Greetings from Denmark

Hi all -

Im Knud, more than ready to intergrate with all you gaians at this pod.
One of the questions that I’m eagerly seeking an answerr to is: Where in the SDi/AQAL model does art (poetry/music) “fit in” - and how? When I look at the history/evolution of music, it mimics the unfolding of stages, and can be fittet into an musiq/AQAL perspective (UL: the music itself as soundwaves; UR: The avaliable technology; LL: How the music is produced and LR: How it is consumed) - just one example, I hope some of you will guide me to more knowledge or help me expand the view.

Well - right now I just wanted to say hi :)

Knud Riishøjgaard


 

Re: Greetings from Denmark

Hi Knud,



I would think it’s less about art and music “fitting in”, and more about applying an AQAL perspective to map out, document and better understand what is there. Its just another lens to look at things through, really.



Welcome, I’m sure someone will point you to something more comprehensive.



Liz 

Re: Greetings from Denmark

Hi Liz -

Thats a good viewpoint, and that is what I have seen so far. That viewoint places us in the consumer end of the arts; we have reached certain stages and consumes art that is apropriate for the stage  - and/or we are seeking states that art can help us reach.
Another viewpoint places our stage as a result of art - we are products of our culture, and UL/LL is defined by the thinking patterns that is shown by leading edge artists. Being an composer myself, I am somewhat biased towards this view, but I know of course that both are valid, and that my viewpoint may be totally out of focus  - or in dire need of a solid reworking :)

Knud

Re: Greetings from Denmark -- Art in AQAL

Hi Knud, welcome, cool topic. I wonder what would happen if you go to some of the Integral sites and search within them for “art.” 
I’m pretty sure KW and/or the SD people point to art as something that helps people who are moving from one stage to another because certain art forms or genres are indeed characteristic (“appropriate” might not be the best term) of certain stages, both for the creators and the consumers. So exposing oneself to the art of the next stage would be one of many things helping you move into that stage. But a stage is not a “result” of art, that is too simplistic.
I think we need to get more precise about your question. Where in the AQAL etc. model does art “fit in?” The obvious answer is everywhere, because there is art at every level, being consumed and produced. (Even Beige, one could argue.)
So, your question must be something else. 
Another way of looking is that KW says that the 4 quadrants correspond roughly to Truth, Beauty and …. (rats, I forget the other one, amazing !) Art falls into the Beauty category, so whatever he and others say about Beauty, they are saying about art. He talks about this in, I think, Theory of Everything and elsewhere I am sure. These discussions would be about “how” art fits in.
The four quadrants are characteristics of holons, and make only approximate sense used any other way. I am not sure “music” as a phenomenon of human life is a holon. So I am not sure what you started to do in defining the quadrants is more than a metaphorical use of the quadrants. 
But the history of music would absolutely mirror the evolution of stages in human history, not mirror, but of course be an inseparable aspect of human history. So in terms of the AL part, go for it !!
Hope this is helpful as some springboards to further thought.
Blessings, OM Bastet

Re: Greetings from Denmark -- Art in AQAL

Goodness, OM!   :-)  (and Truth and Beauty)

Re: Greetings from Denmark -- Art in AQAL

Thank you OM, for helping me refining my question. These questions have bugged me for some years, and I am still in the process of forming it.

Wilber says that “integral artwork is an artwork produced by integral consciousness”, and this statement somewhat summes up the discussions that I’ve found on the integral sites.

When I ask a forum of leading artists a similar question, the answer is something like “art creates the framework for all levels in all quadrants, and reflects them”.  In integral forums the answer is more like: It is the “beautyline”.
Both answers are - of course - perfectly valid.

Wilber’s quote implies that stages “exists”, and artists reach stages/states by doing the ILP-work. From those stages they then creates art for other at the stage (and eventually lower stages).

In my experience artists reaches altered states by doing art, and this art shows us - in a non-verbal language - the existence of higher states/stages. The artist doesn’t have to be conssciuolsly aware of the state/stage, s/he just have to follow intuition and the built-in logic of the evolution of art. Most often the audience finds this (leading egde) art anything but beautiful.
J.S.Bach may have been the most blue (SD) and boring person who have ever lived, and some of his work transcends most stages/states of beauty and spirituality. Just an example; some - more contemporary - artists have reached even further.

Well this doesn’t really get me to the question… I may have to think again.

Knud

Re: Greetings from Denmark

Ah, thanks, Tely !!! I was pretty sure it wasn’t The American Way, ROTFL, as in Truth, Justice, and The American Way. But that did cross my mind.
And I knew it was about Morality, but not the word Morality. Goodness me !!
Sorry, Knud, it would take too long to explain all the references here…..
I don’t even remember where Truth, Justice and The American Way come from. Batman comics? Superman comics?
LOL, OM

Re: Greetings from Denmark

Hi Knud,
Welcome to the pod!
I live in Malmö, Sweden – not that far away from Denmark.
As OM Bastet says, music is not a holon, so it does not have quadrants. However, you can still apply the quadrant perspectives on any object, by using quadrivias.
A very quick quadrivia analysis as an example:
UL: My personal experience of music. Feelings and states that music evokes in me. My own level of development regarding composing. My own level of development in recognizing nuance and complexities in music.
UR: Sound waves. Neurological pathways in a skilled musician.
LL: The culture associated with classical music. Musicians forming groups and bands to play music. Different operas houses cooperating to produce a big opera.
LR: Music labels. The economy of music.


However, it’s probably more interesting to analyze a certain aspect of music, instead of trying to do an analysis of music as a whole, which is a huge subject.
You can read more about using AQAL to analyze art in the AQAL Journal (which has now been renamed I think). But you’ll have to pay to get the journals though.


Pelle

Re: Greetings from Denmark

Thanks Pelle, that analysis makes a very good starting point for a bigger framework of understanding. I am looking for an integral understanding of art/music as part of (or reflection of) the evolution of consciousnes. It’s no problem to analyze a single pice of art (poetry, music etc) and show what states/stages and lines is involved in the creation and perception of it, but the evolution of art is far more complicated - because it is both the result of and basis for our mental evolution.
And this can be reflected in your model. I have to figure out why music can’t be seen as a holon - or if actually matters.

And nice to meet real life neighbours here :) 

Knud

Re: Greetings from Denmark

Welcome Knud.  Sweet topic!

I want to expand on Pelle’s quadrants:

UL:  The personal experience:  You have and artist and a “consumer” (or i’ll use the term fan).  The artist has or creates an internal vision or experience. And, as you said Knud, it is often a State experience, whether a subtle, flow, causal, altered etc.
The fan experiences the art as well, and any sort of internal response to it is one’s own interior individual.  That is why art can be so personal an deeply moving.

LL:  The Shared Experiences:  The Fan base. We can resonate with others merely by mentioning the appreciation of a favourite artist.  The type of internal ‘energy’ the art transmits to the masses is mutual.  We can share in the enthusiasm for a band we both appreciate.  Also here is the internal half of the performance.  The communication of the performer of his/her art to the audience.  That is also a shared experience.  And this is a good place to move to the external side of things.

LR:  Lets take a present-day rock concert for instance.   You enter through the ticket office (perhaps you purchased your ticket online), and walk through a marketplace teeming with vendors (many of which are peddling alcohol which will effect all the quadrants of your concert experience–i guarantee it), towards an elaborate sound stage complete with multimedia effects.  In other words a conglomeration of collective social efforts (that themselves have evolved over time) that brought you this venue.  Marketing, Finance, sound technology companies, etc. And even the small social groups that form like bands, sound crews, a salesforce (ooooooof SALESMAN! <- proud Rush reference), groupies, crowds, fanclubs, manufacturing outfits, etc. Are all a part of music’s LR.  Now of course all the dynamics of a rock venue effect the other quadrants, but now we can see how it effects the:

UR: The Individual Exterior:  I like to use brain / psysiological activity as a starting point for UR analysis.  So if you’re a performer, your brain is processing many things.  Like your internal experience of being on stage and really rockin out the crowd.  Brain process is also allocated to utilizing the musical instrumentation and vocal chords–so as you can see, the body is instrumental (pun intended) in order for a performance to work out.  An audience member is experiencing the performance in different ways as well, i.e.there is brain / emotional physiological response activity due to the music; dancing requires neurological activity; drugs and alcohol are often involved in these scenarios for many, and of course interact with brain tissue. 

Hope that helps.  As for the development of it all through the quadrants, it’s easiest to spot via the type of fanbase an artist has.    Clutch, i’ll venture, might have a more Red centered fanbase (well the music is obviously pretty Red as well, but spotting the Level of the music isn’t always easy), but the Fleet Foxes draw a totally different vibe…

As for a historical view of the evolution of music, you’d have to , of course look at all quadrants in order be as complete as possible.  Technology plays an unseperable role, as does geography (Like in Iran, the central government censors all music that is produced in the country, so that limits artists as you can imagine).  So it is a complex picture indeed.  

Thanks again for the great thread!

BTW, OM, “The True, The Beautiful, and the American Way” is gonna stick with me for ages.  Great stuff…!

Bryan 

Re: Greetings from Denmark

I couldn’t get back to sleep, so here I am at 6 AM.
A lot of the “leading edge” art I see around, in every form, is not just not beautiful to me as “the audience,” it is a serious regression, and I would argue that’s not just my reaction to its newness.
The quadrivia stuff that Pelle mentioned (cool analysis you did, very helpful IMO) is in the latter part of Integral Spirituality. It is less complex than it seems, at least the basic idea, so some study would pay off.
Interesting how little you found in your research into Integral pronouncements about art, Knud. The field is ripe for input !!!!!!!!
One minor point. Since 99.99999% of all artists never heard of ILP work, they don’t reach more mature stages or more expansive states that way, even if Wilber says they do. They reach them by their own processing of their own life experiences, however they go about that. That seems obvious. 
Blessings, OM  

Re: Greetings from Denmark

Oh damn - I have to go straight back to “Integral Spirituality”. I mean: Oh thanks. That book was a pain for me to read, the other books by Wilber came down a lot smoother.

I find it hard to see that any evolution can go backwards, even the evolution of art. In history there have been numerous examples of art “out of time”, that later have shown up to be “before time”.  This is not to justify any experiment at the leading edge as evolutionary (as a lot of it is pure crap),  but the fact that these experiments takes place is helping us moving forward.

Your last point is right in bulls eye. The Wilber quote (and similar) have troubled me for years.

Knud

Re: Greetings from Denmark

You might tackle your project by examining what “art” is and does and how it is created and experienced, in each of the four areas that Pelle outlined, at each level or stage. I am doing something like that for sexuality, in a book I am writing.
In the case of art, as you said, one major complexity is that it’s both cause and result, in the evolution of consciousness.  
Re music as or as not a holon, check it against the 20 characteristics of holons described in A Brief History of Everything, Chapter One. And if you can figure out why the question matters, of course, [which you questioned, haha] you’ll know much more about your whole endeavor.
Blessings, OM

Re: Greetings from Denmark

P.S. I am trying to stir up someone to do a similar tracing of HUMOR through all the levels. Integral humor is interesting to explore as a concept. And humor in the levels above Integral, too !!!
It would be cool to have a description of the kinds of humor or the essentials of humor of each level/stage.
OM

Re: Greetings from Denmark

I can’t wai’t for you to finish writing the book! - your topic is even more interesting than art and music :) - and your analysis will no doubt be helpful to me in the other area.

Knud

Re: Greetings from Denmark

Yeah, I agree the fact of experiments is part of evolution, as long as you agree that some of them are crap, haha.
I said “regressive,” because while evolution doesn’t go backwards overall, there are IMHO always particular pockets that DO go backwards because of shadow stuff, stuff from earlier levels never properly (healthfully) transcended and included (transmuted) into the current levels. In light of the current levels, that’s “regression.” 
So much better a perspective than evil or sick or crap…..
There certainly are many “ahead of their time” examples of art, especially in music !!
The later sections of Integral Spirituality are the hardest to understand. But the various 8 perspectives are explained pretty clearly at the beginning of the later part. They are given as pertaining to holons, but Pelle was saying, I think was saying, they have wider usefulness.
Glad you are enthused about my book!
It occurred to me after I posted, that it might be a great beginning to just take two adjacent levels and examine the art of each, and how one transitions into the other, using all the various questions, and more, that I mentioned:
What the art is, what it does, how it is created and experienced, how it is distributed and consumed, how it affects various lines, how it is regarded and valued or not, what’s going on in the transition, etc. etc. 
From a historical viewpoint more than individual-person, but these are not fully separable.
Just some ideas for structuring the inquiry. Even saying No to these would mean advancing toward a structure of SOME kind !
BTW in sexuality a lot of people run what I call “up-color.” I don’t know whether I coined the term or not. It refers to lines that operate in a person at levels ABOVE the CoG of the person or society. Art that is “ahead of its time” might be thought of as the aesthetic line running “up-color,” assuming that time brings maturing of levels… Which is true in some societies but not others.
Re my last sentence that you said was bullseye for you: Sometimes it’s hard to believe, given his magnificence, that KW is capable of uttering bullshit. Guess no one is incapable of that……
Blessings, OM 

Re: Greetings from Denmark

Now I know that it’s a good idea to use notepad or something for posting here - somehow my reply evaporated. Ok, it wasn’t that good, maybe it was just the right karma for that post.

“a structure of SOME kind” … yes, I will to get to that. I’ll step back into my thinking hat and dream up the framework for the inquiry. You have all been extraordinarily helpfull, and the conversation have shown to me that inquirying the art/music area could make good sense. It has bothered me no end, since I read the first KW book and joined Integral Naked, that the analysis of aestethics was so much behind almost any other area I could think of. Or so it seems to me, because it is “my” area.

I really like the term up-color. I think it is what is found among musicians, or rather some classically trained musicians. They seem to live in a world of their own, with direct contact to their highest self through music - and outside music they are hardly “here”, almost living without any ego. 

Knud

Re: Greetings from Denmark

We’re all looking forward, I’m sure !!

Keep us posted ! Literally !

Really? “Almost living without any ego?” What specifics go into that description?

Blessings, OM

Re: Greetings from Denmark

Almost without ego - yes, it depends on the definition of “ego”. If the definition is something like “no identifications”, they are in some way indentified with music - they are music, and music is most of  their life

I know two of these beings, male ~55 and fem ~40, and they share some charateristics. No steady income, no lasting relationships, no kids, no car, no permanent home, no money . And they miss absolutely nothing.

In order to be a really good (classical) musician you have to make direct connection with “the source” (whatever that is). Many world class musicians have a way of suspendeing the ego, or switch to an ego-less state while playing (and practicing) - and off stage they are big egos. Ego is driving the ambition that can move you to the world stage - the ego-less will never make it there. Whether they play at a kindergarden or on national tv, that moment and the music of it is anything that counts. The applause goes straight through them and back to “the source”, they are not driven by it.

They live in this world, and they are really pleasant company - in a kind of transparent way. Very alive and here and deeply interested in any talk. But as the leave the room, I tend to forget about them.

I sometimes think that they are enlightened. They just dont speak the same language as most of us.

Knud