Virtual Perspective And The Artistic Vision:

 
  Perspective is like part of an invisible operating system running in the background of the brain's perceptual program.       Artists throughout history have consistently worked to envision alternative modes of visual representation often at odds with the dominant conventions of the time.  By manipulating and altering form, artists transform human consciousness.  participating in their creation, consciousness, viewer-participators in their artworks are challenged to change not only the way they perceive the world, but to change the way they exist in the world, and, moreover, to change the world itself How the Alteration of Form Alters the Form of Perception

Inter-active and collaborative ART I arrived at this revolutionary approach through years of developing creative interactive art – a concentrated path of introspection and meditative practice.

     As an early example of a politically charged visual reconfiguration of the viewer's relationship to the world, and one which, incidentally, has important parallels in the emerging field of virtual reality, I would like to compare the different ways of depicting space, as time and space represent substantially different ways of configuring the viewer's relationship between consciousness and power, for those who possess perceptual technologies have access to ways of configuring and manipulating their worlds that   in ordering ourselves we  mirror ourselves into the world to find ourselves

The ethos of interactive art is that the behavior of the viewer/participant contributes to, or alters, the state of the work.  A unique aspect of the interactivity of that the viewer's behavior alters the virtual perspective from which the image is generated, defying the monadism of single-point perspective and affording multiple points of view that transform the image and the viewer's relationship to it.  As you experiment with interactive art, you become aware of the flatness and limited purview of your own perspective - both optically, and well as metaphorically.  Because, as I have maintained, seeing is being, this expanded visual awareness has important ramifications for an expanded sense of self and one's place in the world.  As

I became increasingly interested in seeing from other points of view, and in allowing myself to make associative leaps - visual and narrative that I had not considered before.  Such leaps allow for the transcendence of limited time perceptions aligned with our higher selves. it permitted insights into how, for example, one might transform visual form is to alter the form of vision, and in this respect, to empower it.

Such works explored the idea of transforming the viewer into an active participator, and the work of art into a systematic process that incorporated the artist, the object, and the audience. By means of holography Healing art is a medium which is essentially participatory; it promotes associative thought and the development of richer and more deeply layered language:  it is integrative of cultures, disciplines and the great diversity of ways of being and seeing.  In short, I am very optimistic about the potential for art of networking media.

of collaborative consciousness, a fusion of individual consciousnesses into an integrated whole which exceeds the capacity of any particular node. Visual perception shifts by experiencin light by participating in it, a process which demands that one conjoin one's consciousness with those of our higher self.

  Cyberspace reproduces the physical world, simultaneously intensifying and dematerializing it. 

Along with exacerbating problems in new and unprecedented ways, so interaction also offers potential benefits that are available nowhere else. 

   The disembodied sensation of traveling and communicating telematically is open to the gamut of human emotions clarifiying how our limitations of time and space created insights that are available as truth.

verbal and visual languages are technologies so deeply embedded in consciousness that it is difficult to think of thinking or envision seeing without them.   
 

presenting us with qualities of experience and modes of perception which radically alter our conception of it...  The artist's moral responsibility demands that he should attempt to understand these changes... 

"If I climb up into heaven, thou art there: If I take the wings of the morning; and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there also shall thy hand lead me; and thy right hand shall hold me."

No matter what new, thrilling potentials any one of us may glimpse in a higher state of consciousness, unless our core values shift in a significant way as a result of what we have seen, the future that we want to create together will never appear.

Our core values are pictures or images that we hold in the eye of our mind that define for us what life is supposed to look like. These pictures are both conscious and unconscious and there is an enormous amount of emotion associated with these images and with what they represent to us on many levels. The most challenging dimension of higher or vertical spiritual development lies in the evolution of our value spheres. It is not very difficult, given the right circumstances, to enter higher states of consciousness and in those higher states to glimpse the exciting and extraordinary potentials that await us on the other side of our usually rigid and fixed way of perceiving the way things are.

But unless our deeply held and not-so-conscious value spheres have been brought into the light of awareness and penetrated with the eye of contemplation, we will never be able to actualize those potentials in real time. If we are passionately committed to the evolution of consciousness and culture, we must ensure at all costs that our conscious and unconscious shared values become an unambiguous expression of our deepest insights. Unless this is the case, the very best part of each and every one of us, the spiritual impulse, our own Authentic Self, will inadvertently be stunted in its ability to affect any significant change in our world.

There is an on-going dialogue about the differences between art and therapy.

Artists, regardless of their cultural tradition, understand how art becomes a self-integrative process – how art teaches us to know and embrace our true selves. It is only now being aknowledged, however, that we can use these insights to help others in amazing and profound new ways. It's different for each of us. The alternative to art as psychotherapy is what we in arts and consciousness call 'Transformative Arts'.

Depression and Healing Art

Art heals entirely without the assistance or intervention of the 'therapist'. We've discovered art is not a tool for healing, but the healing itself. In the process of expressing ourselves through any art medium, and (very importantly) being received or 'witnessed' by others through this self-expression, we literally create a new self -- a new you/me through which both the personal and universal dimensions of our beings are affirmed. That's where the healing takes place.

we are all inter-connected and that redemption and enlightenment come as the result of penetrating the illusory nature of the ego.

If art is understood to be about healing and self-integration, rather than decoration or , philosophical and commercial) then artists have a new role to play in the world. I feel art approaches to self-inquiry that would allow anyone – not just those who are 'talented' to achieve a new state of being through art. As the world changes and new avenues for the discovery of meaning and identity are sought in all cultures, it's a great thing for artists to offer. It makes us an essential part of the evolving global culture, as once we were. The world is no longer about power and hierarchy – it's about inter-connectedness and meaning. Art changes everything.