https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget%27s_theory_of_cognitive_development

The ideal man: Ayn Rand interviewed by James Day

Hannah Arendt

 Hannah Arendt, The Freedom To Be Free

Arendt actually acknowledges how 'topical' ( announcing ahead of her time how redundant and archetypical the study of post world war two theory actually becomes the neo -liberal antithesis to progress in the modern fixation and fetishization of nazi culture and that of its surrounding distortions to the future of humanitarianism ). Assuming that the text had been published after her work 'On Revolution' the work references and the historical context of the revolutions that had incurred within the time frame of both world war one and world war two. "“Still, in the world’s present configuration where, for better or worse, revolutions have become the most significant and frequent events—and this will most likely continue for decades to come—it would not only be wiser but also more relevant if, instead of boasting that we are the mightiest power on earth, we would say that we have enjoyed an extraordinary stability since the founding of our republic, and that this stability was the direct outgrowth of revolution.”( 14 ) Arendt acts as a catalyst almost to the circumstantial occurrence introducing the violence of revolution into society. She talks about The Bay of Pigs in the overthrow of Fidel Castro, emphasizing the suffering of the people although also reinstating that it was a result of a malfunctioning security breach. Paralleling this example to the French Revolution and reasserting the importance of Immanuel Kant and Condorcet, asserting that revolution is necessary in order for the society to experience freedom. Interestingly enough she also states that the word revolution in itself is not used in the regular vocabulary of the time although more-so resurfacing and structuralizing the 17th century meaning mostly refering to the astrological meaning through the sun and ( for example, the copernican revolution of the earth ), the eternal cosmos, and the universal structure in contradiction to the cataclysm of anarchy and rebellion in the political term. “Hence, what actually happened at the end of the eighteenth century was that an attempt at restoration and recovery of old rights and privileges resulted in its exact opposite: a progressing development and the opening up of a future which defied all further attempts at acting or thinking in terms of a circular or revolving motion.” ( 20 ). The nature of revolution was necessary for people to experience freedom, 'by god's blessing restored' the nature of freedom through the oppression felt in order for revolution to incur. 

Excerpt From: Hannah Arendt. “The Freedom to Be Free.” Apple Books. 

Excerpt From: Hannah Arendt. “The Freedom to Be Free.” Apple Books. 

Karl Jasper

Karl Jasper and the introduction of the Cypher, the philosophical means to creating " pathological" truth telling, through the justification of a unitary system that is devoid of prejudice allowing for the philosophical abstraction that could eliminate the objective realm of metaphysic, subjective and religious perspectives considered to be contaminants. The numerical cypher allowed for commonalities in thought that were shared providing leeway to pacifism and tolerance. 

A transposition cypher for example, or a permutation cypher, is a series of letter coded by numbers and geographically shifted in order to keep its shape. The reader would therefore enter the transposition into the matrix in order to variate and decode the message. The transposition is essentially a variation on cryptography. Jasper utilizes the cypher in his work near the end of world war 2 though attempting to reprogram operations at the University of Heidelberg in evicting sympathizers from their respective placements in power. The reflectivity of his oppression by germany through the course of world war two is reflected in his text " The Question of German Guilt" 1947. Jasper contemplates his own understanding of german citizenry amidst the holocaust in concealing and berating his Jewish wife through the imposition of nazi germany. Guilt is not alien to freedom but comes precisely from being free. His guilt resonates in metaphysical and political guilt in contradiction to criminal or moral guilt, and in this the differentiation between humanity and the obscured illusion of antisemitism projected by " mephistopheles " aka the oppressive tyranny of the socialist party of nazi germany more agreeably known as " mephistopheles" or " National Socialism " for the sake of not psychologically detrementalizing my own mind with repetition. 

"We want to accept the other, to try to see things from the other’s point of view;infact, we virtuallywant to seek out opposing views. To get at the truth, an opponent is more important than one who agrees with us. Finding the common in the contradictory is more important than hastily seizing on mutually exclusive points of view and breaking off the conversation as hopeless." ( 6 ) 

The nature of the text copy and pasted in itself ( I remember to be ) in school, upon identification with the nature of intertextuality and cryptography.  Jaspers states that we fight for the purity of soul, against the immortalization of our invincible selves. Invariably our own capability in the ease to survive, leads us to act in virtue, the obsolescence of our bodily forms through the effluence of sustainability encourages us to take risks, optimizing the future for less fortunate and dares us to exhibit high moral standards for the betterment of society. 

Why extrapolate one's means to serendipity in positive circumstance, if only to be capable of exhibiting a hypothesized unilateral growth ? 

Notably, Jasper through the introduction to the text, clarifies the nature of the writing in that some germans, polish or otherwise european subjects are self declaratively guilty. They identify themselves as the guilty party and face the forbearing " consequences " in that of whatever they may have existed as ( if any ). Citizens aimed to cleanse and to repent " to think and to do right". THIS, is contrary to those who believed their cause to be righteous in fleeing to abstract parts of the globe (upon failure of the political party in forcibly dominating its surroundings) perhaps therefore inevitably furthering strains of backwards antisemitism. 

Those who walked ambiguously away from the circumstances proceeded with no sense of guilt or responsibility for the atrocities committed, they abandon the wreckage and show zero motivation to "better" the respective countries ( germany and/ or otherwise), most notably german citizens in their support of socialist germany. 

Jaspers states "That the victors condemn us is a political fact which has the greatest consequences for our life, but it does not help us in the decisive point, in our inner regeneration." ( 22 ) 

Hence his identification as a german citizen in being hypothetically defeated by the allies and therefore instilling the reinterpretation of guilt as this hypothetical unified political party ( on part of the debased german nationality) and apart from identification with the National Socialists or thus perversities with abstracted union in abiding by the worship of "mephistopheles". Again identifying the 4 differentiations in the types of guilt experienced by the losing party in that: 

1) Criminal Guilt 
2) Political Guilt
3) Moral Guilt
4) Metaphysical Guilt 

In differentiating in the type of guilt that the guilty german subject experiences, the clarification of the charge is identifiable. A judge is present in identifying political and criminal guilt through the victorious party via political liability,  moral guilt discussed among humanitarians with a conscience and a commitment to solidarity and metaphysical guilt to be abated spiritually as a subject to relegate amongst scholars. Every form of guilt is a reality and each comes into the context of every consequential form of guilt. "If human beings were able to free themselves from metaphysical guilt, they would be angels, and all the other three concepts of guilt would become immaterial." (27)... (66) The morality of the guilt involved is a reciprocation of the power issues involved in communities, the false deification of the entitled and therefore the misuse of power debased by the guilt of human existence in being subject to the positions of power, are playing into the substructure of the deformed community.

Jasper then goes on to critique the ability of the individual to blatantly play the alienated subject in the face of dictatorship and political misrepresentation, the nature of the citizen in turning a blind eye to the privatization of the governmental legislation. He illuminates political absence, lack of responsibility and the acting in showing blind obedience to the political state. 

Having witnessed political dictatorship in the rise of the National Socialists, Jasper then reconfigures Herodotus to Political Liberty via Greek liberty and Persian despotism. 

"Thus there can be no collective guilt of a people or a groupwithin a people - except for politicaliability. To pronounce a group criminally, morally or metaphysically guilty is an error akin to the laziness and arrogance of aver- age, uncritical thinking." ( 36)  

The German Questions ( 66 /41 ) 

German citizens were subject to international guilt at disturbing world peace, posters were hung with photographs and text " You Are The Guilty" with no indication of the authority, although the movement is then paralleled to the Roman Empire and the ability of the citizen to claim their own moral right. 

The guilt in two examples thereafter is 

a) political guilt, wherein the citizen is guilty of sustaining and tolerating the political party at fault. 

b) moral guilt, as the citizen is hypothetically guilty of supporting the political party morally. 

again, the next two examples in 

c) metaphysical guilt, where the citizen witnesses the crimes or 'uncharitable testimony'

d) criminal guilt, wherein the citizen participates in the crimes and is invariably guilty 

The Differentiation of German Guilt ( 70 / 45 ) 

The crimes are evident regardless of if the citizen or german subject pleads guilty. The Allied forces in the construction of the Nuremberg Trials attempted to deal with the hate crimes committed. 

Jasper makes it clear that the trials were not completely efficacious for various reasons, firstly, not all guilty german citizens were tried. Only the officials of the nazi party were held accountable ( 'criminally' accused germans) who had participated in the crimes directly.  The whole of the german people were not held accountable. Secondly, the subjects tried were held to the accountability of the International Military Tribunal... ( from my perspective, the fact that they were even tried and not executed immediately is beyond humanitarian). Additionally, at the trials ( held in Nuremberg ) the witnesses to the trial are german citizens. " The criminal state is tried against its whole population." Germany planned and prepared the war internally, it was not provoked by any threat, it acted in its own violent means to self destruction. 

He also states that the clear benefit of this trail is to condemn the leaders while excusing the greater german civility from penalization. The germans witnessing the trials also subject to their own whims in a vote in favour of the trials in hope that they succeed or to regard the entirety as a sham trial with skeptic 'nihilism'. The fact that Jasper actually even expresses the audacity in stating this is to me beyond discomfort. The righteousness of the allies to not execute and to re-implicate the violence and hatred of the corruptions incurred is almost too humanitarian. In a way the graces shown by the trials reinstates the peace and validity of humanity and silently mocks the barbarianism and lack of etiquette shown by the guilty party. The contrast in the barbarianism of war to the courtly devaluation of contemplating the lives of such guilty party is stark and powerful. All the trials did explicitly was to disenfranchise the german state in its liability, leaving the citizens impoverished to struggle in their own vanity. 

Jasper also notes a lack of feeling in the accomplices of hitler are notably well known for showing no signs of moral conviction, no sense of guilt and no understanding of evil. The nature of the german citizen to differentiate from good and evil is still corrupted. They share a collective guilt, knowingly having dodged the circumstances of the crimes committed, the moral, metaphysical, political and criminal guilt with no fault or consequence to be faced. The acknowledgment of the guilt in itself is an assertion to safeguard the guilty with the apprehension of good faith that might have been bestowed by the allied forces in their disbandment of wartime violence and atrocity. The ground under the german people had not been taken as punishment. The germans attempted to reform their own nationalistic identification as germans as they had struggle to differentiate themselves by religious belief. 

Possible Excuses 

The German people are also subject to trying to excuse themselves from guilt, with said excuses. For example why had people been subject to concentration camps, hypothetically for the reason that they had resisted the party ( verbally ) and were therefore subject to incarceration. Hannah Arendt writes on Organized Guilt, (1945) on terror, where people were being killed through a sense of duty. Arguably Germany has open boarders and rationalizes that the strong militaristic force is only due to the surrounding territories in order to prevent invasion. The geographically bound territories can also hypothetically be blamed for the lack of libertarian and democratic spirit, Jasper remarks that the transient state is only a repercussion of the transient phenomenon of organized governance.  

Jasper writes that England had abandon them in favour of peace ( 1935 ) Ribbentrop through the naval non- aggression agreement with hitler, in addition to the Molotov-Ribbentrop wherein Russian and Germany dispute and delegate the national disposition of what would be land distribution in Poland. 

Internally to German citizens, the allied forces have appeared to forsake the perpetrations of nazi occupation in Germany agreeing to coordinate with the National Socialist party as patrician of the country-state. " The German Question" was originally written by Wilhelm Röpke, as a manual to the reformation of postwar Germany. He reminisces over the early warning signs shown by the German governance that the world dismissed resulting from the National Socialist Party in Germany and going so far as to endure their company at events and worldly gatherings without a second thought to the internal conflict that had been occurring. Jasper juxtaposes the state with the political party, regarding the 'invasion' of the National Socialist ( identifiably a terrorist organization ) as ruling party to Germany, as such regarding Germany as one of the first victims to suffer the atrocities later seen through Europe, most notably genocidal terror and Mass Hypnosis. I disagree with Jasper when he states that the ruling causes in Germany is the derivative of the holocaust and mass incarceration. He states that " Yet there the guilty were a few Germans, a small group (plus an indefinite number of others capable of cooperating under orders) German anti-Semitism was not at any time a popular movement. The population failed to cooperate in the German pogroms; there were no spontaneous acts of cruelty against Jews, The mass of the people, if it did not feebly express its resentment, was silent and withdrew." (90). If this were the case would then not the crisis of National Socialism as a " terrorist organization" in confronting german ideals be stopped and reprimanded before infiltrating surrounding countries and the rest of Europe !? The nature of dictatorship also though, is identifiably internal. He notes that if a similar example of primitive despotism, thus situation hypothetically incurring in North America that we would be doomed, as the situation needed to be aided by outside influences ... He commends the allies for not relinquishing the same fate bestowed upon the mass incarcerated as to what may have become of the 'german peoples', as to repay evil-with-evil, would therefore make more evil and bear new calamities. 

Purification 

The self critique of the citizens, both historically and personally are necessary and both examples reflect upon one another. Comparatively the individuals who are able to complete their understanding of self recognized guilt and the unaffected guiltless. The argumentative nature of thus in the unassailed remains intact, they seek to destroy others in generalized judgements in disrupting the solidarity. Hitlers enterprise was notably diabolical in nature, although Jasper notes that he recognized the fact that he may not be able to generate a solidarity in the " passive resistance " to the national socialist party through disassociation. 

Dodging Purification 

Germans cannot be deduced to a common denominator, the escaped in their own righteousness are still subject to the totality of their birthplace. Jasper cites the nature of a jew emigrated to New York who hosted Hitler's picture on the wall of his room because he was unaided in his longing for the homeland. In a way the sense is prolonged by defiance through the edification of sentimentality. 

Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau Ponty

 All of these books are basically free : https://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Phenomenology-of-Perception-by-Maurice-Merleau-Ponty.pdf 

The cover is reminiscent of Hirst's 1986 'Spot Painting', probably designed to illustrate the metaphysical suffrage in each spot particularly this one piece completed in 1986 painfully and obviously less organized and linear than most of the other Spot Paintings in his series. This painting was one one of the first in the dot series completed at Goldsmith's explaining the lack of rhetoric and linearity seen in the rest of the collection such as "Untitled" with black dot " to be completed in 1988. The works appear to be completed mechanically although a series of assistants were hired to execute the project. Many of the titles in the subsequence series, "Pharmaceuticals" were conceptually designed to interrogate the chemical company Sigma Aldrich which he found in a catalogue titled " Bio Chemichals for Research and Diagnostic Reagents" in marketing various chemicals used for biomedical research. The work is quintessentially commercial, noting the variables in the trade of biochemicals even today used ( bought and sold ) for the purposes of experimentation in vaccinating the corona virus. The variations in the spots use mathematical equations to create balance and harmony notably in his later works. 

Some of the last pieces in the collection featured names based off of various chemicals sold by Sigma Aldrich, such as Iodomethane-13c, 1999-2001 starring an immaculate 1 inch spot that spans across 3023 x 12167 mm. The 300 spot paintings are dispersed through 11 Galleries were exhibited by the Gagosian. On average, Hirst has completed aprox. 60 paintings over the last 24 years. 

... Have I ever mentioned to you that I am dating the filthiest entity in the history of mankind ? He is like a broken down fat squealing subspecies trying desperately to escape the excrementally infested mud-puddle where he has in fact, been literally, ecstatically consuming his own fecues, failing to escape his own babbling dribble albeit over dramatically, each squeal more obnoxiously desperate and mind dissolving then the last. 

I think writing this may help as it has in the past, nothing is off limits and seemingly, the move vulgar and grotesque, the better. It is apparent that this motion is against my ( clearly amiable and formidable ) character although the hatred is blinding, every day I wake up to grimace at the thought of my most recent encounters with the barbarianism of the backwoods in the northern country, devoid of civilization and humanity, bleakly starved of culture and humanity, painful to the eye. 

The predomination of Op art subsequently became predominate in the late 1960's, cubism at the fall of the industrial revolution and the automatism of the cognitive in the dawn of photography in the retinal abstractions devised through expressionism. 

One might argue that the beginning of impressionism itself becomes an early form of illusion as the paintings quite simply record the diffractions of light as it reflects on the surface of objective form as it intercedes with the retinal nervous system. Ponty takes the two straight lines in Müller- Lyer’s optical illusion and uses this to describe sensation through the retinal advisory of the receiving qualities. 

Colour, he notes is not a sensation but a sense. The quality of the colour is a dimension of deviating sensation and the effect that it has on the cognitive, for example the play of light upon the object is just a spacial configuration in the way that effects the mind. Ponty also notes that all consciousness is not immediate of quality and that consciousness ( is not a variation of quality and time ) as it is an object for the consciousness of the object to reside in. He also notes that consciousness should not be subject to prejudice, noting that the abstraction of the optical illusion is merely visual through the retinal sensory, as quality is not merely defined by the retinal capabilities of the object. 

He states that the object is not ambiguous, and only appears to be so through our inattention. The visual is seized by the eyes and what become sensation is what is sensed. The behaviour of the individual is then subject to reflex that patterns the nerval system through its sensory advisors indicating the nature of the objective world and reproduced or computed in a likewise manner to the cognitive mind. Ponty states "For example, the intensity of a sound under certain circumstances lowers its pitch; the addition of auxiliary lines makes two figures unequal which are objectively equal." (33). In this circumstance if one takes the obscene wailing of aforementioned full grown primitive male beast in an attempt to attract the attentions of his mother, the nature of the sound and notable intensity would be subdued in the company of any other subsequent males of general age and likeliness. The colour of the subsequent subject's face would then redden in colour due to the nature of the demands and wailing. The nature of the phenomenon is obviously oblique, the isolate nature of unpopulated environment hence creating the ideal environment for the subjects irrational and explicit behaviour. 

One might assume that the hypothesized " sensible " nature of attempted external stimulus would subdue the oblique primitive's hoarding desperate shrilling wails for attention, albeit, the dramatization of the subject becomes intensified. 

The sensory status of the apparatus devised by the subject, Ponty notes, is no longer fit for the transmitter. The cortical or cognitive revelations to the sensitivity of temperature for example through the reappearance of the sensation via memory. The same follows for colour in the state of the individuals initial experience of the sensation, and the following recollection upon seeing the colour again through repetition. Sensation is not subject to reflection or memory and is directly related to the object. 

The sensation instigated by one's bodily surroundings become the phenomena experienced through nerval signals, for example the peripheral experience as an identified elementary psychic function ( although not a superior function) as it is not connected to the bodily function/ or the bodily substructure. 

Sensation is not subject to reflection or memory and is directly related to the object. 

Ponty notes that Gesalt theory, as a revelation of the early 1900's becomes the subsequent epitome of reflection due to the study of patterns and recognition in the philosophically and psychologically introduces sensations that are no longer physical variables, numerically opening up the universe into the void of mathematical phenomenon. 

In conclusion, noting the revelations induced by the Muller Lyer diagram, the apparatus appears to have unequal lines, when in fact they are equal. The line, isolated in its objective is equal to the other line equally isolated. Ponty notes that these observations are only detectable through analytic perception. The concept of the image only becomes real though sensation, it is not the analytic truth or fact, just the sense perceived through the retinal conjuncture that becomes relevant through the superstructure of consciousness. 

The nature of primitive thought is essentially the basis of perception devoid of analytical thought, the impoverishment of perception that they are unable to critique and translate. 

Phenomenology of Perception

Catherine Malabou 

Plasticity is important in a number of works of Merleau-Ponty. The ontological dimension of the body wherein Ponty has organized ( in his book ) this dialogue of a series of different traditions in philosophy and phenomenology, and existentialism. Rousseau, Husserl, Sarte, sciences like psychology and neurology becomes a mix becomes a unique synthesis between science, philosophy and art that is the meaning of plasticity. What we have discovered through the study of motricity is in short, a new sense of the word sense. What we have discovered is a new meaning to the word sense. Sensation and signification. The study of movement that comes from psychology becomes the study of the profound, the study of meaning and signification and sense, as sensation. 

Ponty translates the meaning sense into sensation. The ontology of the status of the body, what it means to be a body, but also to locate where plasticity where it appears, and what we have to see ourselves as in the crossing of this new meaning of sense, between sensation and signification and the in-between what Ponty calls perception. These things are profoundly intertwined, perception is not exactly sensation, but the bluntness of the sensibility. Perception is what what we have in front of us, but not around us, and is what we do not see. The context of perception is what we see literally see, and also what we perceive to be around us. It is the cognitive organization in the contextualization of our objective surroundings. 

Ponty and Sarte both contradict one another through obstruction. Embodied cognition is the reflexology of the body through the way that we use the body, to engage with the world and to experience our surroundings through the neurological conscious state. Ponty will outline and build up a position or example to critique before critiquing it. He will counterpose his own theory and break it down after building it to make a point.

Merlo Ponty asks " What is Phenomenology" what is the study of essences ( as in what things are, or what they exist as). The lived time and the lived world, nothing objective or scientific which removes the subjective from the experience. The objective world is devoid of life and is inhuman, so therefore the concept of phenomenology is the description of experience. 

He therefore describes science as a derivative form of knowledge ( according to Ponty) everything in science has already been built on an experiencing subject, the way we understand the world is the grounding and the foundation of the perception. Science looks to understand what relations between variables are, although it does not question why or how things are they way they are. Husserel quotes " To the things themselves" independent to themselves fundamentally, there is nothing if there is no viewing subject. 

The constituting subject prior to being and time Eg. Descartes' concept of Mind, or Sartre's Preservation of Freedom. Grounded in a lived account and the foundational way in which we encounter the world through a fixed state. 

The background of our reflection takes place through a very earthy perspective. The phenomenological reduction according to Ponty is an idea that Husserl conducted, and was designed to uncover how things are constituted for a conscious subject. i. eidetic reduction from the natural entity to the fixed entity through the eidetic entity itself. 

Transcendental reduction is bracketing the physical object to shift the focus, instead, to the transcendental object. The idea here is that we are looking at how the object becomes an object ( instead of the object itself ) is the subject looking at the object. 

Examples of the transcendental objects are The Noesis and the Noema. 

The Noesis, which is essentially the structuring the experiences of the act, or what the subject brings to the act through perception ie. The perception of perceiving.

The Noema, is the structure given the act essentially is the object with the Noesis is direted towards. The subject and the object. The HYLE, which is the greek word for matter, is basically ammounts to constraining or limiting experiences which confirm or deny our expectations or anticipations that are held by the object. The Hiel is the Noma, you are the Noesis structuring the experience. The physical object serves that purpose, to reaffirm the nature of truth. 

The transcendental objects are seen through the phenomenological reduction which combines the transcendental object as the essence of things in the world. Things studied do not exist without the the observer which is why we study phenomena. These things are independent of us and therefore exist independently, so they come with a meaning. Phenomenology tells us that what we include as the description as the intentional constitution of things. The objective approach does the opposite in bracketing the subject to see what is there. What is there without a subject is bringing the subject back into the perspective. 

Ponty states that phenomenological reduction appears to be a return to the transcendental consciousness wherein the world is spread out in transparency and is therefore trapped in solipsism and in the essence. 

Locked into transcendental consciousness we are trapped into the objective void of perception. 

Fundamentally we exist in the world, we cannot separate ourselves from the world completely, because we are so thoroughly immersed in the world is by suspending the movement of consciousness. The phenomenological reduction means that we cannot see ourselves without the world influencing what we see. The most important lesson of reduction is the impossibility of complete reduction and how we see that objects are structured by us and vice vera. We can never completely achieve reduction and separate ourselves of the world. Through phenomenological reduction he also says that every reduction is inevitably concerning essences, the essences of the world. We are not separating existence in essence, it is the essence of something that exists, so Ponty looks at the idea we're not breaking from the external world, not the abstract idea. Its a not a theme of discourse, we are rather looking to see the thing as it is for us prior to the climatization of the every day definition that we can intellectually defend through the eidetic reduction, or the phenomenological reduction can never be complete. 

Intentionality is more Husserl although the crucial aspect of phenomenology, similar to Sartre, all consciousness is intentionality, everything is directed towards all of our conscious states or acts are directed to something or of something so there is no kind of pure abstract consciousness, all consciousness is of something ( intentionality). This is not teleology from outside, although rather a recognition that consciousness is a project of the world, it is fundamentally engaged in the world. 

There are 2 types of intentionality, act intentionality and operative intentionality. Act Intentionality - The intentional act - is concerning our judgements and deliberate decisions. Things that we are deliberately acting on. Directly. 

Operative intentionality is a natural tendency to the world, the intentionality almost automatically fundamentally underlies our existence that is conducted by our desires that exist and manifest undeliberately. 

Phenomenology and philosophy, is not to articulate a prior existing being, rather a founding being. This is what philosophy is about, uncovering how those things are there for us. Not the primary truth but the actualization of the truth, so the study of how the world is revealed to us opposed to how something exists independent of us and that the subject is fundamentally engaged in.  

It is always inclusive of this experience perceiving subject, therefore it is important to us in understanding how the world appears. To take into account the subject. The whole project of philosophy takes place therefore within the historical context which is the history of the individual subject and interrogates itself in a way that other disciplines do not understand ( the starting point ) whereas the philosophy wants to understand how it is constructed, For Us. 

This is why philosophy will never end, there will always be new ways for the world to be understood and interpreted. It is not something that can be complete. 

What is It Like to be a Bat Thomas Nagel 1974 ( Moral Questions 1974 )

 I got in a car trash :( https://www.tiktok.com/@geddyfkrooger/video/6899148087583886594?lang=en 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F 

Qualia is the subjective experience of things in the world, a perspective that each person has ( as long as they are not a brain eating zombie )... The subjective perspective of a person is that of a Bat, a mammal, similar to the human being, a bat is a mammal and therefore has subjective experience similar to a house-pet. The bat functions biologically, the neurobiology of a bat, is unique through the subsistence of sonar frequency or echo location. They have a unique quality in their brain that detects distances, textures, the consistency of objects that humans do not have. Some bats are are blind and therefore completely reliant on sonar. 

How the bat works, 'Quaila' is the subjective experience of things in the world. Each and every person has this. What Thomas Megal 1974 says that it is impossible to explain the subjective experience of the person is. He says that the bat is a mammal and that it is similar to the person. One thing that we can not explain, is what it is like to be a bat. We can not explain the 'Qualia' of a bat,  for example, how does the bat see the world through sonar. 

The only answer can come from the subjective experience itself, we cannot talk about about the bats, similar to martians, likewise they will never explain what it is like to be human. 

People are insane and they see the world very differently and experience it very differently. What does and does not have a consciousness ? 

Thomas Nagel says we cannot explain this so therefore we leave it.

Nagel, What is it Like to be a Bat ( 1974 ) ( Moral Questions ) 

Jackson, What Merry did not Know ? ( 1986 ) ( The Knowledge Argument ) 

Merry is a girl, she was born and someone put her in a room that only has black and white colours. She has only ever seen black and white colours, Merry has access to infinite access to knowledge, and develops an understanding to the psychology of people. She has developed the understanding of " what it is like to see a red tomato "- the knowledge argument. The physicalists, the physical explanations, we believe that Merry knows everything that she needs to know about the red tomato. One day she escapes the black and white room, and she sees the red tomato. She learns again though, something new ( Qualia ) the experience of Seeing The Red Tomato. At this moment she escapes and sees something new in actuality. 

Science, Physics, Psychology, Philosophy etc is unexplainable and the only way to actually understand something is to experience it. If a person is born deaf, how does a trumpet sound ? The deaf person may reference extrapolants, references to what the deaf person understands the trumpet to represent and understand then they cannot truly explain it. 

Conscious experience cannot be explained through knowledge that is conscious knowledge. 

When you experience something, you learn something new. 

You cannot explain it. You can read many books although unless you try it, you cannot experience it ( therefore the philosophical zombie ). 

You can explain what consciousness is, as the philosophical approach to modern theory. Some examples are the

HOP Theory, Higher - Order - Perception Theory( Armstrong 1984 )

HOT Theory, Higher - Order - Thought Theory of Consciousness ( Rosenthal 1997 ) 

Same Order Approach ( Byrne, 2004)

What does it mean to be conscious, the brain is or is not functioning. FMRI, for example shows where in the brain the consciousness is. The hard problem of consciousness in analytic philosophy ( North American or non- continental Philosophy ). Causal properties and the properties of consciousness. There are levels of consciousness and this is what describes consciousness. 

Minimal consciousness, in order to understand what minimal consciousness is. The unconscious person is is the hypothesized state ( ex. sleeping, anesthetics, ect ) some things still go on in the brain. If the subject is unconsciousness, we would still say that this person still has a state of mental activity. The mind still has knowledge or memories. The intuitive example, 2 people are both unconsciousness. Both have their own mental states ( individualistically ). They are similar in the way that they both have no mental activity in their minds, although they still both maintain mental states as thinking thoughts, in differentiation to a non-mental state is that of the unconsciousness. 

The same way that the moment in the computer is paused, the computer is in-between mental states. There is no functioning order and no capacity to move without neurological command. In between these moments there is no active activity or command from the user. Minimal consciousness is that example where there is minimal activity, all of the mental states are inactive aside from one state that is active. Minimal consciousness is one state activated ( aside from no mental activities which would be the complete unconsciousness ). There were no mental states, and no mental activity.  

The unconscious subject has mental states. The mental states are what Armstrong calls "Casually Quiescent", in where they are casually inactive and do not work, this is minimal consciousness. 

Perceptual consciousness, the senses and perception to the cognitive are working. The individual understands the bodily functions and the world around them. The physical being in time and space and the ability to sense what is going on. In the dream we do not sense the world in its relation to our body, although in perceptual consciousness we do. The alarm for example is the barrier to the conscious and the unconscious in perception where we perceive something from the outside world. The incorporation of sleep and consciousness is ended through perception of the body in the physical environment. 

Perceptual consciousness resuscitates minimal consciousness ( but not the other way around ). When we perceive things visually, we see and understand things physically. They are hard wired in the mental state to enable comprehension through consciousness. The unconscious subject in the coma does not have 'perceptual consciousness'. The subject has 'minimal consciousness' and sometimes 'perceptual consciousness' if they are able to perceive the surrounding environment or their body ( different levels of consciousness through a coma ). We have to have minimal consciousness in order to have perceptual consciousness. We need to have the mind active in perception. 

The introspective consciousness, by Armstrong, is lost and then regained. Introspective consciousness is consciousness of perceptions and mental states that we have in the mind. Mental activity is the consciousness of these two levels. 

The truck driver has minimal consciousness, and little mental activity. The perception of the road, the investment of pressure on the wheel, the surroundings and the perception of what is going on around the subject. The operation of the mind to recognize signs, the recognition of the signs in order to be able to drive. The perception of consciousness is necessary to understand how to drive the car due to the variables in question and the perception of consciousness is necessary to drive. The combination of these levels of perception are necessary to drive including introspective consciousness. 

When we are conscious of being perceptive we have introspective consciousnesses via working and inactive. Minimal Consciousness ( is memory and knowledge ), the Perceptive Level ( is conscious of the minimal level through sensors) and then the Introspective Level ( the understanding of both perceptive and minimal combinations of consciousness in order to function). These three levels of consciousness, access to function through relations are complete consciousness, according to Armstrong. 

The automobile has both Minimal and Perspective consciousnesses but not the Introspective Consciousness which is why the car cannot drive itself. Qualia would be the combined structure of three levels that becomes the manifestation of itself. The zombie has the minimal perception, of both Minimal and Perspective consciousness although it has no Introspective Consciousness. 

Reflex Introspective Awareness where the subject is always highly consciousness, and is always observing mental states and perception. Through consciousness, perception is never completely without consciousness. 

There is another level which is Introspection Proper, when you think about your ideas. The introspective level of thinking is Introspective Proper, developed by Rosenthal A theory of consciousness ( 1997) where the subject is self conscious. The subject scrutinizes the environment for some purpose and critiques the mental states. The subject of Introspection Proper is the introspective awareness of introspection awareness. 

The comprehension of pain through the neural receptors is only after the subject has the perception of pain on the preceptive level on the bodily level which is the Perception Level of Introspective consciousness. 

The introspection of the introspective level is the perception of bodily or emotive pain. The awareness of pain, is the awareness of the individuals understanding of pain ( eg. headache ). 

The self, is the introspective level according to Armstrong. The things according to self, is that the self is the construction. The self is the major entity is the core of humanity. 

The self integrates a progression of sequence in points of time. 

Integration of senses that becomes the unity of self. Integration to a single continuing theory ( eg a computer administrating computers allowing for intricacy), the administration of the integrating parallels processes and the event memory. 

Introspection consciousness is completely in charge of memory, eg the individual driving the automobile, wherein the individual wakes up from autopilot. The individual does not remember what the road looks like, what the individual saw is all automated. The introspective consciousness of events enabled us to write our own life stories. It not only controls the resources, it enables us to restore memory. It is the condition to the personality and how we see the world and how we experience different things.   

Introspective self, creates the self when you look at the outcome of Armstrongs work.

For the unity of mental processes we need to to administrate minimal activity, the system is interdependent. The relation between introspective, perceptive and minimal consciousness are symbiotic. 

Philippa Foot | Wikipedia audio article

In The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer defend the provocative claim that Odysseus of Homer’s Odyssey is, in some sense at least, a “bourgeoisie” figure. The text elucidates enlightenment through the critical analysis of myth within the context of superstition and the reassertion of fascist design. By exemplifying a critique of the extreme psychological terror and genocide inflicted by the Nazi party of Germany they subtly reverted in order to re-educate mass psychology post world war two. In this paper I would like to hypothesize that post-nationalism transcends this subordination in favour of the universal theory of a greater good that benefits the German economy. They use the text to critique the means to fascism by defining the way that superstition, mythology and enlightenment were utilized by the Nazi party of Germany as isomorphic tropes to insinuate subordination and authoritarianism ( power and exploitation ) to suppress the state and justify the genocidal means to social cleansing as an economic and anthropic means to domination. 

The philosophers in question were exiled by Nazi Germay from the Frankfurt School and banished to Los Angeles where they continued to write. The existence of their work in a contemporary setting pinpoints and elucidates genocidal and theoretical implications of civil warfare that were executed through the basis of fascist and totalitarian domination. Fascism beginning in the Weimar Republic, dominating Germany, Poland and the rest of Europe resulted in a national-global crisis, “ The anti reason of totalitarian capitalism, whose technique of satisfying needs, in their objectified form determined by domination, makes the satisfaction of needs impossible and tends towards the extermination of humanity - this anti reason appears prototypically in the hero who escapes the sacrifice by sacrificing himself.” (43) In this way we can envision the nature of a genocidal hyperbole to be again re-considered in North American society through The Dialectic of Enlightenment. 

The text is primarily composed by the canonically relevant historical vices of greek mythology, specifically Excursus 1 : Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment where the text reviews the various elements of Odysseus’s ventures through Homer’s Odyssey. Horkheimer and Adorno, through the explication of framework, use this historical model of greek mythology in that of Homer’s protagonist, Odysseus, to archive and immortalize perspectives of self-righteousness in what they respect as bourgeois. They epitomize him in a seraphic and godlike manner, echoing Homers intentional representation of the idealistic exponent. Praising his cunning intellect and manner of conduction through his voyages, his athleticism and mastery of nature have his abilities transcend the mortal status of the mere proletariat civilian to that of a godlike status and demeanor. For example, “ Imitation enters the service of power even when the human being becomes an anthropomorphism for human beings ” (45). Odysseus’s ability to conquer all feats in his renunciation of self and ego is a linguistic understanding of dualism that pulls through into a reference about formalism.  In Homer’s polarization of the term Udeis, meaning both hero and nobody he narrates Odysseus’s emancipation from his character’s consciousness of self through metaphysical vice wherein he dichotomizes his understanding of mind over body to protect his life through athleticism and wit. 

“ He declares allegiance to himself by disowning himself as Nobody; he saves his life by making himself disappear. This adaptation to death through language contains the schema to modern mathematics.” (48)

The nature of his ability to separate mind over body is a derivative to his understanding in rationalism which he makes use of, in order to survive. In this way Odysseus is able to emancipate his ability of mind over body similar to the deconstructive states of nature and culture, wherein he sacrifices his physical self in favour of psychological predominance in order to achieve his goals and to differentiate himself from the primal horde of the proletarian devices. In Freudian Theory and Fascist Propaganda, Adorno and Horkheimer state “ A number of individuals who have substituted one and the same object for their ego ideal and have consequently identified themselves with another in their ego.”  (128 Adorno & Horkheimer- Freud ). His incalculable ability to defeat death on several occasions also adds to the indestructible status he earned through his ventures, proving immortal qualities that are vices associated with the European bourgeois. The text idolizes his actions in such a way as to glorify his accomplishments in society, presenting his character as that of an anthropomorphic deity of monarchal descent, another amiable trait of the inherent bourgeoise splendour that continually enables and promotes relentless violent supremacy. 

Arguably, the nature of Odysseus’s actions are a primary model for the bourgeois individual, as he represents this righteous character of greek origin who sails the Mediterranean or Adriatic sea at will with little to no responsibility except to return to his wife Penelope where they rule the kingdom of Ithaca. He sacrifices numerous lives throughout the course of his voyage and is congratulated for the bloodshed. Meeting various characters throughout southern Europe and as such he conducts his business accordingly. He capitalizes off of various meetings with said communities through economic pretext reinstated through The Dialectic of Enlightenment in that 

“ Odysseus defencelessness against the foaming sea sounds like a legitimation of the enrichment of the voyager at the expense of indigenous inhabitants. Bourgeois economics later enshrined this principle in the concept of risk: The possibility of foundering is seen as a moral justification for profit.* … Odysseus lives according to the ancient principle which originally constituted bourgeois society.” (48). In a way this makes him a model for bourgeois society in part due to the capitalist economy as he basically finances his kingdom, ruthlessly profiting on whatever capital interest that can be generated. The mission in that respect, is therefore an entrepreneurial vice, the text even exaggerating the nature of this in capitalist terms stating “ … The truth that the entrepreneur* has always entered the competition armed with more than the industry of his hands.” (48) in detaching the principle of manual labour from his ability to master self preservation. 

The fact that Odysseus and his comrades are subject to nature just means that they are even more so, due to enlightenment, able to willfully capitalize through their ventures. The text declares this as “ a moral justification for profit*”, perhaps another contemplated ideal that had been utilized throughout nazi Germany. The canonical work is exploited in order to develop a mastery and monopolization of European culture. Therefore again the use of European aristocracy is a prime example of how Odysseus proves to be a model form for the modern bourgeois individual. In conclusion, I agree with Amy Allen in her revision of the work not as a negativist perspective on enlightenment but a statement of bourgeois reform that reinstates the contemplation of morality and reason in a modern day and age.

Bibliography

Adorno, Theodor, Horkheimer, Max, 1895-1973. Dialectic Of Enlightenment : Philosophical Fragments. Stanford, Calif. :Stanford University Press, 2002.

Allen, Amy. (2016). “The Dialectic of Progress: Adorno and the Philosophy of History.” The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press. pp.166-176.

Contemporary Canadian Art : VISA 3003 Robin McDonald

 January 8 Introduction

1970s in a complete rejection of modernism & minimalism, identity movements come out and the beginnings of NeoLiberalism shaping the means to contemporary art ( since the last 50 years ).

Conceptually producing meaning to contemporary work.


January 15th

Georgio Agamben  " What is the Contemporary "
Lynda Jessup, Erin Morton & Kristy Robertson

January 22

Eve Tuc and K.Wayne Yang " Decolonialization is not a metaphor"

January 29

Alice Min Wai Jim " Global Art Histories in Canada"

February 5
Blair Fornwald and Gary Varro " On the Record "

February 12th

Katarzyna Marciniak
Yaniya Lee Anxious Territory : The politics of natural citizenship in Canadian Art Criticism

Reading Week

February 26th

Andrea Fatona : Claiming Space
Henry Heng Lu : Whose community is it
Erin Silver : Whatever Happened to Queer Queen West

March 4: Hohannah Householder

March 11:
Christine Ross
Jason Edward Lewis



Truth and Reconciliation

The funding and granting system, the effects of the political policies, the effects of work eg. TRC Report.

June 2, 2008 on indigenous students and their families, held through public and private meetings across the family.

Calls to Action :

Truth and Reconciliation 

#79 June 2017, 94 calls to action in regards to Canadian and indigenous peoples.

We call upon the federal government ni collaboration with survivors, aboriginal organizations and the arts community to develop a reconciliation framework for Canadian heritage and commemoration
#88 We call son the Canada Council for th e Arts to Establish as a funding project... ECT.


This initiative called reconciliation, is the Canada council open to Inuit, Indigenous and Metis artists were invited to submit proposals for government funding.

May 2016, June 2016 ( Calls for proposals )

The Indigenous Culture Fund 

The wide scope of the fund basically funded the support for language support, learning ect. that supported Indigenous things.

The opportunity for cultures to be restored and movements for the government needed to do in order to support the movement.

3. 5 million went to 3.2 million in 2016

Indigenous Culture Fund
Support Rally in response to these cuts

Cited grants and programs that funded learning that were at sake of the funding that had gotten cut


Aulan Couchie : Agressive Assimilation 2013

" our cutulrue should be worth more to Ontario then just a commodity, they do not realize what they had cut " - Aulan Couchie

The Refugee Crisis 

Led to a sustainable housing crisis, lack of jobs ect. the representation of the populace of the governmental standards and the fluctuation of immigration rates.

Refugee convention in Geneva granting asylum, and the artwork revolving around the immigration artists.

Ann Hirschh and Jeremy Angrier SOS 2019 ( Safety Orange Swimmers) 2019

Questionable means to eg. empowering displaced peoples, drawing attention to the crisis, showcasing the human side of the story.

Tania Canas, RISE Arts Director/ Member
10 things you need to consider if you are an artist - Not f the refugee and asylum seeker community - looking to work with our community :

1) Process not product
2) Critically interrogate your intention
3) Realize your own privilege
4) Participation is not always progressive or empowering
5) Presentation vs. representation
6) It is not a safe- space just because you say it is
7) Do not expect us to be grateful
8) Do not reduce us to an issue
9) Do your research
10 ) Art is not neutral.

Climate Change

Climate pereort issued by Stats Canada
World leaders met at climate change conference to discuss  issues at hand.

Many individuals took the opportunity to bring artists across the world to take the space of transit spaces offered critique of consumerism, capitalism and climate change.

Vancouver based magazine adjusters, Naomi noted they handed a megaphone to the corporation and then took the megaphone away to find out what was happening inside


Neo Liberalism Austerity and Precarity

Ladies International Deadbeat Society, Do les with more / do more with more Fuse Magazine

Friends of ChinaTown 

The notices emplaced by the government describing the changing of the neighbourhoods that are made to be gentrified. 

Note Tea Base : Events and organization revolving around the contemporary issues being described though the contemporary movement.

How does the contemporary feel ? 

Bridget Moser,  Asking for a friend 2013 

Simultaneously worry and anxiety about the future and the current and what will happen next and then fundamental knowability. 

Ken Lum, Come Join Us 2009 

Visit to the AGO 

International contemporary art fro the 1960;s onwards in order to identify trends in --- Materials, subject matters/ engagement to the audience/ geography/ artists. 

JANUARY 15th Contemporary Canadian Art Week 2 

 Defining Canada Canadian & Contemporary Art 

NGC : Stan Douglas will be representing Canada at The Venice Biennial 

Historically used the Venice biennale to represent abroad & internationally 

May - November 2020/2021 

Where was the work from - who was the work by 

Observations on the fifth floor at the AGO the permanent collection. 

- Tendency towards conceptualism & abstraction 

- An engagement with current social cultural - political issues or context

- An interest in the politics of identity 

- An interest in the unique potentials of new materials 

- A rejection traditional arts economies and object based systems of value 

What is Modern art? 

What is Postmodern Art ? 

Cubism and Abstraction 

Alfred H Barr Jr Cover of 

Concepts that get mobilized through economic and monetary means to diversion. 

Modernization - Refers to the transition from a premodern or tradition society. Technical and economic progress.

Industrial Revolution 

- The primary consumer class. 

Modernity

- Predates the earliest moments of industrial ixaonin that happens even as early as the renaissance.

Chararistics of Modernity

- expanding imperialism rise of the nation state 

- industrial and consumer capitalism 

Important topics and events 

- War 

- Fascism 

- Time 

- Psychoanalysis 

- Attention to form, style and materials, 

- Authorship and originality 

- Urbanization and the city, the flaneur 

- Alienation 

Munch's Scream is a canonical expression of the great modernist thematic of alienation, anomie. 

What was the experience of modernity by radicalized people, a turn away from tradition, a rejection of traditional format. 

Modernism - A style or trend in art, literature, poetry ect 

Modern Art - major artistic movement 1860-1970

SubMovements - experience of politics 

Valued experimentation, exploration of paint and canvas, devaluation of form and field. 

The Modern Artist : visionary forward, future looking 

Impressionism 

Post-Impressionism 

Fauvism 

Cubism 

Expressionism 

Futurism 

Surrealism 

Dada

deStijl 

Bauhaus

Colour Field Painting 

Pop Art 

Minimalism emerged in the New York Art world in the 1950's 

Severed from origins, Frank Stella - nothing beyond the artwork 

Postmodernism - departing from modern art, social shifts in the 70's & 80's

Analized unilateral shifts, shifts are always contingent and subject to the ideological blindspots, subjectivity in different truths, death of the author, the artist themselves are the highest priority 

The viewer had very little power, emphasis on multiplicity and hybrid through unilateralism, mass cultural objets and media stars blurring the boundaries. No hierarchy of culture and therefore one of the highest influences of pop art. 

Everything has been done already, performance, video, sound and a movement away from the painting and sculpture. Eg, Sherry Levine on Walker Evans as a commentary on originality, shot levignes work to perpetually provoke meaning to originality 

The work by Richard Prince, the work by postmodernism appropriating from advertising. Sampling from appropriation, taking from pre-existing images and to comment on the earlier ideas of appropriate context. Re-appropriation of selfies as an exhibition of the work as his own. 

Common or lowbrow culture 

Barbara Kruger, untitled - dissatisfaction with the narrow commentary on postmodernism and the market for art became greater then ever before. 

Cindy Sherman - untitled film stills, created between 77' and 81' developed notoriety around various settings in various films of the50's and 60's moving furniture around in the apartment shot in the lobby ect. Presented as Hollywood iconography, figures of these stereotypes. 

Postmodernism- interest in identity, diffracting from the male-dominated industries, movement towards protests and revolutionary ideologies, lgbq, subordinated groups that lacked representation that opens up a door to the freedom that has the topics that display the freedom of representation. 

The western cannon of art history becomes subject to attack, that are seeking ways of creating art history that is not entered around the cannon. 

Another chararistic of postmodernism, fusion of art and celebrity, e.g. Jeff Koons and Lady Gaga, society of the spectacle, ultimately it becomes about catching attention, catching money, ect. 

Two strategies and tactics that are used over and over again, pastiche genre conventions and boundaries, however unlike parody it is a neutral act and subversive impulse, aware of itself as a representation and not of the original.

Parody E.g. Kent Monkman studying paintings that create the differentiation through indigenous peoples in representation through parody. 

In postmodernism, through some ways this is the contemporary and in some ways it is not. 

Giorgio Agamben - What is the contemporary 

" Contemporariness is then, a singular relationship with one's own time, which adheres to it and, at the same time keeps a distance from it. More precisely, it is that relationship with time that adheres to it, through a disjunction and an anachronism. " 

He sees not an emptiness but an absence of activity. 

To be contemporary is to be simultaneously situated in the future, studies of genealogy, studying the present and also the past. Eg. Fashion trends in the past that refuture pulls in influences and assemblage and define what is truly contemporary. 

How it engages with the past and the knowledge of the past, and anything else with the reading that creates the polarization. He talks about opacity and contemporariness. He does not totally allow you to enter the definitive means to the term because he does not actually enter the term itself. 

Decolonial Aesthetic Week 3: Wednesday 22nd  

History of colonization : Residential Schools : Human Trafficking 

Fuse Magazine : https://e-artexte.ca/id/eprint/25209/1/FUSE_36-4.pdf ( 7 years ago ) Ran for about 38 years. Note above : Second last issue, austerity problems with the Canadian government, lack of funding. Made it impossible to pay contributors and made it impossible to work. Last issues.

List of contributors, cultural producers contributions, writers, produced in collaboration with the ffadgie organization ? Conference on the colonial aesthetic. shaan Turerns note text from this week's readings.


To start, Carla Taunton and Leah Decter and the adaptor in this issue of Fuse anti colonial politics and indigenous artists and artists based resistance strategies, anti colonial interventions. To interrogate ones own understanding of colonialism. What that means. An example that Richard hill offers, Greg Curnores deeds, deeds abstracts, deeds nations, Curnoe was known as a London regionalist work revolving around London Ontario. Anti-Colonial Politic. History of 38 Weston, home address & studio in London Ontario. Submitted manuscript based on research of the address. Occupancy of that one plot of land.

In a contemporary practice/ academic practice. This university notes that the land acknowledgement is part of the syllabus and is part of the rhetoric. Addresses the territories and the peoples. The bowl, which is southern Ontario. The idea of behind this treaty, share this territory and the responsibilities of the land and of the inhabitants and to keep the peace.

Treaties were initially premised upon, indigenous peoples were recognized were equals and allow for a period of time for peaceful settlement. Treaty promises land title," as long as the sun shines and the river flows " that has to be quoted have been largely not honoured. Indigenous peoples are being displaced and misrepresented.

The concept of treaty in relation to art- often we don't think of treaty as part of the artistic relationships that we build. Recently ( NascadU ) began a 3 student initiative Guided by Carl Taunton to being the Treaty Space Gallery as a response to The TRC Report, explores the way treaty education spaces exist on university campuses, the space, the furthest wall is painted white and mission statement is in black vinyl text from ceiling to floor. Consider the notion of treaty as Abstract, Conceptual and Contemporary forms. Thick red band stretches over the wall and onto the floor, one way in which students at NASCADU have been working together to make a space and exhibition that is a de-colonial stetting with a de-colonial aesthetic. Art that is engaged with de-colonialization.

Basic Terminology

Settler Colonialism : Distinct type of colonialism, functions by replacing indigenous society that has a distinct identity. Replacing indigenous populations by settler society. Not a matter of coming into a land defining and stating ones rule, although mores by creating a new society on top of the pre-existing society, a structure not an event.

Settler-colonialism via


( Internal colonialism ): Bio-political and geo-political domestic orders of the imperial nation. Yang and Tuck describe this as bio-political and geopolitical events. Modes of control, prisons, ghettos, policing to ensure the white elite. Present day strategies, divestments, surveillance and criminalization = Structural and interpersonal.

External Colonialism : The expropriation of fragments of the post-colonial world, transporting and exporting them so that colonizers would be marked as discovering the new world. Everything that is encountered by the settler is recast as a natural resource that is theirs for the taking.

Yang and Tuck ( 2012 ) Defining settlers as making a new home on the land. They write that in order for settlers to make this their home, when they use the word settler they talk about settlers like people of colour, even from other colonial contacts. Contended as the concept of settler that people come to these territories where they can and cannot be understood that can be part of the settlement. The process of settler colonialism land and the relationship to land is the owner to his/her land & property as an example of the continuation of what was read last week Jessup, Morton, the importance of the definition of liberalism to historical and contemporary Canada. Notion of property and ownership as Canada as political and geographic and nationality through understanding arts and its economies.

Colonial aesthetic : renaissance art, excluding indigenous art as an element of craft.

Illustrating the various elements of the in text through artists who represent various ideals of the de-colonial politic. Through the enlightenment most


Uncovering various systems

Kapwani Kiwanga, Positive Negative ( morphology ) 2018

Investigations take shape through the investigation of materials : e.g. soil that portrays political and social meaning. Site specific work  Nepaskin territory negotiated with the government, contentious site for the gallery location Darrjt Juliet negotiated with various governments of Canada  ( the gallery ) a portion of soil in front of the museum was placed inside of the gallery. A bucket and shovel was placed inside the gallery so that viewers could take parts of the soil and replace it back outside of the museum.

What is Decolonization

Decolonization which sets out to change the order of the world is obviously a Fanon is a racist and critical race philosopher from France.

”Decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is, obviously, a program of complete disorder. But it cannot come as a result of magical practices, nor of a natural shock, nor of a friendly understanding. Decolonization, as we know, is a historical process: that is to say it cannot be understood, it cannot become intelligible nor clear to itself except in the exact measure that we can discern the movements which give it historical form and content.”

Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1963

Setting out in the lecture impossible task to define the de-colonial aesthetic, Fanon's text reemplicates that there is no way that we could actually identify the actual aesthetic. Yang and tuck delineates the idea as poststructural, non performative gesture. What it does is set out to delineate the delineate the idea. Grounded in the repatriation of the indigenous lands. 

Relations to land, differently understood and reenacted. Here we might offer a symbolic gesture of repatriation. What it means to repatriate and what it means to become recognizant. For Yang and Tuck that was symbolic, the understanding of how land reappropriation is enacted. Decolonialization is like an empty gesture that is used as lip service that suggests that institutions are preforming wrk that they might not be doing. Empty signifier and there is an empty gesture a sign that does not have anything attached to it. 

Toronto Bienalle  

Never Settle, by the New Red Order, Collective based in NYC Ojibway, Northern Michigan and Alaska. 

The work acts as a recruitment video for white settlers as allies, an invitation video for testimonials for recruited members.  Co-opted by non indigenous people to feel virtue. 

" No one told me that I was supposed to care" 

" I know this is isn't about me, but for me it is."

" I don't even feel guilt anymore." 

Large scale installation, video. Poking fun in a cheeky way, humorous way in which decolonization is mobilized as a metaphor. The kind of impact that the large scale room is extremely intense and is part of immediately gets back to Tuck & Yang pointed in relevant part of the critique that the art world and the universities means to decolonization. 

The settler moves to innocence strategies, without giving up land power or privilege.

Know the many that they've listed, this plain Indian and the indigenous to get this idea across, when Eve Tuck tried to say something immeasurable. The audience missed her observation. 

The work of liberal arts education taught students to be indigenous, the reality of the settler colonial erasure. Everything about the governmental state works to erase and consume indigenous communities. 

Emily Carr 

Because she is more 20th century, she provides a helpful example of the foundations of the settler indigenous identity are able to preform. Born in 1871 BC, during her lifetime she witnessed many changes. The provinces indigenous population changed to 6:1 ration settler : indigenous population. Part of her education moved to SanFran and then to London to teach children's art classes, then later to Paris to work in Fauvism and Impressionism. 

Fauvism has an influence that we can see in the indigenous other, has a primitivist underpinning, the idea that the best art and the most creative expression can be found outside of modernity and western peoples and the true connection to creativity. 

For Carr this confirmed her belief through BC and western Canada, the carvings she saw needed to be recorded and reproduced. The paintings have been celebrated through ethnographic convention, authentic indigenous past, exaggerate politic practices of indigenaiety and she was framed as an additive to the indigenous communities. 1907 + 1912 produced nearly 200 paintings of First Nations subject. Rejects ethnographic past, framed as an ally to the indigenous peoples, no appreciation for this type of imagery. Not appreciated as an artist, Carr was seen as a misfit until 1927 when the NGC made her a modern figure where 31 of her works were sold.

Still ethnographic were appreciated and were entirely national in character. 

Moraine and other sculptors were about, in 1927 Indiana affairs put out their assimilationist list which sought to irradiate indigenous peoples ( Duncan Campbell Scott ) who wanted to " get rid of the Indian problem"( ... )

Legislation made it mandatory for indigenous children to attend residential schools, made it illegal for potlatches and other indigenous gatherings, to collect lands, to illegalise any action to rebuttal against the movements to take place, ect. Pigenholing them in a number of ways. 

NGC was expropriating and representing Canadian indigenous culture as a legacy. 

Carr past away in 1945, the world saw growth in land rights residential school system and calls for indigenous sovernigty and social justice movements. 

 Lecture given in 1990, combating Columbuses 500 year anniversary: Marcier Crosby questioned how Carr could have possibly had an understanding of indigenous heritage when there are more then 600 First Nations on the west coast alone. If she did form a deep bond with the indigenous then it was to act as a container for her Eurocentric ideals. 

Ultimately she shared the view of her time that the indigenous were going to vanish, sympathetic white people to document and preserve what is left of these cultures. Best artist to represent this work, even better ( according to tom Thompson ) then the indigenous were able to represent themselves. 

Government was denying a voice in affairs, NGC was representing indigenous culture romantically and aesthetically while the whole objective would eliminate the body politic. 

Tuck and yang note settler fantasies the feeling and the sense of belonging. 

Carr was seen as a sentimentalist in comparison to the people who were more hostile. The only way that settler colonialism could reproduce itself. 

Stinson, the stereotype of indigenaiety. Cowboy, shaman and the character he has created, " The shaman exterminator " created for burning-man. Recurring performance persona, along with buffalo boy and the lord of the planes. 

Duane Linklater states that Canada and the states have stopped their colonization of the indigenous people and they haven't, there are many forms of colonization that are functioning today and will probably function tomorrow. 

Reconciliation is concerned with rescuing settler normality. 

Decolonizing the mind is the first step " - Fanon

Shan Turian 34:40 David Garneau 

Only about the re-apropriation of the land social justice works, messy reapropriation of the land and moves the canonical view away from the settlers and returned to the indigenous peoples. How settler colonialism is on the body, settler colonialism is realized through the body. Develops this notion of decolonial aesthetic. 

Turnians goes on about the meaning of decolonization itself, colonialism and what is on about the body, and develops through the decolonial aesthetic. Turians grapples to deal with deolonial aesthetics, concept that makes space for the narraritive. Different ways from knowing outside the specific knowledge in circles through the indigenous peoples of Canada, e.g. making demands of the colonizer. Legitimacy of knowing what is outside specific notions of various cultures. Colonization of two fronts. 

"

How the colonial aesthetics could function, in a few ways. In order to call attention to confront and oppose what is colonial aesthetic. Colonial aesthetic is that which sustains and supports hierarchy of fine and applied arts that are specific to European renaissance arts and excludes indigenous productions which applies them as craft. 

Minimal and abstract expressionism, those two movements push enlightenment philosophical and definitions of the extreme. Disinterested, and to the point where the extremity is emotionless and unfeeling. 

History of art, as to who can create art and what art means. Art that exists outside of society, ceremonial and functional use which was denied the category of art and moved to the category of craft. 

Museums, speaks to this history of non-indigenous objects that are eliminated status of art. versus indigenous objects, ethnographic object or craft that move towards the museums. 

Many artists that respond directly to this history, this history of the exclusion of the indigenous and non white artists that create the category of indigenous and non indigenous backgrounds. 

Library of misrepresentation and of various narratives. Books found in thrift stores, garage sales, ect. Historical accounts of civilization misrepresentation of stereotypes ect. 

Incommensurability. 

In 2018 the exhibition of Nova Scotia, Alison had intervened the history of the books. Intervention where she beaded shut a book of Indian crafts from the late 20th century. Crafts interpretation of indianness. Truthful representation of indigenous practices. 

Another work

Ursula Johnson 

Examines ideas of ancestry, and cultural practice Imigma artist. Baskery, traditional techniques with non functional forms. Three components, the grand hall that holds latrines etched with sandblasted images made by her great-grandmother. Used to label the diagrams, objects themselves are not in the latrines, tactic of display. 

Reversal of the colonial gaze. The contemporary displays of people in contemporary ideals, what is the dominant narrative. Taking these stereotypical objects and commodities and placing them into latrines in order to showcase traditional indigenous works to create separate. 

Gerald McMaster

2018/ 2019 AGNS refers both to indigenous and cultural practices how practices have been treated in indigenous contexts. Often make wood grass bark and quills, objects that wear out, demands a process of constant renewal.


Jordan Bennett


Collecting objects in museums, intricate patterns in the older pieces are extended by who actually creates paintings and sculptures put directly onto the wall in order to further aestheticcise that image that creates the materials. Sobey Art Award 

Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter (Kablusiak)

Soapstone carving, traditional practice re-appropriating contemporary objects in a satirical movement. Different discourses in general neutrality. 

Indian Act : To administer Indian affairs that the native population would denounce their native identity and join the Canadian state.

Installation of the Indian Act : Nadia Myre





Week 4: Contemporary Canadian Art History

Quebecois: People in the province of Quebec and people who are French Canadian. Quebecois that forms a nation, conceptualized in the 1960's ( secondary to French Canadian ), became the dominant term at that point. Redefine Quebec citizenship based on the linguistic criteria, on the other hand Quebec sculptural policy painters writers poets and actors, homogenous majority in ethnic difference in favour of nationalist identity Franco Quebecois as a homogenous majority as the idealist national identity. Different ideals from the state & from the arts councils who support the body of artists and work. 2019, Leah Sandals published an article after the editor became aware Lettres du Quebec ( Quebec arts council ) were not accepting recognitions from Metis artists for a new recognition for indigenous peoples. Not representing Quebec identity although there are debated positions in what the Quebecois identity is and what the Metis identity is. Montreal based Metis artists, under this program, ( section 35 of the Canadian constitution ) are not recognized as indigenous under the Quebecois classification. The funding body noted that they would not recognize the Metis in the funding program literally in 2019. It speaks to the way that the different body is at play in the gatekeeping communities. Kelp ?


There is also the term French Canadian, a group of people who trace their ancestry based in the 1600's. Not all Canadians are traced through French heritage. Francophone ( French as first language ) commissioner in 2009, French as official language and at home. Many artists who identify as francophone who live outside of Quebec e.g. provincial quarters that identify as French Canadian. Different histories that come to play in the contemporary moment that identify as francophone.

History as Quebec in the 20th century, arts in the 20th century. The society underwent a number of different changes in the 1940's and 1950's. Increasing middle class, graduating from educational factors and middle classes. There was also the espesticos in politicizing labour rights, people from Montreal went to espestos to strike. The consciousness of Quebec society was greatly effected.

Alongside the workers strike there was a new type of Quebec that was emerging, this was all despite Mourice Debussye's ideals for the province of Quebec ( premier for 4 years in the 30's 1944- 1959) A very strong patron of traditional catholic tradition and private property rights. Also quite opposed to communism, separatism and non conservative trends. Passes away in 1959 ( in office ) directs Quebec in direction. In 1968 there is an official languages bill, French and English become national languages as part of Canada. By the late 20th century economic conditions improve although in the 90's a revisitation of separatism, as the Quebecois wanted their own state.

In the 1990 there was the OKA criss, when Mohawks neared the township of OKA in the expansion of a golf course over native cemeteries. City council in OKA the city did not listen or take action, it began as a peaceful blockade although the township tried to officially remove the blockade. A large number of Police officers reacted violently with tear gas and tried to remove the blockade, an officer was killed in the resistance of the Mohawk warriors which evoked police sentiments and increased anti-indigenous racism and mobilized a political moment.

* On the heels of the 1989 massacre, female students were killed by a male student who was explicitly anti-feminist. Widely politicized by the media and is now becomes a leftist vein in Montreal and Quebec.

Similarly 2012 university students in Mntl protested tuition prices, society has changed drastically with recent debates in how to define identity within the vices of diversity. Ethnic diversity concentrated in Montreal, changing population in Montreal and elseware. The contemporary is interested in dealing with the fraught layers within Quebec and within other spaces.

20th century modern Quebec, a lot of this is coming from a different perspective. Important to know about the predecessors and the importance of this lineage which develops into a legacy.

When we talk about francophone art, it eclipses this discussion. it hi lights Quebec artists when we talk about French art in Canada. This is particularly true from modern art history. Automatistes dominate the scene, the biggest figure of the Automatistes was Paul Emile Bourdois 1945 village not far from Montreal. Childhood was very difficult, he was not often able to attend school. Warhol, Lautrek, e.g. removed from society that is therefore more influential element to society.

Laduc's decoration projects. These projects allowed him to make a living from art, allowed the school to open after 1943, upon graduation Leduc send him to Paris to help rebuild decorate churches that were being rebuilt after world war 2 France. Bourdois returned to Canada the depression made it impossible to find work decorating churches.

Andre Breton, Canadian surrealist, French poet & artist, leader of surrealist group and manifestos, developed the method of Automatism. Reflects the influence of the conscious mind, allowed forms to emerge making lines on paper. A mode of art making that suppresses the mode of the subconscious mind, allowed forms to emerge making lines on paper, the notion of abstraction and automation. Similar to surrealism, with charcoal using other colours at random that worked with the initial colour that paired well. Conscious and the subconscious mind to allow for the mind to make art freely. Guash paints and oil paints, background, dry, objets onto. Paintings to be read as landscapes with background and foreground, connections of teachings and networking. Network of formation led to group, at first the activities of the group led to modern art through quebecologists. The first automatste exhibition took place at a small Montreal gallery in a working class neighbourhood, very well received. Within Quebec there was a desire to show European art forms, showed work Bourdois, Riopelle, Barbout, Fernand Leduc, Jean Paul Rosseau.

Winter 1947, first show as le automastistes, inspired by bourdois painting Automatisme 1.47. Montreal group show to publish a catalogue and write their own manifesto. Ciricling around Quebec at the time, premiered at a banned bookstore ( books that were dispelled by the church ). encouraged splendid anarchy, denounced Catholic Church and fostered xenophobia due to detachment from morality. Bourdois was fired from his teaching position. Despite petitions he never regained his position at the school. Highly politicized group. 20:20 TBC