Who's that Jung kid over there? Id don't know.

Sorry about the bad pun, I just couldn't resist. Down to business.

This week's readings spent a some effort tracking the development of ego and selfishness in art and society. I think they matched up well with Dan Powell's work because, whether or not he intends to, there was a significant lack of ego in his work. What I found most interesting about this was that is was not only in his sweeping landscapes, but in his quirky vignettes as well. Photography is art form in which I find it easiest to "refocus our attention away from ourselves and onto the world..." The camera's form requests that we do just that. I find that even when I do a self portrait photographically, I feel like it is less a picture of me and more a documentation of my passing through or witnessing something. I felt like Dan's works were somewhat opposite but complimentary to that sentiment in that he did a lot of psychological self portrait-ing in pictures of garbage tacked to a wall that he scribbled on (I saw that positively). I personally relate to Dan's wanderlust and dumpster fetishism.

I was glad that Carolyn Merchant, in her opening statement did not lump all of humanity into an evil doing paradigm, but specifically chose to criticize the actions of "Western industrial capitalism since the seventeenth century as it developed in North America and Europe." I think all too often in the interviews with Suzi Gablik, there is a sort of artificial long view which seems to imply that the values and crises of the Industrial Revolution, or even the 1970's cultural revolution (they don't call them the "Me Generation" for nothing),  began somewhere around 10,000 years ago, or just about the time that we humans put plow to field. I think it is folly to assume that people have so long viewed the world through the same glasses, and pretty ego centric to boot. I also think the sentiment of relief about Bush and Quayle leaving office is pretty frickin' hilarious in hindsight, although it is a dark cloud of humor that does not bode well for any kind of cultural shift. I do agree with her idea that some people aver nature because they want total control, but I do not find a satifactory solution to explain why so many people are duped into thinking that they have any meaningful control whatsoever. I certainly did not find solace in many a crappy job that paid for many a crappy apartment, regardless of whether or not said job and apartment hand central air conditioning (admittedly they usually did not). I feel that there is some great hustle going on where we try to sell a way of life, and even the people who don't get it still buy it. Again, I am glad that in this interview neither Merchant or Gablik is calling for people to drop everything and go back to the land. Art, when made without that huge ego, is the best type of in control, and the best way to let go of control at the same time.

I think this kind of relates to James Hillman and what brought him to lose faith in the usefulness of therapy, despite, as he states, the fact that he is so good at it. It seems to me that for many decades therapy's role was to attempt to realign those who felt that lack of control with the general direction of society. It encouraged small, personal victories and gave the impression that the patient was learning to take control. This is a pretty big leap from lobotomies and electroshock, which in effect did the opposite. Those methods punished the patient for not being able to wield control. The individual would be sacrificed for the good of the whole. One of the down falls of both this and more modern therapy, is that in someways you are still living primarily with the trauma, and not as a healed person (But I think I'd rather have some shrink pick an emotional scab once a week than live forever in drooly lala land.) But this again is one of those things that makes art so wonderful. We all need to process, to interpret our lives. Making art lets us do that and move on.

***This is a picture I took. It kinda reminded me of my version of Dan Powell's landscapes- bleak and documenting human footprints.  I think while we're on the subject of psychology, there must be some sort of connection we can draw between people's willingness to shell out hundreds of dollars to spend hours waiting in line to have a near death experience and the decline of our civilization.