Safe Art

December 5th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The phenomenon of ‘art’, as a recognisable experience of human beings, has a number of overlapping and related psychic features. These include aspects of aesthetics, social production, function etc. but a significant feature is the primary categorisation of a particular object or event as ‘art’. This categorisation is what allows the various other processes to become operative. Without the initial allocation of an experience to the category of ‘art’ other processes either do not come into play at all, or do so in a variant form. An analogy may be drawn with the experience of being hurled violently back and forth in a moving vehicle, narrowly missing other vehicles and travelling at high speed down perilously steep descents. In a car this would be a terrifying and possibly immobilising experience, whereas on a fairground ride this would be classified as ‘fun’. The basic physical action is the same but the categorisation of the experience allows other responses to come into play. Many of the original responses may still be in place; we may still experience fear, but these responses are located in a category of experience which recontextualises them and allows them to be interpreted in other ways. When we categorise an experience as belonging to the domain of ‘art’ (by prompts such as frames, galleries, etc) we are orienting ourselves such that a particular set of responses become available, and possibly that other responses are suppressed. And just as the context of a fairground ride produces its variant responses by ensuring the experience is actually safe, so the context of ‘art’ allows its responses to be made by making similar assurances. The exhibition in the gallery my be terrifying, or perplexing, or minimally stimulating, or seductive, but it is also, ultimately, safe, providing us with an opportunity to contemplate, feel, absorb, or process in other ways the events and objects in front of us.

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Rollercoaster Zen

August 29th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The experience of riding a rollercoaster, or more generally of visiting a theme park, is a useful parallel to an experiencing of existence which is idealised within Zen and related practices. A trip to 6 Flags, Universal Studios, or Alton Towers, for those of us who are keen riders, involves preliminary research into the types of rides that are available and where they are located. Then one might put together a rough ‘running order’ of the rides so that they provide a good overall experience; one should not start with the fastest, most thrilling ride, or the most idiosyncratic, and one should definitely aim to finish on a high note. This plan might include and take into account such indirect factors as: distance one might need to walk between rides, opportunities for eating and drinking, availability of bathroom etc. Also, proper planning should identify external features which may affect the rides; if your script for the day includes the biggest fastest rides, it is not a good idea, for example, to plan your visit on a day near the end of a school term when school parties may be visiting and clogging up the queues for these.

When you actually arrive on the day, the plan you have changes status. A lot of unforeseen circumstances can arise which might force you to change your ideas, and new opportunities might arise which you would be stupid to pass up, so stay flexible and improvise. Stay with the plan where it proves useful, but feel free to deviate wildly from it if the need arises. In many ways the success of your day depends not on either the plan or what you actually do, but on a dynamic and healthy relationship between the two.

The most significant time during your visit is, of course, the actual rides themselves, and it is worth paying special attention to what is happening at every stage of these special moments. The chances are that, even if you have bought an express pass to let you have priority access, you will still have to stand in a queue. This is not a problem. Do not see this as a problem. I repeat, there is no problem here. Standing in the queue for the fastest, more terrifying ride, particularly as you edge toward the front, is probably the most fully conscious you will feel all day, maybe all week. At any time you could turn around and walk out; you are sweating and nervous, everyone around you is nervous, the hype of the ride itself, if it is designed properly, is making you even more nervous, and almost every self-protective instinct in your body is telling you to get the hell out of there. And yet you stay. You don’t heed the hailing of your intuition and refuse to go with the flow of your instincts. You can feel the pressure to do what comes naturally (run) building up inside you but you stand your ground, and the longer you stand the more conscious you become. You can feel your self, fully and completely here, now, and under threat.

The moment has arrived and you move from the queue across the threshold and are being strapped into the ride. This transition is carried out in an almost blissful state of self-consciousness in which you seem to witness yourself from outside your body. Part of you cannot quite believe that you are going to go through with it, whilst another part of you is moving mindlessly from the easily escapable position in the queue to the inescapable inevitability of the ride itself.

And then there is the ride itself. Now the time for choosing is over and whatever happens is out of your hands. Of course you know that rides are safety checked and that nothing can really go wrong, but that knowledge is no good to you now. That was just something you read when you were doing your preliminary research. What is important now is way beyond the rational evaluation of risk factors as laid down is health and safety standards, what matters is that you have committed yourself incontroverably to a course of events in which choice is absolutely and totally absent. There is no possibility of escape and every move, shock, twist, turn, and gyration is mapped onto your future as surely as the events of yesterday are mapped onto your past. For these seconds there is nothing to think about, nothing to do, nothing to be. There is just you, and the ride.

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