GREENwichFORUM

by Dominic Shepherd on 04-08-09

Art In The Wilderness; The Poetics Of Science

When walking in the woods (of reality and mind), I think upon the gaps that have opened in my vision. The gap between what I am, flesh; blood; synapses, and what I think I am, the self. The gap between this brave new world we create, and our understanding of how it changes us. The gap between our technical revolutions and our social ineptness. The gap between head and heart, what I think and what I feel. That’s what I want to paint, that space, that crack between the worlds. Keep on walking.

Dominic Shepherd lives in Dorset. He is represented by Charlie Smith London and in Europe by Galerie Schuster.

Introduce myself, Not an architect, artist. Art serves no purpose, no function apart from that to question, to ask about the hows whys and wherefores of our time. My own work, when I make it, I don’t know what I’m creating. I wish to work in an oblique way, touching on the concerns I will elude to but at a distinctly personal level. So this talk will be a conversation on ideas, and I

Walk in woods, lived in London, enjoy the distance. Time being a hermit in wilderness, Iceland, Finland etc., trying to physically touch outside myself, mystic fusion with nature, and the ultimate failure. Could not attain union.

The gap, between the corpse on the slab, a mass of synapses, flesh and electricity. The self, when did it surface. When did we gain this feeling of self? Thomas Metzinger. What makes us different than animals?

We come back to old arguments, fate or freewill; determinism or choice. Is there a soul? In a world where we are starting to recreate our world through cyberspace and virtual reality, where do we start and stop being human.

Darwinism, The survival of the fittest, the selfish gene, but is this what I see. Is Darwinism an excuse that allowed for late 20th C. empire building and capitalist climbing to the top of the dung heap through its message of ‘survival of the fittest’? Has it allowed the mass human experimentations of the 20th century? In a post structualist/Derridean reading it is a product of our culture in same way feudal system reflected in heavenly hierarchy. Feudal system reflected in belief systems and angelic hierarchy, the thrones, seraphim, cherubim

hope sparks can be made with some of the images you will see.