Beyond the Object— Beyond Sensation

A conference report by David Adams

Let me state up front that for me this concentrated, three-day conference in July 2012, in Hudson, New York, was probably the most inspiring, stimulating, and innovative anthroposophical event I have participated in during forty years of involvement with anthroposophy. This conference not only explored and showcased a number of new, cuttingedge modes of activity in the visual arts that anthroposophists are beginning to experiment with, in the general direction of adding elements of motion, time, and observer involvement to the visual arts to give them more of the nature of music, a direction that Rudolf Steiner said art must take in the future. It also can be seen as pioneering a new mobile structure for an anthroposophical conference. This new form of anthroposophical gathering is essentially permeated by the artistic element but also brings deep content in a way that leaves the participants free to attend to it, even to modify it, as well as to deepen it with further contemplation and activity, or not. Participation is possible at a number of different levels simultaneously. Although I’m not yet sure how much this approach can be extended to other kinds of conferences, it gives me hope that anthroposophy may, in fact, continue to evolve in the forms of its expression.

Fig. 1. Immanuel Greeting Participants Entering Portal to Ilandea.

Beyond the Object’s key innovative element was two open, ever-changing, semi-joined central installation-art areas that worked to stimulate, perform, absorb, and reflect in “the installation” the very events of the conference. Or, another way to say this is that the artists of the installations as well as others continued to play artistically and conceptually with certain themes in the manner of musical improvisation and variation.

It felt as if those of us in Hudson were placed in a kind of threshold transformation zone or crucible. We lived an artistic life those intensive three days, and the processes of artistic creativity enveloped us from all directions. It seemed as if our habitual selves were taken into the pressure cooker of the conference and emerged clearer, more inspired, and directed, each in our own individual ways. Communicating this in words will be difficult, but I will attempt it by describing in detail a few “highlights.” My hope is that these will intrigue the reader to look up the complete, more detailed, and fully illustrated report to be found on the blogsite of the Art Section in North America at http://northamericanartsection.blogspot.com/.

The conference exhibition, titled “Spacing Time,” opened the evening before the conference, at 4:00 on Thursday, July 19, in the “Great Hall” of the Basilica, a former factory/warehouse building now devoted to cultural purposes in Hudson. Since the artists exhibiting also spoke about their work at the start of the conference, I will cover the works later in this report.

A somewhat rambling film was shown at 5:00, by performer/filmmaker/Waldorf graduate Sampsa Pirtola from Helsinki and Los Angeles, with some added live rap/ spoken poetry by Los Angeles spoken-word artist Matre (Matt Sawaya; see www.mcmatre.com). The black-andwhite film seemed to me to be about the mysteries of destiny and incarnation. It showed the tall, slender figure of “the world’s greatest unknown rock musician,” Immanuel (who is “managed” by Sampsa), seemingly searching for his destiny in various contemporary settings including a southern California desert, the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, an Occupy protest, and scenes of graffiti art and an art gallery in Los Angeles. “Immanuel” is really Sampsa’s performance alter ego.

At times the film was accompanied by live poetic narration by Matre, who spoke of “a ray of light coming down through dark clouds,” “a landscape of expression,” and “an oasis of exploding creativity” giving life to even the darkest landscape. The film ended with a large gathering of mostly young people, who followed Immanuel from an interior space out along a street where they were led to shake hands with him and then walk through a mobile “portal” (like a kind of detached door frame). As the film ended, Immanuel himself—with trademark sunglasses and unusually striped black-and-white shirts—appeared at the doorway holding a similar framed portal, and we seventy-plus persons in the audience were all silently invited to arise, shake his hand, and walk through the portal from the “auditorium” space into the large hall of the Basilica. I came to understand this as Immanuel’s friendly invitation to us to join him in the somewhat magical and certainly artistic realm from which he comes, Iland (or Ilandea).

As part of the continuation of this piece of groupparticipation performance art, we were then directed with a bit of interpretive help by Matre to form a circle of people around a large chalk circle previously marked on the concrete floor of the hall. Immanuel in the center began to gesture to us and speak in some unknown language. Somehow we understood that this small social circle was to connect with the larger circle of the cosmos (macrocosm and microcosm). Immanuel then seized hold of some invisible vertical force or energy ray, struggling to pull it down from the cosmic into the earthly circle, a difficult task that Matre had to help him with. After that, he wrote the word “Ilandea” in the center of the circle, distributing pieces of chalk and inviting us to also write a word in the circle, during which task he somehow disappeared. It seemed that nearly everyone wrote some word or phrase of inspiration and hope into the circle: “peace,” “trust,” “listen,” “patience,” “awaken,” “connection,” “acceptance,” “modesty,” “fearless,” “nurture,” “love,” etc. (figure 2). I came to understand “Ilandea” as a realm of human creative possibility, and it certainly proved its potency at this conference. That day being the birthday of Nelson Mandela, the chalk circle was later titled the Nelson Mandala by Sampsa and dedicated to him.

Around 6:00 we were called to move back to the auditorium/theater room to view a “color/light/sound performance” (or “vocal music/kinetic painting piece”) of William Blake’s early, dreamlike, visionary poem, “The Book of Thel” (1789). This was presented as a new kind of “puppetry” that was on a large screen (maybe 12 feet high) by a group of 5 puppeteers led by Nathaniel Williams and Laura Summer (also including Lisa Bono, Karen Dare, and Andrea Williams) along with five singers. Initially inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s unfulfilled 1918 project for a new colored “light-play-art” as an alternative to cinema, the presentation involved three overhead projectors throwing various prepared transparent colored backgrounds onto the screen, as well as some spontaneously painted backgrounds that were part of the performance, moving jointed “shadow puppets,” stencils and cut-out figures, reflections from patterned and segmented mirrors, as well as other special effects. The most impressive in my opinion were the delicate waving forms of nature beings created by blowing on clear trays of water placed on top of a projector (fig. 3). (1)

Fig. 2. The Nelson Mandala, detail, Large Hall, Basilica, Hudson, NY, July 19, 2012

The performance on the large screen was accompanied by some extraordinary, moving—at times, even otherworldly—a capella vocal music and rhythms partly composed, seemingly partly improvised, and led by Marisa Michelson and Faye Shapiro, with additional vocal accompaniment at times by Ellen Cimino, Katie Schwerin, and Don Jamison (fig. 4). The poem is basically a tale of Thel, a young virgin, youngest daughter of the Seraphim, who tentatively moves from the realm of the unborn or innocence into the world of experience and earthly nature. She begins to explore the mysteries of sorrow,death, and the flesh through encounters with nature spirits in the form of a Lily of the Valley, then a cloud, then a worm, and finally a Clod of Clay, but then fearfully flees back into her unborn heavenly realm (figures 5-6). The poem begins and ends with Thel's motto:

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit? Or wilt thou go ask the Mole? Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod? Or Love in a golden bowl

Fig. 6. Live Painting a Scene like that in The Book of Thel on the overhead projector

Introductions

The next morning the conference proper began at 10:00—as an overnight rain continued to fall with only a small decrease in the hot temperatures—with a welcome and initial reading by our “M.C.” Seth Jordan of an inspirational poem selected by Matt/Matre, William Stafford’s “When I Met My Muse”:

"I glanced at her and took my glasses off—they were still singing. They buzzed like a locust on the coffee table and then ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
 sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
 knew that nails up there took a new grip
 on whatever they touched. “I am your own
 way of looking at things,” she said. “When
 you allow me to live with you, every
 glance at the world around you will be
 a sort of salvation.” And I took her hand." - William Stafford (1914-1993)

We then went around the circle having everyone introduce themselves by name and place and a work of art that they felt was like themselves or to which they were particularly attracted. We discovered that participants had come to the conference not only from New York State but from Ontario, Israel, Germany, and several places in California. It seemed as if more than half of the participants were in their twenties, with a few even younger.

The Exhibition

We then walked around the great hall to view the various artworks on display, with the artist offering a short explanation or presentation of each work. First up was Lailah Amstutz’s hanging assemblage piece consisting of a row of 37 test tubes full of red liquid capped by beeswax, hanging in front of two windows in the brightest corner of the Basilica (figure 7). We were encouraged to shake the tubes and observe the fluid inside; it turned out to be blood drawn under a nurse’s supervision from eight of her friends.My interpretive mind immediately rushed to references to the ego/sun forces in the blood and the warmth community of the beehive as an image of a futuristic spiritual community life—but one also could just appreciate the beautiful red colors and unusual substances glowing in the sunlight.

Fig. 7. Lailah Amstutz, Blood, human blood, glass, beeswax, 2012.

We then moved on to Manfred Bleffert’s complex, ever-changing, Joseph Beuys-like installation, concerned initially with the nature of America—part of an ongoing effort by someone German-born to understand the American inner and outer constitution in relationship to the forces of the American environment. The installation was marked by a path of parallel, weaving chalk and rope lines that extended down the main axis of the great hall and then “bent” around the edge of the center circle (the Nelson Mandala). Along the way it featured a number of “stations,” then continued out a side door of the hall, and ended in an adjoining room where some black paint long ago splattered on the floor sat in a flood of light from a bright skylight above—an appropriate ending to Manfred’s path that thereby seemed to dissolve into light (figure 8). Gradually over the three days this “splatter” became surrounded, first by a loop of rope, and then by several large, flat, dark-painted wooden palettes or risers, upon which Manfred arranged various changing configurations of small drawings and paintings as well as other objects. As the conference progressed, Manfred showed himself to be a master artistic shaper of both the given physical space and social environment.

Along the snaking path the various “stations” were marked in a variety of ways, including tone bars from a Bleffert wooden xylophone as well as a number of found materials that Manfred had located in the vicinity of the Basilica: bricks, metal pipes, wood, pieces of iron, etc. (fig. 9). In its initial version the installation pathway featured a number of books and drawings empty or filled with a dense handwriting in German that appeared to be Manfred’s own journals, concerned perhaps with his observations of American life and geological forces from his trips to North America over the past few years. By Friday morning the books had vanished, many being replaced by further writings in chalk on the floor as well as paper drawings. See, for example, the image of one individual “station” in figure 10.

Manfred Bleffert, America , Basilica, Hudson, NY, 2012. Fig. 8

Station with bricks, flatbed cart, and positive/negative electrical charges. Fig. 9

Ending splatter beneath skylight, July 19 (first day). Fig. 10

Manfred was kind enough to share with me a number of his many preparatory drawings or sketches. The installation also seemed to work with the theme of “black and white,” “dark and light,” “death and life (forces),” as well as positive and negative electrical charges—polarities also relevant to the forces of America. Some of Manfred’s drawings suggest that one also could look from above at the stations as “vertebrae” along a “spine,” whereby the installation could also be seen as a bent human form (see drawing mysteriously titled “way of post-death to where?” (figure 11), perhaps in a semi-fetal position on the journey to a new birth or life beyond death. I also should point out that Manfred has a way of artistic writing, both with his drawings and his installation, that mixes both English and German words and can turn some or all of these words backwards or even upside down or apparently start to disintegrate certain words -– sometimes all of the above in a single line of print! While this can make for poetic juxtapositions, it also increases the effort needed to decipher what he is expressing.

One of Manfred’s drawings for his installation was labeled “the radioactive forces of America and their relieving through the waters from the depths of the earth” (water being a common image of life forces, of the etheric) and shows the jagged or rectangular radioactive forces interpenetrated by weaving blue watery lines that transform them to become more organic (figure 12). Rudolf Steiner described how persons in America have a particularly strong connection to the rigidifying and densifying sub-earthly forces of magnetism, electricity, and gravity (working through the Ahrimanic human Double in our unconscious will life). 2 To counter this influence, we need to rediscover the powers of life and resurrection that also live within our will and the Christianized life forces of the earth, like a kind of healing water flowing below the surface. This can also be a reference to our human social-etheric connection, as Steiner describes in his lecture The Structure of the Lord’s Prayer as relating to the petition “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Manfred Bleffert, ink drawings, 2012; from top: Fig. 11. way of post-death to where? Fig. 12. the radioactive forces of America and their relieving through the waters from the depths of the earth. Fig. 13. how to go to an end in with on America uncalled installation. Fig. 15. Untitled (“American Suncross”).

One is a member of a community by virtue of certain qualities or characteristics of the etheric body. ... It is important for Man’s life in the community that his etheric body should harmonize with the etheric bodies of those with whom he has to associate... The task of man’s etheric body therefore is to adjust itself to the etheric bodies of others... Failure to achieve harmony with the community is the consequence of defects of the etheric body. (3)

This theme of a kind of redemption or transformation of the subearthly electromagnetic forces of America by the purifying power of water and etheric community is also echoed in the 18th-century American “Rosicrucian” tale, “The Ramapo Salamander,” which Manfred has composed into a narrated musical presentation. (4)

One of Manfred’s “stations” (as well as certain later activities and adjustments) concerned itself with symbolic references to the human constitution of certain geometric forms: a square for the physical body, circle for the etheric body, a lemniscate (or spiral) for the astral body, and a triangle for the ego. One of his drawing studies depicts the line of his installation as a progression through four forms (figure 13): first a doubled triangle of self, then a spiraling “electric coil” astral form (perhaps conflating the themes of radioactive/electromagnetic geological forces in America with the “death forces” of consciousness that the astral body brings), then the square physical world, and finally the round etheric body. Is he suggesting that the American path must progress from increased self-consciousness awareness of the electro-magnetic forces of our continent and technological culture—forces that tend to direct us to a physical level of life—and only then can one find the way to emerge again into the abundant life and will forces also present in America? If so, this picture also resonated with certain later images in the conference.

The most prominent station in the installation consisted of a close grouping of four hand-made wooden chairs with the “portal-frame” from Immanuel still nearby (figure 14). Below the chairs was inscribed in chalk on the floor what I interpret as a kind of “American sun-cross” shape (a combination of the elements of sun-circle and earth-cross, of life and death -– used often in various versions in the early work of Joseph Beuys to refer to the Christ impulse within the earth; see figure 16 for a view of the chalk cross with the chairs removed). As can be seen from one of Manfred’s preparatory drawings (figure 15 on the previous page), this cross reflects on the one hand, a version of the Old Celtic and Irish Early Christian sun-cross—an expression of the pure forces of the resurrected sun-being Christ now dwelling within the life forces of the earth 5 —and, on the other hand, a kind of electrical wiring diagram with positive and negative poles. This preparatory drawing seems to me a symbolic image of the polar potential of forces within America, both strong electro-magnetic forces and Christianized life forces.

Manfred related his imagination for the chairs in the form of a little “American story.” He gave us the picture of a man who was sentenced to death in the electric chair by the government, but whose three friends sacrificially volunteered to hold his hand at the moment of electrocution. Because this caused the electrical charge to be absorbed by all four men, the force of the current was not strong enough to kill any of them individually, thereby saving their friend from death. This sacrifice of the three for the one was also referred to by words in German chalked onto the floor at the “chairs” station (figure 16).

Fig. 14

Fig, 16

Fig. 17

Manfred then related a historical story from China that he said was like the opposite of the American tendency. During the Chinese Revolution the Yellow River was rising due to heavy rains, and it was feared that it would flood the downstream areas. Mao Tse-tung joined his hands with many others and stepped into the river, creating a wall of people that raised the water level so it flowed over the banks and over the upper countryside, thereby saving the lands downstream from flooding.

America itself is the electric chair, explained Manfred. Its forces ray up into us, yet we are connected to each other. This is different from anywhere else in the world. It is not possible to really live in America without transforming these electrical (“decaying light” (6) ) and subnature forces into life forces—one message of this installation,— a task that can only be accomplished by creating counterforces with the aid of Christ. (7) “We must start to change,” he said, as he began to move the four chairs into a new configuration in the center of the Nelson Mandala circle. He formed a triangular arrangement of the three chairs that then supported the one “electric chair” above them with the “portal frame” slung around it and an earthbrick on its seat (see figure 17). Manfred then took a rope from the path of his installation with one of the wooden tone bars tied onto it and slung it up and over one of the girders high up in the ceiling of the Basilica, raising and lowering it several times, and then also attaching the rope to the portal frame and the brick on the seat of the “electric chair.” A few minutes later he used the rope like a puppet-string to make the portal frame do a little walking “dance” toward the chairs.

We then moved on to consider the first of Laura Summer’s large painting installations, Traveling. This consisted of 36 separate paintings on unstretched canvas arranged in 6 rows of 6 paintings each hanging on one side of the great hall (figure 18). Her instructions for this interactive piece invited us to choose sequences of three or four of the paintings at a time, contemplate the gesture of movement between them, assign qualities to this, and write them on pieces of paper provided nearby. Then we were to try to figure out the overall theme of the work and write that down. She had placed a few clues around the hall to tell us what the work is about, but I nevertheless found out only after the conference that it was based on passages from St. John’s Gospel.

After looking at Jude Neu’s metamorphosis studies mounted on the adjoining wall, both paintings and ceramic reliefs, we saw along the far end of the hall Laura’s twelve “collage/ paintings” related to the narrative of a booklet she had published titled let go the shore with the images based on her reading of Rudolf Steiner’s ca. 1888 “Credo: the Individual and the All” (figure 19).

Finally, Laura introduced her large, interactive “swinging paintings” work, Behind Color, with its strong red, blue, and yellow tones (see cover). This work also included a page of instructions for viewers posted on the wall nearby, asking us to contemplate what is in and “behind” each color.

Sampsa Pirtola then discussed how the Nelson Mandala created on the floor in the great hall the previous night was like creating a cosmos in a circle—an invitation for all of us to hold a space and create a higher potential. Along with this went a concept of collective ownership as a way to transform the field. Perhaps it was this idea, along with the constant availability of chalk, that led some participants to continue to modify the “central installation” or to create new chalk drawings across the floor of the great hall as the conference progressed (see figure 21).

Fig. 18

Fig. 19

The Initial Four Workshops

After lunch the participants convened again for three hours in their respective four Kinetic Painting and Puppetry, led by Nathaniel Williams. 2. Performing Rudolf Steiner’s Fourth Apocalyptic Seal, led by David Adams. 3. Tone and Sound, led by Manfred Bleffert. 4. Translation from Text to Other Mediums, led by Laura Summer.

I can only report briefly on the first day of my workshop. The first hour was spent introducing the medium of performance art and some of the many meanings of the fourth apocalyptic seal, so that it would be possible to be at least somewhat creative and improvisatory in developing a performance art work based on it. This began with a brief history of this seal, adapted by Steiner from earlier versions and introduced with the other apocalyptic seals as part of the initial expression (“installation”) of anthroposophical visual art at the 1907 Theosophical Society International Congress in Munich. The seal’s multifaceted meanings include its relationship to mysteries of the human blood circulation (red and blue blood), the polarity of the red Jachin and blue Boaz columns in the soul, sun and moon forces from the Old Sun and Old Moon evolutions, Solomon’s Temple and the Temple Legend, wisdom and power, the Trees of Life and Knowledge, future states of human evolution, new Christ mysteries of the blood, and ultimately two fundamental cosmic forces or streams of uprising expansion and withering contraction that govern and project into all of life and evolution. We then began to explore the qualities of possible movements, speech sounds, or bodily imagery related to the two polar forces.

Setting the Context

We gathered again in a circle in the great hall at 4:30 for an hour’s talk by Nathaniel Williams to help set the context for the conference and its theme—purposely scheduled only after the participants had already accumulated a fair amount of observations and experiences without much conceptual content. As with most of our events, this was opened with a few minutes of spoken, spontaneously improvised, poetic, usually rhyming rap by Matt, including the sentiment of wishing to “dismiss my overload before it explodes... let myself ignite and observe myself as I light up.” Matt continued these contributions throughout the conference, doing a brilliant job of capturing and reflecting back to us the aesthetic process of striving and transformation that we were invited to go through during the conference.

Nathaniel invited us to consider the nature of artistic experience by comparing the experiences of three writers: a 19th-century Norwegian scientist who found key experiences with art as what gave meaning to his life; a postmodern philosopher who saw art as a rebellious but somewhat superficial experience; and a British art historian who cited ways of creating an artistic sensation that would help to sell art objects, thus objectifying the artwork into an economic commodity. Nathaniel concluded that a true perception of art can’t be quantified. Paying conscious attention to artistic experience can be difficult because, as Rudolf Steiner said, as we move into the future, visual art is less and less about objects. Now more and more what is most interesting in art is what is not visible; it is the subtle experience that happens within us. Art really lives “slightly beyond the object.” (8)

Friday Evening Performances

Fig. 22. Oskar Fischinger, Allegretto, 1936-1943 still from 35 mm film

Fig. 23. Jordan Belson, Samadhi, 1967 film still

Fig. 24. Stan Brakhage, Night Music, 1986, still from handpainted film

That evening, after another unusual performance of William Blake’s “The Book of Thel” followed by a musical concert by Manfred on his specially designed glockenspiels with alternating copper and iron bars, I presented a program of projected works of historical examples from the tradition of “visual music.” I showed these in the context of Rudolf Steiner’s unfulfilled 1918 initiative with Jan Stuten to create a new colored “light-play-art” of forms and colors moving to music or speech, but controlled by the human being, as an alternative to cinema. A diverse tradition reaching back several centuries, “visual music” or “color music” includes the invention of color organs and other similar machines, abstract experimental films, 35 mm film concert light shows, and more recent projected computer animationworks. All of these works strive to move beyond the fixed visual-art object, bringing more time, motion, and music into the visual arts.

We looked at a couple of early films from the 1920s in Germany by Viking Eggling and Oskar Fischinger (who was very interested in anthroposophy at the time), followed by two later color animated films by Fischinger, one set to jazz music and one silent (figure 22). Two films followed by California artist Jordan Belson (who was inspired by Fischinger after his move to Hollywood in 1936), Samadhi (1967) and Epilogue (1984), showcasing examples of his very spiritual approach to setting moving colored forms to music (figure 23). We then viewed a couple of excerpts of silent, flowing color works created by Thomas Wilfred in New York as part of his “lumia” art on specially invented machines (the Clavilux) in 1932 and 1948. Finally we concluded with three somewhat more recent works by experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, scratched and painted directly onto filmstrip and silently projecting a more rapid dance of ever-changing colors expressing various themes (figure 24).

Workshop on Form

Saturday morning I noticed that Manfred’s installation had again changed. The four chairs were now facing outward at the periphery of the central circle, facing all four directions in an expanded crosslike formation, again suggesting another version of the early Christian cross-in-circle designs mentioned earlier (figure 25).

Fig. 25. Manfred Bleffert, America, 2012, with 4 chairs as a “cross” on periphery of circle

Fig. 26 (below). Nick Shiver Pomeroy, Workshop on Form, Organic, Related Placement of Clay Balls, 2012

Fig. 27. Manfred Bleffert, America, fig. 10 station with added clay balls, etc.

Our activities began with Nick Shiver Pomeroy’s workshop on experiencing the qualities of form (vs. forms as objects), introducing the idea of experiencing a language of formqualities with various polarities, between which we tried to discover well-balanced forms. In a series of observational exercises we used thirtysome balls we shaped from a local whitishgray clay arranged in various configurations emphasizing specific qualities: concentrated, expanded, organically related (figure 26). In the process we developed many new insights about just what is possible to be a center and a periphery in a given formation.

At the end of this Manfred asked individuals each to take one of the balls and move it beyond the circle of the workshop exercise into relationship with the “central installation,” creating interesting juxtapositions. One of these was the contrast between the red clay bricks and the white clay balls: the dry, aged bricks from the structure of the Basilica represented the past, rectangular, already formed earth; while the “purer” white clay balls were recently formed of fresh clay, still damp, and could be thought to represent the life forces of the earth as well as a more living artistic process (figure 27).

The Future in Contemporary Art?

At 11:15 we reconvened into a circle to listen and discuss for an hour with a selected panel (Faye Shapiro, Manfred, and myself) the topic of “What Do You See in Contemporary Art that has Something of the Future in It?” Each of us made a short introductory presentation and then the floor was opened for questions and other contributions.

Manfred began with a somewhat enigmatic presentation contrasting with drawings on a slate blackboard the qualities of chalk (also charcoal) and water—quite different substances and shapes, emblematic of the contrast of life and death forces he has been working with in his installation. He related his lifelong quest for “the new” to a nearly constantly changing relationship between the sun and the earth. Although their outer results disappear over time, form-creating steps taken by human beings continue to the end of the world; nothing can dissolve them. He concluded by quoting John Cage’s saying (slightly modified): “Something is an echo of nothing; nothing is an echo of something.”

In her contribution Faye pointed to three prophecies (Blake’s “The Book of Thel,” Steiner’s story “The Being of the Arts” [October 28, 1909], and the 700+ paintings of young German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (1917- 1943) assembled into a kind of musical theater) and three artistic examples from her experience that have a future element in them (the collection by Belgian artist Francis Alys of 300-some paintings copying an 1885 French painting of the possibly fictitious fourth-century Saint Fabiola, patron saint of difficult marriages, abuse victims, and nurses; a performance art piece by Marina Abramovic, The Presence of the Artist, involving visitors sitting and gazing into Marina’s eyes for an extended time; and a part of Matthew Barney’s extended, filmed performance piece, the Cremaster Cycle, where cheerleaders move in certain forms that imitate those created by Muses in a zeppelin hovering above.

My third offering spoke about how the original earlytwentieth-century impulse of pure form and color in art as a way to reveal the working of the invisible spiritual world behind the outer visible appearance became somewhat lost from the 1930s to the 1960s. New impulses of the “sixties generation” tried to bring art and life closer together and wanted to restore a living spirit to art by bringing motion and time into the static spatial/visual arts—as Rudolf Steiner had already called for as needed for the future of visual art. Not fully successful, this generation did develop useful new forms of artistic practice: installation, process art, performance art, environmental art, even conceptual art—and it worked further on the already existing tradition of “visual music” (especially through the concert “light shows” of the period). These new forms seem to be re-emerging and developing further since the start of the 21st century.

I find that an anthroposophically schooled observation of contemporary art reminds me that, in trying to find ways of uniting matter and spirit in works of visual art, we are not limited to traditional artistic media. Some contemporary art provides ideas and strategies for finding the practical means to move from the static, “spaceimage” to the mobile “time-image” in artwork—that is, to move visual art closer to musical art, to bring elements of motion and time into our work, and to emphasize the work as the experience rather than a fixed object. Contemporary artwork can show or suggest to us a whole spectrum of possible ways to relate meaning and appearance. Today it helps me to understand that ultimately it is our own spiritual activity, our own being as artists that is the medium. In whatever forms we work, we must first transform ourselves. Thus, I consider Steiner’s How to Know the Higher Worlds the pre-eminent anthroposophical artist training manual. We don’t need to be afraid of some kind of corrupting influence from involving ourselves with contemporary art, but we can enter into it, strengthened by our own anthroposophical preparation and discrimination, for the sake of discovering what positive potentials it has to offer.

Later, in response to a question, I added that some contemporary expressions of installation and projective digital art environments are like an external imitation of a longing many feel for clairvoyant experiences of immersion into the flowing spiritual world of color and tone, the world ego. Changes in our human constitution as humanity crosses the threshold are already affecting contemporary art.

In the ensuing discussion, a few comments were made that audiences have a difficult time “getting” or appreciating contemporary forms of the arts. It then was suggested that contemporary art should have everyone participate instead of the traditional division between active artist and passive audience. This is in line with Joseph Beuys’s famous saying that “every person is an artist.” Perhaps the “audience” need themselves to become creative musicians or artists in order to “get” it. At the same time any artist ahead of his or her time has this problem. If one is true to one’s vision, people will eventually understand and follow it.

We then spent a final half hour sharing and gathering questions that were living in participants, to be able to use these in small group discussions on Sunday.

Manfred Bleffert, America, 2012: Fig. 28 (above) detail: half-cross at former “chairs” station.

Manfred Bleffert, America, 2012: Fig. 28 (above) detail: half-cross at former “chairs” station.

Fig. 29 (below): hanging stretched “Tao” strings and metal pipe “musical bow.”

From Manfred’s Tone Workshop

The last meeting of Manfred’s workshop Sunday afternoon dealt with time as movement in relationship to sound and silence. The group undertook a number of exercises on one of his large wooden xylophones. Manfred challenged us to imagine music working in silence. It was demonstrated that even with quite long intervals between tones, we can remain with our intention “in between,” not going out of a progression of tones (figure 34). Yet it is a challenge to try to “hold” the tone in our awareness during the long silence between distantly sounded tones.

Manfred then gave us the image of the four animals, donkey, dog, cat, and rooster, from the Grimms’ tale, “The Brementown Musicians.” He further suggested that these four represent four different levels or members of human consciousness: the physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego. We tried playing the rhythms of the different animals meeting each other. Manfred then had groups of four of us come to the xylophone, and each person played the rhythm of a different animal, starting with one (the slow donkey) and gradually adding the other three until all four were sounding together. Then in reverse order each rhythm stopped one at a time until all was quiet. This required a lot of concentrated listening!

Finally, we were directed to take a brick and scrape it on the concrete floor in various forms and rhythms (figure 35). First, we scraped the brick in the shape of a square with four straight scraping movements, one to each corner of the square (as in 4:4 meter). Then we scraped the brick in the shape of a circle, in one continuous movement (or 1:1 meter). Then we scraped the brick in a lemniscate pattern, making two circular movements with a brief pause in the center (as in 2:4 meter). Lastly, we scraped the brick in the form of a triangle, with three linear movements (as in 3:4 meter). Some of us further experimented with standing on two bricks, scraping the bricks along the concrete floor by shuffling along to different rhythms (forward and backward), a bit like ice skating—or even, as demonstrated by a few brave souls, doing this as a kind of dance while holding hands with someone! As stated earlier, these four forms were other ways of representing the four elements of the human constitution: square for physical body, circle for etheric body, lemniscate for astral body, and triangle for the ego.

The Gift Economy

The conference participants then gathered together for a final session, which began with short talks by Seth and Matt concerning new ways of thinking about gifting and support of the arts (including this conference). In what Matt called the “Gift Economy” there is a mutual invitation to each other to practice being in the freedom to give. The economy depends upon human relationships.Normal sales transactions have a fixed end with nothing further. This cuts off the relationship when the transaction is finished. He invited us not to buy something but to be a creative participant in the productive process, which is really a collaboration. Then the relationship remains open and can progress into all kinds of mutual support. This kind of relationship brings a feeling of lightness, excitement, and collaboration to economic life; it is “fun-raising” rather than merely “fund-raising.”

Karen Dare and David Adams sound the Tao on Bleffert gongs.

Fig. 36 (top) Karen Dare and David Adams sound the Tao on Bleffert gongs. Closing Event: Fig. 38 (center) Immanuel and Participants Mopping Up. Fig. 37 (bottom) Immanuel enters with mop and bucket.

Closing Event: Fig. 38 (center) Immanuel and Participants Mopping Up.

Fig. 37 (bottom) Immanuel enters with mop and bucket.

The Closing Event

After each of the workshops shared something from their work, the whole-group circle formed again around the central space for a closing event, and Laura invited each person to speak a single characteristic word that had arisen in them during the conference. Almost none of these words were the same as the words first inscribed in chalk into the circle on the opening night, suggesting how the participants had been changed by the events of the conference.

Then, as three of us (Manfred, Karen Dare, and I) filled the space with the resonant tones of swinging Bleffert gongs tuned to the four tones of the Tao (figure 36), Immanuel made a surprise reappearance, wielding a large mop and bucket and beginning the task of cleaning up the Basilica floor and clearing out the space (figure 37). Everyone soon joined in, and the three musicians then changed to more rousing improvised music on the Bleffert wooden xylophone until the hall was cleared in a remarkably short time, and people began slowly dispersing and saying their farewells (figure 38). The reappearance of Immanuel for the closing wrapped up the conference as a kind of journey from Ilandea to Tao—two imaginations of future human higher potential and creativity that marked the conference.

A Few Afterthoughts

One thing I have noticed about much of Manfred Bleffert’s music is that it has a strong spatial element, relating both to various sounding substances and to the movement and placement of tones in space (something Rudolf Steiner predicted should be the case with music of the future). Manfred’s sprawling, multi-functional installation, which initially was concerned with his continuing quest to understand the nature of America, also dealt in multiple ways with the exhibit and conference themes: “Spacing Time” and “Beyond the Object.” As Manfred’s installation gradually merged with the Nelson Mandala that it partly surrounded, other individuals took the initiative to add their own tweaks and additions to the flexible, now joint installation. Thus, the “central installation/art space,” as I came to think of it, became like a new kind of mobile “visual-social art,” a gathering space that was continually metamorphosing, both to add new content and forms, and to absorb and reflect the ongoing activities, moods, and themes of the conference—a kind of artistic “Akashic Record” of the conference activity.

When you remove or downplay the finished physical art object from the visual arts, what is left? The creative process, with its rhythms, stages, polarities, signposts, different styles of development, work on refinement of sense activity, etc. Although some artists will find this removal of the object as goal or product to be disorienting, as if the ground were being pulled out from under them, this points to new requirements for the artist to become secure in processes of movement and transformation. Now the question is: How can we deepen this experiential, process approach?

David Adams (ctrarcht@nccn.net) teaches art history at Sierra College in California, is the Secretary of the Council of the Art Section in North America, and co-edits the Art Section Newsletter.

Endnotes

A taste for this can be had from short clips in the little “Free Culture” film on YouTube by Sampsa at www.youtube.com/watch?v=NShY2jAZryY or else at the full, filmed version of the second “Book of Thel” performance at the conference at vimeo.com/47686569 (with “password” as the password).

See Rudolf Steiner, Geographic Medicine and the Mystery of the Double, November 15, 1917; GA 178 (Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1979), pp. 9-15, 18; and Carl Stegmann, The Other America: The Western World in the Light of Spiritual Science (Oakland, California: privately published, n.d.), vol. 1.

Rudolf Steiner. The Structure of the Lord’s Prayer, February 4, 1907; GA 97 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1971), pp. 23-24.

For more information, see David Adams, “The Ramapo Salamander and Esoteric America,” The Golden Blade 54 (2002): 89-100; or, without the footnotes: “The Ramapo Salamander and Esoteric America,” in The Riddle of America, ed. John Wulsin (Fair Oaks, CA: AWSNA Publications, 2001), pp. 9-20; Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Mary and Hugo; or the Lost Angel (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1857, reprinted 2010); Jane McDill Anderson, Rocklandia: A Collection of Facts and Fancies, Legends and Ghost Stories of Rockland County Life (Nyack, NY: privately published, n.d.); and the version in Charles M. Skinner, Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, Vol 1 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1896).

For historical examples and discussion, see Jakob Streit, trans. Hugh Latham, Sun and Cross (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1977).

Rudolf Steiner, The Etherisation of the Blood, 4th ed., October 1,1911; GA 130 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1971), pp. 29, 41-42.

Rudolf Steiner, The Karma of Vocation, 2nd ed., Nov. 26-27, 1916; GA 172 (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1984), p. 187-188.

For a more complete presentation of Nathaniel’s topic, see his essay at northamericanartsection.blogspot.com/

Rudolf Steiner, Eurythmy as Visible Music, February 23, 1924; GA 278 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1977), pp. 81-82.

Rudolf Steiner, “Die welträtsel und die anthroposophie,” November 16, 1905; GA 54, as quoted in Werner Barford, IAO and the Eurythmy Meditations (Chestnut Ridge, NY: Mercury Press, 2001), p. 40.

My chart was partly based on the ideas from Rudolf Steiner in The Temple Legend (especially the final lecture of January 2, 1906; GA 93, titled “The Royal Art in a New Form” (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1985) and in notes of an instructional lesson from August 31, 1906; GA 265, from the old “Cognitive-Ritual Section” of the Esoteric School of the Theosophical Society (which can be found on pages 415-416 of Freemasonry and Ritual Work: The Misraim Service by Steiner (Great Barrington: SteinerBooks, 2007).