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.

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