Vo

Vo, the ideological foundations of WPMP

Chapter 8

If our own existence can be said to be a part of the continuum of life and of the universe, it only stands to reason that my art is also a part of the continuum of art. And, that somehow it is art built from the foundations left by my predecessors.

So then, my work is a continuation of a long tradition of art that came to rest in 1967 on the shores of conceptual art in New York City. It was there where, as a young man, I found the nourishment to define my own direction and its response to a need that had become heresy to art, namely “utility.”

To name a few from a list of many, Marcel Duchamp, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Sol LeWitt, Allan Kaprow and Yves Klein greatly influenced my direction at that time. They had prepared a new landscape of ideas (and the representations of ideas) from where I found the pathways that led to my four-dimensional works of art.

The field of conceptual art is very wide. It is filled with as much theory and opinion as a pillow is filled with fluff. In order to give you a well-informed view of the subject, I appeal to an excerpt by one of the masters, Sol LeWitt, from his…

“Paragraphs on Conceptual Art.”

“In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive, it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the artist as a craftsman. It is the objective of the artist who is concerned with conceptual art to make his work mentally interesting to the spectator, and therefore usually he would want it to become emotionally dry. There is no reason to suppose, however, that the conceptual artist is out to bore the viewer. It is only the expectation of an emotional kick, to which one conditioned to expressionist art is accustomed, that would deter the viewer from perceiving this art.”

Sol Le Witt’s entire essay, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," was first published by the American art journal, “Artforum," in the June, 1967 edition. It is said that "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" marks the transgression from Minimal Art to Conceptual Art.

It was on those formal grounds that my work found its freedom and direction. In order to introduce utility to the mix, I had to find a problem with a role for utility and a way to extend the boundaries of art. By1970 I had found the problem and it was clear to me that I had to distance myself from the influence of the art scene, so I left New York.

I wanted to explore the reconciliation of art and life and put that inherited freedom to use in addressing the world’s problems. How could I be an artist in possession of so much freedom and not extend it to those who only hear the word “freedom” amidst the rattle of their chains?

Life is a process with utility and mental disposition. But, Modern Art in the terms described previously can not accommodate “utility.” Its own precepts of purposelessness prohibits it. According to my own research it appeared that two-dimensional and three-dimensional art had run up against a formidable barrier. With modern art limited to conceptual analysis of fragments of life, art was stuck.

I knew that the barrier that was restraining art and confounding artists was the same static barriers that plagued mathematics before the advent of special relativity’s “spacetime.” Spacetime is the realm of life and utility occurring as a flow of events in a continuum that reaches far beyond human conception.

So art, at least mine, expanded the conceptual premise of the “idea” to embrace “life.” To pursue this, I had to also embrace lots of history, lots of humanities, lots of science and an inordinate amount of observation of the human and natural environments. The jury will soon be in to consider the merits or shortcomings of my “heresy.” I can expect this now since this is the first time I have made these details public.

On behalf of art and life, it is my obligation to explain this now. As I mentioned before, WPMP has a presence in Lebanon with Peace Marker Lebanon in residence at the UNESCO garden in the city of Byblos. Conditions in the Middle East have become more critical. So far it’s “business as usual” as the world contributes more of the same recipe of condemnation, conflict perpetuation and reflection upon the causes for the dismal impotence to have curtailed the sheer destruction of life and property. So, whether my work is considered art or not or whether it will be better to call it life or not, that is a new choice that was not there before. Either choice is irrelevant to the consequences of a war for which WPMP was and remains the only presence of art and life in Lebanon embracing world peace.

If the best definition of art is “art” and the best for life is “life” then their seamless embrace will only add great fun and degrees of freedom never before imagined. What about the vexing question of utility in the mix? Well, I think art will learn to live with it because “utility” is a big part of life’s fundamental plan. After all art is art and life is life.

As art and life become a binary entity even the idea or concept of “utility” can become the most important aspect behind the work of art. In the case of the Worldwide Peace Marker Project, art and life are a binary entity and utility (in this case “world peace”) is the avenue to appreciate the work and understand it. Then, because the work is four-dimensional and global in nature, the resulting understanding will manifest itself as life.

I’m confident that in the final analysis nothing that art was or has been up to the point where I entered the picture has been sacrificed, dishonored, or discarded. I just added a new dimension to revitalize art and life to the benefit of the whole planet.

I will not volunteer to say that this is the best way to go about creating art. But, I will say with real humility and some embarrassment that in the absence of something better this will do quite nicely as a start.

My work, therefore, rests upon an ideological position that I have named “Vo.”

Vo is a coined two letter word that took a long time to put together. The principal reason for this was that all I wanted to find was a way to reconcile art and life and they were separated by a big gap of sorts. Everyone seemed to be working somewhere in the gap. But, no one was measuring it, or trying to build a bridge between art and life. That would have given art a purpose and that was not looked upon kindly.

These circumstances fueled the realization that the problem to reconcile art and life would have to be solved otherwise. It was not art that frowned on utility. It was the worldview that could not embrace it, thus everyone was stuck within its boundaries.

I was then obliged to look elsewhere. The only thing that made sense was to find a way to imagine an approach to the problem from the perspective of a new worldview –one that could allow for the reconciliation of art and life to occur.

I didn’t know that in the process I was going to have to change the course of art history. Since at present life is so much bigger than art, art needed to be updated to be able to become a part of it.

Vo is a word made up from the words “vector” and “zero,” a simple combination that will perhaps allow us to map a wonderful new landscape.

Vector is a quantity with magnitude and direction.

Zero is the absence of quantity and magnitude.

Figure 8.1

Vo is an extremely simple idea that happens to occur at the axis of a great new development in the history of the human species.

Vo can be defined as:

An intersection point or coordinate between two worldviews, marking the boundaries between a static consciousness and a four-dimensional consciousness.

The intersection of two worldviews at Vo (Vector Zero)

Figure 8.2

That is the simple part. What is more complicated is the description of Vo, the point or coordinate itself. On one side it is a location in human history and on the other it is a location in spacetime. Each has a separate set of implications and both converge at the intersection point I have named Vo.

In a very real sense, the point that marks the axis has two views in real-time. One looks to the past of a worldview that was fulfilled and can no longer be sustained morally, ethically or practically without the risk of extinction. The other one looks to the future of a nascent worldview where the human conception of itself merges with the structure and design of the world and the universe.

The view to the future is yet to be fulfilled. However, in Vo it has “a local spacetime coordinate origin,” as my friend and professor of physics, Wesley R. Smith, suggests. It is characterized by the features that best describe the genesis of the new worldview.

From here on, there is a lot to be said. It is material for a separate book that is in the works. However, I will incorporate some of the key points that make the new worldview possible.

As I mentioned before, Vo is simply an ideological position. It is not a philosophy or a doctrine of any kind. It is only a position in spacetime with a view to two distinct stages of the development of human consciousness.

The view from Vo to the past is the worldview that comprises the history of humanity thus far. I covered some of the highlights of this history in previous chapters in order to illustrate the circumstances that propelled my search for a new worldview. Unfortunately, the history of humanity is essentially a history of war and some of the nice things that were inspired by war or were developed as side dishes of war.

The fundamental feature or outstanding characteristic of the worldview to the past is that it was fueled by a static conception of thought. The organizing ideas of that worldview were maintained by a three-dimensional conception of the world.

That view began to loose its stability in the advent of Einstein’s ideas about special and, then, general relativity. These ideas removed the veil of such static conception for mathematics and opened cosmology to a four-dimensional universe. This occurred even though the mathematicians and physicists themselves remained tied to the old worldview.

The view from Vo to the future is that of a four-dimensional worldview. It is one that is only beginning to be realized. But, it only takes a few steps to be inside this new worldview and to experience its environment. This is already the case. I have sufficient data of some earlier excursions into this new realm over the span of the last two decades that supports both its existence and an almost imperceptible way in which this new worldview can be bridged.

The Worldwide Peace Marker Project is the global “maiden flight” to manifest that the new worldview can be entered by humanity with the tangible and irrefutable reality that world peace can exist and be nourished. Subsequent passages into this new and promising four-dimensional worldview are further secured by this.

That is the statement of the WPMP in relation to Vo. At the core of its simplicity as a point or local spacetime coordinate origin, Vo states “a new beginning.” It is not a beginning from nothing or a beginning without a past, but a beginning “from now on.”

For simplicity, Vo is built upon a hypothesis that includes the following assumptions:

• The universe is a four-dimensional object whose general shape and activity can be understood by the human mind as ideas organized to interpret such shape and activity. It stands to reason that such ideas exist within the shape and activity of the universe itself. Thus, their existence can also be made into analogous four-dimensional objects, providing we think of human consciousness as a universe within a universe.

• That if the march of the four-dimensional dynamic and expanding universe by virtue of its history(s) in spacetime can be said to have a reality, then that reality will have to be the result of the sum of such history(s). Therefore, if human reality can be said to be the sum of all of its histories then that reality can also be made to be a four-dimensional dynamic and expanding reality moving parallel with the universe in conscious spacetime.

• That ideas can therefore be made to be four-dimensional objects whose dimensions and variable characteristics as shaped by their unique histories can be represented in both universes as the reality of the object. Thus, human reality can be modeled to reflect the reality of the universe as it occurs in our location in spacetime.

• That new four-dimensional models constructed on those bases will reflect the long sought after architecture of a quantified reality.

• That reality modeled in such four-dimensional structures can incorporate old ideas to inform their genesis for which the dimensional transition will reflect the improvement they needed to renew their dynamic and continue their service.

There is of course a lot more to the hypothesis. But, those are some of the bare essentials needed to visualize the difference and similarities between the two worldviews.

Something else that cannot be left out is the mechanism by which those two universes (the universe at large and the universe of the human conscious) can be made to work together. By its intervention we will know what can be construed as reality.

This was a very delicate problem to resolve. I already knew that it could not be resolved from the side of the old worldview. The old world view’s reality is the reality that humans are still fighting over what reality is or is not.

The answer would have to come from the four-dimensional worldview. When it came to me, it was clear and beautiful. It explained so much about our despair for reality and truth.

Reality is a variable function of four-dimensional objects in spacetime.

Everyone had been right at one time or another but no one could imagine that reality changes from one moment to the next in the continuum of time.

That revelation helped. But, it did not answer an important question. If reality is variable because it moves along the arrow of time, how do we measure reality at the intervals, or at all, if reality is never the same?

I guess that, as the oriental sage said, when the student is ready the master will appear. The answer was (or is) perhaps older than the universe itself. It is as elegant as nature’s laws and as simple as the passing of an instant, albeit not so easily explained.

I did not know what to call it until I found a word that suited the general description perfectly. It is “sufficiency.” I do not understand sufficiency completely because it goes everywhere in the universe. But what little I do understand was enough to take a few small steps.

To begin with, we should take a look at the word “sufficiency” as it is currently used and defined.

sufficiency

1: sufficient resources to provide comfort and meet obligations; "her father questioned the young suitor's sufficiency" 2: an adequate quantity; a quantity that is large enough to achieve a purpose; "enough is as good as a feast"; "there is more than a sufficiency of lawyers in this country" [ syn: enough] 3: the quality of being sufficient for the end in view; "he questioned the sufficiency of human intelligence" [syn: adequacy] [ant: insufficiency]

In its four-dimensional format the word retains it foundations but it transforms its reach to encompass the whole of the knowable universe.

Sufficiency relates to a quantity but is not a quantity itself. Sufficiency is a fiduciary that acts as a gauge to allow interactions to achieve an operational quantity whose symmetry is mutually correspondent to the symmetry of the adjacent system(s) and their own sufficiency to subsequent systems that add up to comprise the whole of the universe. Furthermore quantities gauged by sufficiency are variable because sufficiency defines the four-dimensional characteristic of binary systems in spacetime.

Sufficiency, in those terms, can be defined as:

A symmetric function of binary systems in spacetime.

Those are big mouthfuls that I need to include because Vo, being just a point between two worldviews, is also a bridge designed for crossing.

Sufficiency is vastly more interesting and basic than I have explained here. Those details belong in a larger survey.

Sufficiency is the gauge that tells a universe what kind of universe to be, a galaxy what kind of galaxy to be, a star what kind of star to be and a star fish what kind of star fish to be over long periods of time –lots of time.

We (humanity) are a species beginning to discover what kind of human we can be and how to extend our presence along natural lines on this planet for a long period of time.

Sufficiency in purely human terms also informs ideas as to what kind of properties ideas should have in order to be relevant to life, not to human whim but to life ─human and otherwise.

None of this will make any sense if we don’t take a look at “nature” in the context of a four-dimensional worldview

Great thinkers have asked many questions about the origin, the forces, the shape, the expansion and the fate of the universe. But, we haven’t asked much about what the universe “is.” I‘m no longer sure as to why we seem to avoid that question. I can tell you my answer after running up and down the stairs of existence from the very small, at the particle level, to the largest celestial bodies that lay within the observable universe.

The universe is a binary system. That means that it is made of two parts. One is material and the other non-material. From the bottom up and from the top down that pattern repeats itself over and over in many different ways. But, they all end up as pairs to make units of some sort.

Humanity itself is a dramatic example. Physically, just to function as living beings we have to be a binary creature with a body and a mind. Our ideas are binary concepts like “love-hate.” Our preferences are binary like “hot-cold” Our personalities are “good-bad.” You get the point.

Nature is wholly binary from the particle-antiparticle to the male and female of all living species to the force- counterforce that keeps galaxies together and so on.

That is why the approach to define sufficiency, although simple in its approach, is so eloquent in its application across the entire spectrum of all there is in the universe.

Similarly a four-dimensional description of nature can be approached this way.

Nature may be defined as:

A binary entity (material/non-material) that constitutes the spacetime event where its presence is manifested as the foundation, the medium, the substance, the duration and history of the universal event.

How does all of this dovetail back to art? It is made apparent by my insistence that art and life operate as a binary entity so that art can clearly respond to current conditions as they are developing in the world. Hence the term “Binary Media” that I attach to the kind of art that I do.

The reconciliation of art and life to have any meaning had to occur in two stages. First it had to reconcile our idea of art and life and second, reconcile our idea of art and life to life in the world outside humanity.

That feat could only be accomplished by a new worldview that can react to these new conditions of existence.

I know there are millions of people who have already voiced at least the desire that a new worldview be explored. If that is what it takes to resolve our global problems, then the constructions of models that explore a new worldview are long overdue.

Vo has already made a substantial contribution to the art of the 21st century with the closure of the imaginary gap between art and life. WPMP has already made that point abundantly clear. Its design takes installation art to its next four-dimensional symmetry. The resulting event is open for interpretation as art or life without affecting the outcome of the work or of the ensuing reality.

The overall contribution may be interpreted as a refocusing of art, particularly installation art, to its primordial role as purveyor of the survival symmetry behind the organization of culture in its practical and ideological dimensions.

All of the words in these pages may or may not explain sufficiently the fundamental ideas behind Vo because Vo is new, really new. Again, that is why the building of WPMP as a functional model of a four-dimensional idea is “the picture that speaks a thousand words” in all of the languages of the world.