How will the internet change the possibilities
for sharing and exchanging artistic expression across cultural
perspectives? How could it promote the concept of a global culture
of diversity? a shared humanity? cooperation and understanding?
And, thus, the creation of a cross-cultural bridge through the
exchange of artistic expression in the new media?
ìThe European, at sea in a small vessel, tends to envisage
his situation as one in which his craft moves towards, passes
by, and then away from fixed islands. The islands are secure
and he is in motion. But...the Puluwat navigator, once on
course, inverts the concept and in his navigational system
considers the canoe to be stationary and the islands to move
towards and past him...We may surmise that a western Pacific
islander in the past might well sail east or south or north
in search of new land, confident in the belief that, as usual,
islands would rise over the horizon to meet him.î
1 R.G. Ward and J.W. Webb From The Settlement
of Polynesia,
ANU Press, Canberra, 1973
Big is little. Little is big. Just like Alice in Through the
Looking Glass, sometimes we must change our perspective, turn
inside out how we define the world in order to understand it better.
There she was, on the other side of the Looking Glass, where Alice
had decided to head off to a point in the distant horizon. Yet,
no matter how hard she tried, each time she walked towards the
horizon, she ended up right back where she started. Finally, heeding
the advice of a ìtalking rose,î she decided to travel in the opposite
direction. And, sure enough, she found she could finally reach
her chosen destination.
It is these oddly different perspectives in thought that have
always intrigued me. Whether it was discovering a differing philosophy
in reaching a destination, as found in Lewis Carrollís classic,
or the Pacific Islandersí cultural perspective on getting from
point A to B as they navigate the great seas.
Since the dawn of mankind, we have sought to explain the forces
of nature, the reasons for our existence, and the means by which
the unseen, the future, the past, etc., all exist within our psyche
of time and space. In the past, mankindís questions have been
addressed and explanations offered in the form of scientific study,
religious thought and artistic expression.
Mythology, religion, science and art all attempt to answer age
old questions of the ìwhyî or ìhowî of our existence. Or ìwhyî
or ìhowî things work the way they do? Such philosophies have been
examined in great detail by Joseph Campbell, in his treatise
Hero with a Thousand Faces, where he offered a comparative
approach to world mythology and the various ìanswersî they proposed
to these persistent questions. Whereas, notable science fiction/fantasy
authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov
have attempted to define a new prospective reality, creating ideas
that have often lead to developments that have changed the course
of history. And yet the creative expressions of art and science
have often crossed paths throughout the history of mankind, manifested
in the notebooks of such expansive thinkers as Leonardo DaVinci,
where he detailed his many inventions that were literally centuries
before their time. Or Galileo and Copernicus and their examination
of the skies, their resulting conclusions so contrary to then-current
church doctrine.
In Arthur C. Clarkeís anthology, Nine Billion Names of God,
the title story captures the imagination while crossing the borders
of philosophy and technology. His story takes us to Tibet where
a group of Buddhist monks has hired an American computer firm,
modeled on IBM of the 1950s, to install an ìAutomatic Sequence
Computerî in their mountain-top monastery. The monks believed
that, using their special language and characters within a variety
of permutations and restrictions, they would eventually be able
to discern all ìnine billion names of God.î For centuries, they
had been doing this by hand, passing the task down from generation
to generation. However, with the new ìsuperî computer, the task
could be completed in only about six weeks. The monks also hired
two technicians from the American company to install and maintain
the computer during the initial six weeks of ìtesting.î During
their time at the monastery, one of the techs starts to ask questions
about what the monks would do once the project was complete. The
monk replied simply that ìGodís purpose will be achieved.î A bit
nervous about the inference, the tech looks forward to getting
off the mountain. Finally, as he and his pal make their way down
the mountain to the waiting helicopter, they estimate that their
computer would just about be finished with its calculations. Looking
up at the starry sky, they begin to see what the monk meant, as
the stars...
Okay, okay. So I may have just given away the ending of this
all-too-brief story. But my aim was to demonstrate that philosophy
(i.e. general, spiritual), science and art are all interwoven
and, at times, indistinguishable. What if the internet, a.k.a.
the world wide ìwebî, allowed a truly democratically accessible
forum for this interweaving to continue? a forum that could cross
cultural and geographic boundaries? This concept, of course, is
not new. In the same anthology, Clarke explores the possibility
of the ìuncensoredî sharing of ideas through the use of satellite
technology. It is proposed in his short story ìI Remember Babylonî
first published in 1959 in Playboy, no less, and years before
the first Telstar communications satellites were ever launched.
Clarke claimed he was told by Comsatís first chairman that the
story was now ìrequired reading for his staff.î2
In ìI Remember Babylon,î Clarke proposed that satellites could
be used to broadcast around the world, without the threat of government
censorship. The information could be broadcast without restrictions
and received by anyone who was interested (and outfitted with
a satellite receiving dish, of course). How ironic, as I re-read
the story for this essay, to see how satellites instead have become
important instruments of manipulation, truly ìcensoredî by the
governments and mega-corporations who control the content beamed
through them today. Americans, especially, have become cynical
in their purchase of television content, the most visible facilitators
of satellite technology today.
More than four decades after Clarkeís first proposal, we find
ourselves at the precipice of a new frontier. Do we step off and
fall deep into the melange of government control? Or do we embrace
the potential freedom that this new media could offer? Still,
we find the concept of this new media, free from censorship and
control, the subject of contentious debate. Could we maintain
its possibilities, enable the sharing of uncensored information,
particularly the unfiltered creative expression of thought? Could
we break down the barriers of access to this new media, as well
as the sharing of creative expression that it offers? Can we overcome
its ìimpositionî and instead, make it a welcome forum for exchange?
The internet could possibly be used to overcome isolation. Would
it also further impose it? It could also be used to help ìpreserveî
cultural groups that might otherwise have disappeared. Or, would
it instead hasten their demise? It could be used to re-connect
and reunite cultural groups who have been scattered to the winds,
as were the twelve tribes of Israel. These new ìvirtualî worlds
that we create ìonlineî could become meeting places, where members
could come together to share customs, traditions, language, and
art. The possibilities are unlimited. But so are the questions.
How would this new media, the internet/www offer a new forum
for humanityís need to redefine its place in the universe? It
might allow the opportunity for the individual to voice questions
in the form of spiritual and artistic expression, ones that are
outside the cultural restrictions of their native realm. This
new media could then offer the ultimate democratic forum for the
exchange of ideas and self-expression (art, religion, science)
across cultures in a global context. And, in the midst of that
exchange, if it occurred successfully, the cultural context would
change, depending upon the perspective of the viewer/visitor/audience.
Artists have long been the ìvisual theologiansî or ìvisual philosophersî
of humanity, exploring the meaning as to the ìwhoî and ìwhyî and
ìhowî that science and religion also address. In a way, these
three ‚ art, science, philosophy -- are a sort of trinity of contemporary
society. Their dogma is fluid, changeable, yet their impact and
validity are hotly debated.
The internet, in all its incarnations, could enable the blending
of artistic expressions, from different cultural and geographic
backgrounds. It could allow them to share the oral, verbal, visual,
literary, historical and philosophical expressions, creating a
sort of morphing into a whole, new media. And with the sharing
among the worldís citizens of this new expressive force, there
could result a new understanding, and a breakdown of fear of the
unknown, a truly diverse, but tolerant, global community. If we
could enable people to express themselves in this new media, we
could further promote understanding of the varieties of belief,
and of other cultures. We open the door to cross-cultural expression,
and a shared voice.
Wouldnít it be exciting if we could open the doors so that everyone
could share and attempt to understand each other? Maybe we could
even break down the fear of ìThemî who we do not understand.
We could design a means whereby artists of different cultural
backgrounds, nations, philosophies could come together in a virtual
world that would foster exchange. We could create a ìVirtual Artistic
Exchangeî or a ìVirtual Cultural Exchange.î This new media could
be used to allow the melding of many different artistic expressions
into one forum that would allow the global exchange of artistic
vision and cultural ideology.
In this new media, we can decide for ourselves, to choose where
to visit, what to see, what to believe. The viewer may, in essence,
have control of how they wish to interact with the resources and
content available to them. My interest is in seeing how this freedom
can become a forum for the arts, philosophy, and science in some
kind of hybrid environment or expressive form.
In closing, I offer this prose used in a digital painting I created
recently.3 The words were written in 1995 during a break between
speakers, when I found myself at an educational conference presenting
a paper related to distance education in the South Pacific.
Thoughts while sitting under a tamtam drum.
The tam tam looks down upon me
with its weathered face and large round orbs.
ìCould it be,î he asks, ìthat the
questions have become too difficult to answer?î
He continues:
ìWhen my time was, I was both caller to task, and the cultural
multimedia. There was no distance beyond the sounds of my
drum. Before, in my time, the power to drive our thoughts
came from within our hearts, from within our surrounds.î
ìNo need for wires to connect
us. We already were connected. In thought, in our hearts,
in our goals.î
So now he looks down at me,
and I feel his slowly turning head, shaking in disappointment
at the predicament I feel party to.
The lure of technology can drag us away, like a fly on a stream.
It can cloud our thoughts with its fuzzy logic.
It can lead us to forget that which we already had the means
to do well. The further away we are carried, the closer we
come to realizing how important it was, that which we left
behind. That, which we long to return toÖ
Multimedia?
What does that mean to one
who bathes in the stream, hunts for food in the woods, and
gathers the family by firelight, many miles from the electric
eclectic trappings of a city.
His multimedia is the tapping
of the toddie for his wine, the pounding of the mallets for
the tapa, the dreamtime he paints with pigments ground from
the earth.
No electricity.
No high-tech support.
No batteries required.
He tells me: ìMaybe you are
not lost afterall.î
~ Mara J. Fulmer
September 23, 1995
Port Vila, Vanuatu
(formerly New Hebrides)
1. Many thanks to Dr. Epeli Hauëofa
for bringing this to my notice in his book A New Oceania:
Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands.
2. Clarke mentions this in the pre-script
to the story published in the 1974 Signet paperback version
of his anthology titled Nine Billion Names of God.
3. View the four-part digital painting
called TamTamedia at in the exhibition ìImages
& Transitions: A Digital Journey.î Mara J. Fulmer
___________________________
This article was first revised on 10/19/01 and then again
in 2005 for publication on this site. 2005 © Mara Jevera
Fulmer
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