Unit 2 Critical Reflection

Unit 2 Critical Reflection and Writing

A short explanation to Existentialism, Absurdism, Entropy, Biological Group, and Movements

Existentialism is the philosophical theory that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existential Nihilism suggests that a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence. According to the theory, each individual is an isolated being born into the universe, barred from knowing 'why'. The inherent meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of Existentialism, where one can potentially create their own subjective 'meaning' or 'purpose'. (A1)

Absurdism refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and the human inability to find any in a purposeless, meaningless, or chaotic and irrational universe. The universe and the human mind do not each separately cause the Absurd, but rather, the Absurd arises by the contradictory nature of the two existing simultaneously. The absurdist philosopher Albert Camus stated that individuals should embrace the absurd condition of human existence. Absurdism shares some concepts, and a common theoretical template, with Existentialism and Nihilism. (A2）

Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields. (A3) Here, I use it to point out that all things are influenced by the entropy theory, and they will become disorder, fading, and die, no matter how much effort we take. For example, no matter a person how takes care of himself/herself, he/she will become ageing, and finally, die. The only way of what we can do for resisting ageing is to slow it down. Another example, we often put some fresh fruits and vegetables into the refrigerator for keeping fresh, which is another way to extend the fresh period, but no refrigerator can keep the food fresh eternally. Negentropy is the opposite side of Entropy and being used to reverse Entropy. Therefore, life is a process of Negentropy, and we need to reduce all the possibility of disorderedness and randomness.

Biological Group and Movements is a sort of phenomenon that was generated by large numbers of animals. I found this is a mysterious phenomenon because scientists cannot explain it. For example, it is widespread to see different types of bees or ants in the beehive or formicary, and all the bees and ants know their duties and missions once they were born. There is a clear social division of labor between them.

Particularly, I’m fascinated by the phenomenon of fish school. I wonder why they can swim together so harmoniously and elegantly? How can they influence each other? Where are spontaneous behaviors come from? Are their behaviors and destinies destined？What’s different between a fish and a group? Furthermore, looking into the phenomenon of fish school reminded me that I’m similar to a fish from a macro perspective. Then, I realized I have no idea about the world as a fish; I’m constantly being influenced by social ideologies, just like fish cannot live without water. Thus, the confusion of defining who I am has become a driven question in my research.

There are three videos on Youtube that informed my research, as follows.

The first one How do schools of fish swim in harmony? Nathan S. Jacobs explains the concept of emergence, the spontaneous creation of sophisticated behaviors and functions from large groups of simple elements. And he also made an association with our brain cells, explaining how our brains generate complex thoughts, behaviors, and decisions. His explanation is brilliant and makes sense. He explained that the behaviors/movements of fish schools are not controlled by a leading fish or every single fish. Instead, it is influenced by every fish as every fish spontaneously obeys two basic rules. One is to stay close but not too close to their neighbor. Two is to keep swimming. Then, he used the words Emergence and Spontaneousness to describe the phenomenon of fish school. He said that emergence is a basic property of many complex systems of interacting elements. When it comes to our cognition and behaviors, it works as well. I used to think I was an individual, but now I prefer to say I’m a massive group of neurons because my thoughts, behaviors, decisions, and perceptions are generated by an enormous group of neurons rather than a single cell. To some extent, I don’t think we have an ego because the sense of ego is also created by our neurons, and the numbers of the neurons are dynamic vary in different period. Moreover, If we think of our societies or civilizations as a matrix, then each individual is just a cell because our societies and civilizations are not created or decided by a single person. Instead, everyone is contributing to it.

Nathan’s explanation to the fish school informed my metacognition about knowing who I am as well as the relationship between individual and society, from the perspective of biological mechanism.

Lens of Time: Secrets of Schooling | bioGraphic

How do schools of fish swim in harmony?

Nathan S. Jacobs

What are the connections between Unit 2 and Unit 1?

In Unit 1, I considered many aspects broadly, and I pay much attention to the Nihilism Theory. I did not have a specific concentration, so that my artworks' concentration and visual literacy are not consistent. Nevertheless, Unit 1 enabled me to think broadly and explore different materials, which would ground my Unit 2. When it comes to Unit 2, I tried to narrow my ideas down and mainly turned Nihilism into Existentialism/Existential Nihilism. Furthermore, I add three philosophy theories related to existential Nihilism to support my concentration. Moreover, I created a specific visual literacy by using different layers through digital paint to create and present my artworks.

The main difference between Nihilism and Existentialism is that Existentialists confirm the philosophy of Nihilism, but more importantly, they think individuals can create their own meaning of life in the microcosmic perspective through in the face of life with optimistic attitudes and actions even though the world and the universe are meaningless.

In Unit 1, I outlined my artist statement that reality and emptiness, nature, and I are two main issues of concern in my current painting. When I did the critical practice forum with Leora Brook, and she told me that my Unit 2 seemed more like a celebration of life/activity/energy, including the potential of human/nature partnership in the face of the ephemerality of life. I think her feedback is absolutely right, and this is what I want to deliver to the viewers. However, this concept is only in my artworks' first layer meaning. In the second layer meaning, I combine the concepts of Existentialism, Absurdism, Entropy, Biological Groups, and Movements in order to support my deep cognitive structure to the world, and these philosophies still associate with my concerns in Unit 1 "reality and emptiness, nature and I." For example, the philosophy of Existentialism, Absurdism, and Entropy respond to my concerns in reality and emptiness; the Biological Groups and Movements respond to my concerns in the relation between nature and I. Sometimes, I believe in destiny, and I think there is no difference between animals and human beings. There are some mysterious invisible powers that drive us to keep forward, so the human civilizations are the traces of the invisible movements. For instance, ants or bees know what to do when they were born, and this is due to their social identity with the social division of labor. As for individuals, it depends on our eras, nationalities, culture, family backgrounds, etc. A typical phenomenon in modern China is that everyone follows a "successful" routine, studying in primary school. Followed by studying in middle school, high school, university. Then, we need to go to work, get marry, buy a car and house, loan repayment, raise and educate children, care for the elderly. This typical phenomenon is a social clock that programs our destinies. Secondly, the reason why I agree with Leora Brook's point of view "my Unit 2 seemed more like a celebration of life/activity/energy, including the potential of human/nature partnership in the face of the ephemerality of life" is that I think this attitude aligns with the philosophy of Existentialism.

Amazing Fish Form Giant Ball to Scare Predators | Blue Planet | BBC Earth

Why do I think these four theories are independent and interrelated?

Firstly, the philosophies of Existentialism and Absurdism are origin from Nihilism. Both of them agree that our world/universe/life are intrinsically meaningless, and the difference is that existentialists believe we definitely can create our own meanings, while the absurdists think we face a contradiction between our mind search for meaning and the reality of founder Albert Camus called absurd because we cannot ignore that the universe is chaotic and utterly devoid of any meaning at all. Therefore, the absurdists advocate that we also need to embrace the absurd of the world when seeking meaning. (A4)

Secondly, I think Entropy is a phenomenon of Absurdism. Life is a process of Negentropy because the essence of Entropy shows that all the subjects will become disorder, chaos, fading, and die, and only if we do Negentropy can slow this process. For example, no matter human beings, animals and plants will become ageing, sick, and die in the end, but we can extend our longevity if we keep a good mood and live a regular and healthy lifestyle. By contrast, a person's longevity will be threatened by his unhealthy lifestyle. However, we are only able to slow down the trend of Entropy by doing Negentropy, but we cannot change the trend of Entropy, no matter how much effort we pay. It reminds a famous dialogue from the film Blade Runner "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain." (A5)

Thirdly, the phenomenon of Biological Groups is absurd and cannot be explained by scientists. For example, each ant or bee is free to make some contributions to their nest, but they may not realize they are destined to do that, and they are unable to change their social identity. The mysterious thing is that an ant or a bee may be confused about what they want to do if they separate themselves from their group members. Another example can be seen in a shoal of fish, each fish follow the shoal to swim, but the question is who decides the direction where the shoal swims to?

Fish is a good metaphor that can be used to describe humans' behaviors. The ocean is like our ideology and universe, and we cannot live without them because we are always being influenced by them, just like fish cannot live without water, and their behaviors are influenced by the shoal of fish. Thus, in the macroscopic perspective, I think everyone is negligible and has no idea about the universe, just like the fish in the water.

The finest schools of fish in the world

How do I construct my spiritual and philosophical cognition to the world?

The process of constructing personal spiritual cognition requires a massive amount of energy consumption because the boundary between Nihilism, Existential Nihilism/Existentialism, and Absurdism is not absolutely clear, so that many people may be lost in their confusions. In addition, people come up with different inspirations when they have different spiritual experiences. Therefore, I think the first step is to construct our spiritual cognition is to admit that the world/universe is meaningless. Furthermore, we need to think about how to face it with what kinds of attitudes? At this point, I chose to be an existentialist with an optimistic attitude. Then, I'm thinking about how to respond to the world and societies and transform my thoughts into my artworks?

How do I conceive the creation process?

The first step is to used a mind map to outline my thoughts.

Secondly, I solved three crucial aspects, which are a form of expression, contents, and creation method respectively. I chose layers as my visual literacy that were inspired by Sarah Sze, Julie Mehretu, and symphony. As a music lover, I visualize a symphony song into a painting. I question how to evaluate it from another perspective and how the symphony orchestra works harmonically as it consists of many different types of musicians. This enables me to think of myself as if a music conductor or film director during my creation.

The benefits of using digital paint and layers for creation are various, including abundant void-solid ratio, experimental modifications, different senses of space overlap, more color options, propagable, revisable process, new possibility, etc. Generally, there are three to four layers inside the artwork. The background is origin from a metropolis night view photo that was taken by me, or it was screenshots in some high-resolution videos, The second layer is hairs, and the foreground is petals or shoal of fish.

What elements or subjects can be used to explore and express my concentration? Why? How?

The background is a metropolis photo that symbolizes the prosperous and contemporary humans civilization as well as various desires. The city temperament is a summative feeling that combines with era, modernism, people, cultures, activities, economic, politics, arts, architecture, etc. I blurred the night view, followed by inverted and adjusted the color, and finally extracted some infrastructures with the night view color.

Hair is a great metaphor that conveys so much meaning in my works. For example, hair is unique and personal because everyone's DNA is different; Hairs can be shaped into a variety of forms and space; The ignited hairs shine like the polar lights and release energy, and it will become ash at the end; The stirred hairs look like a large number of cross expressways and optical fibers, which connect the world; All the appearance of hairs have no vitality, which is similar to the memories that are not objective to the world. Our brain can recall our past experiences and predict the future through accessing our memories. A person may feel melancholy if he/she lives in the past. Similarly, a person may feel anxious if he/she lives in the future. However, no matter what are the past and the future in our minds, they are not accurate because our memories are not objective. On account of our memory was made of a combination of cognitions, emotions and memory ability, etc. Thus, only each contemporary moment is real for us. My hairs were used to indicate I chose the attitude to live as an existentialist, and I pay much more attention to the contemporary moment and enjoy it because this is the only real experience that can be perceived. In the beginning, I collected my hairs, and randomly did some experiments on them, and documented them. Then, I tried to use software to process and distort the hairs with different colors and forms. Later, the picture would be automatically processed into a transparent format through an online cutout software.

In the foreground, I question the relation between the meaning of individuals and groups. It is a mixed layer of fish school or petals. On the one hand, the flowers represent beauty and prosperities in our subconsciousness that attract most people to pursue them. On the other hand, the most beautiful flowers will turn into fading when they bloom to the peak. I think humans are similar to fish, we have no idea about the world because the universe approximately existed 14 billion years ago, and our human civilization is negligible. The fish school and petals look like microorganisms and fallen snow with flowing trajectories in a macroscopic view. The inspiration came from when I realized the world is absurd. There are over 8.7 million species on earth, and I'm wondering why they look like as we see? I put the petals on a white canvas, then I randomly did some gestures on the canvas, with different angles, directions, speed, physical strength, and tools, and documented these processes.

What does the purposes of my artworks want to deliver?

My works are a reflection of my values, world outlook, and mindsets. It enables me to construct a clear structure of spiritual cognition to the world. And the creation processes are more significant than the resolved works. I learned a lot during my creation, as follows,

I realized that life is a process of accumulation of innumerable decisions. And this is one of the reasons I use multiple layers to create the works.
While all the things come and vanish in vanity, I enjoy each moment of the present.
The essence and the normalcy of life are insipid and frivolous. The way how we interpret the story of our life is more significant than reality.
The beauty of life and falling petals are similar because both of them are pure, fragile, transitory, untrammeled, and random.

Reference:

A1: Wikipedia. Existential nihilism [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_nihilism (Accessed 2 April 2021)

A2: Wikipedia. Absurdism [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism (Accessed 2 April 2021)

A3: Wikipedia. Entropy [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy (Accessed 2 April 2021)

A4: YouTube. Existentialism vs Absurdism - Explanations and Differences. Sep 11, 2020

[online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5ChcFDsHs0 (Accessed 5 April 2021)

A5: Blade Runner (1982) Directed by Ridley Scott. The Ladd Company. 117 minutes [Video]

YouTube. How do schools of fish swim in harmony? - Nathan S. Jacobs. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkP8NUwB2io

YouTube. Lens of Time: Secrets of Schooling | bioGraphic. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-5ffl5_7AI

YouTube. Amazing Fish Form Giant Ball to Scare Predators. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15B8qN9dre4