Intestinal Faith

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and

I took the one less travelled by

And that has made all the difference"

Robert Frost

I tried that once. Got terribly lost and needed to be rescued by two goat herders and their dog.

Sorry Frosty, not going to agree with you on that one.

There must be a better way to find the right path than rebelliously choosing the unpopular option which leaves you being equally unpopular and lost.

Go with gut, I reckon.

Humans have an innane sixth sense, an untapped resource sitting inside left ignored because we perceive it to be less tangible than our other senses. It's like a crouching tiger waiting to be unleashed.

Many people have been intrigued with the most useful element of our sixth sense, precognition. The first documented theory on precognition was by an Irish guy called William Dunne in his 1927 book An Experiment with Time. He found that he was able to have awareness of future events during his dreams, so much so that he documented them as written evidence of his ability to predict the future.

Now Dunne wasn't some loony leprachaun who downed too many Guinesses. He was a highly educated aeronautical engineer and war hero so this revelation was a huge surprise, especially to himself. Being rational, Dunne wanted to see if others shared his ability so he got his friends and family to also record their dreams. They would document their dreams as soon as they woke in their hyponopompic phase, the transition between sleep and awake.

The results were remarkable. 

His Irish counterparts were able to record dreams that in time became self-fulfilling prophecies. 

Dunne's hypothesis is that the past, present, and future are occuring simultaneously. What we do in the present is dynamically altering the future, however human consciousness can only see linearly. It only perceives what is happening now. When we dream, we lose our human consciousness such that the continuum of time is opened up and we see a combination of the past, present, and future.

We can only capture this during the transition from sleep to waking consciousness. When we are still aware of our subconscious state but are conscious enough to record our subconscious perceptions. It is during this time that we are most able to gain insights into ourselves and perhaps see into the future.

While having this precognition is all very good, it remains useless if we don't act on it. The modern human is a highly intelligent being so when choosing the right path, we feel compelled to make intelligent choices and find justifications for what we do. If this goes against what we feel through precognition, we ignore it because sensible humans don't believe in the intangible feelings experienced through precognition.

This is where we go wrong. We have this great ability inside us to see more than our current state. However, we ignore and suppress until it loses its perceptual strength. Such a waste. 

We don't need to run all our decisions through sub-committees in our minds. Our precognitive perception is already inbuilt to guide us along the way. It sees into the future for us, telling us where we will be and how we should get there.

All we need to do is listen.

Arty Farty

Contemporary art is widely marginalised for being non-sensical, pointless, and appreciated by similarly marginalised fuddy-duddys who are yearning to escape from a prolonged adolesence.

I beg to differ.

The Hatched 08 National Graduate Show is running at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. It displays work from current graduates of art schools across the country. One of the most diverse exhibitions showing a cross section of contemporary art in Australia.

Rose Skinner's The Bubblegum Factory (above) is a delicious arrangement of confectionary and toys delivering a multi-sensual experience of sight, sound, smell, and taste. It can be taken as an awe-inspiring composition or one can use the stimulated senses to evoke childhood memories. See the work in the context of modern life and it suggests subtle messages about childhood materialism. You can take whatever you want from it. 

Except of course, the raspberries and sour worms scattered on the floor.

Passing Sally Stewart's Lotus, you come across a clever work about endangered Australian animals. The artist travelled to various outback places where certain species were last seen. He then placed an orange picket synonymous with a road marker and photographed the location. These photographs are arranged as part of his work, and then mirrored in the arrangement of the orange pickets. Two neon signs glow, one saying "extinct" and the other "endangered." However the latter is flashing, suggesting that there is more that can be done now, before the transition to "extinct."

Standing in front of the life size pop art of Suited Rituals by Nick Neilsen is a confronting experience. The sounds of his accompanying video are surprisingly familiar to any office worker. The contrast between his pop art and the video is surreal. He has used two modalities to great effect, portraying the inner feelings of real life suited individuals in the form of a monochromal almost exploding pop art character trying to burst out of the screen. Not an uncommon sentiment.

One of the more challenging works is Exercise #38. Joel Casemore has used his own journey with depression to depict moments of clarity in a series of two plate colour aquatints. It's hard to find the connection between what you see and how the artist must've felt. He talks about the work helping him to simplify, rediscover opportunity, and find a sense of security. You get the impression that Exercise #38 has far more significance to it's creator than any observer could ever appreciate.

But that's the beauty of this kind of art. It has different meanings for different people, with no limitations, and complete freedom of expression, both for the artist and the viewer.

Hatched 08 runs until 25 May.

 

Love You Long Time

"A mighty pain to love it is

and tis a pain that pain to miss

But of all pains, the greatest pain

It is to love, but love in vain."

Abraham Cowley "Anacreontiques"

Unrequited love. Poetry makes it out to be one of the most romantic notions of modern culture.

What a load of shit. 

It's about romantic as smearing your testicles in peanut butter and running into a dog pound.

There tends to be an attraction inequality in every relationship. One partner always loves the other just that little bit more. And everyone wants to be the receiver. Which means there has to be the giver or "the bitch."

"The bitch" is gender independent. There have been many male partners who are "the bitch". 

On first glance, this attraction inequality seems unfair and detrimental especially to the unlucky partner who fulfills the role of "the bitch." It may seem that an inequity of emotion will only lead to one partner being taken advantage of, resulting in rebellion and the demise of the relationship.

But this underestimates the power of inequality.

Inequality allows the relationship to grow. It expands it by it's ability to pull "the bitch" towards the receiving partner. The receiver sets the bar which "the bitch" strives to conform to. Both partners then become closer and the relationship expands.

But how unfair, and how one sided that the bitch is always having to compromise and sacrifice for their partner?

The beauty is, it's a dynamic process where the role of "the bitch" and the receiver is constantly changing. So each person, at different times, will use their individual strengths to nuture and develop both the other partner and the relationship as a whole.

Of course, static attraction inequality also exists. This is where one person is always "the bitch" and gazes at their partner with puppy dog eyes. Whether limerance or love, it usually ends in one way. "The bitch" compromises themselves regularly in order to keep the relationship alive whilst the reciever becomes complacent, secure in the knowledge that "the bitch" will be limerantly attached no matter what.

So while unrequited love can be a positive thing, it more commonly acts as a relationship filter. It ends relationships that are destined for failure due to a unchangeable attraction inequality.

If you are sick of being "the bitch", rest assured that with six and a half billion people on earth, there are high odds of finding someone who loves you more than you do in return. 

And if you haven't found them yet, there's only one thing to do.

Keep looking.

Goodbye Cruel World

At the risk of being discovered and banned from China forever, I feel compelled to make an observation about this so called "emerging first world country." 

First of all, it's not a first world country. It's government quotes achievements such as economic development, urbanism, and the Beijing Olympic Games as signs of it's transition from a lesser developed nation into a rival to the great United States of America.

Really, who are they kidding?

There is a fundamental change that needs to happen and that is a cultural one. China is about as far from democracy as we are from the moon. The government exerts an iron grip over its people, controlling aspects of public life which we in the real "first world" take for granted. 

30,000 internet police patrol the superhighway every day, shutting down sites that express any from of free opinion which differs from the official line. Free speech is considered a threat to internal security and is dealt with in the harshest way possible. Corruption is intertwined in everyday society, a society where class and social standing can mean the difference between a free life and repression.

These are not traits of a first world nation.

At least the hypocrisy of their translated titles can bring some levity. People's Liberation Army? The only thing it's liberating from it's people is their freedom. 

Walk around Tiananmen Square in Beijing and you see streets with names such as Peace and Freedom. The irony is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face. Where was the peace and freedom during student protests in 1989?

The Chinese haven't failed to disappointment with the current Beijing Olympic torch relay. Those athletic Chinese men in light blue tracksuits are seductively titled "The Beijing Olympics Sacred Flame Protection Unit." They sound like a high school cheerleading group when in actual fact they are paramilitary soldiers from the People's Armed Police. Highly trained in riot control and maintaining internal security.

Don't be fooled by the blue tracksuit.

And this is part of the problem. China has been fooling it's own people for many years now. People who due to limited education and government suppression take the government's word as gospel.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world isn't going to fall the same way.

Classically Trained

Have you been to Perth Railway Station lately? For quite a while now, the Public Transport Authority have been filling in the gaps between the female robot with a long deceased Austrian. Forget transit officers, Mozart is the new weapon in combatting station violence.

Apparently, ten minutes of Mozart is equivalent to a standard dose of Prozac so maybe it is a useful therapy for both hoody wearing youth and depressed office workers.

More here