Dream Mathematicians

“Art is an ever-flowing exchange of discovery and meaning in moments that enfold and unfold knowledge in meaningful relationships.”

— John Anderson

There is a strong correlation of the above statement with dreaming and also for working with an AI. For example, while falling asleep, I love to watch my mind construct hypnogogic imagery, thoughts and scenes completely on its own without any input from me. It's a game of hide and seek.

These mental hypnogogic states are performing actions similar to mental waking states, where the mind calls upon deep data sets that it has been collecting, from day one, in order to construct its reality from various sensory and perhaps non sensory inputs. It does the same thing when I fall asleep.

Once in a while I become aware of myself in these dream states, not as the creator of them but rather as the observer. During states of lucid dreaming, when I am wake inside the construct of a dream, I am aware that my mental state is dreaming. At times like these i can provide input into the construct as instruction sets or parameters to influence the direction but not create the dream. For example, I can will things like flying inside that dream. However, the course from there is beyond my control. I am not the creator but, I am the observer.

This is similar, in a way, when working with an AI to create artistic images. The AI draws from huge data sets and learning instruction built into it, performing on its own with little of my involvement. I can provide input parameters into the AI process to influence its direction (like willing to fly inside a dream) while still, the creation of the image is beyond my control. Here, I find myself to be an observer and not the creator. I like this because it leads to greater meanings and discoveries that i would not have found otherwise. Here I am performing the role of the Artist As Observer, not the Artist As Creator.

When working with the AIs, i let them run through several hundreds of iterations and then select the final image. In that fashion, perhaps i am a curator as well.

In my digital work, I am discovering worlds that couldn’t otherwise be seen; exploring moments that exist implicitly, but only manifest through a particular approach using a unique set of instruments. In this activity, the abstracting and pictorial process becomes quite mysterious as images and various incarnated equivalents reveal themselves on a stage that speaks to worlds more real than real. When that synthesis occurs, something happens that transcends the boundary of both observer and creator, in which a greater truth is revealed, art’s mysterious ministry.

— John Anderson

Portali

A portal is a familiar idea. We think of a port of call, a place where we may harbour for a day, a place of passage.

As a nomadic species, it is characteristically human to extend this idea into the subjective realm. Traveling is not without its challenges and unknown obstacles. As travellers these unknowns and challenges present us with unique growth opportunities where we call upon inner and outer resources, sometimes to survive. In such situations there is a change in character and personhood with insights and knowledge gained.

Early church founders recognised a need to communicate this type of subjective transcendence to its members and often did so through pictorial art where a portal became a unique type of gateway, one where attention outwardly is inverted inward.

One gazes out on the over arching scene or landscape and internalises what it might mean. Gates, doorways, and

arches of triumph become unique vehicles to evoke these journeys in the viewer. What is beyond the bend, what is on the other side of that gate, arch or door? What awaits there to greet us or bar the way?

Hopefully, this is the aim of all good art in its basic simplicity and beauty, to solicit discovery inside the viewer. For when we look outward into a portal we are not seeking a discovery of the outside, of something other than ourselves, or something perhaps outside the doors of perception, but rather we are seeking a journey into ourselves, the mysteries and discoveries that we will find there. All this awaits us if we are but willing to look inward, for we never truly look outward in order to there rest, that only comes when we look inside.

"Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."

C.G. Jung

Photo Synthesis

Nautilus

All of us have experienced or used resonance in nature. Perhaps the most familiar use is a swing. As children we discover quickly that the best time for a push is at the top of the swing cycle. At that point the energy applied amplifies or resonates with the fundamental energy present in the swing. By the use of resonance we achieve higher levels than what we experienced previously with our innocent joy.

We use the properties of resonance in all of our modern communication systems. Our ability to probe nature at the atomic level is based upon an ability to develop receivers that vibrate or are activated at certain resonant frequencies. These probes have certain resonance capacities or sensitivities. We use sensitive receivers to tune into various radio or television broadcasts.

We often use resonance to work more easily or effectively, doing a lot with an energetic “little”. We use resonance in any type of relational activity. Resonance is synergy in motion. During such, the energies of the common resonant frequencies are intensified for all resonance identities involved. A collective aspect of sympathetic resonance can be seen where identities manifest as wave distributions of diverse sub-identities. While certain general rules may apply, for any given collective these rules can be dynamic, non-linear and non-absolute.

For example, consider the theatre. As a new world appears on the stage in a darkened room the audience becomes one, immersed in the story as it unfolds. It breathes, gasps, laughs, and cries at the appropriate time as though the fiction is real. The same is true in a concert hall where various tonal configurations evoke collective melancholy or joy. The same thing happens for many in an ashram, synagogue, mosque or church. It happens in a football stadium or at a rock concert.

Resonance implies a common association. “It rang true for me”, is a form of synergy where we talk about being on the “same wavelength”. Each resonate experience will vary for each individual based on their own perspective. During collective resonance, the complex frequencies of the individuals aren’t the same but only similar in respect to the common or group resonance – the whole. Collective resonance is a form of resonance where the individual wave functions are distributed across the whole and contain within them individual points of view, contributing to final holographic form.

Projected Moments

Art is an ever-flowing exchange of discovery and meaning in moments that enfold and unfold knowledge in meaningful relationships.

When we define moments by the relational interaction of discovery and meaning they do not need have an explanation in terms of cause and effect. Nor do these relationships of meaning need to exist in a sequential way.

There is an action at a distance with no known mediator of the interaction and this can be thought of as a field that accounts for all possible relationships. This field is the primary essence of art’s domain.

From this domain creativity, novelty and meaning spring up as semi-autonomous events for a certain kind of moment and then dissolve back into the underlying order. This field is an unceasing process of becoming.

These relationships are intricately structured in their own logical ways and gives rise to other relationships that are not necessarily causal in nature. The lack of causality does not negate the occurrence of discovery and meaning.

Discovery and meaning can be a-causal projections from a multidimensional ground where events flow multi-directionally; bringing with them new relationships of creativity, information and knowledge gained.

From this multidimensional ground, projections actually determine the order of time; where the ultimate elements of art are not point events as instantiations of properties in objects but of moments. As such, moments that “skip” superseding spaces become as valid as any other forms of time that may appear continuous.

This movement gives shape to all forms and its structure gives order to movement where a deeper and more extensive inner movement creates, maintains, and ultimately dissolves the structure.