Michelle Vara

Ballard Road Art Studio - Contemporary Art

MCP503 PAPER – Techniques of Automatism

By

 

MCP503  PAPER 2016

MiChelle M. Vara

Techniques of Automatism

 

 

Did you ever ask yourself how did I know that?

…………. or think……………

Someone’s staring at me

…………………….. only to find its true?

March-m. Vara

Introduction

This project explores the unseen forces driven through creation and expression to tactile output using surrealist automation, interlocking the object as a vessel and conduit to subliminal understanding.

For the purpose of this paper I use:

Automatism as the elimination of conscious control over process outcome.

André Breton’s definition of surrealism ‘Pure psychic automatism the dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason and outside all moral or aesthetic concerns’ (1)

The cognitive processes associated with nonverbal communication can occur with awareness, but they are also likely to, and in fact often do, occur without conscious awareness as the basis for understanding. (3)

The zone: the place or time in which one is connected to source and can be acting as a conduit.

Unconscious Process: John Bargh, an expert on unconscious processing, says “The unconscious usually performs complicated operations that take as their starting point a ‘supraliminal’ stimulus, that is, something that is consciously perceptible. One is aware of the stimulus but not of its cognitive consequences, events in the brain that influence action and decision making.” (2)

 

Statement

“Nonverbal is one of the most important primal communication sources of our human existence.”

We communicate personal preferences, stimulations, emotions and more without words. Automatism is a metaphysical thesis that dated to Ancient Greece and shows the expansiveness of the subject in books like, Flash of the Spirit, by Robert Farris Thompson. These practices are also the trickiest to talk about due to all the varied connotations, assumptions, physiological and religious associations, that the subject and words conjure to the foreground. So to be clear this is not a religious or occult exploration. It is an archaeological dig into the unseen and applied in the arts. This is practice of creation streaming through high vibration and brought into focus as tactile output to cause subliminal or reactionary effect. Realities pushed and released to form into new creation. Disassembling the artist’s predetermined perception allowing new context to form in object as a vessel communicating on levels beyond normal reality and expectation. This has become my literary testing ground in narrative structures imbibed in higher consciousness and connected action/transmission. The experiments use automatic action in assemblage, drawing, writing, painting and material which expresses image, motion, sound, color, sculpture and practice.

 

Background

In order for me to conjure understanding I think it important to expose the extreme different party beliefs.

Which equals –“The Who” which is describing the context of reality must be taken into consideration.

For instance, Under English law internal causes of automatism are generally judged to be insane automatism and so result in the special verdict (‘not guilty by reason of insanity’) rather than simple acquittal. (18) In medicine, `automatism’ relates to a set of behaviors that occur outside of the conscious control of the patient, and it connotes the meaning that something medically serious and threatening to the health or life of the individual has taken place, outside of the awareness of consciousness and independent from the individual’s will. Automatic states are serious disease events that require prompt and concerted intervention.” (19)  In spirit circles the term Channeling is used but as “psychologist James Alcock of York University notes in ‘The Encyclopedia of The Paranormal,’ Channeling ‘the supposed phenomenon is actually very old, for it is simply automatism — automatic behavior over which an individual denies any personal control …”(20) Yet in further investigation one finds “the Third Eye to be   the locus of occult power and wisdom in the forehead of a deity, especially the god Shiva. Also informal term for pineal eye. All of this only scratches the surfaces but gives context to how largely varied the subject is dependent on who is conversing about it. Although in my experience the different groups are not very amicable about the subject.

 

Process to create through

  1. Ritual: Everything starts and ends with meditation-

Amount of time comes from what happens or doesn’t happen during meditation.

Meditation processes: water, light, chant, sound, visualize, writing, being.

  1. Automatic response-

drawings, mark making, writing and journaling, lead the day-

This is the place where the what or how of the day comes from.

Sculpture, ideas, thoughts are captured in anti-journals.

No time parameters.

  1. Collecting-

Objects, marks, sounds, movement, data, ideas, photographs, video, research.

Travel: walking, driving, train, bus, bike, swim to the site or area of calling.

No motion or activity

  1. Findings

Obtaining a vessel and the story from the owner.

Documenting the owner’s story.

Photograph & video: as the art, as the space, as documentation, as performance, as idea.

  1. Contemplation & reflection
  2. Assemble, disassemble-

Clean parts, weld, solder, glue, bind, work.

  1. Creation

Direct and in direct Outcome.

 

Structure

It’s funny to realize and grasp, “There is nothing new under the sun”. (6) With that in mind we take a drive down the historical road of likeminded, loosely affiliated artist and free thinkers some of which were associated with “The New York School”. These artists created with similar processes and varied ideas, before me. In the 1940s and 1950s the movement was Abstract Expressionism although this was never an ideal label for artist who were entangled in emotion, gestural expressionism, profound action and universal themes. The movement grew up in New York taking the art world focus away from Paris. I have read that Abstract Expression was shaped by Surrealism.  This label was meant to encompass the painters who used fields of color and abstract forms to fill their canvases and sculpture with emotional content and not meant to be clearly objectified.

 

“The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul.”  -Wassily Kandinsky

He called “art for art’s sake” a “vain squandering of artistic power.”    Wassily Kandinsky

Kandinsky created form association of the painter’s inner experience using form and colour. (10) Kandinsky text, Du Spirituel dans l’art, 1912, defines three types of painting; improvisations, impressions, and compositions. Expressions are based on external reality, improvisation and impression draw from emergent ideas or images of the unconscious, and composition is drawn from a formal point of view. (11) His understanding of the physical effect of color, on the eye, creating cause and effect in the vibration of the soul or an “inner resonance” – a spiritual effect in which color touches the soul itself. (12) This is a profound manipulation of layers of understanding causing a metamorphosis in digestion of creation.

  “With Jackson there was quiet solitude. Just to sit and look at the landscape. An inner quietness. After dinner, to sit on the back porch and look at the light. No need for talking. For any kind of communication.” – Lee Krasner

Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/leekrasner362880.html Lee Krasner talks about her process in an interview with JB Myers. Krasner recalled that she had been influenced by the Surrealist method of Psychic Automatism, this is basically an improvisational method of working during which the artist encourages the hand and mind to wander so that aspects of the unconscious mind can be revealed. Krasner claims the first stage is getting to know oneself. (4) I really love the word improvisational for this application but I do not agree with her first stage descriptions for me the first stage is to accomplish a clear mind, free of clutter & chatter in order to wonder unrestricted in a playful or light manner of emotion. In fact, I have documented process that shows, if work is conceived or simple labor started, like mixing paint or cleaning parts with any left over, offset emotion or information, ego leaves an imprint in the outcome. The imprint works the same as in training animals and behaviors as seen in migratory birds in flight. Hatch a bird under the wing of a glider and that hatchling believes the glider is its parent. So If you argue with your mother and sister in the morning and think about it during set up to create, this energy finds its way into the work. This theory is also found in Sigmund Freud’s Topographical Models of Personality; different driving forces develop during these stages which play an important role in how we interact with the world. (8) Although the flip side to what we’re exploring is Freud believes the unconscious mind is not accessible by the individual. (9)

“One has to be clear in pursuit of intent.” -mV

“The final test of a painting, theirs, mine, any other, is: does the painter’s emotion come across?”

 

The poet Frank O’Hara called Franz Kline the quintessential ‘action painter’. Kline saw his method less as a means to express himself than as a way to create a physical engagement with the viewer. (12) He believed the velocity of his forms were intended for the viewer to translate experience of structure into clear to the mind and plain to see, feel. Kline uses dynamic juxtaposed horizontal and vertical lines to construct abstract three dimensional compositions in simple black and white on canvas. Kline’s intention takes a different approach to action painting. He captures dimension and without use of color and was very intentionally focused on his viewer and their palpable feelings, unlike most other artist.

 

“There is no one way to paint; there is no single answer.”              (15)- Joan Mitchell

“I so….. believe this quote to be true and think it should be extended and applied to all parts of life!”                                        ——————————————————————————————————there just is NO One Way.”                                                           “Blue… it’s a color that she was quite enchanted with… and a color that she felt represented the water, sky, emotions; in many ways she had an eye for blue that was incredible.” (14) All of the reference that is used in the quote about Mitchell’s perspective on the color blues, has strong metaphorically historical lineage to metaphysical principals that can be found weaved through many spirit practices. It’s almost as thought it was intentionally worded that way for my archeological find.

Joan Mitchell was not a proponent of rationally conceived structure executed according to a plan, then defaced for effect. She speaks of process being as a sleep walker and the interplay of action itself. (13) Known for her canvas size and enthusiastic brush stroke. She was also freely outspoken in her ideas and points of view. She stated methods of Gorky, de Kooning, Kline, when looking at their work she experiences significant feelings of familiarity that, specifically, a kindred involvement with space. (16)

In an interview Mitchell she talks about her relationship with her father and how they didn’t speak but enjoyed each other in positive light. (15) This to me creates a direct formative line to her creative automatism process in Abstract Expression allowing development and imprinting the open channels on a young psyche that was developed as habit. I think this would be a much more conducive place to start from than having to un-learn the common social practices normally expected in parent child relationships. Communication without words is what this entire premise is about and Joan Mitchell really portrays the process.

 

In an essay written in 1948 Barnett Newman said: “Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man, or ‘’life’’, we are making it out of ourselves, out of our own feelings. “

This approach to painting developed from around 1946. Here we can see the use of emotion and action apply in a different context or frame work called Colour Field Painting characterized by artists like Mark Rothko, Barnet Newman, Clifford Stills, using large areas of more as less a single flat colour, moving into what has been called the mystic realm with in a context of Abstract Expression.

Barnet Newman mythical with his large flat colors exfoliated his extremely expansive reach of knowledge and understanding of many subjects like the philosophy of Heidegger, Jung, Freud and the way in which he intertwined them into his work, sometimes naming work as that reflection. I find it hard to say he was only interested in a few topics but a few that I think are important are capturing the essence of myth, personify the sublime, and idea as pure art.  One of his foundational concerns was what or how to create without using reference to what had already been done. I think this is always a concern for us as artist and causes one to question personal goals. I believe he truly understood and put words to subline engagement and the moral obligation of paint as a form of religion. His hermetic being, rooted in Kabbalisum speaks to “Genesis of the creative act for artist as God.” (24)  Canvases that work through structure emanating a glow and power being illusionistic, creating relationships between form and space without the tradition of figure grounds. He struggled against subject matter quoting “I raised the issues of modernity and of subject matter. The modern world had rendered traditional art subjects and styles invalid.” (5) Newman pointedly speaks to those specific topics in his writings, he defined the ideograph as the direct expression of the idea; it is not expressed through a name, through a substitute image, through a symbol–the image and the idea are one; no translation is necessary. He talks about new painting being called plasmic because elements of the art have been converted from surrealism into the mental plasma and the chaos of creation being subject matter in search for what he describes as “truth for the hidden meaning of Life.” Further saying Expressionism was risky because it excluded intellectual, philosophic content in the work. I believe we have a lot in common as he was known to be a happy and enjoyable sort as a child steeling time away from grade school to be in museums, making tar sculptures, and a favorite technique throughout his life was drawing with crayons.  The man is a wealth of motivation and offers one much to ponder and create from.

 

“From the artist there is no conscious effort to find universal truth or beauty, no effort to analyze other men’s minds in order to speak for them. His act in art is an act of personal conviction and identity.”  -David Smith)

“If there is truth in art, it is the artist’s own truth. If beauty is involved, it is only the metaphor of imagination.” -David Smith

John Gram an emigre Russian intellectual, introduced a slightly different circle of NY School of artist including David Smith to the surrealist method of automatism around 1937. (22) I own every book, publication and have read every piece ever written on David Smith and cannot say I have any proof, anywhere where he had claimed to use automatism for creating except in the statements made by John Gram. My personal beliefs are that he was well in tune with his inner being but how he accessed or applied it remains a buried mystery.  Around 1940 English Surrealist Gordon Onslow Ford at the New York School for Social Research advocated that automatist experiments were the right direction for revitalization surrealism. (22) Which leaves the door wide open for further investigation.

In conclusion

There is no terror in spectre, for me, there is only sleepless weeks and excited ideas on volumes of subjects. This universal energy: Automation or Abstract Expression connects and binds past artist offering fodder for my emotional and impulsive creative force to explode with ideas to become through. Birth, Life, Death cycles create circles patters of unending ideas through which I look at the human condition, spirit, nature, sex, politics, an unending pallet to stream through. Reminding me of the sound of a seam engine running on a rail through the long flat western plains of America in the bluest of background.  One can see the scenery and gather ideas for future use throughout the experience. like the artist before me this unseen connection offers transfiguration into creation which I think well said by Ana Mendieta- “My art is grounded in the belief of universal energy which runs through everything: from insect to man, from man to spectre, from spectre to plant.” (23)

I am always left to think if there was only more time.

metal sculpture using Automotive paarts
142. Three Pie, metal sculpture using Automotive parts.

 

 

Bibliography

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0226726746

http://www.artnews.com/2012/11/05/mitchell-paints-a-picture/

  • Barnett Newman: Selected Writings and Interviews, University of California Press (February 12, 1992), ISBN-10: 0520078179, SBN-13: 978-0520078178
  • Automatism (case law), may 2003, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatism_(case_law)
  • On automatism, Julio Arboleda-Flo rez, Department of Psychiatry, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada and Department of Psychiatry, Queen’s Affiliated Hospitals, Correspondence to Professor J. Arboleda-Flo rez, MD, FRCPC, FAPA, DABFP, PhD,

Department of Psychiatry, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada.

 

Current Opinion in Psychiatry 2002, 15:569±576

# 2002 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

0951-7367

  • Live Science, Channeling & Spirit Guides: Voices From Within, Not Beyond
  • by Benjamin Radford, Live Science Contributor, Phycology of Channeling, July 31, 2013, http://www.livescience.com/38561-channeling.html
  • London Bulletin, June 1940, “The Painter Looks With In Himself”, also Quoted in Sandler, Triumph of American Painting, 43, 26.
  • Article: The Remarkable Story of a Rebel Artist, Her Mysterious Death and Cult Resurgence, by: Gueida Voien, 11/30/2015, University of Washington,
  • Barnet Newman, By: Thomas B. Hess, 1971, The Museum of Modern Art, Pg15

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