Illumination # 7 - In search of red threads
This week, rather than researching any new topics I am going to try and make more sense of the plethora of concepts, writers, philosophies and texts I have so far discovered in relation to my own artistic practice. I will try to focus on the most relevant five (highlighted ones as key areas of interest) and look for what unites them:
Of all these topics I suppose I am most interested in the concept of exile and the mysticism inherent in solitude and displacement. I have long been interested in the history of famous mystics, and their "dark night of the soul" - isolation, despair and in some sense "exile" from their own spirituality or presence of God. In my own work I am often trying to examine a sort of contemporary urban mysticism, "re-mysticism" of forgotten and liminal spaces, or as I have myself often referred to it, "Ghetto Mysticism".
(Famous mystic) Teresa of Ávila described the mystic soul as ‘a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in heaven there are many mansions […] [and] in the centre, in the very midst of them all, is the principal chamber in which God and the soul hold their most secret intercourse’.
Knowing how exile and melancholia influence mysticism, (with Huzun being a uniquely Turkish version of it) what are some topics or questions İ can explore deeper?
“Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?”
― Tears and Saints
SOME LINKS:
Nostalgia:
Fantasy and Nostalgia
Space and Place:
Place and the Uncanny
Solitude and Mysticism:
Thomas Merton
Melancholia:
https://books.google.com.tr/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IjNWBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA104&dq=melancholia%2Bart%2Bsymbolism&ots=zR4Yr5A-6p&sig=7Gf5_I1qxw54zeaqN4RrsHof8q0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=melancholia%2Bart%2Bsymbolism&f=false
Street photography and Istanbul:
Ara Guler and Nostalgia
Flaneur and Exile:
Baudelaire and Flaneur
DeChirico:
https://www.karger.com/Article/Purchase/73858
- Flaneur/Derive/urban exploring/psycho-geography (Guy Debord)
- Poetics of Space and Reverie (Bachelard)
- Metaphysical art and the unseen/dreamscapes/timelessness (Bergson, Nietzche)
- Melancholia/nostalgia/Huzun (Pamuk, ?)
- Exile and mysticism (relates strongly to space and reverie)
Of all these topics I suppose I am most interested in the concept of exile and the mysticism inherent in solitude and displacement. I have long been interested in the history of famous mystics, and their "dark night of the soul" - isolation, despair and in some sense "exile" from their own spirituality or presence of God. In my own work I am often trying to examine a sort of contemporary urban mysticism, "re-mysticism" of forgotten and liminal spaces, or as I have myself often referred to it, "Ghetto Mysticism".
mysticism
/ˈmɪstɪsɪz(ə)m/
noun
- 1.belief that union with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, may be attained through contemplation and self-surrender.
"St Theresa's writings were part of the tradition of Christian mysticism" - 2.vague or ill-defined religious or spiritual belief, especially as associated with a belief in the occult.
"there is a hint of New Age mysticism in the show's title"
(Famous mystic) Teresa of Ávila described the mystic soul as ‘a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in heaven there are many mansions […] [and] in the centre, in the very midst of them all, is the principal chamber in which God and the soul hold their most secret intercourse’.
Knowing how exile and melancholia influence mysticism, (with Huzun being a uniquely Turkish version of it) what are some topics or questions İ can explore deeper?
- What effect does displacement and exile have on the state of daydreaming/ reverie, and more specifically, modern flaneur "mystics"? Where is HOME for the mystic?
- How much is melancholy and Huzun a prerequisite state for mysticism, and how much is this melancholy an actual beneficial state?
- How does space and setting effect emotions, melancholy, reverie, nostalgia, sense of home?
- How have different artists in the past, (De Chirico) explored these issues already and what artists living within the MENA region have dealt with these concepts?
- How does perception of time effect ones mood and creative state?
- Hows does my choice of medium (Analog Film photography) reflect my concepts?
- Why are these questions so important to me and how do I examine them in my own work?
“Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?”
― Tears and Saints
“I have learned to walk: since then I have run. I have learned to fly: since then I do not have to be pushed in order to move. Now I am nimble, now I fly, now I see myself under myself, now a god dances within me.”
― Thus Spoke ZarathustraSOME LINKS:
Nostalgia:
Fantasy and Nostalgia
Space and Place:
Place and the Uncanny
Solitude and Mysticism:
Thomas Merton
Melancholia:
https://books.google.com.tr/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IjNWBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA104&dq=melancholia%2Bart%2Bsymbolism&ots=zR4Yr5A-6p&sig=7Gf5_I1qxw54zeaqN4RrsHof8q0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=melancholia%2Bart%2Bsymbolism&f=false
Street photography and Istanbul:
Ara Guler and Nostalgia
Flaneur and Exile:
Baudelaire and Flaneur
DeChirico:
https://www.karger.com/Article/Purchase/73858
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