Spiral Angel / Avante Garde of The New Republic
(Cyberspace)
"An invasion of armies can be resisted,
but not an idea whose time has come."
Victor
Hugo
"The response
of whoever sees Spiral Angel for the first time is nearly universal,
immediately knowing the presence of a
masterpiece, quietly marveling at the sweeping movement of elegant contours,
filled by the sensation of witnessing the dynamic symmetry of an original
vision more magnanimous than a beautiful machine made of inert materials, but
contours of flowing elegance imbued by a living presence that seems to breathe
the modern presence of classical western art.
You get the
feeling of simple, rational, no nonsense truth, as though Pythagoras himself
had breathed
a mystery in open
light, of logic, philosophy, music and geometry into a sculptural form of
stately grace and timeless elegance with a touch of pure magic and wonder
Spiral Angel is an
evolutionary icon, symbolic of the dream of utopia as a practical reality,
among those rare works of art that no private collector has the right to
possess, for she belongs to the world for which she was created. Spiral Angel
is a seminal masterpiece, a crown jewel, appropriate in the setting of a great
museum among the timeless treasures of the Masters to be enjoyed and
appreciated by future generations as a cultural milestone of the spiritual
genesis of technological evolution."
Spiral Angel is a
sculptural prayer that the snails pace of spiritual and social evolution will
gather momentum to stride in time with the frenetic pace of the technological
revolution. Spiritual, social and technological evolution will eventually merge
into a global matrix through the Internet, which embodies the potential to
facilitate world peace through creative intelligence. The Internet may serve as
a vehicle for our human nature’s movement toward the Universal Republic of the
New Renaissance, celebrating unity through diversity at the height of human
accomplishment through a multiplicity of forms.
She is
symbolic of the infinite creative capacity of humanity to find solutions to the
seemingly timeless impasse of the human condition to transcend the barriers of
incessant warfare that sacrifices the natural birthright of all humanity for
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. She is a metaphor for a sane model
for industry evolving toward the eco-logical economy of nature, regulating the
toxic excesses of consumer society for all people of this earth to receive the
natural human birthright of a happy, prosperous, free and fulfilled life,
equitably sharing the earth’s resources, with respect for every individual at
his or her own level of being and for generations yet to be born.
Spiral Angel is the
primary representative of The Gnostic
School of Post Modern Archetypal Realism; a personification of the
combined artistic, scientific and technological aspects of human Evolution of
the New Renaissance, tempered by compassion, forming the foundation of the new
global social contract rooted in Enlightened Consensus.
Angels are symbols
of peace, messengers of wisdom, bearers of gifts, good will and good fortune to
humanity. Spiral Angel is the symbolic herald of the Messiah who rather than
the fantasy of the living God personified in a single human being, a force of
energy and will coursing through all humanity and manifesting through the New
Renaissance, revealing our highest potentials through our nearly infinite
diversity. Spiral Angel moves beyond superstitious religious dogma to accept
the reality that the Messiah will not arrive as a mythic hero, endowed by god
with supernatural powers to save us from a nearly omnipotent evil, personified
by the Devil or Anti-Christ, but rise from within us, manifesting through the
Human Potential Movement of the first Global Renaissance.
Spiral Angel is a
virtual reality model that personifies the logos, ethos and values of the
dissertation you are reading. The message is clear: the fundamental truth of our
salvation is our free will; our choice to be chosen. Spiral Angel is a blessing
upon our present and future generations to proactively accept the one clear
choice of creative living with sensible consumption, over death by our
inability to regulate our excesses.
Lady Liberty leads the people
In mind, body,
soul and spirit
of sacred humanism
Over the
barricades of tyranny
As Nike of
Samothrace
in Cyberspace
Singing the song
of the spheres
Of atoms to
macrocosms
In the arcane
mysteries
of the present
Where the future
Meets
antiquity.
Pure, harmonious
Architectonic
radiation
Of the Utopian
dream;
Virtual reality
model
Of Evolution’s
Master Plan
Toward Universal
Enlightenment;
At times, so
agonizingly slow and painful,
We seem to have forgotten
history’s lessons.
And at others, so
decisively swift
There was never
time to doubt or question,
But seize the
moments’
call to action.
Gestalt of mind,
matter and will
Emerge through
techne,
Immersed in
visions of an angel
Of a thousand
staircases,
Another milestone
along the perilous road
Of our human
evolution,
Embodies the
god-head,
Infinity
Materialized
as the soul of
paradise;
Spiraling double
helix,
Interlacing
staircases
of
Fluid Seminal Mind
Gestates the
conception
and manifests an
archetype
of ideal form,
simultaneously
Ascending gravity
And descending to
earth.
Resplendent
Dimensions of Radiant Wisdom
Sensed on the
periphery of awareness,
Through sign and
symbol;
Beyond the
labyrinthine corridors
Of the chambered
nautilus,
Of the human mind
Who manifests
chaos
Through logic and
reason,
A maddeningly
illogical
Evolutionary
continuum
The intention
behind creation of Spiral Angel is to embody the ethos of the Enlightened
values of Sacred Humanism through an age defining work of Art, as a cultural
milestone for the arriving global Renaissance. Spiral Angel corresponds to
Michelangelo’s “Pieta”, in the sense that “The Pieta” exemplified the true
Gnostic spirit underlying the European High Renaissance, obscured by the
political intrigues, intentional misconceptions, distortions and abuses of the
Judeo-Christian Mythology that served the far from holy political agenda of the
Catholic Church, which largely financed the European Renaissance.
The Spiral Angel exemplifies the spirit of the
Modern; the clear, unsentimental spirituality of the new physics, a symbol of
the new humanity rooted in the present with an eye toward the past with a
vision of the future.
Spiral Angel
symbolizes the upward spiral of human evolution, of the fertile seed of pure
untrammeled potential planted in cyberspace, blossoming into the Renaissance of
a New Golden Age in Our Time. The seeds of Utopia are already planted in
cyberspace and with some conscious cultivation, we may see tangible changes in
our own lifetimes, but the real beneficiaries will be future generations, who
may be born into a world of which we can only dream.
Spiral angel may
be described as a dinergy:
the generative power of pattern forming processes, through the union of
complimentary opposites and as a synergy, a combined or cooperative action or
force. As an archetype, she is herald of the New Renaissance; epitomizing the
mind shift in the collective unconscious from the divisive sectarianism of the history
of the old world order and the human tendency to favor either right or
left brain thinking to the evolving paradigm of holographic whole brain
thinking.
In a sense, Spiral
Angel is a conductor before an orchestra, of musicians tuning the instruments of
their minds to transform the cacophony of cyberspace through a majestic
performance of a Renaissance symphony attuning human nature in perfect unison
to the world and cosmos.
The face of the Spiral Angel is clear of tension and free of
worldly concerns. Her eyes are wide open, yet her vision is turned inward. Hers
is the face of Enlightened Wonder in the living moment; her body and soul
emptied of coarse animal nature until there is nothing but the ideal of clear
intention. Spiral Angel is human adaptation to the technological environment as
she is human and machine living in the divine moment of pure grace and ease.
Furthermore,
Spiral Angel is a qualified speculation that the new technologies will advance
the evolution of art into previously unimaginable vistas; that the internet
shall serve as a conduit of shared knowledge and resources, uplifting the human
condition in the evolutionary movement toward globalization defined as a
socially cooperative effort of the global village to bring about peace,
prosperity and justice for all. Spiral Angel is a metaphor for the ideal of
Utopian world peace gestating in cyberspace. May the dream be as real as we
live and breathe.
Seminal Inspirations:
The choice of the
spiral staircase is a deliberate leitmotif, as the form of the spiral staircase
directly corresponds to the double helix, which is more than an archetypal
symbol of life; it is the form of the chromosome strands of D.N.A., the genetic
code of all life and master blueprint for organic evolution. Spiral Angel is
acknowledgement of technological development as an extension of mental and
biological evolution.
The structural sense of Spiral
Angel’s body was inspired by a chambered nautilus that was cut in half,
revealing the curved chambers that resemble the spiral staircase and the spokes
of a wheel. It seems fitting that the sublime elegance of the natural geometry
of the chambered nautilus serves as the model for expression of human
perfection. The perfect form of the chambered nautilus is one of nature’s
miracles of engineering that contains identifiable logarithms and perhaps deep
secrets of physics, yet to be revealed.
Spiral Angel is
the celestial Logos reborn as a contemporary Zen vision of the eternal Nike, a
winged victory bearing the laurels of virtue; a symbol of the ancient lineage
of philosophers and mystery religions, brought into the context of the new
physics, which are as much pure science as pure metaphysics. She is portrayed
as an anthropomorphic architecture analogous to the Parthenon in the sense that
rather than housing the Pallas Athena, she is a fusion of the goddess of wisdom
and her living temple.
Spiral Angel
symbolizes the spirit of the living temple of the evolving New Renaissance of
Enlightened Civilization in cyberspace, evoking the spirit of the modern taking
a quantum leap from the foundation of the past, moving beyond the straight
lines and right angles of tradition calcified by the tomb of imitative,
unimaginative superstitious reactionary nostalgia toward innovation that
improves what has gone before or takes an inconceivable direction toward a
previously unimagined vista.
The History and Artistic Lineage of Spiral
Angel:
The Creation of
Spiral Angel, as with all seminal ideas evolved through many years of contemplation
and is connected to the unwritten artistic lineage of Ars Magna. She is a
progressive synthesis and centrifuge of many artists throughout history, from
antiquity through the modern.
The first conscious stirrings of Spiral Angel arrived while
looking at a print of Marcel Duchamp’s: “Nude Descending Staircase”. I amused
myself with the idea that the painting suggested a nude becoming a staircase.
It is indeed ironic that a little private joke about a painting that was
neither particularly beautiful nor well painted provided the seminal idea that
evolved over the course of a decade to become a masterpiece of the highest
order.
Spiral Angel was
also inspired by Umberto Boccioni’s sculpture of 1913:
“Unique forms of
Continuity in Space “. When I first saw a casting of this sculpture as a child,
I found it deeply disturbing. I was
simultaneously attracted, as if by the undeniable force of gravity, yet
repelled in violent ambiguity, moved by its raw, dynamic, elemental power that
seems to embody the human will as an unstoppable and irrepressible force of
nature.
Another seminal influence is M.C.
Escher’s impossible architectural perspectives that seem to defy or invert the laws
of physics, gravity, spatial orientation and common sense. I converted his
sensibility of architectural space that generally implies the use of straight
lines and right angles to intersecting parabolic planes and elegantly shifting
contours.
Spiral Angel
shares an architectural sensibility with Ancient Greek architecture and
sculpture, the Cathedrals of Medieval Europe and the fantastic visionary
architecture of Antonio Gaudi, the greatest artist of the 20th Century, who
fused organic forms with departures from mechanical symmetry in predominantly
right-angled architectural design.
Spiral Angel is a work of intuitive engineering, exemplary of
mind in matter, akin to the
"vernacular architecture" the French Postman, Ferdinand Cheval who, without a degree in architecture or
engineering, built facsimiles of Khmer Temples out of concrete in his private
park as his life’s work or the Italian-American Immigrant construction worker,
Sabato Rodia who over the course of 30
years, built the Watts Towers in California out of found and donated materials,
mimicking the Eiffel Tower. The Watts Towers were so well built that a crane
could not move them. (* see Wikipedia)
Spiral Angel is a
homage to the indefatigable human spirit of the pioneer’s, inventors’ and
iconoclast’s bravery; to the spirit of Dadaelus who calculated exactly how
close to the sun he could fly and Icarus, overwhelmed by exultation in the
freedom of flight, who crashed and burned in the full glory of youth, because
he did not heed his father’s knowledge and wisdom.
Shape of a Dream:
Over the
course of a decade, I collected a small file of notes and drawings, thinking
through the technical problems of planning Spiral Angel. The shape of the dream
slowly formed in my consciousness until the gestation phase materialized into a
solid idea. I worked through numerous possibilities of configurations of forms
and materials with which to execute this concept that stretches the laws of
physics toward the periphery of the impossible, within material limitations.
Thinking through the manifold
layers of construction problems demanded absorption in the characteristics of
the materials to create the tensile strength needed to support the concept. If
the materials have been used for vaguely similar purposes, I was not aware of
any predecessors or models to use as a foundation for the concept of Spiral
Angel.
In quite a literal
sense, Spiral Angel is symbolic of a quantum leap into a steep evolutionary
curve. The dramatic transformation of the human mind from the Middle Ages to
the European Renaissance, is analogous
to our current radical metamorphosis
from the industrial age to the information age.
On a more personal
note, Spiral Angel is a radical departure from all my preceding work, as my
approach was equally that of an engineer or physicist as a retinal poet of
lyrical artistry.
The dynamic
harmony created through the juxtaposition of tensions implied by a body in
motion are mimicked by the clean, crisp, streamlined aerodynamic contours of a
series of parabolas gracefully joined by S-curves emphasizing the self
contained sense of movement.
The sculptor, as well as the painter works with cast shadow and
reflected light. Spiral Angel is a study in the liquid play of light shifting
the contours of cast shadow, with the movement of the sculpture in relation to
the light source.
The romance of
form dematerializes into space, where gracefully undulating contours subtly
recede, shifting and diffusing into lightly shadowed nothingness. As the
witness moves around Spiral Angel (or the sculpture or light source moves), the
shadow gracefully fades into light over contours of the modulated repetition of
form, like a spiraling series of animated Yin/Yang symbols. Projecting light
through Spiral Angel, on to a screen, one may create an effect of dancing
shadow, reminiscent of a Balinese shadow play.
Creating a work of
literature with a subtle internal rhyme scheme that meters the tempo of the
words according to the rhythm of the breath and heartbeat is the hallmark of an
excellent writer. Spiral Angel aspires to an internal rhythm of form that
corresponds to the dynamic outward movement of the figure.
Despite Spiral
Angel’s Ultra Synthetic Abstraction,
she seems to convey a sense of a living, breathing presence. With a little
imagination, the witness may visualize muscles flexing, rolling and relaxing
under an invisible elastic skin that is implied by the collective matrix of
contours. The undulations of light as
form convey a movement of the élan vital, as distinct from the actual form of
the sculpture or the dynamic movement of an organic body.
Spiral Angel
embodies the values and understanding of Super
Synthetic Modernism; integrating the elegant simplicity of classical
art, architecture and mythos which is the foundational culture of Western
Civilization with modern technologically inspired forms.
Hand
Made/ Machine Made:
One of
the greatest drawbacks of the new technologies may be the reduction of artists
and visionaries to technicians, obsessed by information protocols. Technology,
by necessity standardizes mechanical procedures that have a marked tendency to
depersonalize, while there is no more highly personal or subjective mental
state than the creation of an original hand made work of art.
Availability of the new technologies provide previously unimaginable
possibilities of expression for artists who have a background securely rooted
in the traditional arts and devoted enough time to cultivating an artistic
vision. However, those who think they
can become artists without developing traditional skills, will almost
inevitably become proficient technicians, producing generic drivel without any
soul or sense of aesthetics rather than true artists with real vision.
I have always
marveled at the work of artists and craftsmen of the highest order. I am no
less enamored by the beauty, economy and precision of machine made products,
from finely calibrated and balanced tools to injection-molded plastics,
especially the casings of certain models of televisions, stereos and computers
etc, I find a super synthetic beauty in impeccably smooth, aerodynamic surfaces
and well thought out ergonomic design in configurations of forms rarely found
in nature. The perfection of injection-molded plastics is a wishful fantasy of
life as ordered, controlled and comprehensible; but is delusional that there is
any underlying certainty and continuity in planned obsolescence.
I am awed by the
fact that the unfathomable complexities of machine evolved from materials
extracted from nature and synthesized by the great historically evolving genius
of the human mind. In a sense, I am attempting to reverse this process in the
attempt to create the illusion that Spiral Angel was injection molded, when in
actuality, it was painstakingly crafted by hand with relatively primitive tools
and materials, formulated for applications that do not easily lend themselves
to the techniques I developed to create this masterpiece of modern art.
Through the
creation of Spiral Angel, I aspired to resolve the paradox between the machine
made and hand made; to create an artifact that gives the appearance of being
injection molded, that was meticulously made by hand. It is paradoxically appropriate
that this work of art employed tools and materials that are decidedly low-tech,
primarily relying upon eye to hand coordination for design and construction,
without the aid of a computer, and only a rudimentary understanding of
mathematics and intuitive comprehension of the principals of engineering and
physics.
Although I did use
a few modern tools and materials, Spiral Angel could have been created with
tools and materials available during the European Renaissance provided the
artist been born to channel it, to create an Evolutionary Icon for the 21st
Century representing the technological revolution.
The
New Paradigm/ Holographic Mind
Spiral Angel
embodies of the ideology of sacred humanism, symbolic of the master plan for
conscious participation in our evolution toward the Utopian dream made reality
in this world, rather than waiting for a world to come. By tapping into the
genetic memory of infinity that is censored, resisted and obscured by the
superego of the collective unconscious we may significantly transform our human
condition in a single generation and in
doing so, create the momentum for truly dramatic change in a few short
generations without invasive and immoral genetic engineering or tampering with
nature.
Following the
curvilinear movement of parabolas receding into a distance and simultaneously
returning, the mind is transported through a non-linear spatial orientation to
a holographic thought process, like the path of a proton; simultaneously
apprehending the background of the past moving toward the future while existing
in the eternal present.
The electronic media, especially the personal computer and attendant
technologies have already dramatically altered human consciousness and are the means
of a radical shift in paradigms from the industrial to electronic ages. The
computer is not only a machine, but also a synthetic virtual universe that
mirrors the human mind with nearly limitless dimensions and infinite
recombinant potentials, linked by pure abstract logic. The computer is a
hyper-rational system that organizes, encapsulates and reflects the knowledge
and workings of the human mind.
The introduction
of the Internet to mainstream culture is analogous to the transformational
effect of the Guttenberg press in the late Middle-Ages, which was perhaps the
primary innovation that facilitated the European Renaissance. The Guttenberg
Press was instrumental in promoting literacy and thus facilitating the
transmission of ideas, while the personal computer promotes the next level of
technological literacy, which is the creation of virtual reality models.
The computer will
prove to be an exponentially far more expedient vehicle of human evolution
than the Guttenberg Press was in it’s
time, especially for those of us involved in the creation, organization and
dissemination of
Access to the
Internet is like having a library card to a high tech Library of Alexandria
codification of sorts of all human knowledge. Increasing access to the new
technologies is empowering a new generation with a vehicle to a global
civilization.
The Internet disseminates
ideas and promotes communication for which we may consciously realize
unprecedented options for the creation of a world of our choosing. The Internet
has already changed history and was a significant factor in the fall of the
Berlin Wall. The will of the people will prevail, provided we, the people are
clear in our purpose and intention. Clear purpose and intention generate ways
and means. Spiral Angel is the representative of this Global Ethos of
Enlightened Renaissance World Civilization.
A few generations
of increasingly computer savvy human beings will produce permanent evolutionary
changes in the human psyche. Once we learn to think holographically, we may
learn to rewire the brain, conceptualizing a virtual reality model of the
holographic mind that bridges the hemispheres of the brain, consciously
entering a conduit that taps into in the silent areas of the brain connecting
the individual to pure potential, the collective unconscious, the cosmos and
infinity.
Our species will
inevitably learn to direct the synapses firing across the brain’s hemispheres,
without mechanical or chemical stimulation, which will be universally
recognized as the locus of the temporal flux of the space-time continuum.
We are at the
threshold of a portal, the humble first stirrings of an evolving holograph of
the whole mind. The static conventional mind, which compartmentalizes
creativity and logic into two distinct mutually exclusive operations, may
become a vestigial organ as the human brain may evolve more efficient
communication between the hemispheres, awakening dormant potentials in the
silent areas of the mind.
Science
Fiction/ Science Fact:
Virtual reality is
a smaller step away from tangible reality than most people are conditioned to
believe. Every innovation or advancement including social change is preceded by
an idea.
Future
phases of evolution present virtually limitless possibilities, as the vast,
untapped reservoirs of potential in the silent areas of the human brain are
awakened from the dormant state.
If the statistics are
accurate, the average human being uses perhaps 3-4% of our intellectual
capacity, while a genius such as Albert Einstein used about 10-11%. If even 100
people, unified in their intention could utilize 10-11% of our potential, this
small brain trust could significantly influence change of the world as we know
it.