Introduction to 'The Inner Technology of Art'
by Antares
as published in the online magazine the2ndrule, August 2003.

What does it actually mean to be called or to call someone an artist? We could think about the earliest evidence of human artistic activity, found before the outbreak of the First World War in southern France: the famous paleolithic cave paintings of Lascaux, more than 30,000 years old, which largely depict the primal mystique of the hunt. The scholar Joseph Campbell, in Primitive Mythology, describes these prehistoric artists as shamans: medicine men and women who worked as intermediaries between the mystical and practical worlds, whose private visions - projected into public ceremony and ritual - could effect profound change in our lives by impinging upon our perceptions.

Then, as now, the shaman-artist served as a visionary of the sacred, a medium connecting the various dimensions, a transducer of spirit into matter and vice versa, a vital link between metaphysical and physical. His ability to merge the inner world of dreams and symbols with the outer world of the hunt made him a healer and a seer, gifted with initiatic and prophetic authority.

Australian aboriginal creation myths speak of archetypal ancestors, closely linked to specific animal lineages, singing the landscape into being as Songlines. The spiritual world is a vibratory essence which can materialize itself by lowering its frequencies. Physical reality is but a shadow of the metaphysical. Interestingly, this idea of earthly existence as a shadow-play is the central metaphor in Plato's allegory of the cave, wherein he describes the unawakened consciousness as a prisoner chained in darkness, kept enthralled by an illusory pageant of animated shadows enacted by an invisible priesthood. Precisely the technique employed in the Wayang Kulit tradition, still practised in former colonies of the Majapahit Empire.

The imaginative interplay of light and dark creates all drama - a word associated with dreams and nightmares. From Plato's Cave to Wayang Kulit to the Magic Lantern and George Lucas's Industrial Light Magic is a mere progression of technological sophistication. A father amusing his child by creating animated shadows with his hands is drawing on a very ancient artform. These days the same father (especially if his name happens to be George Lucas or Steven Spielberg) would have access to computer-generated digital images which enormously enhance his power to project his imagination to a remote audience of millions. The art of entertaining and enthralling an audience is akin to hypnotism (or to an ancient Javanese magical practice known as pukau, by which means the victim is involuntarily put into a paralytic trance, thereby allowing the practitioner to do as he will as long as the spell lasts).

Disregarding the superficial changes in the technology of art, the primary tool of the artist will always be his imagination. The secondary tool of the artist might be a stick with which to draw figures in the sand, a brush with which to paint, a chisel with which to chip away stone, a flute on which to blow, a lute on which to strum, or a computer with which to sequence an electronic fugue. Technology, after all, is essentially the evolution of tool-making and using. A gripping tale can be told with only an eloquent tongue - or with an extravagant panoply of son et lumière effects. Without the artistic imagination, creation itself would not exist, nor would the concept of a creator. We have been told that God made man in his image; the artist intuitively knows that the reverse equally applies.

To imagine is to create an image on the screen of one's mind - and this act of imagination, when focused through the clear lens of willful intent, is a magical performance which can effect a transformation on all levels. Thus the artist-shaman-magician has always been a source of fascination and fear. His powers of creation and projection make of him a god or demon, depending on his mood and inclination. And indeed, in days of old, the visionary power of the artist-shaman often gave him tremendous influence over his tribe. It was only recently - in the last 13,000 years or so - that brute strength gained ascendancy over mind, and the warrior muscled his way into dominance. The gradual erosion of archetypal pantheons and monarchies has facilitated the rise of the merchant-entrepreneur, whose crude time-is-money credo rapidly became the 'bottom line' over the last few centuries. Commercialism and industrialism now threaten, alas, to turn art into just another economic activity - and the artist's ceremonial and magical role into a purely ornamental one. No doubt a certain superstitious awe still attends the artist's endeavours; but in this consumerist age, the artist-shaman's contribution to the success of the hunt has been reduced to churning out effective advertising and public relations for the vulgar new gods of materialism - or fashionable new trends for the children of the privileged.
 

disclaimer: this article was not written for this website. It is taken from the stated magazine source.