Viewer you are invited to join me (click on the link bellow to view it)
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Men and Technology by Judy Krishnamurti
...As I am writing my final project I just arrived to seeing a talk given by Krishnamurti in 1982...
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Something Interesting...The internet...
This is a video clip published at "The Real News" the first independent news network.
Technology, Freedom of Speech, Internet...and...
...From Aggression to Elegance...
This writing moves from reality on a global level to invisability, questions perceptions, science technological essence and searching in understanding of myself. It consists of Synthesis of Eastern and Western thought...
...Take a deep breath...
Paramahansa Yogananda(1999), widely recognized as one of the prominent spiritual teachers of our time wrote in his book “A world of transition”:
Change yourself and you have done your part in changing the world.
Every individual must change his own life if he wants to live in
a peaceful world. The world cannot become peaceful unless
and until you yourself begin to work towards peace (p.202).
We live in reality of total contradictions and contrasts, reality of degradation in the majority of human kind, of violence and aggression. The crisis in which we are in it is not economic, social, cultural, racial, national, and ecological in nature, it is a crisis of consciousness. It is a reality where parallel to super development of technology and science; seventy two percent of the world lives in poverty, thirty-four thousand children die out of hunger and treatable diseases every single day. We have more and more mentally, emotionally and physically sick people, who try to pull through every day life. Meaningless conflicts and wars, total separation, isolation and lost of self. How numb we have become to accept the live images on the television screens of people being killed for patriotic and safety reasons. To what level of denial have we sunk to that we think this is normal and this is how life should be. Why did and do we accept it? Why have we forgotten about the power of the spirit and human intelligence which has endless capacity to create and transform reality? Where our imagination has taken us or left us…or…
In the western part of the world we experience the result of super materialistic development and we as healers face daily the human suffering, missing the presence of spiritual breath and fulfilled silence. The eastern part of the world is lost in old traditions and practices of spirituality looking toward the west for more practical and simple way of experiencing life, trying to rediscover the incredible amount of wisdom from over six thousand years ago. There is definite imbalance and lack of harmony in every piece of the Earth. We institutionalized life, establishing organizations, associations, foundations, stereotypic theories, dogmas, methods, techniques, creating reality in which we have enslaved the human spirit, living an outward life. If our thoughts, emotions and actions are the trinity throughout which we create our reality, what is lacking so to create a better world of peace and harmony? How the art and its endless capacity can be mobilized to assist the elevation of the human consciousness? How can we breathe in light toward transformation? How can we open these energies within us? Are we too much in our minds ignoring the energies of the heart? Are we aware of our own imagination and the possibilities to recreate our lives? How we use this invisible but always present energy?
James Engell (1981) wrote, “Imagination for Schelling is an immaterial and even mysterious energy” (p.305). It is always there in its multi-dimensional presence. It seems that moves from the known to the unknown, from complication to simplicity. In some moments this mysterious energy becomes visibly materialized and probably most often its highest creations never become present. Other times it comes spontaneously unexpected and others structurally invited. Sometimes imagination is escorted with emotional experiences, others is emotionally free.
“The imagination is not matter, and it is not “received” by any senses, but it alone explains how we face change, connect the past, present and future, and direct our actions” (p.52). During a creative flow, even though every creative process I have experienced never repeats itself, the flow of imaginative energy manifests uniquely and it depends strongly to the state of mind, reflecting physically on the brain function. According to Engell (1981), “The imagination orchestrates the crescendo and harmony of feeling and thought” (p.53).
Using Mind Mirror EEG, Anna Wise (1997) measured and trained brainwaves. In “The High Performance Mind,” Wise stated that brainwaves play an important part in non‑verbal communication. She studied electrical impulses produced by the brain, stating that the four kinds of brainwaves; alpha, beta, theta, and delta communicate information along the conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind. She described:
While theta brainwaves are associated with creativity, other brain rhythms are needed to bring this creativity into your consciousness mind. A combination of additional frequencies is needed to access the profound potential of theta brainwaves. Delta waves make up the unconscious mind, they are radar that seeks out and receives information on an instinctive level. High deltas are mostly intuitive, but all of them work together to create a wide range of mental, emotional and spiritual states. (Compare with music sometimes the combination is melodious, smooth and flowing.) Our goal is to create a full, powerful and harmonious symphony of brainwaves (p.93).
As Wise (1997) concluded:
To enhance creativity, the artist has two choices: meditate before creating, as in alone meditation, or encourage the awakened mind brain waves pattern with the eyes open while in the act of creating.
Pattern of creativity is on the way to form awakening mind patterns (p.107).
A Buddhist perspective supports this, “When the thought becomes a routine, it creates a pattern and loses its energy flow. The mind has certain independency than the body but the body is interdependent of the mind. There are different levels of the mind, which defines different energy levels.” (The Dalai Lama, 1995, p.129) This quite a significant direction of thought and realization can give some further perspective on why it is so difficult the energy flow to be shifted from more surfaces to deeper level of consciousness. The reality, which we create, has very repetitive nature, where control and power is easier to impose. On that surface level is where the mind operates within intellectual framework of perceptions, transferred and adapted information. On that level the imagination energy has its limited expression, function and ability to create. Engell (1981) summarized:
Schelling, like Coleridge, gives imagination at least two functions in the human mind. We receive elementary stimuli from the outside world, such as noise, light, color, hardness, stench, and sweetness. This is the original sensory perception, according Schelling and he calls this stage of mind the first potential of power. But these stimuli are then grouped, ordered and arranged into objects, and these groupings have a connection with the world of forms and ideas…. We compare the passive perceptions in ourselves with our active ordering of them. The two, active and passive, interplay in an unending dialectic (p.307).
Very common observation is that most human beings circulate within that level, the level of no originality. It is usually a repetition on pre-existing matter, ideas, etc. To study clients’ creative imagination, becomes essential to have objective perception from where life has been self created and experienced and the momentum ability to shift towards expansion and actual change. Is the imagination flow is blocked within its passive function or is it capable to travel further beyond the ego and intelligence? “Throughout the act and product of its own creativity, the ego or intelligence actually sees itself becoming objective and real. Imagination frees man from the closed circle of self-reflection and subjectivity” (James Engell, 1991, p.318). It does create a definite new form, the work of art, which expresses the mind relationships to its own perceptions and to the external world, but can go above and beyond this manifestation. The work of art becomes external and objective. The mind has created something, through transferring its vibrations to the physical body, which releases itself from never ending series of perceptions and self-perceptions. The work of art becomes apart of the world, a part of nature, yet created by a free act of the mind. The unity or the absence of it within the art piece becomes a reflection of state of being. It represents the unity of mental and emotional energies being materialized. My mind shifts in the direction of duality of imagination. The mystery of how this energy can move from elegance to aggression and what is the drive, which directs this move. Is this related in any way to the mind-heart connection? In the time of observation of a piece of art we can know what the source of energy that dominated the work is. Did it come from the heart or did it come from the mind? It is deep intuitive knowing that is based on complex emotional experience…we feel the soul of the matter. Beauty and aesthetics are important but not absolutely, the heart of the artwork to be experienced.
According to Chogyam Trungpa (1996) the establisher of “Dharma art” “that main point of dharma art is discovering elegance and that is the question of state of mind, according to the Buddhist tradition” (p.5). Further the philosophy of dharma art defines the purpose of art is “a work of art to bring out the goodness and dignity of a situation. (Trungpa Choguam, 1996, p.8). Overcoming aggression is a main intention of dharma art. According to Buddhist Vajryana tradition, if your mind is preoccupied with aggression, you cannot function properly. On the other hand, if your mind is preoccupied with passion, there are possibilities. In a state of aggressive mental energy we do not want reality to experience in the fullest sense of all. Instead, we seem to always try to bring in substitute reality. Another layer of seeking brings me into the realm of imagination in relation of developing awareness of self and overcoming the boundaries of the ego-self experience. It is a new place of integrity and wholeness, where creative imagination unities the momentum and continuum of experience. From the individual to the collective…from the collective to the individual…A moving within…inward…outward, where the spirit is truthfully rediscovered, materializing itself in pieces. The secret of the best art is internal process: it shapes and generates form from within; it unifies all parts. It is not the imposition of a form on a heterogeneous mass or the external manipulation of surface effect. In other words: “creative imagination is the secret of art” (James Engell, 1981, p.319).
If we begin to theorize about the existence of the world, its solidity, its eternity, or whatever, we are blocking out a very large chunk of our experience. We are trying to prove too much and trying to build a foundation too much. …The question of perception becomes very important, because perceptions can’t be packed down into a solid basis. They are shifty, and they continuously float in and out of our life” (p. 57-p.58).
These lines are a moving reflection of new, old, re-discovered thought and
feeling in process of ever lasting dance…a dance… a perfect dance in its own imperfection…
Imagination & Technology: Where in the concept of Being, Doing and Having?
I do not now why but I am having thoughts about how technology influences imagination, a source of creativity a swell as the concept of being, having and doing. I am asking the question does the technological experience keeps us into doing, having or allows us to be?
Entering the experience of “Poetics of Imagining” by Richard Kearnney brought thought and feeling in the realm of being, having and doing. It began with the expressed statement:
…Whenever this imaginative function is lacking, human consciousness loses its
freedom and falls victim to surrounding circumstances. No longer able to envision
alternative modes of experience transcending our present state of affairs, we
despair- we fall back into unfreedom. Imagination’s power to suspend the natural
attitude in favor of the phenomenological attitude of free variation is…(p.23)
“…I know that nothing belongs to me
But the thought which unimpeded
From my soul will flow.
And every favorable moment
Which loving Fate
From the depth lets me enjoy…”
This letter represented by Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust (Faust as a dramatic description of the conflict between being and having) expresses the quality of being with the utmost simplicity.
Being in the present moment and turning back I see an active dance of ideas, influences, concepts, belief systems, philosophies that came and stayed… and some of them left quietly the space of my own truth. A Daoism’s wisdom says, “Human kind tends to think that spiritual growth comes thru gaining knowledge, but the real spiritual enlightenment starts with getting rid of the unnecessary one”.
A poem, an image, a word, a movement, a sensation have become in a certain moment, time and space an essential piece of philosophy. Some exist consciously or subconsciously, waiting to be provoked and than materialized. The intensity is colorful and it is often impossible to stop the moment of happening and say: “this is what defines me”. I came to the realization after long struggling in practicing attachment and detachment in interaction with the physical reality, that no matter what I achieve on my pathway I can never express the fullness of the self. The grandiose nature of our spiritual identity is endlessly expressible…its perfect in its own unperfection.
Most of all experiencing life in awareness not intellectualizing it has been a deep intention of mine. I find continuously moving forwards simplicity, totally wanting to live fully, with no doubts and when is time to go, I can leave dancing within the light. Every moment I enter the duality of what it is, shifting from seeing absolute meaning to feeling the absolute meaninglessness. Beinsa Duno (1927), a spiritual master of the beginning of 20th century stated: “The most difficult art of all is to create your own life. This is when you become a master.”
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1957 inaugurated the Spiritual Regeneration Movement, establishing the art of Transcendental meditation. In 1963 he finishes the book “Science of Being and Art of Living” where he unfolds the wisdom of the Veda and Vedic Literature taught to Maharishi by Guru Dev. I was 17 year old, when I came across with his teachings of truth in which I found a piece of mine. He expresses that “All levels of peace and happiness, creativity, intelligence, and power are nothing but levels of being. One extreme of being is absolute, and the other is the grossest state of relative existence.”(p.67) The main goal is achieving the level of “pure being ”, defined as being in the stage “peace of mind” as formulated by Dalai Lama. (1999)
When a human enters the space of the creative process intentionally or intuitively, he moves from one stage of being towards another, a more pure one, form one stage of imagination to another. A dimension of inner freedom is achieved where the mind and heart communicate in stillness. In this moment we are opening the door towards liberation (detachment).
“The freedom of the mind is freedom from the bondage of experience. On this point the whole philosophy of bondage and liberation of life turns.” Dalai Lama (2001)
The concept of being I believe is essential in understanding my (our) nature and the endless possibilities of creativity and it’s imaginative power. According to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1959) the way to contact the being is thru transcendental meditation. It is my belief that another way is the creative process. Practicing and experiencing both, I observe increase of energy, clarity of mind and emotional harmony. It is fascinating that the deeper I go, the process became more silent on the level of pure being. In creative arts therapy sessions the most powerful ones have ended in fulfilled silence.
According Maharishi (1959) creativity lies in the nature of absolute Being, creation is its play, and evolution is its expansion in its Beingness. During our human experience the conscious mind reaches levels of more pure consciousness, where different levels of creation in different forms keep on evolving.
Erich Fromm (1976), not to exclude the philosophical presence, treats the concept of being from more anthropological and psychological points of view. He understood the alternatives having or being to be “two fundamental modes of existence, or two different kinds of orientation toward self and the world, two different types of character structure whose respective dominance determines the totality of how a person thinks, feels and acts.” (To Have or to be? p.24)
Between 1974 and 1976, while working on the book “To Have or to be?” Erich Fromm wrote far more manuscript and chapters than actually he used in the book, which was published in 1976. Some of these chapters are later published in the book “The Art of Being”. They deal entirely with “steps towards being” that the individual can take in order to learn “the art of being”.
It is tremendously interesting that during the same year 1976 World Government of the Age of Enlightment, a non-political, non-religious, global organization was established with sovereignty in the domain of consciousness, authority in the invincible power of Natural Law, and activity in purifying world consciousness, with the participation of the people of over 120 countries.
Erich Fromm defines the mode of being and having from different aspects: security-insecurity, knowledge and knowing, solidarity-antagonism, activity-passivity, joy-pleasure, sin forgiveness, here, now past, future, etc. I deeply respect the multi-dimensional views on the concept discussed and the depth of interaction of Eastern and Western thought in his writings. According Fromm “having refers to things and things are fixed and describable. Being refers to experience, and human experience is in principle not describable”. (p. 98)
A very important moment is that “being implies change”, “being is becoming”. The perspective of knowledge and knowing in relation to being fascinated me. “Knowing in the mode of being, means to “see” reality in its nakedness. It does not mean to be in possession of the truth; it means to penetrate the surface and to strive critically and actively in order to approach truth ever more closely”. (p. 135)
Master Eckhart (2006) reflects it further: “Knowledge is no particular though but rather it peels off and is disinterested and runs naked to God, until touches him and grasps him.” (p.172) What a powerful beauty of truth.
These are fragmented reflections within me brought thru two extraordinary souls: Erich Fromm and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who made their deep marks in the elevation of the human consciousness and overcoming suffering on the pathway of Love and Happiness (when the East meets the West). The dance must go on…
“Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Bring the Earth your love and happiness.
The Earth ill safe
When we feel safe in ourselves.
From call me by true names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh
Just be…just be… in your endless spirit…
Art-Based Research...Heart felt Belief
“Inside Out: Outside in”
Art Based Research Project
by
Ralitza M. Vladimirov
(The following project is currently going on and it is in it's second phase with location Israel)
The Intention: of the Art based Research Project:
“Inside Out: Outside in: This self oriented art based study is going to explore several aspects with the used of 2 main art forms; art and dance-movement/performance:
- Mind-Body connection during the creative process
- The interaction of emotion and thought in relation to the creative process
- Body vs. Mind memory and their relationship
- The affect of geographic space to the creative process
(Even the aspects above could be explored separately, they are absolutely interconnected and are going to be explored in their dynamics and wholeness)
Design method:
The study will take place in three different parts of the world: Bulgaria, Israel and USA.
In each country the researcher/participant will create 1 art work without limitation to medium. The manner of creating the art will be spontaneous and open, without any preconceived concepts. For that purpose breathing and relaxation would be used as a starting point.
Each art work will be embodied twice (will re-enter the body) in a form of a performance, open to format and use of sound (this decision will be made on location). There will be 3 artworks created and 6 performances.
Each performance will be videotaped as well as the artwork will be photographed. A short video clip will be created to depict artwork vs. the performance.
After each part of the process, detailed notes will be taken and collected in an open written form.
Process momentum:
At this present moment 1 art work has been created with location Bulgaria and 2 performances followed it. The second work of art is in process at the second location Israel and within 2 weeks 2 performances will follow.
Art-Based Research...Heart felt Belief
“Inside Out: Outside in”
Art Based Research Project
by
Ralitza M. Vladimirov
Art Based Research Project
by
Ralitza M. Vladimirov
(The following project is currently going on and it is in it's second phase with location Israel)
The Intention: of the Art based Research Project:
“Inside Out: Outside in: This self oriented art based study is going to explore several aspects with the used of 2 main art forms; art and dance-movement/performance:
- Mind-Body connection during the creative process
- The interaction of emotion and thought in relation to the creative process
- Body vs. Mind memory and their relationship
- The affect of geographic space to the creative process
(Even the aspects above could be explored separately, they are absolutely interconnected and are going to be explored in their dynamics and wholeness)
Design method:
The study will take place in three different parts of the world: Bulgaria, Israel and USA.
In each country the researcher/participant will create 1 art work without limitation to medium. The manner of creating the art will be spontaneous and open, without any preconceived concepts. For that purpose breathing and relaxation would be used as a starting point.
Each art work will be embodied twice (will re-enter the body) in a form of a performance, open to format and use of sound (this decision will be made on location). There will be 3 artworks created and 6 performances.
Each performance will be videotaped as well as the artwork will be photographed. A short video clip will be created to depict artwork vs. the performance.
After each part of the process, detailed notes will be taken and collected in an open written form.
- Mind-Body connection during the creative process
- The interaction of emotion and thought in relation to the creative process
- Body vs. Mind memory and their relationship
- The affect of geographic space to the creative process
(Even the aspects above could be explored separately, they are absolutely interconnected and are going to be explored in their dynamics and wholeness)
Design method:
The study will take place in three different parts of the world: Bulgaria, Israel and USA.
In each country the researcher/participant will create 1 art work without limitation to medium. The manner of creating the art will be spontaneous and open, without any preconceived concepts. For that purpose breathing and relaxation would be used as a starting point.
Each art work will be embodied twice (will re-enter the body) in a form of a performance, open to format and use of sound (this decision will be made on location). There will be 3 artworks created and 6 performances.
Each performance will be videotaped as well as the artwork will be photographed. A short video clip will be created to depict artwork vs. the performance.
After each part of the process, detailed notes will be taken and collected in an open written form.
Process momentum:
At this present moment 1 art work has been created with location Bulgaria and 2 performances followed it. The second work of art is in process at the second location Israel and within 2 weeks 2 performances will follow.
On body knowing (body memory)
The body knowing (body memory) idea has never really be payed attention too. It is like going in the bookstore and see shelves of references on the brain...Smiling I am thinking; What about the heart? Does that symbolically expresses where are we? Most of the humankind experiencing Life on intellectual (which I think is something to analyze and think further in relation to technology) level. Technology most involves mobilization of mental energy with little involvement of feelings. Emotions and feelings are the ones that stimulate new thought and create new memory. Interesting enough is that all experiences there are emotionally strong (positive or negative) create a memory that stays even brain deterioration is present. When I work with lost of memory I design my multi modal sessions with the following characteristics: creating strong emotional (positive) experience as well as newness. Here are some lines on my experience performing at Lesley University this summer, in-boding a painting I created. This experience was the one that created inspired the development of my art based research project:
“During performing what really fascinated me was witnessing the knowing of
my body. It felt that there was already decision made without the mind being part
of it. The mind did not really initiate what was going to be performed but it was
witnessing it from the inside out. There was this space where the creative force was
unfolding itself, but the experienced sense of inner unity was fascinating. There was no
contradiction. There was wholeness of happening.”
“The process of continuum re-discovery: Every time I go back I will be discovering
something more or completely new about the image, but this seems to be more
mental discovery…, and it always seems that something there is meant to stay and
re-invite me back. I am fascinated by the art coming out of us and returning back in
the body. What does it happen there? Does it hold any meaning? Who I become in
different parts of the world? How is this projected in my artistic expression? ...
This is what I explored for my performance in class. It was not just a response but
allowing “becoming the art”: feel it, sense it, and think it and re-experiencing it.”
Thought beyond technology!
During this still technological journey a parallel realizations in relation to expressive art therapy have provoked my mind. They are may be a result of my experiential work with Dementia Clients using inter modal approach to therapy. The art forms have become more inseparable with every session and experiment, my perception on the human being is constantly evolving, breaking my own mental and emotional restrictions. Simultaneously to my pilot research which investigates the affects of integrative expressive art therapy on clients with Cognitive memory impairment in a single case study. For a month every day the client has attended 2 hour of therapy session: music, movement, art making and verbalization. Also, there is art-based research process taking place, where I am the subject of the the study. The intention is explore the knowing of the body. This was provoked by my observation that even in the most advanced stage of Alzheimer's, where the short term memory is lost as well as most of the long term memory, in relation to sound (music) the body follows and can facilitate rhythmically responsive movements. Amazing! These some recent thoughts....about body knowing...
*“…the body (memory) knowing does not follow the inescapable process of brain deterioration, which significantly affects initially in the process the short term memory. On some level the body stands independently preserving its intelligence and memory much longer (or until the end), then the brain as independent structure. This brings a thought of the quantum physics and the theory of the holographic nature of the universe and on the micro level the human brain.”
* “…based on the holographic process that the brain is a holographic system and memory is spread, distributed in every part of the brain, with no specific location. I tend to belief from my work that, this also is the case in relation to body memory. Every physical part of the body has its own local memory area. This is quite important, when we look at what we call memory lost, because we usually “officially” refer to rational memory that in its cord is the ability to preserve simple lineal information, mainly in facts and to recall it when necessary”.
* “…the visual-spatial memory can be enhance and awaken throughout the creative process and have an effect on improving rational memory. The pathway of remembering images seems to have a different happening and evolves emotionality. This is another dimension about the relation of thought and feeling/emotion, the feeling as a basic physical expression of the heart and the thought as a basic expression of the mind and their role in the unique dance of the creative process.”
* “Emotions are in the glue (the container) to connect or establish memory within the being. I have observed that even in older adults with deeply deteriorated short term memory, recent memories could still be established in the brain, as long as, there are experienced with very strong emotional presence (positive or negative), could be also defined as “emotionally charged memories. In the same time authentic expression could mainly be achieved when, the creative process bypasses the mind, and connects to the emotional energy.
* “The parietal lobe has the function to coordinate experiences of the body in real and imagined space. In the same time authentic expression could mainly be achieved when, the creative process bypasses the mind, and connects to the emotional energy..
* “Dance interlinks art-making and memory. Movement invites making new memories and forgetting background memories.”
* “…based on the holographic process that the brain is a holographic system and memory is spread, distributed in every part of the brain, with no specific location. I tend to belief from my work that, this also is the case in relation to body memory. Every physical part of the body has its own local memory area. This is quite important, when we look at what we call memory lost, because we usually “officially” refer to rational memory that in its cord is the ability to preserve simple lineal information, mainly in facts and to recall it when necessary”.
* “…the visual-spatial memory can be enhance and awaken throughout the creative process and have an effect on improving rational memory. The pathway of remembering images seems to have a different happening and evolves emotionality. This is another dimension about the relation of thought and feeling/emotion, the feeling as a basic physical expression of the heart and the thought as a basic expression of the mind and their role in the unique dance of the creative process.”
* “Emotions are in the glue (the container) to connect or establish memory within the being. I have observed that even in older adults with deeply deteriorated short term memory, recent memories could still be established in the brain, as long as, there are experienced with very strong emotional presence (positive or negative), could be also defined as “emotionally charged memories. In the same time authentic expression could mainly be achieved when, the creative process bypasses the mind, and connects to the emotional energy.
* “The parietal lobe has the function to coordinate experiences of the body in real and imagined space. In the same time authentic expression could mainly be achieved when, the creative process bypasses the mind, and connects to the emotional energy..
* “Dance interlinks art-making and memory. Movement invites making new memories and forgetting background memories.”
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Creating a power point presentation???
I was committed that I will do everything possible to create it on my own. I knew that will take me a lot of time but..."no matter what". First I learned that there are different Power Points and with some consulting with a friend of mine, I opened an E-mail account with G-mail, so I can use their structure for power point presentations. After I was basically instructed, I started page by page to insert, design and edit the presentation. We had a lot of material as text as well as images. I felt overwhelmed and it started to take a lot more time that, I was intending. I felt heavy responsibility for the whole group and more then that my strong self judgment on visual appearance. It took me almost 3 weeks working on it every night, just because I was unexperienced , but I must expressed that I was taken by it...to get somewhere as a final presence. This is very opposite way of where I am in my creative expression. When in the art academic word, where things had to be done, all technics and tricks about realistic way of creating, loosing my undiscovered authentic expression. After years of conceptual art, I changed the direction in experiencing deeper, mainly learning how to calm down the mind and to allow images to appear. I felt it was a new pathway I was walking realizing totally unseen by me before portability of creativity/art. I belief that was the moment when I starting to become conscious about the healing power of art, even though I have experienced it when I was a child.
Image-Concept exploration
The presented images show some visual moments from experimenting with Photoshop.
It was a first time experience, where artistically I wanted to create the concept of "Breaking thru technology". It started with an original image of a door photographed by me about 2 years ago in my travels, this specific one in Bulgaria. There were created with the intention to become part of the presentation (power point) in our group project of the QDA Software "Ethnograph".
An interrupted long moment
It has been some time since I have not posted on the blog, which I created with quite interest. During this time I have been taking notes, being in the storm of writing my pilot study, which still creates tension and with continues not understanding on my site of the righteousnesses of the process. Sometimes it feels impossible with all of it's possibilities.
When I left USA a month and a half ago, I faced another level of technological difficulties, which I was not aware. This is the reason even not publishing for sometimes, but I kept on writing my dairy. I was just able to figure out how I can access the blog and be able to add information, when foreign user is used as wireless system. This was another overcoming, which took a lot of time and exploration, but the process is the most important and the struggle as in life could be become a base for realization.
In the following posting my journey with the Qualitative Data Analysis software "Ethnograph" will be presented:
The real journey with technology began at Lesley University two years ago, when I started the PhD. program in Expressive Arts Therapy. My mind is going back twelve years ago, when the cell phones where becoming fashionable in US. Almost everyone had a phone around me, and I remember having no desire or a needy sense to join this mass technological shift, which was happening.
Going even back in the 1980’s (at that time living in Bulgaria), we had no home phone. It was the time during the communistic system. My memory brings the image of a public phone constructed on the facade of a residential building, one of the several in the whole neighborhood. Even now I could see a line of people waiting to have their turn. Thinking about this, it feels so special, hearing the stories and the jokes people were sharing while waiting. The time did not matter. People were very gentle, patient and tolerant with each other. There was no anxiety, madness or argument.
Coming back to the present day and thinking about the younger generations being brought with so much technology and in the same time disconnected to nature. What kind of world is shaping in their mind? So much has changed. Referring to the main universal law of existence: the law of Duality…Light and Darkness…Good and Bad…Negative and Positive, seems allowing us to find something but loosing something else. I have felt a level of confusion, struggling to find balance. The need of the human race to make life practical, easy and convenient, has let technology to make our lives on one site much easier, on another, we just start to realize some of its negative effects. I never felt excited about technological discoveries: phones, computers and others. Two years ago
I let go of TV and feel and I feel any moment more meaningful, without slipping by. There were times; I felt that there must be something wrong with me. I was just accepting it and using some of it to the minimum. On the other hand connecting with nature, observing, feeling the spirit of it… I have made choices to create authentically, to be purely creative even in organizing data.
My technological usage was limited to Internet Search, E-mail, Skype and computer type writing. Things changed two years ago and it seems that technology is entering my life more and more. Honestly, this entering was met with a lot of resistance and unnatural feeling.
It seems that my main concern has been not to become dependent on it, which I see is happening all around me. One of the Lesley students from a previous class just this summer shared, totally shocked by her own discovery, that she feels empty, lost and confused if she does not have her cell phone with her all the time, as well checking her E-mail many times during the day, as well having her TV on from the moment she arrives home. This made a huge effect on me!
From the time of making a decision to join the Analysis Group and selecting Ethnographer for our choice of Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) software, what has happened is a shift in openness? The next lines will be devoted to this experience.
The first realization, as I was finding and reviewing references and research on and around the topic of QDA, was that there are approximately twenty software programs developed and Ethnographer was the first one, which gently moved into silence…not seeming to be the preferred one at this moment. I was beginning to understand, was that what this programs are actually doing is not really “analysis”, but organization and data management. I wonder how the term got accepted so widely, which does not precisely reflect what the process of QDA is.
Contrary to the developers, who define the process of the program as simple and not lineal, but more spiral, my experience was flat and lineal. I have found no actual tutorials for direction of how to use it but the manual within Demo Version. I approached the manual just to give myself a little orientation, but I found myself very lost and not getting anywhere. So, I decided just to go in and explore intuitively, learning basic things from playing with it: from how to transfer text,
create files, categories, sorting, coding, shifting etc.
Another realization was the dependency on the amount of data that Ethnograph requires to start the actual processing. It took quite sometime to realize that.
As I was exploring it, what started to intrigue me was the actual idea and thought process put into the software and the strictly logical pathway I started to sense. I felt that this is of an essential importance of how the program is going to process the actual data.
My research brings together qualitative, quantitative and art-based data and my main struggle has been integrating these data components in the analysis. I have designed, integrated expressive arts therapy session including music, dance-movement, art making. The main intention is to study the possible effects of Expressive arts therapy (ET) on cognitive memory impairment.
Bellow are further realizations (during the process):
· The core of analysis within Ethnographer and any other QDA reflects the mental process behind it, which can result in quite different findings
· I compared data analysis which I did by Ethnographer vs. manually organized by me and I found that the results for example in coding come quite differently
· Analyzing data manually, considering the nature of my research allows me to be in a better level of awareness of how different parts are connected creating the whole. This is of an extraordinary importance to keep higher level of objectivity
· The nature of the creative process cares tremendous unknown and abstraction that we are trying to depict with a very rational, logical thought, so we can analyze it
· I can see QDA software can be a very useful tool for a more linear research. Art data is quite specific and multi dimensional, which most important part is coming from the actual art form
· Analyzing data manually allows me to go beyond preset up pattern of thought, a framework and further rediscover possibilities. I am finding very importantly that text and images have to have for me togetherness and be visually connected. In this way I can move form image to text from text to image
· Freedom of movement within the process of analysis is of a great importance to me to new depths of understanding
Knowing… could only happen allowing myself to be in the process…where there is tension there is happening…discovery…
“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge…
And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and
measure, but he cannot conduct you thither…
For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.
…And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be
alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth…”
Sunday, September 19, 2010
In a strange place (September 19th)............................
For weeks already I am on a journey of getting to know one of the twenty (as I researched) software programs for Qualitative Date Analysis. Starting from a point zero of finding the sofware, downloading it and taking a journey inside new reality for me. During the whole time I am sensing inner tension and parallel to that some level of curiosity. I looked for days in libraries and other sources to fine tutorials of any kind to direct me initially into the "Ethnograph" forest to find nothing but 2 articles in relation to the program. Initial finding was, that, even it is the first Qualitative Date Analysis Software developed and It has been updated with new versions, seems it is not widely used by researchers. Why not?
In the process, I am finding some interesting references on art therapy and technology (Surprisingly for me)! One article stood up by Brent C. Peterson, Kay Stovall, David E. Elkins and Barbara Parker-Bell with title: "Art Therapies and Computer Technology".
I want to understand the tension, I feel in relation about computerization. I clearly see the practical applications but in the same time I feel the process of loosing something which is increasing with any next level of technological advancement. Are people becoming closer or growing further apart? It shocks me to observe the mass hypnotic state of majority of people using computer technologies, especially the ones we have addressed in this class (let's define them as promotionally/socially/networkingly oriented). Where is the humankind going?.......
For some reason I feel alienated... what is the normal reaction in relation to computerization...Why I can not feel excitement???????????????????????????
What brings my real joy and happiness is the human touch....someone will say too sentimental..may be it is may it is not!
To be continue...
Sunday, August 15, 2010
July 19th: Summer Residence...GWKSP 7888
On that day I walked in with every contradictory feelings 
and with this written text in my pocket:
From Tao to Strangeness
"From something to nothing
From compassion to emptiness
From oneness to separation
From meaning to meaning no
Something is needed
Who is allowed data?
Who is restricted?
Shift the brain..
Where the heart is left behind
From subjectivity to the objective.
Lost in illusion.
Debate continues.
Do I need to find?
Researchers conflicted...
To make sense of the data.
And the analysis, too
The techniques that are
Appropriate
are restricted is true
The truth, the truth..
How can we?
It's an absurd
To measure the unmeasurable
That's not the way to Nirvana
When with a drop of existence
We try to explain it all…
Yet tolerance is virtue
But only to a point….
May be the truth is meant not to be known at all ???????????????????????????????"
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