Help
Sign In
art
February 2009 
What is Freedom?
Yvette
In researching this latest installment in the evolution of "what is peace?" i've noticed that information that should be a matter of public record is channeled to restrict/limit access in subtle ways. Is this intentional? For example, try finding a list of the South Carolina state representatives of African decent during Reconstruction.
This has increased my interest in exploring exactly what American heritage actually is and the cultures that have emerged in the context created by it.The new question bubbling in my mind is....
After reading this article "Google CEO: Internet's role in freedom still expanding
The next wave of Internet users will often compare the way their countries govern with how other governments do so, he predicted. "They're going to see their government has been treating them badly," he said. "They're going to be annoyed."
Some governments will struggle with how much free expression is too much, he said. Even in Western democracies such as France and Germany, posting information about the Nazi Party is prohibited, Schmidt said. Other governments will also struggle with what expression to allow...
Despite the policy questions, Schmidt encouraged the audience to work for ways to open information up to more people across the globe. "Globalization is fundamentally about universal access to information," he said. "This information revolution that's coming can be shaped."
Event Two:Oral Tradition Integration
Update July 2007:
During the weeks of July 16th-27th 2007 we are volunteering at the history museum to assist to research and develop a contextual understanding for the history of Fairfield County. We are working on the oral history project being developed by my Aunt Yvette, which will seek to accurately include the history of those of African descent for the first time in this county. So far (6/22/07) we've (my children and i) worked along side my Aunt Yvette, history museum intern Markita Minger, and a talented artist, Michaela Brown, to install video/audio editing software, start to digitized the audio and image collections for the project, transferred the video to DVD, designed the brochure for the upcoming Catawba Native American exhibit, and assisted with some interviews. Collecting oral histories is no easy tasks as most of the people we've asked have declined. i can only wonder why.
Blog note:
Something as seemingly benign as an exhbition brochure had a much broader context. I became involved because it seemed that those planning the event were completely oblivious to the tramautic and negative imact that the way the railroad expansion happened had on Native American people. The proposal had been for "whistle stop weekend" which felt like it trivialized the devastation this "fun passtime" and striking technological/economic advance had on tribes like the Catawba. And it was a collector of Catwaba pottery rather than the Catawba themselves who would be speaking about their pottery. After pointing out the insensitivity of this approach my suggestion of "Once upon a time in Fairfield..." was accepted because it provided a more honest framing of the exhibition. i would have loved to see a more inclusive voice and tone to the affair but that was not the approach the committee opted to pursue.
Update Continued...
This represents a firm start towards the online repository envisioned for this project. I envision it as an artistic collaboration to create a digital resource for the global community to study, analyze, contribute to and be enriched by.
July 27
I have some mixed media work in development that has been inspired by this recent trip. It will be included in the exhibition that accompanies the perform piece below. It is the basis of the installation that will provide the context for the piece below that includes the performance and ICT as part of the artwork.
Event_Two: Performance Peace- The Story
Creation and Performance of a piece inspired by my family's history in South Carolina. I have posted the start of this on the pbwiki page
See What-is-peace?
Access: Public
What is freedom? Freedom is autonomy, the ability to make your own decisions. As it relates to your story, information is vital in the decision-making process. If we are not adequately informed, we cannot make an informed decision. If we are not allowed the chance to decide, we are not free either. Some authorities would grant us neither the information nor the chance to decide anything for ourselves, and it seems many people are just fine with that status-quo. Freedom comes from following one's own inner sense of right and wrong rather than any set of external morals or rules or laws. Autonomy is freedom. without autonomy, none of us are free.
Thanks for sharing that. Your post sparked a dialogue about whether “freedom is pain?”
In Theory of Attention, Ron suggests that reality is always opposite of what the mind wants us to believe.
In the case of his project, what seems logical is that we pay attention to those who victimize instead of to those who have been victims. It is the victims who have been denied the opportunity to express their truth…the reality of their pain.
So i concluded that yes, when one is free you can pay attention to the pain, acknowledge it.
If Pain is freedom, then Ron suggests that the next step is to redefine PAIN.
“what if pain is no longer a mind thing?”
i don't understand.
I define pain as being my body's way of telling me that something is wrong and that I need to do something about it. I do not consider the natural birth of my second child to have been painful, but perhaps I have a very different perspective on pain, as i experience chronic physical pain due to endometriosis (in combination with celiac).
I have no doubt that my freedom is something entirely different than my pain. Pain is an experience, freedom is…something else… freedom is trusting myself to know the difference between right and wrong (to listen to what the pain is trying to tell me) and to make decisions based upon what I know is right, rather than having someone else tell me what is right and what I should do.
what i mean is shaped by the project that has prompted me to explore this idea….
Take slavery for example, although it is not legal anywhere it exist everywhere.
In seeking to understand peace in the context of the events that inspired “what is peace?” as an art series, what i see is this….
Part of the denial of freedom, has been the denial of pain caused by that oppression. So to be a slave was/is to have one's pain denied. Freedom is the ability to acknowledge and express this pain so that it can be given the attention it calls for and healed so that the previous victim can move on to become what her/his soul most longs to be.
i am also coming to see and understand the pain that abuse creates within the abuser and those that benefit from abuse because if the statement we are all one humanity means anything, how can it be otherwise?
At the heart of this project is the call to “unknow” what you think you know….so that we may learn how to go beneath our individual and collective assumptions… pull them out by the roots to examine exactly in what ideas they are anchored.
Why? Just look around and you will find no shortage of experts who are certain they have the answer and know what needs to be known….and yet we have this world we see today. How can we have a radically inclusive dialogue if everyone already knows all the answers?
Yvette i added Spinoza's definition of freedom to our collaboration wiki.
That thing is called free which exists from the necessity of its own nature alone, and is determined to action by itself alone.
(Ethics, 1D7)
Another proposition in his work is that the will can not be called a free cause, but can only be called necessary (1P32). The corrollary to this proposition continues “Hence it follows, firstly, that God does not act from freedom of the will” and “It follows, secondly, that will and intellect are related to the nature of God as motion and rest”.
Remember Krishnamurti saying that movement is that which has no beginning, no end.I think movement and motion, in this respect, are one and the same.
So it appears to me that freedom, in the context of pain, is removing all external cause.
Best regards,
Ron
Yes, Ron, i seem to be coming to a similar understanding about freedom.
That thing is called free which exists from the necessity of its own nature alone, and is determined to action by itself alone.
(Ethics, 1D7)
Part of that process for me has been to see that freedom by its nature can be more than one thing as its expression may vary depending upon context. One that i'm exploring in this new piece is to experience the process of liberation from the limitations of reaction.
Best,
Yvette
Excellent, Yvette.
Please feel free to re-read my blog here:
How a little girl showed the path to freedom