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| Emerge Art © Lena Ghio, 2013 |
FRANÇAIS app de traduction à gauche
WATER
The beginning of knowledge is sometimes whimsical. How I was enticed to explore scrying to make Emerge Art is totally fortuitous. It happened on a day I felt lost and felt that my life was going nowhere. July 23 2013 I intended to work on watercolors. I began the day setting up exercises to warm me up and spark my inspiration. I prepared an installation with several OMIs and a bowl of water. I have always been fascinated with the refraction of light and color in glass and water. I proceeded to sketch the composition when it occurred to me that I could photograph it and exercise from the photos. I got my camera, took several shots and proceeded to download the images so I could pick a few to work on. Suddenly an unexpected phenomena stunned me!
After a few weeks I developed a process of working with the photographs so the mysterious phenomena inside the water could be revealed. For the content to be visible I need to photograph the water without a flash. When I open the image with Photoshop the bowl can be quite dark. In the example below, you can see the five steps I took to reveal the final manifestation, the image of the puppy on top. I had noticed a vaguely white form resembling a dog inside the bowl before taking the photo, but it was only after the first screening that I was shocked to see that what I had observed in a flash was correct: there was a dog shape emerging from the water.
CONSCIOUSNESS
« The brain is a tangible physical organ constituted from molecules; but that collection of molecules seems mockingly remote from the insubstantial, complex, transient thoughts that combine to endow us with conscious awareness. »
-Susan A. Greenfield
Journey to the center of the mind
© W.H. Freeman and company
In her insightful book, Susan A. Greenfield asks: "How exactly does nervous tissue cause consciousness?"
Today's technology is capable of observing very complex chemical and biological activity in the brain that reveal centers of consciousness and emotional states even social behavior. Yet what is that thing in us that allows us to comprehend, to reflect, to re-interpret what we learn?
If the only difference between the brain of an Albert Einstein and that of an average human is molecular composition, it would be possible for all of us to become geniuses by supplementing our brains with the same molecules. We can all observe that while certain chemicals and nutrients will benefit the brain, it will not make us geniuses. Intelligence is more than mere biochemical processes, even if its expression in the human realm is dependent upon them.
It is in Susan A. Greenfield's book that I read about the ancient Greek concept that a «special consciousness substance» was the cause of intelligence and consciousness. In particular Galen (129-199); a renowned physician employed to treat gladiators in Rome, he treated many brain injuries and was among the first to recognize the importance of the brain as the center of thought; who theorized that our mental faculties resided in the cerebrospinal fluid which he called the urine of the brain. This is the same fluid collected during lumbar punctures to diagnose various ailments of the body and brain. At that time the author wrote that the fluid contained nothing so special that it could be described as "psychic".
When I read Greenfield's book I was already familiar with flower essence therapy. In the 1930's Dr. Edward Bach discovered and developed a series of homeopathic treatments made from soaking flowers in water that healed emotional states and helped heal many physical ailments. The principle is that water retains the healing message from different flowers and then can transmit this message to us if we add a few drops of the essence to our drinking water. Each plant chosen by Bach has a different form, a different signature, and addresses a different negative emotional state. It seemed natural to me that our individuality, our intellect, could emerge from the fluids surrounding our brain that looks like a flower on top of an elaborate stem, the spine, and is uniquely shaped in each one of us.
A while later, I was looking at the movie What the bleep do we know? and was fascinated by the work of Japanese researcher Dr. Masaru Emoto on the molecular structure of water from different regions who, when exposed to various stimuli, created forms that reflected the ambience that surrounded it. His work proves the vitality of water, its intelligence and sensibility.
In my artistic practice I serendipitously stumbled upon the mysterious image making propensity of water. In this article I am showcasing this phenomena with the above video that shows the sequence of images that led to the final expressive face. Notice the similarity of the motion of light/frequencies/colours in water in the process of forging the final image with that of our own intellectual problem solving processes.
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| The Mermaid © Lena Ghio 2013 |
THE PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS
In the first two parts above, I describe the unusual phenomena I experienced with water and I resumed a research on what some scientists have thought about the connection between water and intelligence. In this last part, I will resume the importance of water in ancient cultures and myths using the works of CARL JUNG to bring a scientific perspective to it. The evidence I have gathered sheds an incredible new light on the knowledge of our ancestors.
When I was a child our parents took all of us to spend a day on a ferry boat. We had never been on a boat and we enjoyed hanging over the edge of the ramp staring at the shimmering blue water. I remember our mother telling us not to stare at the water lest it mesmerize us into falling into it. Before July 23 2013, water was just magical because I love swimming in it, I love drinking it, I love its versatility and mystery. I even had done tests with glasses of water and crystal balls that are posted on youtube. Yet I still saw water, like most people do, as an inert substance. Now I can't help seeing water as a complicated living entity capable of spontaneous and smart creation.
Before I continue, I must clarify that the studies I have done with water, that are now integrated in my artistic practice as EMERGE ART, were not done for prophetic or religious purposes. I was inspired by the work of Dr. MASARU EMOTO to activate the water with a variety of colors, forms, words and other objects so I could then capture refraction in the water. The installation around the bowl of water does not represent a ritual to invoke invisible forces. However the water astonished me with a huge amount of unexplainable images that far transcend mere refraction! I did not expect water to create intricate storyboards that show intelligence and coherence like the one in the video.
Interested in the process of individuation, Carl Jung retraced the historical roots of multiple archetypes that to this day manifest in our dreams, our personalities and our lives; some belonged to religious practices, some to the mythology of certain civilisations, some to alchemy and astrology. There is a lot of material to go through to get at the wide range of knowledge Dr Jung accumulated. Here I wanted to underline that Dr Jung found that water was at the heart of most ancient religious myths, its creative qualities were described as being divine. In certain texts it was called the Word, the Logos. Jung also talks about the meaning of the mermaid as an archetype of the male psyche. The photo above begs the question of whether mermaids are a myth, a projection of the male psyche or an autonomous emergent form created by water? In modern humans, all these concerns are repressed in the unconscious mind. The mermaid archetype has now become an exotic dancer advertised in luminescent neon lights above gentlemen bars. According to Jung, the archetypes will always emerge in our lives in one form or another. I use this example to convey how prevalent archetypes are even in modern times.
The intriguing questions raised by Jung are the link to the prophecies of NOSTRADAMUS. According to the scant information we have on Nostradamus's process of divination, he used astrological calculations and gazed into a brass bowl filled with water to access the prophecies. From his nightly visions he composed quatrains. The video above illustrates how water is able tells a story. Nostradamus warned against the enchantments of mermaids and other forces living in water, admonishing that prophetic visions come from God alone. With Emerge Art I have presented to the world a feature of water that has always been dismissed by supposedly rational people and rightly so. We have developed technology to capture these fast moving phenomenon and now we can verify what we think we saw and others can verify the images objectively.
For years, as an artist, I have been working through certain quatrains that applied to my life by analogy. It was clear to me that the intention behind the prophecies were of a healing nature. That was who Nostradamus was, a healer. My practice as an artist was entangled in his quatrains. Like most of us, I experienced indescribable trials and losses. Everything has led me to the acts of photographing a series of the extraordinary phenomena that is scrying. The WORLD is speaking back to us now, reminding us who we are, ALL of us, EACH of us, are HER children.
CENTURIES IV QUATRAIN 5
Croix paix soubs vn, accomply diuin verbe,
Espaigne & Gaule seront vnis ensemble,
Grand clade proche, & combat tresacerbe,
Cœur si hardy ne sera qui ne tremble.
Cross, peace, under one the divine word accomplished,
Spain and Gaul will be united together:
Great clade near, and combat very bitter:
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