Theory

[icycalm]

Contemporary American art:

[Volteccer_Jack]

I was slightly skeptical about all of this, but your recent posts have done a fantastic job of convincing me otherwise. Though I was struck by this bit:

If there are any heroes left in this world of ours it has to be the terrorists and the criminals

It doesn't sound wrong so much as it does strange. I'm curious about the reasoning behind it. Is it to do with the David/Goliath relationship? After all, everybody loves the underdog.

[icycalm]

"Criminal" and "terrorist" are relative designations. One simply labels one's enemies criminals and terrorists in order to make it seem as if one occupies the higher moral ground. It is nothing but another stratagem in the quest for power -- because for the "criminal" and the "terrorist" the law-abiding citizens are criminals and terrorists -- their law itself is terroristic. This is what Baudrillard means by "The Empire of the Good" -- which he had hoped to see destroyed one day, and towards which goal all his writings were directed. And they have helped in this respect. Perhaps the following will help you understand:

THE THEOREM OF THE ACCURSED SHARE

The uninterrupted production of positivity has a terrifying consequence. Whereas negativity engenders crisis and critique, hyperbolic positivity for its part engenders catastrophe, for it is incapable of distilling crisis and criticism in homeopathic doses. Any structure that hunts down, expels or exorcises its negative elements risks a catastrophe caused by a thoroughgoing backlash, just as any organism that hunts down and eliminates its germs, bacteria, parasites or other biological antagonists risks metastasis and cancer -- in other words, it is threatened by a voracious positivity of its own cells, or, in the viral context, by the prospect of being devoured by its own -- now unemployed -- antibodies.

Anything that purges the accursed share in itself signs its own death warrant. This is the theorem of the accursed share.

The energy of the accursed share, and its violence, are expressions of the principle of Evil. Beneath the transparency of the consensus lies the opacity of evil -- the tenacity, obsessiveness and irreducibility of the evil whose contrary energy is at work everywhere: in the malfunctioning of things, in viral attacks, in the acceleration of processes and in their wildly chaotic effects, in the overriding of causes, in excess and paradox, in radical foreignness, in strange attractors, in linkless chains of events.

The principle of Evil is not a moral principle but rather a principle of instability and vertigo, a principle of complexity and foreignness, a principle of seduction, a principle of incompatibility, antagonism and irreducibility. It is not a death principle -- far from it. It is a vital principle of disjunction. Since the Garden of Eden, which Evil's advent closed to us, Evil has been the principle of knowledge. But if indeed we were chased from the Garden for the sin of knowledge, we may as well draw the maximum benefit from it. Trying to redeem the accursed share or the principle of Evil can result only in the establishment of new artificial paradises, those of the consensus, which for their part do indeed embody a true death principle.

This is only the first part of the essay. The rest is in Baudrillard's "The Transparency of Evil".

Equilibrium and decadence: the origin of the moral

Equilibrium models and Random Walks are part of the Will to Power just as are diffusive, dynamic, creative models. By extrapolating from Nietzsche's system, it becomes evident that he valorized the diffusive models as creative-positive and damned the equilibrium models as conservative, negative, destructive and sick. This is a game-model theory for the origin of Nietzschean values and the enhancement of life for the type Mensch. Morality and ethics are thus seen to be differential valorizations of equilibrated vs diffusive systems. Equilibrated systems preserve their weaknesses at the risk of stasis and catastrophe. In Nietzschean terms, Christianity, Buddhism, nationalism, etc., are such conservative, equilibrated systems. There are no equilibrated survivable models in biological evolution, and even though certain organisms appear stable they lead a precarious existence and become evolutionary dead ends. Rats and cockroaches are successful biologically because they are not equilibrated systems. Genetic and moral stasis guarantees catastrophe.

The idea of the diffusive lowers the usefulness, the value, the reputation of stability. The diffusive makes variation possible. Prigogine states it this way in the language of chaos theory: "The 'attractor' which dominated the behaviour of the system near equilibrium may become unstable, as a result of the flow of matter and energy which we direct at the system. Non-equilibrium becomes a source of order. New types of attractors, more complicated ones, may appear, and give to the system remarkable new space-time properties...." (Highley and Peat, p.206). (My emphasis.)

From The Quantum Nietzsche: The Will to Power and the Nature of Dissipative Systems.


You really need to read all the books I've recommended here to really begin to grasp what all the above means. And it would be good if you also had a reasonable grasp of physics and biology...

So anyway, the "criminal" and the "terrorist" are forces cultivated by the system itself. The stronger it becomes, the more hegemonic, the more "criminals" and "terrorists" fall prey at its hands, of course -- but those who get away are all the stronger for the trials they have been through -- and overcome.

Innumerable individuals of a higher type now perish: but whoever gets away is strong as the devil.

"Every system that approaches perfect operativity simultaneously approaches its downfall... it approaches absolute power and total absurdity; that is, immediate and probable subversion. A gentle push in the right place is enough to bring it crashing down."

[icycalm]

Back to art:

Evening twilight of art. -- Just as in old age one remembers one's youth and celebrates festivals of remembrance, so will mankind soon stand in relation to art: it will be a moving recollection of the joys of youth. Perhaps art has never before been comprehended so profoundly or with so much feeling as it is now, when the magic of death seems to play around it. Recall that Greek city in south Italy which on one day of the year continued to celebrate their Greek festival and did so with tears and sadness at the fact that foreign barbarism was triumphing more and more over the customs they had brought with them; it is to be doubted whether the Hellenic has ever been so greatly savoured, or its golden nectar imbibed with so much relish, as it was among those declining Hellenes. The artist will soon be regarded as a glorious relic, and we shall bestow upon him, as a marvellous stranger upon whose strength and beauty the happiness of former ages depended, honours such as we do not grant to others of our own kind.

Human, All Too Human 223

[Worm]

Added to the above, with the death of the religions artists do not even have fantastical heroes to depict any more. We have fantasy, but no one believes in that -- the thing that made the art of the religions valuable was that people believed in those fantastical heroes -- and could therefore be inspired by them. But the art that stems from pure fantasy is of a cheaper, a much less valuable sort. It's not even real art any more, but mere escapism.

So why did you choose that picture as an example of art? Surely Cellini didn't believe in Perseus. I see the distinction that Perseus was not treated as "pure fantasy" in the past, but is that really enough? I'm sure that's part of why Cellini was inspired to such a high level of craftsmanship--because Perseus was an influential figure, imaginary or not. But then why should the death of the religions be a problem for artists any more than the death of Greek mythology was a problem for Cellini?

[JoshF]

Don't forget the Renaissance artists had to dig up corpses, dissect them, and suspend them with pins and clamps into poses in their efforts to gain mathematical accuracy. The modern artist only needs to study their studies, or learn from the student of a student of a student of a student, etc.. They carved humans out of fucking stone. The modern artist uses Maya and all the tools, templates, plug-ins, and presets he can find.

[mees]

But then why should the death of the religions be a problem for artists any more than the death of Greek mythology was a problem for Cellini?

I think it has something to do with how noisy the world is today. Consider the Nietzsche quote above: artists sit in waiting, looking for subjects, things that others determine to have "value for human happiness" which is "safe and assured." How can they do any such thing today, when the artist finds himself drowning in the internet, reading selectbutton or some crap? At least back in Cellini's day, the heroes were still in sight.

[icycalm]

The "noisy" comment is not very accurate. Noisiness has little to do with it -- it's all due to the dearth of heroes.

So why did you choose that picture as an example of art?

Because for the last few months I've been living a few blocks from it, and I often pass it by, and it never fails to make an impression on me. Best statue in Florence, if you ask me. But yeah, it wasn't a very appropriate example of what I meant to illustrate. Here, have another one:



A painting of a real flesh and blood human -- a hero, to be sure, but glorified by the artist almost to the point of deification.

Nietzsche: "To divide the world into a 'real' and an 'apparent' world, whether in the manner of Christianity or in the manner of Kant (which is, after all, that of a cunning Christian --) is only a suggestion of décadence -- a symptom of declining life... That the artist places a higher valuer on appearance than reality constitutes no objection to this proposition. For 'appearance' here signifies reality once more, only selected, strengthened, corrected..."

Surely Cellini didn't believe in Perseus.

Maybe HE didn't believe in Perseus, but the people who originally created him did believe in him. Cellini is at least drawing upon, channelling some of their belief -- without the Greek believers he wouldn't even have had a subject matter! Not to mention that he is copying the style and technique of the Greek sculptors, who became so good at what they did because they believed, and because they grew up in an environment where everyone believed.

But then why should the death of the religions be a problem for artists any more than the death of Greek mythology was a problem for Cellini?

First of all, it was not the death of Greek "mythology" -- it was the death of Greek religion. "Mythology" is just a bad name given to religion -- you could also talk about Christian mythology, but no one does that because everyone is a Christian nowadays (even those who vehemently profess that they are not -- they espouse Christian morality all the same, that is to say slave morality, which grew out of and could only have grown out of Christianity -- and that is enough to make one Christian).

And finally, the death of Greek religion WAS a problem for Cellini, and a rather great one too. His statue did not have that much of an effect in the world compared to the Greek statues it imitated, exactly because people no longer believed in the Greek gods. Hence, it was inferior to the Greek statues. The value of art, after all, is measured by the extent of the effect it has upon the world -- upon reality. That is why escapist art is not really art -- because the power of the artwork is not directed back into the world, but goes on orbit, escaping altogether from reality, thus proving that the artwork has little to no artistic value. The power of art is the power to reshape the world -- and artworks have always been judged (mostly subconsciously) based on this criterion. That is why pretty much anyone will laugh at you if you try to insinuate that some Hollywood movie is of greater artistic merit than the Illiad or the Odyssey. The Homeric epics have had a profound effect on the course of history, compared to which the influence of any random movie is negligible. No matter that some movie might have a more consistently worked out plot or whatever -- technique is of no consequence for art -- or, to be more precise, it is of consequence only to the extent that it contributes to magnify the influence, the effects of the artwork on the world -- to make it more effective.

So, in the last resort, everything that humans do (and non-humans, and inanimate objects) can be considered art, because every action has an effect on the world. And art -- even though in the first instance is nothing but a copy, an imitation, a representation of an action -- is also an action in its own right. An action which presupposes something, of course (the original action), but an action all the same. So the point is not to ask whether the action has an effect, because all actions do, but to understand how strong exactly is that effect. So are random Hollywood movies works of art? Sure, they are. But if the scale of art goes from 1 to 99 (0 and 100 being excluded, since we agree that everything has at least a little bit of art in it, whilst, on the other hand, nothing is entirely, purely art), then the Homeric epics would rank at 99 and the random Hollywood film at 1.

So it's important to understand that when we use absolute language, i.e. when we say that something is "worthless", we don't mean it literally. Nothing is entirely worthless -- it's just a quick way of saying "the worth of this is very small -- on a scale of 1 to 99 it's very close to 1".

So art is not really dead -- and could never truly die. For art to die the universe would have to die, and this is impossible. That's why Baudrillard first says, in 1996, that art is "null", and then modifies the statement in 2005 by saying: "It is absurd, then, to say that contemporary art is worthless and that there's no point to it, since that is its vital function: to illustrate our uselessness and absurdity."

So all (almost) worthless artworks that are touted as art today are having their little tiny effects, they are making some people slowly (very slowly, extremely slowly) wake up to the fact that their lives are pointless, that production has no meaning, that there's something terribly wrong with the consumer society -- that there must be something wrong when the youth of today prefers to play with algorithms instead of getting involved in the real world. Once enough time has passed, and all these little effects have been accumulated -- and there needs to be A GREAT DEAL of accumulation in order to overcome the hegemony of the system -- there will come the time for the catastrophe that Baudrillard was prophesying.

[icycalm]

And, do I need to explain that, in this respect -- to the extent that they are the means through which many people will one day come to realize the worthlessness of the consumer (read: slave) society -- videogames ARE art.

[icycalm]

That is why escapist art is not really art -- because the power of the artwork is not directed back into the world, but goes on orbit, escaping altogether from reality, thus proving that the artwork has little to no artistic value.

And can some people here now see the inaccuracy in the above statement? I say "escaping altogether from reality" while it is plain that NOTHING can escape altogether from reality. Absolute language is just a tool (and a necessary tool) to be able to communicate. Language is absolute by its very nature, which is why it is incapable of mirroring reality, and why one can always find contradictions in it, even in the words of the most careful and consistent philosopher (which was the Derridean, the deconstruction project...)

So let's modify the above statement which I made only a few minutes ago.

Escapist art does NOT altogether escape from reality. What it does is that it slowly, extremely slowly and yet inexorably, shores up energies. These energies cannot at first be discharged in the world, because of the overwhelming force of the hegemony of the system. So they are shored up until they reach a point where they can overcome the system. That is the point of the explosion, of the catastrophe, because the system "is incapable of distilling crisis and criticism in homeopathic doses".

The virtual is simply the place where all these energies are currently being shored up.

[icycalm]

And, just in case this guy is still reading, I have now gone quite a bit further than Baudrillard. Baudrillard was ambivalent towards videogames, whilst I know exactly how I feel about them, and can even fully explain the reasons for Baudrillard's ambivalence.

[zinger]

But... Considering Baudrillard's disrespect towards contemporary art, how come he bothered with photography at all? Are his pictures a part of his philosophical work?

[mees]

And he entered art not as a philosopher, but as a traitor, in Deleuze's sense, inventing his own itinerary. He just went to the other side, becoming a practicing artist of sorts, imperturbably showing in galleries photographs that he didn't really believe in. And then becoming a traitor to art again by refusing to own up to it.

Baudrillard's rejection of art was all the more unexpected, and appeared all the more outrageous for that to those who believed he had crossed over. And yet he didn't seem to notice the contradiction. The episode of the "simulationist school" (and of the "anti-simulationist" controversy) may have had something to do with it. In 1987 Baudrillard didn't yet know much about the American art world and didn't quite realize what was happening around his name. At best, he told me later, he sensed that "there was something fishy there" [Je me suis méfié] with a sound peasant-like distrust of sleek city talkers. So he flatly refused to play into the artists' hands. He might as well have acceded their demand, the way he subsequently accepted the gallerists' offer to exhibit his photographs because it would eventually have amounted to the same. How could anything one does ever be wrong coming "after the orgy"? If art ceased to matter as art, then what prevented anyone from joining in? Actually that he, who admittedly had no artistic claim or pedigree, would be invited to exhibit his work, amply proved his point: there was nothing special anymore about art. Groucho Marx once said that he would never join a club that accepted him as a member. Baudrillard did worse: he joined a group whose reasons to exist he publicly denied.

For Baudrillard the actual photographs are beside the point. It is what precedes them that counts in his eyes -- the mental event of taking a picture -- and this could never be documented, let alone exhibited. But what could be more gratifying than having fully paid-up members of the conspiracy exhibit something that he himself doesn't consider art?

http://insomnia.ac/essays/the_piracy_of_art/

[zinger]

Ah, I forgot about that essay. Thanks.

[mees]

No problem! It just sprang to mind as soon as I saw your post.

[icycalm]

It's not just that. Even besides that, zinger's question is absurd. Baudrillard may have regarded contemporary art as worthless, but that doesn't mean he became incapable of enjoying a good photograph, a good piece of music, a good novel or a good movie, or a good car or whatever. These things still have value -- they always had value and they always will. But they will have value as photographs, music, novels, movies, cars, etc. -- not as art, in that metaphysical superlative (to use Nietzsche's words) sense in which contemporary "artists" view themselves, and in which they do their best to dupe EVERYONE ELSE into viewing them. As long as you are not trying to tyrannize humanity with absurd claims to hidden messages or whatever, you are free to mess around with any hobby you enjoy. And I mean, YOU HAVE to mess around with SOME hobby in order to not go crazy*, if you know what I mean.

(And I mean from boredom.)

[zinger]

Oh, right. From your post I got the idea he had lost interest in new material of basically all forms of expression (except for philosophy). I'm glad I misinterpreted you, considering how depressing that sounds. Back to reading then...

[mees]

Baudrillard was ambivalent towards videogames, whilst I know exactly how I feel about them, and can even fully explain the reasons for Baudrillard's ambivalence.

Can you do this right here? Or is that off-topic?

[icycalm]

http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?p=9698#9698

Oh, right. From your post I got the idea he had lost interest in new material of basically all forms of expression (except for philosophy). I'm glad I misinterpreted you, considering how depressing that sounds. Back to reading then...

zinger, my friend, you are putting me in a difficult position, because I am not quite ready yet to fully explain these things -- and even if I were, I doubt anyone would be able to understand me, because of lack of the appropriate experiences. The grim fact is that, at Baudrillard's level, people DO lose their interest in "new material" of basically all "forms of expression". This is, mainly, because they see nothing new in them, just as Pauline Kael became disillusioned with movies because she "had seen it all before" (and note that she wasn't even that smart...). The people who never become disillusioned are basically the idiots, or those who do not bother to pursue a thing to the very end. If you only watch ten movies a year, for example, chances are you will never get bored of them. Et cetera et cetera.

And then again, with people like Baudrillard, you get to the point where you see through the deception of representation. This is another long and depressing story. You should read Baudrillard's essay "On Nihilism" found at the very end of Simulacra and Simulation. One of the most depressing things I've ever read.

But, but, but... things do not necessarily have to be so bad. As Gerry Coulter has noted, radical analysis is in the end stunningly optimistic. From what I gather, Baudrillard's spirits picked up later on. Nietzsche, on the other hand, was usually much more of an optimist. He was in very high spirits at least half the time. It really depends on the temperament you start out with. Schopenhauer was at the other end of the spectrum -- but that's also one of the reasons his main philosophy was so far off the mark.

At any rate, the main thing to take away from all this at this time is that "forms of expression" are way overrated. They are just an excuse to be a coward and stay at home watching TV or reading books. "Forms of expression" my ass, basically. But, like I said, that's another long story.

[icycalm]

Here Nietzsche explains that "forms of expression" are most of the time basically just drugs:

"Of the theater. -- I had strong and elevated feelings again today, and if I could have music and art in the evening, I know very well what sort of music and art I do not want -- namely, the kind that tries to intoxicate the audience and to force it to the height of a moment of strong and elevated feelings. This kind is designed for those everyday souls who in the evening are not like victors on their triumphal chariots but rather like tired mules who have been whipped too much by life. What would men of this type know of "higher moods" if there were no intoxicants and idealistic whips? Hence they have those who enthuse them even as they have their wines. But what are their drinks and their intoxication to me? Does he that is enthusiastic need wine? Rather he looks with some sort of nausea at the means and mediators that are trying to produce an effect without sufficient reason -- aping the high tide of the soul! -- What now? One gives the mole wings and proud conceits -- before it is time to go to sleep, before he crawls back into his hole? One sends him off into the theater and places large glasses before his blind and tired eyes? Men whose lives are not an "action" but a business, sit before the stage and observe strange creatures for whom life is no mere business? "That is decent," you say; "that is entertaining; that is culture." -- Well, in that case I often lack culture; for much of the time I find this spectacle nauseous. Whoever finds enough tragedy and comedy in himself, probably does best when he stays away from the theater. Or if he makes an exception, the whole process, including the theater, the audience, and the poet, will strike him as the really tragic or comical spectacle, while the play that is performed will mean very little to him by comparison. What are the Fausts and Manfreds of the theater to anyone who is somewhat like Faust and Manfred? But it may give him something to think about that characters of that type should ever be brought upon the stage. The strongest ideas and passions brought before those who are not capable of ideas and passions but only of intoxication! And here they are employed as a means to produce intoxication! Theater and music as the hashish-smoking and betel-chewing of the European! Who will ever relate the whole history of narcotica? -- It is almost the history of "culture," of our so-called higher culture."

From The Gay Science

[icycalm]

When nothing moves you any more, you must find a sign to stand in for passion.

When nothing is at stake any more, you must find a rule to stand in for necessity.

Melancholy is just as much an affectation as joie de vivre* -- who is happy to be alive? Beings, like things, are naturally prostrate and only manage to seem happy by a superhuman effort, which has a great deal of affectation in it, but this is more in line with the involution of things.

Cool Memories


*joy of living

[icycalm]

No colour for painting the hero. -- Poets and artists who really belong to the present love to lay their colours on to a background flickering in red, green, grey and gold, on to the background of nervous sensuality: in this the children of this century are skilled. The disadvantage of it -- if one beholds these paintings with eyes other than those of this century -- is that when they paint their grandest figures they seem to have something flickering, trembling, giddy about them: so that one simply cannot credit them with heroic deeds, but at the most with boastful misdeeds posing as heroism.

Human, All Too Human

[icycalm]

Artistic need of the second rank. -- The people no doubt possesses something that might be called an artistic need, but it is small and cheap to satisfy. The refuse of art is at bottom all that is required: we should honestly admit that to ourselves. Just consider, for instance, the kind of songs and tunes the most vigorous, soundest and most naive strata of our populace nowadays take true delight in, dwell among shepherds, cowherds, farmers, huntsmen, soldiers, seamen, and then supply yourself with an answer. And in the small town, in precisely the homes that are the seat of those civic virtues inherited from old, do they not love, indeed dote on, the very worst music in any way produced today? Whoever talks of a profound need for art, of an unfulfilled desire for art, on the part of the people as it is, is either raving or lying. Be honest! Nowadays it is only in exceptional men that there exists an artistic need of an exalted kind -- because art as such is again in decline and the powers and expectations of men have for a time been directed at other things. -- In addition, that is to say apart from the people, there does indeed still exist a broader, more extensive artistic need in the higher and highest strata of society, but it is of the second rank. Here something like a seriously intentioned artistic community is possible: but just look at what elements it consists of! They are, generally speaking, the more refined discontented unable to take any real pleasure in themselves: the cultivated who have not become sufficiently free to do without the consolations of religion and yet find its oil insufficiently sweet-scented: the half-noble who are too weak to correct the one fundamental mistake of their life or the harmful inclinations of their character through a heroic conversion or abstinence: the richly gifted who think themselves too fine for modest useful activities and are too indolent for a serious, self-sacrificing labour: the girl who does not know how to create for herself a satisfying circle of duties: the woman who has tied herself to a frivolous or mischievous marriage and knows she is not tied to it tightly enough: the scholar, physician, merchant, official who became one too soon and whose nature has as a whole never been given free rein, and who pays for this by performing his duties efficiently but with a worm in his heart: finally, all the imperfect and defective artists -- it is these who now possess a true artistic need! And what is it they really desire of art? That is shall scare away their discontent, boredom and uneasy conscience for moments or hours at a time and if possible magnify the errors of their life and character into errors of world-destiny -- being in this very different from the Greeks, to whom their art was an outflowing and overflowing of their own healthiness and wellbeing and who loved to view their perfection repeated outside themselves: -- self-enjoyment was what led them to art, whereas what leads our contemporaries to it is -- self-disgust.

Human, All Too Human

[icycalm]

Some more Nietzsche, to help those who still have trouble grasping the fact that the artist is a much inferior, much less valuable creature than the hero.

Achilles and Homer. -- It is always as between Achilles and Homer: the one has the experience, the sensation, the other describes it. A true writer only bestows words on the emotions and experiences of others, he is an artist so as to divine much from the little he himself has felt. Artists are by no means men of great passion but they often pretend to be, in the unconscious feeling that their painted passions will seem more believable if their own life speaks for their experience in this field. One has only to let oneself go, to abandon self-control, to give rein to one's anger or desires: at once all the world cries: how passionate he is! But deep-rooted passion, passion which gnaws at the individual and often consumes him, is a thing of some consequence: he who experiences such passion certainly does not describe it in dramas, music or novels. Artists are often unbridled individuals to the extent that they are not artists: but that is something else.

Alleged 'real reality'. -- When he describes the various professions -- e.g. that of the general, the silk-weaver, the seaman -- the poet poses as knowing of these things to the very bottom; indeed, when it comes to the conflict of human actions and destinies he acts as though he had been present at the weaving of the whole nexus of the world; to this extent he is a deceiver. And he practises his deception only before those who do not know -- and that is why his deception is successful: the latter commend him for his profound and genuine knowledge and in the end induce in him the delusion that he really does know these things as well as do the individuals he is describing, indeed as well as the great world-spider itself. Thus at last the deceiver becomes honest and believes in his own veracity. People of sensibility, indeed, even tell him to his face that he possesses a higher truth and veracity -- for they are for a time tired of reality and accept the poetic dream as a beneficent relaxation and night for head and heart. What this dream shows them now seems to them more valuable, because, as remarked, they find it more beneficent: and men have always believed that which that which seems more valuable is the truer and more real. Poets conscious of possessing this power deliberately set out to discredit that which is usually called reality and transform it into the uncertain, apparent, spurious, sinful, suffering, deceptive; they employ all the doubts that exist as to the limitations of knowledge, all the extravagances of skepticism, to spread a wrinkled veil of uncertainty over things: in order that after this darkening their sorcery and soul-magic shall be unhesitatingly taken for the path to 'true truth', to 'real reality'.

Both from Human, All Too Human.

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/essays/contemporary_art/