The Practice Record and the Analysis of the Birdman

[Balder]

In relation to Dave's recent thread on integral and/or postmetaphysical aesthetics, I wanted to share the interesting performance art project of a Tsalagi (Cherokee) Indian artist, Bob Price.  He first created the work, The Practice Record and the Analysis of the Birdman, without knowledge of Gebser's work, but later came to find a number of similarities between his work and Gebser's ideas.  He discusses the parallels here.

 

The Practice Record and the Analysis of the Birdman is structured around verses from the T'ai Hsuan Ching and the characters of five "allies," Lizard, Lion, Dog, and Mockingbird, which he (elsewhere) compares with Gebser's stages:

 

 I describe the Lizard as my Muse but also as the art itself.  The use of characters (or allies) as metaphors for my ideas and to represent parts of my personality is mythical.  Whether this is deficient or a way of accessing the mythical through a transparent state of integral conscious still seems to be a subjective value judgment.  I do make a strong case in the Lizard chapter for art as being and vice versa  which seems to be best realized when improvising.  The realization of art as being seems to fit Gebser’s idea of the “ever-present origin” which has stayed with us since the archaic days and is the key to the realization of integral consciousness.

    My chapter, Lion, concerns magic in that it is based on my idea of my brother, Lon, and Krishna, both who are legendary musicians with magical powers for altering environments with their sounds.  I also try to make connections between my aesthetic ideas, which originate from an intense awareness of sound, and the nature of the physical world.  The point-for-point relationships between my ideas and the perceivable universe resembles the point-for-point connections between humans and their effects on the environment.  The idea I got from Chaos Theory, “Anything may be a seed if it id in the right time and the right dynamic,” seems to become very apparent when I am improvising and interacting with my environment.  The idea that the smallest particles, which become part of our everyday perceptions, move and react to each other probablistically supports my ideas (a la  John Cage) concerning chance as a creative impulse.   And, the idea in science that observers of experiments must consider themselves as variables affecting the experiment is fairly common knowledge among post-modern dancers.  (Perceiving is creating.)

    The Dog is indeed mythical in that it is  mostly Christian-based and is also morally/ethically oriented.  However, some of the ideas in the chapter also blend into what Gebser would consider magical because it is devoted to my family and ancestors, and demonstrates a loyalty to the “tribe.” ( Maybe, as an integral work, it is very appropriate for each of my “structures” to have many characteristics of the others.)  Much of the chapter concerns my Native American heritage which Gebser would probably consider magical or mythical depending on the beliefs of the tribe.  I believe that, if Gebser had studied Cherokee history, he would say that the tribe was practicing a mythic structure that became deficient at first contact with the white man who was at the apex of the mental structure.  Afterwards, the tribe regressed further into a deficient magical structure which was still present in the culture.  Today the tribe’s old ways seem to be still more magically based.  This may be due also to the many pan-Indian movements which have been influenced greatly by the Lakota.  Practically every Native American I know works primarily out of a mental structure while honoring “the old ways” and experiencing the magic in their rituals.   It has been my hope and dream that indigenous people will be the trail blazers into integral consciousness because they have never renounced their past.  They may today be the people who are the most conscious of all the structures simultaneously and they certainly still suffer from the backlash of those who cling to a deficient mental-rational structure.  The mental-rational federal government continually outlaws essential parts of Native American rituals including; peyote, the Sun Dance and the Potlatch.

    The Mockingbird easily portrays the mental structure especially since it was written during the nadir of our deficient mental structure.  My Mockingbird shows his frustration in trying to support the other structures in this deficient mental world.  It is not  “practical” to do so.  But, according to Gebser, the survival of our species may depend on it.  Perhaps every Dadaist is a frustrated Mockingbird who clearly displays the absurdities of a mental structure that has gone too far while he is able to find beauty in a urinal.  Much of my frustration comes also from a feeling of being caught between two worlds.  I, like many artists, feel the need to be honored for my individuality and innovativeness, yet I am most innovative for my use of pluralism and, therefore, my individuality becomes unimportant.  Today visual artists’ works increase in value respective to the increase of the artists’ celebrity status.  This seems to be a hang over from the hero worship of the mental structure.  This hero worship has reach rather absurd heights today to the point that we see that fans have been the murderers of their idols.  This seems to be a little similar to when, in medieval times, a village would kill their saint when he/she threatened to leave in order to preserve his/her relics.  At least this could have been done for purely economic reasons because a saint’s relics brought in tourists and income for the villagers.  It seems that today’s murdering hero-worshipers are, in a pathological way, combining a deficient mental structure with a deficient magical structure.  They want to get some of the magic power of the hero by killing her/him.  I believe that the time of heroes has past.  The second coming will be brought on by all the people who have acquired a change of consciousness.  The Messiah is everyone you meet.

 

The performance art piece is called the Novena Project, which Price summarizes here.  From the introduction:

 

A Novena is a nine-day performance which is "site-specific" and can even be "time specific." I borrowed the term "Novena" from the Catholic practice of honoring a saint in a nine-day festival. Many of my fellow performers and I have found that it takes a minimum of nine days to adapt and "feel at home" in a new environment. New and unusual environments are created for every Novena by altering the sights, sounds, and behaviors of every participant. Rules which help guide the interactions of the participants are designed while the interactions themselves transform the environments through the creation of group installations which range from small alterations in the environment to large earth works. The purpose of the Novena is to enhance the perceptions of every participant in ways that will last longer than those effects created by a two-hour performance or a passive gallery installation.

 

The whole work is pretty complex, so I can't really summarize it here.  I invite you to check out the websites linked above, if you're interested.