series of numbered steps in order to create the impression of a walk forward in time as I wish to impress upon the reader the transitional nature of this dialog.

Sufficiency is great news to a species like ours that doesn't know how to measure its social and environmental needs. Yet, still, it can be as foreign to us as shoes are to a fish, as some of you may have found out in the last post.

That particular difficulty is one that has bedeviled our species throughout history when it comes to the way we respond to new ideas, especially when they're introduced at about the time when the old ideas have settled into the cultural norm. Consider the idea that the Earth turns on its axis as proposed by Herakleides in 350 B.C. This fact was missed by Aristotle and Pythagoras. Or, better yet, consider the case of Aristarchus of Samos who in 340 B.C. proposed the idea that the Earth goes around the Sun.

Of course, my point is that it was not until the Renaissance nearly 1,800 years later that we decided to catch up with their vision and make a go of astronomy. That pattern of missed opportunities literally paves human history all the way up to now as I write these words.

At first glance there was nothing wrong with that since humanity had 1,800 years to spare. But today this point becomes frightfully relevant. Based upon the state of our world and even the most optimistic of forecasts the reality is that there is almost no time left to waste for us to come around to finally see the light of reason anymore.

It is at this point that Sufficiency becomes paramount to the survival of humanity and to the resolution of the crisis regarding life on Earth. Consider Sufficiency as a survival companion to natural processes as they unfold through time. As an idea, Sufficiency allows us to sift data for its "net survival advantage" (meaning the remaining best operative objective) so that survival coefficients of Sufficiency can be established. What I mean is that unless we utilize an organizing principle like Sufficiency we are doomed to buy more of the same old wisdom that got us here and to be obliged to pay for it with our lives.

Sufficiency is not an easy concept to grasp. In fact, it is a complex idea whose depths we are just beginning to discover. But, it is here now. As I mentioned in the last post, its presence now is probably very much like it was when the discovery and use of controlled fire was first encountered in prehistoric times.

Therefore Sufficiency requires use and the passage of time before the content of its many layers begins to reveal itself. I'm saying here that, because it is a root precursor of a new culture, Sufficiency will naturally develop alongside this new culture where its consequences and peculiarities are at home with its practitioners.

This is where the difficulty we've had with new ideas in the past comes into play. And, that is the wisdom behind my insistence in treating our current culture as the culture of Planet Earth 1.0 and our emergent culture as the culture of Planet Earth 2.0. In this scenario we can see that Sufficiency is the upgrade to the former and that we (those of us who choose to embrace Sufficiency) will be part of the transition to the latter.

That is why I suggest that, if we choose this survival strategy, we will have entered and age of transition. Some of the qualities inherent in Sufficiency will provide the transitional rhythm or procedure whereby the character of one culture is transposed to the next, retaining its origin but manifesting its upgrade in actual practice.

We have a lot to learn and relatively little time to do so. Fortunately, we are not alone in this quest. Great strides have been made that have placed the idea of Sufficiency well within the academic community where the hard numbers needed for its eventual success will be crunched by able minds.

There is a book written by Thomas Princen titled "The Logic of Sufficiency" (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2005). Professor Princen is an Associate Professor of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy with tenure, 1991-present, at the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan.

I became aware of his book on March 16, 2009 during a Google search. I rushed to my local library for a copy. Mind you, I had hung much of my life's work on the word Sufficiency and was oblivious to the notion that anyone else might be working on the idea too. I was not only astonished by the remarkable coincidence of Professor Princen's choice of the word for his title but, upon reading his book, completely gratified that I finally met a fellow traveler on what had been for me a long, lonely trail.

Professor Princen presents Sufficiency as an idea that, in his words, is "...straightforward, indeed simple and intuitive, arguably "rational." It is the sense that, as one does more and more of an activity, there can be enough and there can be too much." He takes these considerations deeper until they reach a sense that he articulates as "Sufficiency is a broad social organizing principle in an ecologically constrained world."

Allow me to share with you an excerpt from his book that gave me shivers because in a peculiar way it validates our work in creating a model of world peace. The Worldwide Peace Marker Project is an example of Sufficiency applied at a global scale. In his final chapter "Making Ecological Sense" there is a section that reads as follows:

If it Exists, It's Possible

"If it exists, it's possible, Kenneth Boulding, economist, poet and peace activist once said. The context then was international conflict, which seemed pervasive, and the "it" was peace. In this book, the context is global ecological crisis and the "it" is Sufficiency, acting on a sense of enoughness and "too muchness." Sufficiency is, I have argued, a necessary condition, a set of decision criteria, a set of principles critical for reversing the biophysical trends and re-organizing society for sustainable resource use. The resource status of the past was abundance, an ever present frontier, unending resources and sinks, now it is scarcity. And not just the relative scarcity of economic reasoning where there is always a trade-off, always a transformation function, always a substitute, but an absolute scarcity in the sense that, with biophysical irreversibilities--species loss, climate destabilization, topsoil erosion, aquifer drawdown--humans cannot just move on to level another forest, plow another grassland, drill another well; they cannot run the conveyor belt faster and expect the disease to go away."

My remarks here about Professor Princen are mostly to express my joy to the presence of his work at this critical junction for humanity and selfishly because I had been waiting for a voice like his from academia. I certainly endorse that you read his book and explore first-hand with him the complexity of the sustainability challenge and, well, the logic of Sufficiency.

Professor Princen urges for our reach for a theory, for a defined and organized principle behind Sufficiency. He admits that "unfortunately, with current understanding, we are far from such a theory."

When I read that I was astounded to realize that is no longer the case. Unbeknown to him, I had already ironed out many of the problems that lead to a formal theory of Sufficiency.

I'm confident that my contributions will help to trim some of that distance in a short amount of time. What I mean to say is that my contribution to Sufficiency comes from Nature where it has resided for eons and where Sufficiency can be seen everywhere once you know where to look.

I will continue to share Sufficiency with you as an artist's vision of a gift from Nature or, as it is closer to my heart, as an emissary on behalf of all of the other creatures in the world whose survival depends on how fast humanity can learn to practice Sufficiency so that the human species can rejoin Nature in their new role as co-creators of life on Earth.

There is really no question that we must begin in earnest to react to the survival challenges that lie ahead. Nor is there much doubt about the limited time remaining in which to react. The big question that remains unanswered is, "Will we react in time?" or, what is even scarier, "Will we react at all?"

I'm an optimist. Therefore, I will accept the fact that we, the few, have undeniably embraced the concept of Planet Earth 2.0 as a transitional destination where an idea like Sufficiency can take hold as the organizing principle of the new culture that is to inhabit Planet Earth 2.0. This is the new world that future generations can sustain and the planet that can sustain future generations.

For your own copy of "Sufficiency Step No. 2" click here or on the image above. For a copy of Professor Princen's book click here.

Tiité

The S-word Sufficiency

If you can honestly agree that we, humanity, are (overall) the sum total of our cultural upbringing as a species, a process which occurred over the thousands of years of successive overlapping of cultural development, then it will not be difficult for you to accept that the real culprit of our social and environmental crisis is our human culture as transmitted from generation to generation.

No amount of denial can rationally reject this fact and still cling to a disassociated reality that paints a different image of what is going on outside of our window in the real world. Therefore, accepting the fact that what is needed is a fundamental upgrade of human culture is not so difficult. In fact, most people do and we have known that for over a century.

The big deal has been the questions of "what" can do the job and "how" can such an upgrade take place without creating a disruption that is as bad as the effect of our activities at present time without it.

The "what" needed to be an idea. The trouble was that it needed to be an idea that had never existed before in the context of human culture. Otherwise it will just amount to more of the same. The "how" also needed to be exterior to human culture because it is already obvious that we do not know how to do it. There is, however, only one other authority in the world with undeniable success in dealing with survival problems in interrelated multi-level complex systems and that is Nature. Therefore, the "how" needed to come from Nature.

The challenge was to discover the pattern, understand it somewhat, translate it to suit human patterns and incorporate the patch into human culture. I say patch because it will take several generations before the upgrade becomes its own true new culture. Anyway, all of this will become more evident if not altogether clear as this story unravels.

Today's post in this blog is a definite treat for your eyes and mind, as obscure and strange or even naive as it may seem, although glorious to me. Today, we get to share a moment in history whereby a new cultural "root precursor" or a harbinger of real transformation and hope for humanity and our world formally enters the landscape of human intelligence neatly packaged within the boundaries of a single word.

You are free to laugh, rejoice, reject, accept or ignore it. All that and more will happen anyway because that is our nature. However, I can safely predict that when the dust settles down a bit, Sufficiency will be the most important contribution made in the 21st century towards a favorable future for humanity and a sustainable continuity for life on Earth.

Well, that is a fairly large claim. Now, let me begin to back it up.

First, let's get on the same page about what I mean by a cultural "root precursor." I'm using "root" as the source or origin of a thing and "precursor" as the forerunner or predecessor of a more stable or mature form.

For comparison let's examine "fire" as a cultural root precursor or more precisely the "idea of using fire" (controlled fire) for our own purposes as we have for, say, the last 30,000 years. It becomes very easy to see the effect of that cultural root precursor on the development of our species to where modern civilization, like the small controlled fire in the cave of early Homo sapiens groups, still is powered by the idea of using fire to do the work.

That's how powerful a cultural root precursor is. So much that the idea to use fire was and remains the main driver behind Planet Earth 1.0. There are other precursors in the Planet Earth 1.0 history. But, on close inspection most if not all are fire dependant. Therefore, it is easy to see that (a) cultural root precursors of that kind are very rare indeed, and that (b) the introduction of a new one of similar magnitude is no small feat. At the least it is a valid cause to stop and take notice.

Dear friends, you read the papers and watch the news, too. Some of you may have done so for decades or long enough to notice that things have not changed (for the better that is). Try as we do with the tools that we have, we are just not going to be able to fix things, at least in time before it is too late for our kids to have their turn for something other than the same worsening routine.

What I'm presenting to you today encapsulated in a single word is the sum total of a lifetime of meticulous observation. Sufficiency, however, is above all an idea which similarly to the analogy of the use of fire is an idea so unique that it qualifies as a "root precursor" to a new cultural paradigm (ideal) for humanity.

Let's begin to look at it. I suggest that you keep a contact thread to what was written in previous postings in this blog which were really an introduction to this conversation.

The word "Sufficiency" is a word which historically has been (as far as words go) perhaps as uninteresting as the word (or sound) used for "fire" might have been to early humans before someone came up with the idea to use fire to cook raw meat and to keep an otherwise cold cave warm.

The analogy is truer than you might expect because Sufficiency or the idea of what to do with the word Sufficiency, is also new. But, as I said before, it is new in its truest sense as in never, ever present in the history of humanity.

To illustrate that sentiment, consider that at the time that the idea of fire for cooking was introduced by someone to the other cave dwellers thousands of years ago, all that was there to greet the idea was a persistent condition of tough raw meat and grains and a cold cave. It follows that the idea of using fire to cook food and generate warmth fulfilled an old need by solving the problem while setting off the species on a new course.

Let's assume then that what is really needed by humanity at this critical junction is a powerful idea to solve a problem like the one that the use of fire solved and which can, subsequently, generate a cultural shift in the direction of human development. Let's see what kind of use Sufficiency is good for, initially, that can cause a shift of the kind we need in order to get out of the mess we are in.

If you look in closely at the root of all human problems there is a void in our ability to measure the significance (the importance and consequence) of our ideas. I mean "measure" in the same sense as we measure the extent, dimension and quantity of things against a standard of which we can all agree as we do in the case of 60 seconds to a minute and 60 minutes to an hour and all of the other measuring standards that we all agree upon without any fuzziness.

It sounds crazy at first. But, it's true. We do not have a principle that allows us to measure the value of the ideas that structure human consciousness. Because of that deficiency we cannot agree on much of anything save to agree to disagree.

The story of why this is so is complicated because its history is embedded in so many cultural layers and goes so far back in time. But for now, it suffices to say that Nature does have a mechanism that constrains survival strategies for all creatures with a peculiar measuring scheme, or principle, whose intimation I have been interpreting and have ultimately attached to the word "Sufficiency" thereby incorporating its use into human culture in order to begin to deal with this pesky cultural void.

Let's experience the void together so that you know what I'm talking about.

What principle would you say we reach for when humanity finds itself (ourselves) in between two extremes of a problem (one is favorable the other unfavorable) and we wish to ascertain the comfort of a "middle ground" between them? While you think about it, try recalling some recent news headlines where leaders the world over invoke the need to find a "middle ground" between this and that to solve a given crisis.

The answer is that, up until now, we know of no principle that we may summon to produce such comfort, particularly no principle such as Sufficiency that can yield the comfort of a "middle ground" that is adaptable to variable conditions over time or as time moves forward. (This is a key point of enormous significance)

But, why is this so?

The short answer is that the cultural model in which we developed as a species outside of Nature never included the cultural root precursor for such principle. Therefore, we developed this far without it. That is why we do not have such a principle to fall back on to mediate our out-of-control problems.

There isn't an area of human activity that at present doesn't suffer from the inability to find a middle ground (or point of Sufficiency) where its operative recovery wouldn't greatly improve if a middle ground was found.

Sufficiency comes into the human realm at a time in which its cultural fabric has so many patches that it is hard to tell the difference between the original fabric and all of the patches. Moreover, in recent times there is the tendency where each patch wants to operate as if it was the entire original fabric.

Sufficiency is like a key that unlocks the next door in our development as a creature. You may think of it as a kind of pleasant and timely graduation present for our species. In that view, however, our past becomes no more than an essential prerequisite. After all, something wonderful needed to come out of all this. Otherwise, Homo sapiens (humanity) would have made a long and arduous trip for nothing.

It is important that we visualize what is happening here. Planet Earth 2.0 is a conception of humanity that upgrades an earlier version just as Planet Earth 1.0, Homo sapiens, was an upgrade to Homo heidelbergensis whose cultural development was upgraded by our better idea in the use of fire.

Are you familiar with "Russian nested dolls" also called "matryoshka dolls," a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one inside the other? If you are, you will instantly see in that analogy the simplicity of our transition from where we are to where we need to be. All of the evidence points to the unavoidable conclusion that we have just outgrown our cultural design and that the state of everything around us is telling us to transition to the next size up. Yet, the wonderful thing is that in a very real sense our former "we" will still be in there with the other versions of ourselves going all the way back. Nothing is lost. We will simply begin the transition to the design that suits us and the world. In taking that step, humanity enters a cultural path which will eventually define such culture as the new representative of our species.

Therefore, Sufficiency as a root precursor opens a door of opportunity for our species to inaugurate and enter the future as the very first representative of a whole new layer or level on the web of life. We will become, finally, distinct from all other creatures (which is what we always wanted) not because of our arrogance, superiority and technical know-how, but because we grew wise enough to step into the role of co-creators with Nature in a partnership to sustain the web of life in mutual Sufficiency and oversee the beginning of a new world.

Next, we get deeper into the word. Remember, folks, if it doesn't get created it doesn't exist.

For your own copy of "The S-word Sufficiency" click here or on the image above.

Tiité

Cause Course & Consequence

"Cause"

"Course"

"Consequence"

These three words carry a huge punch when it comes to providing a corollary to the net result of all activity in our world. Look at those words a little deeper and you will discover that they can apply to the activity of the rest of the universe too.

Culturally, humanity has the tendency to deal with problems by focusing on the elements of cause, course and consequence separately and, very seldom, focusing on the value of their collective effect as part of the sequence of events that frame the actual history of the problem.

Clearly, the results obtained in the handling of problems ranging from poverty to global warming, from conflict resolution to the economic crisis, suggests that this approach to problem solving doesn't work too well.

Consequently, we are obliged to live with the effect of that cultural deficiency the best way that we can.

Planet Earth 1.0 is the way it is because thousands of years ago we established a cultural direction and a purpose for it based upon our ideals at the time. But, in doing so we established (unknowingly) the "cause" that set in motion the course of events that have led to the set of circumstances we have today. As it turned out, Planet Earth 1.0 is the overlapping consequence of that initial choice.

The mood of resignation to our intractable condition is so pervasive that we are becoming accustomed to the outcome that our world as we know it will be destroyed and we seem to be fine with that. We even flock to the theaters to watch the many different projections of end-of-the-world outcomes. We marvel at the special effects and at the "realism" of these presentations. In a peculiar way, by doing so, we may be perpetuating the "course" needed to achieve a similar outcome in the real world.

As an artist I also dramatize these concerns. In doing so, I endeavor to present them at their ultimate scale and drive them to their obvious conclusion, as with the works that illustrate this blog.

Unlike the movies, my motive is to establish the character of what is happening in the world today. But, I also want to establish another vital point of contrast between Planet Earth 1.0 and Planet Earth 2.0 that leads to something much better.

In my last blog entry I suggested that government, science, mysticism, media and Nature are our derivative interpretation for one whole recipe for survival. I described it as a recipe whose interactions are mediated by a principle that is new to us but that is old news to Nature in its application.

Similarly, "cause, course and consequence" are dynamic elements of a progression or a sequence of events that are tightly related to each other and whose ultimate expression is the outcome of their combined effect.

Take a moment to reflect on our landscape of social ills. Naming a few --poverty, disease, corruption, crime, abuse of power and environmental disregard --should be enough for you to know what I'm talking about.

The cultural deficiency that allowed these problems to grow is simply that we have never known better. In the absence of the knowledge of a different approach, we just became committed to dealing with the effects. All we knew to do was to try to curb their ever expanding reach (the thousands of laws in effect testify to that cultural deficiency) instead of tapping in at the roots or point of origin and moving upwards from there to address the whole problem.

That is a compelling reason to why we seem to be stuck repeating the same mistakes over and over. About the only things that change is that each time we make the same mistake we do it bigger, more creatively and more costlier than before. But, why is this so?

Well, the answer can be found in our response to the cause, course and consequence of our activity and the culture that drives it. In the absence of something different or better our response becomes a vicious cycle that perpetuates the problem.

Just dealing with the deficiency that way becomes a matter of survival for those involved. In this scenario, the preservation of the various agencies that have been created to address the dislocated problem becomes more important than the problems that they are created to address. Health care is a classic example of this phenomenon.

It follows then that since populations grow exponentially the situation gets worse. So, here we are going down the creek without a paddle. Or are we?

I think it doesn't have to be this way.

There is more than plenty of things for all of us to do to fix this situation under the proper conditions. We only need to begin to manage whole problems and to find a lot less necessity to preserve the systems that are dependent on the problems for their existence.

Planet Earth 2.0 has more to offer because of its partnership with Nature. We now know what are the global effects of our poor management. We know that "cause, course and consequence" carried out over thousands of years on our own, away from Nature and without the understanding of their interactions doesn't work. The key to the mediation of their separate and combined effect requires a new partnership with Nature plus the use of a (still undisclosed) mediating principle that points the way to the winning recipe.

The illustrations above give us a cold perspective of the cause of our present course and a view into the logical outcome. But Nature's cause, course and consequence, as I have mentioned before, is to sponsor (create) conditions conducive to life. That outcome, after 3.8 billion years, is what is left of this beautiful world. It is our opportunity to use Nature's recipe and do the only thing that makes sense. We can begin to co-create a new world with our genius, together with Nature's tried and tested recipes and our courage to begin the transition from here to there.

For my next posting in this blog, I will drop the "S" word. I will begin to tell you why it took me half of a century to find it, to become familiar with it and then to bring its notion to you from Nature. I will begin to share why I spent so much time operating as an outsider of human nature and how my exile led to my return with the "S" word. I will begin to explain how I accomplished this on behalf of our children's children, but equally on behalf of all other life on our planet whose future also depends on whether humanity learns to make use of the "S" word or decides to stay the course that I illustrated above.

For your own copy of "Cause Course & Consequence" click on any of the images above.

Tiité

Six in One

The idea of change seems to be very popular these days. But, change itself is rather difficult to pinpoint because of that bothersome rhetorical stand that asks for a comparison as in "change compared to what" and the unfortunate reality that what is being presented as change is monotonously just more of the same and often of a lesser quality.

Change, by definition, is to transfer from one set of characteristics to another set of characteristics. That is something we have never done well in Planet Earth 1.0.

Let your keen mind wander through your own sense of history and meet me back at this realization with your own sense of reality about change or the lack of change thereof. Now let's question why that is so and take it from there.

It happens that when you prepare a dish from an old recipe using the same ingredients, albeit in different proportions to suit your taste, you end up with a variation of the same recipe. But, you do not end up with a new one.

A new recipe requires an ingredient or ingredients not used previously, as well as, an arrangement of the ingredients that is as new as the results obtained and the effect they have on the desired improvement on the old recipe.

It stands to reason, then, that change is possible and that the transfer from one to another set of characteristics is the event that reveals the fact that change has taken place. Particularly, this is what must happen as we go from the recipe that produced Planet Earth 1.0 to the recipe and transfer (transition really) that is producing Planet Earth 2.0.

The social recipe or the organizing ingredients of human society in Planet Earth 1.0 from its beginning are government, science, mysticism (or religion), industry and media. As I mentioned in my last post here, it is very likely that the further we have gone away from Nature (over millennia) as we laid out the recipe for "human nature," that these ingredients (social components) became more and more disconnected. Eventually, they became totally separate components. Today, we don't even recognize them as ever having been integral players with Nature in the organization of the survival requirements of our own species. It's not even questioned whether they could be (in principle) an integral part of all life on earth, too.

Allow me to clarify something at this point. The reason I use the term "organizing principles" is because we just gave these names (government, science, mysticism or religion, industry and media) to our interpretation of organizing principles that have been at work since organized biological life took hold on Earth billions of years ago. Granted we gave them a new "twist" to suit our human nature. But, fundamentally, their place as survival natural-receptors and their roles in Nature were already there.

I know that this may feel as uncomfortable as a new pair of shoes to you. But, like new shoes these ideas should wear better with use. One need only consider that it has been mostly human arrogance that has kept us from making these vital connections between the way Nature makes life possible and our conception of it.

The real change comes as we link ourselves back into the natural program bringing to it something that Nature never had before. I'm speaking of "us" as a creative partner, an independent force of nature, if you will, a "changed" being with the capabilities to manage the creation of a new world.

Of course, if you look closer, you will discern that we have already created a new world of sorts. The trouble is that we did not create it to last or to be sustainable, or to include the lives of the other 30 million species that live and contribute to life in it.

That is why this realization is important. We are at a new point in our development and the knowledge that comes out from our partnership with Nature is the key to our success.

Government, science, mysticism, industry, media and Nature are the ingredients of a full recipe for survival. There is plenty more for us to discover and for us to understand as to how and why they all must work as an "integral structure" and most importantly what "new principle" mediates their interactions.

Our failure as a society is due to their dislocation, a malfunction that got progressively worse in innocence because we did not know that was the case. It is only because our survival is in jeopardy that we can (or are beginning to) look beyond our arrogance to embrace Nature's recipes now that we have finally learned of the cause of our troubles.

Just look at ourselves today as we insist that government be the entity to fix all that is broken and forcing that already bankrupted component to also play all of the parts. Why? What is the role for the other components? Just to complain as government fails? How can we be surprised at the results? But, there was never much we could do about it because, until now, we never had a choice.

But now we do. To embrace that choice is to finally come up to the plate for real "change." Planet Earth 2.0 is a showcase of the change that we are capable of undergoing. Fortunately, it is taking shape as we layout these formative realities, tools and the ideas that not only provide the contrast, but that also provide the aesthetic content of our new possibilities.

I can't wait to see the geniuses of those respective fields begin to tackle this problem from its integral perspective so that they can show us the hard numbers that go with it and the vitality of their interaction in the process. I hope they know that we are counting on them, that life on Earth is counting on them.

I'm, as they say, just an artist. But, look how far I had to go to find my role and the material to fulfill it.

The illustration for the blog today is "Six in One" It has taken me a lifetime to complete it, but here it is. What we call government, science, mysticism, industry and media are interpretations of organizing principles that, mixed together with Nature and a measure of sufficiency, make one heck of a new recipe for change.

Albert Einstein said, "the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." Well, I say that it is about time to take the ball and run with it while there is still some time left on the clock to play.

For your copy of "Six in One." click here or on the image above.

Tiité

Solar Being

There is little doubt in anyone's mind that all life on Earth is dependent on our Sun-Star and that our planet depends on the sun for its orbital stability within this solar system.


When you look at the work of art that I chose to illustrate our blog today, I invite you recall other images of human beings staring towards the heaven. There are many such depictions. They can be found in the art of just about every culture that has ever existed all the way back to prehistoric rock art (petroglyphs).


The interpretations as to why our species has had such a long infatuation with the heavens are as many as they are visible stars to the naked eye. But, all have one thing in common. They bring into mind the intrinsic mystery regarding all things above in the heavens.


"Solar Being" as presented in my illustration breaks that pattern forever because it adds something vital to the ancient mystery. I will try very briefly to share with you what that is and the implication it has for us as we move forward to sustain life in our little corner of the Milky Way.


The reconciled human being in my last posting, "Reconciliation IV," is one who has broken through the thin cultural membrane (human nature) that has kept us separate from Nature-at-large. As I dramatized in the text, it is this new type of human who will engender Planet Earth 2.0.


It happens that the reconciliation with Nature that is celebrated in a new partnership between us and the process of life in our world becomes a sensory experience. When it is coupled to our understanding of the cosmos and the rare but wonderful circumstance of life in this solar system, and as we grow in our respect, care and sustenance of Nature, this reconciliation becomes a conscious landscape. Standing in such landscape, we look to the heavens no longer wondering what is there. Instead, we now see the enhanced and augmented realization of who we are in this vast context, where we live, why and to what purpose.


A solar being of that sort may be thought of as the Universe's way of experiencing itself through the evolutionary outcome and the realization of a life form as exquisite as we are to be.


The implications of this are mind-boggling at every level of human discourse. Essentially, we are talking about the realization of an ancient desire to know and understand the mystery of the heavens. But, now we can finally discover what to do with this knowledge and why. And, we can discover this precisely at a point in time when such realization can become the difference between life and extinction for us.


Our ancient attraction to the heavens has come full circle after thousands of years. Now for the first time in the history of our kind, we can see for ourselves the idea of "home" radiate from our head out to the edge of the universe just as the light from the sun does. All the while, the light of our reason and the light of the sun are busily entwined to sustain life in the part of our solar system that we call "home."


When we set a prerogative like that at the foundations of a new world, I dare say that aspirations of this scale dwarf the petty aspirations of wealth and power that are at the foundations of the 1.0 world that we now inhabit.


On a side note, (and you may have noticed the same thing) isn't it peculiar that for the most part the arts have had such a poor reputation as contributors to the dialog pertaining to issues like these that we are tackling here? And yet, here is before you one illustration that encompasses the entire history of human fascination with the heavens and delivers a two-fold result --a conclusion to an old mystery and the beginning of a new greater one.


I said that we will begin to get into the tool box in this blog. And, here we are. I hope that you are still with me because the story gets better. The reason I wanted to show you a larger picture of "home" is because our solar system operates the way it does because of a number of physical laws that work together to produce a fairly uniform result. Even if these may vary a little here and there, this is a very typical scenario throughout the entire Universe.


Hold on a minute.
Since the whole thing works together as one single Universe, our solar system and everything within it (including you and me) are also a byproduct or result of how those same laws expressed themselves according to conditions and events unique to our location in the cosmos. Remember that old chestnut "location-location-location"?


My point is that, down here on Earth where we live, we are still influenced by those same laws and organizing principles. Their value to us today is that we now have a good idea of how they operate and why that knowledge can be used on our behalf as we go forward.


Therefore, as we venture outside of our cocoon (human nature) and into the world as a creature of this Universe, we do so in possession of a knowledge that no other being on Earth can express in ways like we do. It is as if one single cell living on your toe has come to realize who you are and why both it and you constitute one single being.


Add to that realization a spirit of reconciliation with the Nature of the entire system and a resolution to partner with Nature to create a new tier of sustainable continuity for life on Earth and "Presto!" we are transitioning to Planet Earth 2.0.


It follows that it is worth remembering that we (humanity) organized Planet Earth 1.0 (not knowing it at the time thousands of years ago) based upon our own experience and a very primitive interpretation of a natural organizing principle of survival. Over time this became a number of separate organizing agencies. Most are still very popular and with us today but, even now, not fully understood. I'm talking about the components of human society that we know as government, science, religion (the mystical realm really), industry and media.


It is possible that, early on, the fragmentation of these components was ushered by convenience in the distribution of power and resources. In time, these agencies drifted into an odd mutual relationship that, in a peculiar way, pretended to work separately. They (government, science, mysticism, industry and media) were never really able to work together or separately in actual practice, as we can easily see today. I will try to further explain why I think this is so in a future posting here. But, for now, please bear with me.


In Planet Earth 2.0, however, the first effect of our reconciliation with Nature is to notice that this organizational dislocation that took place so long ago was probably responsible for our eventual separation from the natural process. It caused us to create our own "human nature" to make up for the deficit. But this never quite worked out because, with nature out of the picture, all that was left was mindless competition for the control of the shares of power and resources. Fast forward to today's Planet Earth 1.0 and we arrive at the most recent incarnation of that ancient mess.


Happily as we enter an age of transition with our new partnership with Nature, the first thing that we gain is access to Nature's own organizational framework. As part of it, we begin to understand how the integral clockwork of survival operates. We can now choose the right combination that allows those organizing principles to finally work together. And, they can do so without losing their identities, their importance and their natural roles in Planet Earth 2.0.


To kind of sum things up and close today's blog, allow me to suggest that Planet Earth 2.0 is simply the logical landscape for a species that has come of age. Granted, this new transition for our species came through a difficult history. But, the dedication of thousands of individuals to solve the question of who we are has finally resulted in, not the end of the mystery, but the beginning of a new one with a new role for us to play and a new world to build.


For your printable image of "Solar Being" click here or on the image above.


Tiité

Reconciliation IV

In my last posting I mentioned that Nature's survival strategy is to create conditions conducive to life. The contrast between that strategy and ours (human nature's) is best observed in the separate outcome of each and the startling evidence of the end results.

Nature's (meaning life on earth's) survival strategy, I dare say, is a "sustainable continuity" of a multi-layered life process that has been integrated for over billions of years to produce uniformly at each of its exponential expressions (or layers) conditions that are adaptable and conducive to life.

Ours is the strategy of a species that has yet to develop sufficiently to be a part of that greater strategy (although we are at the tipping point to do so.) However, our childhood as a species has only taken us as far as to create conditions where life is merely a proprietary resource conducive to riches and power. What a point of contrast this is!

If I was an extraterrestrial being observing the species, the above conclusion would be the overall observation that I would record from my visit to Earth, particularly after experiencing and witnessing, first hand, human activity (and reading the news) for just a few days. I would also note that a brief survey of the rest of the earth environment suggests sufficient evidence to support the observation.

Dear friends, I intend no disrespect, but this is Planet Earth 1.0. It is a culture that we must face up to and transition away from towards Planet Earth 2.0 where, as I said in my last blog entry, we may be able to rejoin Nature's strategy. And, we can do so at an entry level that has never occurred before in the history of Life on Earth.

I have chosen the work of art titled "Reconciliation IV" for our illustration today because I think it illuminates the scope of my remarks regarding this very crucial but special moment in our history as we come to terms with the end of our childhood as a species and prepare to enter the transitional period towards our adulthood.

My art has always been about imagining what that reconciliation between art (as human expression) and life (as the process we are examining) represents for the future of our species and that of the rest of life on our planet.

As you may have realized, Planet Earth 2.0 is a creation no different than was the creation of Planet Earth 1.0 right after our discovery of fire and of the stone spear-point. Like then, Planet Earth 2.0 is a new cultural theatre, a new stage at the beginning of a new story where humanity departs to develop a different plot to celebrate its new place in the history of life.

Similarly, just as Planet Earth 1.0 began with the knowledge of fire and a new hunting tool, Planet Earth 2.0 begins fully aware of their (fire's and spear's) evolution, ultimate capability and their combined effect on life and the world over the last 100 millennia or so. Those thousands of years of labor constitute the landscape of realities that have attended the world that we have created beginning with those inventions and skills.

I wish to merge closer and closer in our conversation to the ideological landscape of Planet Earth 2.0 which is by far more interesting than rehashing too much on the detail about the innocence of our upbringing as a species.

Planet Earth 1.0 has come as far as it can. Perhaps, it has come even further than it should have considering the amount of work that is going to take to straighten out its deeds.

Fortunately there is enough, I think, science and technology (on the human side), planetary natural remnants (on Nature's side) and time to build a new world. Please notice that I say a "new world" because the illusion that we can restore the current world that our children are inheriting is untenable.

There may be enough time, know-how and material to build a new one. But, the world of the 19th or 20th centuries is all gone, never to return. To think otherwise is permissible, but just as foolish as rearranging the deck chairs on the RMS Titanic as it sinks.

The aesthetic reconciliation of art and life, as predicated by Data A art, was the first indication that we (humanity) can indeed rejoin the process of life on earth, albeit, at a different level and under different cultural circumstances.

The resulting conditions makes it possible to match Nature's own disposition. Thereby, the birth of a partnership between us and the world which has never existed before is enabled. This new partnership constitutes the only way that our survival requirements can be sustained alongside those of the other life-forms that are needed to support us as an ecology in a unified global environment.

So what will be our new role in that survival strategy?

Our new role is so exciting that, if you had any misgivings about leaving Planet Earth 1.0 behind, the incentives on Planet Earth 2.0 are such that you will soon perish the thought.

Consider for starters, the unbelievable history of the industrial age--all of its ups and downs, its poverty and riches that focused the incredible power of human ingenuity to tackle the conquest and absolute destruction of an entire planet (as we are still engaged in doing.)

Imagine, then, based just upon the current workload stemming from the global issues that need immediate attention, a similar but reversed focus applied to the construction of a new world and the sea of opportunity that there will be for totally new jobs and career opportunities and the new sense of wealth and well-being that surfaces with the spirit of the construction of a new world.

It is wise to consider that when we work in partnership with Nature we are secure of a partner that delivers the seasons on time each year. Nature is a partner whose sole aim is to maintain a "sustainable continuity" that, incidentally, already aptly provides food, shelter and a reproductive future to a million trillion creatures (just in the insect family, for instance) Nature does it on time, on budget and without waste.

Now, with a partner and a role model like that we just can't go wrong, people. Why would we want to remain so steadfast to an outdated culture that has already delivered all of its promise?

What makes our new role in Planet Earth 2.0 so outstanding is the fact that we have an opportunity that no other creature in the history of life on Earth has had. Namely, that we will be the first creature that has ever lived to actually be able to prevent its own extinction by partnering with nature and using our technological genius to create a new world that is suitable to us and what remains viable for long term-life on Planet Earth.

Let me close for now with a reference to the work "Reconciliation IV" that illustrates my remarks.

I believe that the best way to come to terms with the complexity of this moment in history is to simplify it against a greater complexity. This way, our narrow view of the world is rendered to its simplest expression or to the reality of just what it is.

"Reconciliation IV" is about a human being who has evolved to realize its place in the universe and the implications of its presence in the scheme of things. It is the simplified story of the fish that crawled out of the water, grew up to embrace the harmony of its home (earth), its place in the solar system and its role in the continuance of life as we know it in this blue marble on the outskirts of one spiral arm in the Milky Way.

In my next posting, we will begin to get into the tool box that is making these dreams a reality.

For your own printable image of "Reconciliation IV" click here or on the image above

Tiité

Quotation

I have chosen this sculpture titled "Quotation" to illustrate today's blog and, also, to make a direct distinction between the meaning of the word as an "extraction or a passage quoted" from someone's literary work and my own attempt to share a quotation taken directly from Nature at large and interpreted as such.

It is important however, that before we get to the quotation, that we take notice of the fact that we humans have become very good at putting words forward to present suggestions and ideas intended to discuss the issues regarding what we consider to be our most pressing needs. But, other than words, what do we really produce in the final analysis?

If you have been following this blog for the last few months since I have introduced the idea of Planet Earth 2.0, you may have noticed how challenging it is to introduce a new idea of this scope and to find the concise words and the level of verbal brevity that can secure an opportunity for mutual understanding.

I understand that the idea of Planet Earth 2.0 is a large claim to make. However, the purpose of this blog is to share, at least, the aesthetic armature and relevant material that I have gathered to back up the claim.

Therefore, allow me to go back to my original question regarding our tendency for discourse or conversation about critical issues. "But, other than words, what do we really produce in the final analysis?"

The fair answer is, "So far, very little."

Why?

Let me propose a two point answer that hopefully reduces millions of attending answers and potential arguments to their basic substance or, as is often said, to the bare bones.

First we are at the end of a development period in our history as a species that could be called "the age of short-term enlightenment." The priorities of our ascent to this point did not include the incubation of the cultural assets that are now so obvious by their absence. A short list of these missing assets include our respect for life, respect for the environment and their combined effect upon the health of the planet. Clearly, our future generations are severely handicapped by these deficits.

Instead, humanity has been primarily focused on its self-identified need to conquer the world, at all cost. And, we have succeeded in that. But the "all cost" includes climate change, environmental devastation, standing-room-only prisons and the economic collapse of a consumer society.

Secondly, we are finally just beginning to realize that we desperately need this missing asset. (Let's call it a long-term perspective on life and a cultural infrastructure to support it.) Yet, all we seem to be able to do is to take comfort in the words, phrases and slogans that resonate a semblance of how great it will be if this asset was ever to present itself for real and in enough time to make a difference.

It follows that, unable to put these wise words to work for us at this critical junction (because there is no cultural base to support their use) we just talk about about them, we link our contacts to them, we argue about them, we blog about them, we fight about them and we... you know the rest.

In the brief time that I've had this conversation with you, there are already voices that suggest that the idea of Planet Earth 2.0 is all rubbish. I respectfully say, in return, that this work can only be dismissed as rubbish in the presence of a better and more promising idea and, preferably, one that (like our model) is already at work and producing the desired results.

Now that we are on the same page, let's take words to a new level.

When I talk about Planet Earth 2.0, I'm also prepared to show the points of contrast between it and the old model. The first point of contrast is its long term perspective for creating conditions conducive to life. Please note that it is not "total conquest and domination" like the "1.0" model it replaces.

It could be said that a new perspective like that, in and of itself, is enough. But, it is not. The most difficult part of the problem to replace an exhausted survival model like Planet Earth 1.0 with a new one is the transition between them. This is the challenge at hand now.

Fortunately, the answer is quite apparent to us. In Nature "the appearance of the need is just the preview to the appearance of the adaptation needed to overcome the deficit." This means that we know that more of the same will not service. But, we also know that being knowledgeable of that fact is okay since we have the ability to change and embrace a new strategy. What remains for our species to overcome the deficit, then, is to establish the strategy and to layout the foundations.

Planet Earth 2.0 is an aesthetic armature for a model that addresses these problems. It is designed not to be any more complicated than that even if its implications are profound.

We might not be able to embrace fully a new survival strategy in our lifetime. But, we can certainly embrace the groundwork on behalf of our children and do what we can to to secure it. Nature has already mastered that process in more ways that we can imagine. The information is there for the taking. Why shouldn't we?

Therefore today's blog, and the work of art that illustrates it, is an extraction from something that Nature does all the time. We may have not really noticed it because, perhaps, it was not time yet for us to notice.

So this is today's quotation:

"Nature's survival strategy is to create conditions conducive to life."

Our prerogative in Planet Earth 2.0 is to rejoin that process. "How" we rejoin that process and "what" will be our new role in the survival strategy for life on earth is the topic, or point of contrast, for our next blog posting.

If you desire a printable image of "Quotation" click here or on the image above.

Tiité

Behind the Veil of Planet Earth 1.0

Today's illustration is titled "Behind the Veil of Planet Earth 1.0." I think it is a good follow-up to "Green Dance" for a number of reasons. Some of these I will touch on briefly in order to enhance the central point of the title work and, for that matter, this blog.

I titled the work "Behind the Veil of Planet Earth 1.0" so that I could reference the work to Francis Bacon, the iconic British painter whose own search for reality and the sense that "we live though screens or veils" so influenced this work and my decision to offer it as an homage to that great artist.

For me, as you may have noticed, Art and Life are just two sides of the same coin. This painting makes that idea so clear that you can easily see what part of the work was done by life (meaning Nature, of course) and which part I did myself.

As Francis may have said in this particular case, Life provided the accidental armature for the work and I interpreted it in mutual partnership. You may notice that the eye and most of the anatomy of the central figure is actually the natural grain of the wood surface upon which the rest of the work is painted. The rest is my process to adapt the natural gesture of the wood to the reality of my own experience in the world and my grasp about what our world (Nature in particular) is experiencing as a result of our actions.

Many years went by in the completion of this homage to Francis Bacon, as the piece was worked on and reworked again. But, from the beginning the painting hinted more and more to being a kind of a mirror, an enchanted mirror existing as if under a magical spell cast by Merlin. Curiously, the work has the propensity that, when someone looks into its surface, it seems to have a way that mirrors the viewer's own anguish and despair in the privacy of their own conscious.

There is really no question that presently the outlook for civilization is gloomy. And, there is little doubt among historians and scholars that life in general has always had a tendency to be harsh, brutish and short. I'm saying that life has never been easy save for those intermittent instances that punctuate our drama with moments of joy, awe and fulfillment.

The relevance between this work and "Green Dance" is that, while business as usual continues on the surface, behind the scene there is a kind of anguish and despair about the amount of time left to do something meaningful that is suffered by those (thousands really) who are diligently working to solve the challenges we face. Our work is largely ignored. Our pleas in regards to the impending catastrophe that we are bringing upon our children and our world is often ridiculed behind unsupportable and petty arguments.

I've said before that it is useless to blame innocence for deeds committed under its spell. But, things are quite different now because innocence is no longer at work. The spell was broken by the reality of the kind we see in the mirror behind the veil of Planet Earth 1.0.

Our new Planet Earth 2.0 is in its infancy. Nevertheless, it is a revealing new armature upon which a new world can be built and is being built. As an artist, my job is to confront reality and to use creativity to deal with it. Fortunately, art has partnered with life as dramatized in this work and more clearly by the aims of Data A art in general.

Furthermore, this partnership is most promising because, at the end of the day when it comes to life and the myriad of ways in which it can be lived, Nature knows best. Besides, we are growing as a group everyday and we are beginning to meet people of the caliber who can move from behind the veil and join in the creation of the daring new world that is Planet Earth 2.0.

In my next postings here, I will begin to share with you in some detail of what I know about one very remarkable idea that makes the partnership between human nature and Nature, at large, possible and how that idea makes Planet Earth 2.0 a plausible gateway to an alternative future for our world.

If you desire a printable image of "Behind the Veil of Planet Earth 1.0" click here or on the image above.

If you are curious about Francis Bacon click here.


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Green Dance

I'm illustrating today's blog with a scale model of a large outdoor sculptural work titled "Green Dance." This work explores a dialog concerning the relative value of the green mentality as awareness versus the stark reality of the green planetary mass extinction going on now.

I have often said that people would not mind doing the right thing if some one would just show them what that is.

The trouble is that our human culture does not have a component that can let us know what is the right thing. And, since the best we can do at the moment (worldwide) is to agree to disagree about what may constitute the right thing, we are nowhere.

Now, this is not the only stumbling block to any significant progress. Add to it the fact that even if we happen to overcome this impasse and finally agree on something, we would not know what to do next beyond that point. This is so because, we would have spent so much time and energy building up a better argument to support our opposing views, rather than using our time and resources to actually identify and try out workable solutions, particularly on a global scale.

That is why I called this piece the "Green Dance." For the most part our green intentions are just that, "green intentions." Because even if the solution is right in front of us, we either fail to recognize it or are not sufficiently motivated to see it. Humanity is simply not culturally equipped to take advantage of new outside-of-the-rut ideas contemporaneously.

History can back-up what I'm saying with dozens of examples of breakthrough ideas that today are commonplace. Almost all of these ideas were ideas that were summarily dismissed in their own day. Often they were dismissed because they threatened the hegemony of a status quo that was controlled by the short term ambitions of lesser contemporary models.

Now, none of what I've said is new. However, what is new is that we no longer have the luxury of waiting ten, twenty or more years to accept a solution as valid or as workable and then to begin the long process that will eventually lead to its adoption and implementation. That is a kind of waiting that we or the environment do not have anymore.

This futile "green dance" is at best a diversion that poses as progress in the face of the real urgency of the issues. Most of what needs to be done to arrest this trend is to simply accept the fact that what most of humanity has done was misguided and that what it is doing now is wrong.

Furthermore, the solutions that will come forth to deal with these problems cannot be expected to suit the life-style nor the culture which created the problems in the first place.

Therefore, the dialog becomes not so much about what we can do for us now. Rather, it is about what we are going to do to empower the next several generations so that they can come into a world where they can find the foundations of a new culture uniquely suited to them and their challenges. They will need this new culture to be solely theirs. This way they can grow up fostering first-hand those ideas that we find impossible to accept today, but that we know will be right for them and right for the world.

Planet Earth 2.0 is an idea that is taking form and that is drawing its social organizing principles from lessons already learned. These include the lessons learned from our abandonment of our relationship with the natural world, the lessons learned from our human arrogance that assumes that we are the sole proprietor of this planet and the lessons learned from our insatiable appetite to consume for profit everything including even our own children's future share.

The most profound thing that we can know for sure at this point in our history is that we cannot stop ourselves from running the planet into the ground. But, our children's children can if only we decide to allow them to do so.

Now that is the kind of Green Dance of which we can all be proud to be a part of because, as strange as it may seem at first, it is the only green dance that makes sense. And, we know it!


If you desire a printable image of "Green Dance," click here or on the image above.


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Go! Friends

The illustration for this blog is appropriately "Go! Friends" because we have just kicked-off the Facebook Worldwide Artist Search. All that we have to do is invite friends to help find an artist candidate for any of the nations that are available at this page and then writing the find on the wall on our group page.

Also on the discussion Board of our group page you will find the requisites for an artist candidate as follows:

1) The WPMP Artist Ambassador must be a native or a direct descendant of native parents from the nation he or she represents.

2) He or she must be an active or practicing artist in any accepted art form such as painting, sculpture, writing, dance, theater, film, and architecture.

3) The artist must reside in the nation he or she represents.

4) The artist should make an effort to understand the following objectives as they will become the proof of our collaborative effort.

1. To create the first global work of Data A art.
2. To demonstrate that humanity can work together as a single species.
3. To establish a minimal working model of world peace and present it to the world as a measure of sufficiency.

5) The artist should understand that this work of art is a global collaborative effort that requires a level of communication between all of its ambassadors in order to sustain the global character of the collaborative work and its objectives.

6) The artist should be able to receive and document the arrival of the peace marker and submit the documentation of the event to WPMP central office.

7) The artist should be able to direct the operations involved in placing the Peace Marker in a permanent location, and to coordinate the efforts with the central project office.

8) The artist must be willing to remain an active part of the project until the project is completed and thereafter as long as they wish.

9) The WPMP Artist Ambassador must understand that this project is the first of its kind in the history of our species and, therefore, the potential exists that your participation in the project may generate an unusual amount of attention to your person and to your own personal work.

What is the Worldwide Peace Marker Project?

The Project:

The Worldwide Peace Marker Project (or WPMP) is a work of Data A art that falls within the classification of "installation art." WPMP reaches beyond art's conventional boundaries by becoming a global cooperative represented by 198 artists from as many nations in the world. Because of its global scope, WPMP manages to integrate human diversity into a new dialog about art and life (as Nature) into a single global cultural experience.

General objective:

Worldwide Peace Marker Project has (3) principal objectives.

1. An artistic objective, to create the first truly global work of art in the history of humanity.
2. A humanitarian objective, to demonstrate to humanity that we can work collaboratively and globally as a single species to address the challenges we face as a species in the 21st century.
3. A planetary survival objective, to establish a minimal working model of world peace as a measure of Sufficiency.

So who do you know that knows an artist in any of the countries where we need an ambassador? Help us find a friend who will find that friend who knows one. Thanks...

For your own collectible image of "Go! Friends" click on the image above. That will take you to our Flickr site where you may download one.

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