I Express Therefore I Am – Cave Art – Universal Human Rights
Cave Art – Art makes Man
11/11/11
Dear Roger,
Thanks to you my mind is being stormed by the idea of what exactly it is that makes us human. Is this immortal quest through time a need to identify and express the self? Are we as mankind really saying “I create therefore I exist”? Thereby with each expression etching ourselves into the fabric of reality?
Thus wouldn’t Art, as the embodiment of human expression along with the quest for the Self not form the core, the basis of what we consider human, humanity? And should not these form the basis of Universal Human Rights?
The hauntingly vivid images of spray painted hand impressions from Neolithic (cave) art found across the world flash across my mind. Images of spray painted hands from Australian aborigines, to images on rocks sprayed in Africa and the Americas seem to connote something…a message, a signature, perhaps an affirmation. An affirmation of an individual and his/ her existence on this earth and in that time. An affirmation of reality, of existence, of being, of oneself. Perhaps of The Self. Could this be a part of the eternal journey/ search an expression, extension of mans spiritual quest to identify the Self?
I Express Therefore I Am
And isn’t it this that makes us human?
Is it not this “idea”, this burst of creativity/spontaneous creation which emanates from nowhere.
Isn’t it this very aspect that distinguishes us from the rest of nature, which makes each one of us distinct, an individual, human?
Isn’t it this idea, this extension of humanity that constitutes art
Isn’t it this spontaneous expression, this apparently autonomous self generating aspect of humanity expressed in it’s varied forms one that structures, builds and populates the universe?
Isn’t it the art that makes the man?
Now Roger, as you and I lay down the foundation stone for Universal Human Rights, should we not break it down to its bare bones and identify what it is that we call human, what makes us man?
Hugs,
Purnima
See below the first human examples of self expression-Cave Art
Some examples from My Story- see below my Ice Age Preteen in Chamonix, discovering, exploring and creating Art (handprints in Ice):
A Long time ago, in a life before she was an American Preteen, Tara was a chamois scampering around Chamonix. She returns to leave her mark in snow.
Chamois: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamois
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2yvhptmwfx20bug/AABs4Ct1EtbZmDaM9zrBfIlSa?dl=0
Hands Cave- Cave Art in Patagonia Argentina
http://www.unique-southamerica-travel-experience.com/hands-cave-and-pinturas-river-canyon.html
Cave art France/Spain- the first steps of our awakening
http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/caveart.htm
Madhya Pradesh, India- Bhimbetka Caves: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/219128338104402554/
Kakadu aboriginal Rock Art Australia: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/339881103097825750/
Borneo cave art- hand images: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/07/worlds-oldest-figurative-painting-discovered-in-borneo-cave
New Mexico, USA ( petroglyphs by the Peublo Indians)
http://www.nps.gov/petr/index.htm
Handprints- prehistoric European cave artists were women
Dear Roger,
I would like to take you on a short journey to explore a topic we had once discussed on “nations” and “nationalities” and their relevance in the cyber-techno world of tomorrow.
Imagine we are transported into the animated world of the movie Wall-e of our previous email,
And, Wall-e the adorable clean up robot stumbles across a diary, a journal written by a girl(in a pony tail), 700 hundred years ago, as he cleans up the debris which had chocked all life forms and making the earth uninhabitable. And, in this diary he finds a mention of people and worlds, lives and nations and their journey through time and history. He reads about England and France, about Germany and Japan and of course about India. He is immediately alerted, all sensors highlight “India”. Wow, he thinks, thats the word, the name, the destination that the galactic ship The Enterprise consisting of a now invertebrate frappe burping gelatinous crew with a central CPU for a brain which were once humans, is destined for. Those are the co-ordinates, that is the word, the place, the space which nobody understands where The Enterprise is supposed to land, India/the new world. And ironically, nothing else of the Colossus, the empires and nations of the “ancient world” of the preceding millennia are remembered either, all we have of England, France, Germany and Japan are references in the diary of a girl with a ponytail.
The ideas of nations, nationalities, allegiances, territories, were notions long gone as the world morphed, melded and extended into the cyber realm. There were no longer battles over territorial boundaries, and certainly not physical battles, but battles over ideas and ideologies which carved the space and concentrated the groups with each concentration overlapping another.
But man being man, battled for the supremacy of his ideas and ideologies in this cyber realm and (as Wall-e has shown us) slipped further into the cyber realm as man neglected and destroyed the physical realm finding that he could recreate blue skies and green fields and the entire biosphere.
Roger, unfortunately this story has no happy ending whether we look at it in the real or the cyber realm, perhaps it is reflective of the nature of man or is it my current state of mind, which is it? Do we have any escape from ourselves?
How do we will ourselves to save the earth even as we aspire escape from it to recreate a “perfect copy”in the cyberworld?
Hugs
Purnima
Purnima Viswanathan
Disclaimer : P
All persons, places, events are fictitious; all imputed relationships purely aspirational. There were no men harmed during the penning of the Feminist Manifesto
Whodunnit: Blogger/Writer/CyberSmurf 