Imitation: The Way We Think

Hi Vivienne,

I definitely want to read this book, these little excerpts you have shown here have really got me thinking, this is always something I’ve thought about, ideas against the logical thing to do, using an insight/instinct rather than being told by society what we should believe. This for me ties in for when I interpret music. For example, some composers should be played in a certain way, they all have their own style, but the ones who stick out as having a certain way you should play them for me are composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. Bach is someone, who you should ‘not be too heavy handed, not be too “expressive” the music should speak for itself, not your emotion so much.’ Mozart should be ‘very precise, light, easy listening, more emotion than Bach.’ Beethoven (and I know he is not your favourite Vivienne!) should be ‘dramatic, heart wrenching, but still keeping this light reserved feel…’
And when these stereotypes of the great composers are there, you automatically think that is RIGHT (sure, there are rules that are as important as the notes actually being played, like dynamics and tempo)…but as a creative process the truth is, its your heart that should speak! Your mind is engaging, there is no right or wrong. Its a free thing!
I know for you Vivienne, as you have said, reading a good book is the most engaging thing you can do, for me, it is interpreting music, it is such a deep thing, balancing your own desires for the music with the composers, and what you think the composer wanted.
Some people always feel that you should play the music how you think the composer would have played it, however I feel that, you should play from your HEART…otherwise…who are you? I think you must be emotionally involved – live with the piece as if it were your child.
I could go on for hours about this, although I’m not the best writer, I’m not sure I have fully gotten my point across, but it does tie back into Gaia, and the tree, because it is about what society inputs on us, what is tasteful, what is accepted, but then what is true to us. For me, a good musician plays with brain, a fantastic musician plays with heart.

Kyle.

Comment by Kyle Nash-Baker on 01/11/2011 at 12:29 am

Dear Vivienne,
I am not sure about Lovelock´s idea that intuition is for the user only and not passed on to the next generation. I come from a family with roots in the sames in northern Finland (therefore you may excuse my not perfect English). For different reasons that are not interesting for the readers of this blog, I was brought up in Sweden and have had very little contact with my relatives and their traditions. But one thing I do have contact with is my intuition and my strong bonds to nature (Gaia).
I work as an artist and being an artist you always are in the process struggling to find a
way of presenting your inner unique idea of the world surrounding you. This is so well described in your Manifesto that I will not go further into this part of the process – BUT – the point is that I believe that intuition is inside you to be discovered. It is in fact passed on through generations of experiences and traditions linked to the environment and to nature. I believe there are threads to pick up, links to the past, in every human being, regardless if you have been brought up with “ your” culture or not. This does not mean you have to follow them, maybe you don´t want to, but the threads are there and they are your link to connect to the whole. It could be illustrated by the way a mycelium grows always connected to a tree. By curiosity you want to know where you came from and you start digging – soon you discover there is a tree connected to your mycelium, then there is another tree also connected to the same system and another and another and another. This is not meant only as an example of blood bands, but as an illustration of the wholeness. It is inevitable; ones you start listening to yourself something pulls and wants your attention so very much that you cannot resist. This is intuition and when you rediscover it you cannot escape. It´s always there to remind you of who you really are. You can numb it with different things, or before you have discovered that it is there, replace it with overindulge (overconsumption). This is the easiest thing in the world to do (for the rich part of the world) and greed is the fear of losing it all.
Therefore I think it is essential that we teach our children different ways to discover the connections and their own intuition. Art is a very important way of finding out. Not everything in the art world is of course aiming in this direction – You have to THINK and FEEL and use your intuition to see for yourself. I also taught art for many years and now I can honestly say that there is a generation of young people that do CARE A LOT and they will carry on to find out new ways. But we that now are in our middle ages must engage and help them. That is our duty and our responsibility. Vivienne: You put so much work into this and what an inspiration you are! I am so glad I surfed into your homepage the other day and took part of AR and all the beautiful thoughts and qualities you as a harbinger and source of rejuvenation bring to us for the ennoblement of our minds.
Maybe all said above is already glass clear to the readers of this blog – well all the better!
All my love
Anne Lang

Comment by Anne Lang on 01/11/2011 at 1:02 pm

Dear Vivienne,

The other day I was in an Art critique in my studio, along with my class and tutor. I had to stand in front of around 20 individuals who I did not know, and explain the work that I had produced.
I would consider myself quite a confident person, but I was talking about such a strong matter, the unjust imprisonment of Leonard Peltier, and my voice was shaking, I went red in the face, and my mouth was extremely dry.
I had ‘perceived’ my audience to not be interested in what i had to say, to be judging every hand gesture and every small mistake in my utterance, and then I stopped in my head and realised, what I perceived of the group, and what is really happening were two totally different things, to which I realised that it was because I was trying to explain something that I was passionate about, and that I was very scared of saying something wrong or getting a reference wrong.

I just carried on and spoke whatever words came into my head. It was extremely hard but I knew that what I was saying was so important, and I am a thorough believer in that you must speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.

PS:
Anne Lang, you described;
“This is so well described in your Manifesto that I will not go further into this part of the process – BUT – the point is that I believe that intuition is inside you to be discovered.”

-Could you perhaps explain what you mean by this? Im not entirely sure but I read it to mean that there is an innate desire by artists to want to be discovered, and to be known? I absolutely loved your post and found it very well written.

Comment by Sam Varnham on 02/11/2011 at 12:00 am

Dear Sam,
Thank You for your comment on my post. No, I did not mean that there is an innate desire to be discovered and known in all artists but for many a constant struggle to find your own unique way of telling something that in most cases also is already told by others. The Manifesto I think, describes the struggle of NOT be taken in by the part of the world that says it has THE ONLY RIGHT way of dealing with different matters and as I understand it Vivienne also want us to think about how we can navigate through it all and what are the costs if we don´t start to think about our connection to nature in time. You really described it so well Sam in your presentation and your thinking process that took place the other day in your studio. It is hard work to present in the right words what you aim to say and the fear of being misinterpreted takes a lot of energy. Maybe the art world of today stresses the importance of words, words, words, and cares to little about what a piece of work really tells us intuitively?

With kind regards from
Anne

Comment by Anne Lang on 03/11/2011 at 1:17 pm

Some of James’ ideas and the concept of intuition and Imitation remind me of John Bowlbys psychological theory of attachment, specifically relating to what he named the Internal Working Model and the Continuity Hypothesis. We are born with a certain amount of genetic coding, things which make us human, and in Bowlby’s theory, we are biologically engineered to form attachments, much I feel, in the way which we are biologically formed to develop intuition, based on our past experiences, to almost dictate how we will see and react to the future. This acts directly as a survival mechanism. His continuity hypothesis dictates that childhood relationships will directly influence the relationships formed in later life, specifically with offspring, much as how we interpret and experience the world around us directly influences our outlook on life. 

We learn from what we experience, and often we imitate the world around us, learn from others, in the same way in which we learn to smile and laugh, from our parents. It is not outwardly or explicitly taught as such. We are biologically manufactured to pick up these talents, almost as part of a genetic instinct to live and learn. 

I like to believe we are designed to learn from the past. You touch a flame when young and know not to do it again because it causes pain  for example. And delving into the world of art allows us to do this also. We consciously and subconsciously take in huge amounts of information from a painting. Whether we realise it or not. And each time we take in a new piece of information it is stored in our brains, gradually expanding our view and knowledge of the world around us. We develop an intuition. Through the pieced together imitation of not only artists and their representations of the world around us, but our own past experiences of the world, we take these nuggets of information to piece together a picture of our own, which dictates to us what we assume, what we know, and what we believe to be true about the world. Our actions and reactions are then formed from this collage to create what we may name as Intuition. 

This in my opinion, is why as a society we seem to be lacking in terms of learning from the past. Looking at what has gone wrong in the past and learning from it, so we don’t have to make the same mistakes. Hence Art is so important, because it is a means to developing insight, intuition, and Internal Working Model of the world in which we live, a model which we can expand and grow if we just give it a chance. It gives us the ability to look back at how the world was perceived and learn from that perception. 

I hope I’ve made my point here, whilst I do feel my actual points are a little mixed together! A brilliant post yet again Vivienne!

James

Comment by James Emmett on 04/11/2011 at 11:24 pm

Dear James
You made the point quite strongly about looking at and learning from the past so we don’t make the same mistakes.
I’d like to recommend a book to you: ‘The Gods must have Blood’, by Anatole France. It alludes to the harm that actions based on reason alone can do – the book exposes how young people can be influenced by fascist autocratic governments, in this case the revolutionary government of Robespierre and his Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.
This is a book I would recommend to anybody who wishes to become a fit reader and to gain an understanding of the world and its people.

Comment by Vivienne on 23/11/2011 at 1:48 pm

What a great discussion! There are some excellent posts here, and I will just add a couple of thoughts on this topic. The struggle between reason and intuition can be a problem for some people, or one can learn to reconcile the two over time. I have always been a person who relies on my feelings or intuition more than anything else when making a decision that affects my life, and this has served me well for the most part.
However, relying on intuition only can also lead to trouble if not balanced by some type of rational thinking. It has taken me many years to learn to balance the two types of thought, and I still have much more learning to do! I think what Lovelock is saying in this chapter makes perfect sense, and is good advice for anyone in any profession involving important decision-making. The important thing to remember, whether we consider ourselves intellectuals or not, is that we are all human and have the same capacity for knowledge, and it is up to each of us to develop our thinking process to both better ourselves and the world we live in.

Jeffrey Jordan

Comment by Jeffrey Jordan on 05/11/2011 at 3:35 pm

Hi Vivienne,

Would you say the idea of imitation also stretches to the Thorstein Veblens theory of Pecuniary Emulation – the idea that we are essentially ‘keeping up with the Jones’ through imitating them with the wanting and consuming of more and more and more?

Comment by Hugo on 06/11/2011 at 12:34 am

I am delighted to stumble upon this qualified small “community” and I take this insight with me on my way: The most precious emissions might not even draw any perception by the death oriented or declined agreement obsession. The war of embodied spirits goes on between digestion oriented and poetic creative at cause, between isolated, lonesome and celebrated and feeling warmth from all sides or friends or dimensions spending a common comfort. From universal or global visualization power of visual artists, from imitation to poetically causing I see emotions at work. The one thing we “visual” characters seem not fit enough to saturate entirely is emotion. It would be perhaps the end of wars, of misorientation, of perception failures and enlighten humanity so as to handle energy pro survival, perhaps one day imaginably pro poetic creation from cause. Perhaps the attempt should be to rise above the more crude energies involved, like in hate & love dramas. Beyond and, perhaps, above such bands of motion, energy and emotion, we might discover realms of an artistic future seldom envisioned by our greatest urging for a better culture in all times. Van Gogh, Pollack, you name them up to present time, were alone, alone, alone. I try to rise beyond that hunger for relatively crude energies in our perceptions and refuse to relent in regards to my work cycle in that challange, starving to come out beyond these efforts.

Comment by Frank Steineck on 08/11/2011 at 7:31 am

re: Frank Steineck says: 08/11/2011 at 7:31 “…Van Gogh, Pollack, you name them…” I am sorry for the typo. I meant to say “…Vincent Van Gogh, Jackson PollockPollack, you name them…”.

Comment by Frank Steineck on 11/11/2011 at 10:57 pm