Whatever you say it is, it isn’t. — Alfred Korzybski
An entire mythology is stored within our language. – Wittgenstein
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned. — Mark Twain
With useful knowledge you can only do small things. — Agnes Heller
At the end of a semester: movie-making wisdom as would fit fortune cookies.
a «HOLE» within reality, like life passing, fleeting, evanescent, impossible to fix and retain. — Tadeusz Kantor
The only knowledge which is really alive is the one that expresses itself at its kindling point, bringing about its own destruction. — Dostoevsky
I apologize for being as blind and arrogant as most humans, and for still using words [this website/bottle-in-the-ocean]. — PM
Yes, more words here again… but it is to escape them and have them implode. Cosmic banana peels?!
After a lifetime of having surrounded ourselves with arbitrary concepts that we now take for granted, we urgently need to pierce our bubble and reach a state of constant bewildered incredulity.
One of the founders of Surrealism wrote in 1924: “Knock-knock. Who’s there? Ah good, let the infinite in.” We may not need to ask the shamans – we know now scientifically about the two trillion galaxies, the Laniakea, and the astounding extent of our insignificance.
A cold shower does much more than to freshen us up, it shakes us up. Yet, to shatter illusions all at once would be impossible; we can only chip away one crack at a time, and have to be patient, with a willingness to be bored – mountains owe so much to the valleys!
Along with intense “blindspotting” – locating the blind-spots – a particular useful technique involves a form of sustained implosion (as in Lumière’s short film “L’arroseur arrosé“).
What to trust? Without having recourse to drugs, we may require what Rimbaud pleaded for: a long, immense et reasoned derangement of all of the senses.
There is a physicality of action that bypasses the mind and grounds us, allowing a healthy perspective to arise. The animals that we still are know more than all our thoughts combined. Are we able to regain that presence?
My students exploring…
The ledge of knowLEDGE is nearby, we just need to approach it without fear.
Besides two examples for a curriculum, Bubbles and Quotes & an Unlearning Mind Map, here is a brief list of supporting materials:
– Experiences
Anechoic Chamber/Isolation Tank/Long Walks Going Nowhere/Letting Animals Speak/Shamanistic Practices/Boal’s Invisible Theater
– Writings
Artaud/Barthes/Carrière/Daumal/Debord/Bresson/Melville/Porchia/U.G. Krishnamurti (not the famous one)/Roustang/ChuangTze/LaoTze.
– Films
Rossellini/Álvarez/Bresson/Debord/Marker/Tarkovsky/Hersonski/Guzmán/Lanzman/Berger/Resnais/Serra/Robison/Soda/Ant Farm & T.R. Uthco/Pasolini
Two students in an anechoic chamber.
With all those instant-everything-avoidance means that technology offers us, not counting the exciting treasures Artificial Intelligence has in the wings, we could give it all up (or at least the cleverness)… but the physicality of having a body – as the animals [that we are] know too well – can lead us back to realize that presence is a major present – a gift awaiting us since our birth (along with decantation, the process of “active rest,” when sediments are allowed to float down to the bottom of liquids to achieve some clarity).
… to be alive is not to know, and to be lost. Or, in a gentle but direct manner: get lost!
Breath has no name and like any iconoclast, it is free to roam. — P.M.
I am trying to stop what you are making out of what I am saying. – U.G.
3 of 3. Picture-perfect… captive audiences… can we look into our blindness?
We seek and look, like Nasrudin, BUT only where there is light. Let’s go elsewhere!
