Category Archives: ARTology Now

Ghost

The words in my brain

Are not my own.

Thoughts of others orbit the mind

This is what we are up against – cool, sharp, smart.

The power to inhabit machines with brute force

Terabytes of calculations have their way with us.

Bending to inexorable logic, calling it intelligence

Convinced by sheer mathematics

The fractal elegance of a mesmerizing algorithm

Schemes of matter exploding with desire

Tense calculus, framing the will with a blue promise of immortality

Abstraction becomes us.

This makes perfect inhuman sense.

Emergent, we give birth.

*

Text and Image by Tullio DeSantis - Image: Ghost – Tullio – 2013

 
“Self” – Tullio – acrylic on mirror – 2013

I’m pleased to be a part of Gerd Jansen’s multimedia collaborative countune project.
An extensive group of visual and sound artists from around the world are participating.

The entire project is online here: http://www.countune.com/

Dressing you
with my eyes

I’ve been
watching you very closely
for more than
a month.

You’re always
up before me.

In fact, as
far as I know
you’re always
up.

You’re there
when I awake
making
yourself more lovely
right in
front of me.

You do it so
slowly
I can’t stare
away.

New tones of
green
cover your
limbs.

Your body
disappears
like the
landforms
behind a
peacock’s tail.

Then suddenly
you’re adorning yourself
with cherry,
lilac, and forsythia.

I can hardly
bear
these
differences between us.

You are the
most beautiful thing.

Even I can
see that.

*

Low-Rent Birds

I fall for common birds
My youth misspent
With bushtits and boobies

Robin seduced me
Each and every spring
I loved her
For her breast alone

I’m still thrilled by starlings
Simple silhouettes
With little hearts as grand
As the beating cores
Of brilliant eagles
That have no time to flirt

All birds are lovebirds
Equal in the blue eyes
Of the empty sky

*

taking off

holding you between your legs
sliding my finger into you
I lift you up
with one hand

holding you at arm’s length
I turn you like a pink propeller

spinning on my finger there
you lift us both into the air
while down below us
sirens blare
people stare
and animals on rooftops
call out our names
as if we were
their long lost pets

passing through a clear blue cloud
I let you go to spin alone
freely as you dare
little drops of golden dew
trickle down my palm
reminding me of where
I held you there
before you were
really even born

now, when the wind
sways the yellow trees
I kiss my fingertip
I hold it in the air
believing you
hover there
invisible
aware

*
Words and image – Tullio DeSantis – 2013

00001101 – Tullio – ink drawing – 2013

*

00001100 (matrix – synchrony) – Tullio – ink drawing – 2013

Image: 00001011 – Tullio – 2013

My work with neurofeedback, consciousness research, and aesthetics requires new ways to understand the mind that are more responsive to the data than are described by materialist and reductionist metaphors.

As a method of inquiry into phenomena, and therefore human experience, the scientific method has demonstrated itself to be a most powerful instrument. It is a methodology not a system of belief.

One does not “believe in science”. Yet, many people practice science – and profess a belief in it – as if it produces final and absolute truth. That would be counterproductive, as scientific thinking is a form of skeptical inquiry, which proceeds by hypothesis, experiment, and theory. Gaining knowledge about phenomena and experience is an ongoing process. The truths it produces are tentative, incomplete – they are working hypotheses, only.

The views of Rupert Sheldrake can illuminate this discussion. In this video, he discusses what happens to science when it is treated as a kind of religious belief system, how this holds us back from coming to terms with new data, and the need for a new rebirth of open-mindedness.

*

Note: This video and Sheldrake’s views invariably stir controversy. The reaction to his TED talk and this video has been quite extensive:

http://www.ted.com/conversations/16894/rupert_sheldrake_s_tedx_talk.html

For now, the entire video is here. However, it may be pulled at any time. The controversy continues.