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Shamanism, Art and Digital Culture:
Cause and Effect
Detlef Schlich
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the award of
Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Visual Art
Dublin School of Creative Arts
The College of Arts and Tourism
Dublin Institute of Technology
January 2016
i
Table of Contents
Abstract ...................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 2
1. Chapter One: The Role of the Shaman in Western Art and Culture: A Historical
Outlook ........................................................................................................................ 5
1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 5
1.2 The Attendance and Principles of Shamanism through the Lens of Western
Culture ...................................................................................................................... 6
1.3 The Misconstructions of Noble Savages ............................................................ 8
1.4 An Unusual Relationship: The Occult, Theosophy and Modern Art .................... 8
1.5 Steiner´s Heritage ............................................................................................ 12
1.6 The Influence of Shamanic Principles in Science ............................................ 16
1.7 Conclusion Chapter 1 ....................................................................................... 19
2. Chapter Two: The Heritage of the Shaman: Controversies on the Re-
spiritualization in Art and Critical Theory.................................................................... 20
2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 20
2.2 The Creative Heritage of the Shaman:
Through the Eyes of Shaman/artists ...................................................................... 21
2.3 The Creative Heritage of the Shaman:
Through the Eyes of Critical Thinkers .................................................................... 28
2.3.1 The Stone Age, the Art and
the Science of Program ................................................................................... 28
2.3.2 ´Homo Electronicus` vs. ´Homo Digitalis` ............................................... 31
ii
2.3.3 The Power of Codes ............................................................................. 33
2.4 Conclusion Chapter 2 ....................................................................................... 34
3. Chapter 3: Digital Culture and Ideologies: Identifying the Function
of the Shaman Artist in Virtual Reality ....................................................................... 36
3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 36
3.2 The Order of Cosmic Engineers ....................................................................... 37
3.2.1 Virtual Ideologies .................................................................................... 37
3.2.2 The Politics of Vision and Sound ........................................................... 42
3.3 The Cybershaman and Contemporary Art ........................................................ 46
3.4 Conclusion Chapter 3 ....................................................................................... 50
4. Final Conclusion .................................................................................................... 51
Appendix: Semi Ryu. Visual Essay Screenshots, You Tube. International Seminar:
Transmedia Literacy Barcelona ................................................................................. 54
Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 58
iii
List of Illustrations
Figure 1. An illustration of a shaman in Siberia, produced by the Dutch
explorer Nicolaes Witsen in the late 17th century. It is the earliest known
pictorial depiction of a Siberian shaman to have appeared in Europe, where
Witsen's account first popularized the term "shaman".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism#/media/File:Witsen%27s_Shaman.JP
G. Accessed 22.05.2015 ............................................................................................ 6
Figure 2. Russian postcard based on a photo taken in 1908 by S.I. Borisov,
showing a female shaman, of probable Khakas ethnicity.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/mitos_creacion/esp_mitoscreacion_2.htm
Accessed 22.05.2015 .................................................................................................. 7
Figure 3. Wassily Kandinsky
http://theosophywatch.com/2013/10/23/the-colour-of-music/. Accessed
22.05.2015…………………………………………………………………………………...9
Figure 4. Left: Helena Blavatsky. Right: Logo of the Theosophical
Society, New York City, 1875. Note the swastika. http://www.richardcassaro.com/the-
ancient-secret-of-the-swastika-the-hidden-history-of-the-white-race-p-2-of-
2#sthash.20xHfpLH.dpuf. Accessed 22.05.2015 ...................................................... 11
Figure 5. Rudolf Steiner
http://www.roelhollander.eu/en/blog-other-articles/favorite-quotes/. Accessed
22.05.2015 ................................................................................................................ 12
Figure 6. “Margarete” (1981) by Anselm Kiefer (Saatchi collection)
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/margarete-1981-by-
anselm-kiefer-saatchi-collection-970630.html. Accessed 22.05.2015 ...................... 13
Figure 7. “Sulamith” (1983) by Anselm Kiefer Oil, emulsion, wood-cut, shellac, acrylic,
and straw on canvas Original Size: 290 x 370
cm.http://www.judithwinther.dk/emner/niveau_3/visual_culture/sulamith.html.
Accessed 22.05.2015 ............................................................................................... 13
iv
Figure 8. Beuys Performance “Coyote”
http://www.johnvalentino.com/Teaching/Art390/Projects/390Proj3/JosephBeuys.html.
Accessed 22.05.2015 ............................................................................................... 15
Figure 9. Beuys Performance “Coyote”
http://www.walkerart.org/press/browse/press-releases/2008/new-walker-art-center-
collection-exhibition-f. Accessed 22.05.2015 ............................................................ 15
Figure 10. Dingoes are valued companion animals to traditional Aboriginal peoples
Dingoes are as Australian as Aboriginal peoples.
http://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/?p=15694. Accessed 22.05.2015 ..................... 16
Figure 11. Aboriginal boys and men in front of a bush shelter, Groote
Eylandt, circa 1933
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians#/media/File:Aboriginal_bo
ys_and_men_in_front_of_a_bush_shelter_-_NTL_PH0731-0022.jpg.
Accessed 22.05.2015 ............................................................................................... 17
Figure 12. Dreamtime Chart
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/mitos_creacion/esp_mitoscreacion_2.htm.
Accessed 22.05.2015 ............................................................................................... 18
Figure 13. Marina Abramovich. “How To Explain Pictures To A Dead Hare”.
http://galleryhip.com/how-to-explain-pictures-to-a-dead-hare-marina.html.
Accessed 22.05.2015 ............................................................................................... 22
Figure 14. Alejandro Jodorowsky. “The Holy Mountain” (1973) DVD Cover
http://www.freedvdcover.com/the-holy-mountain-1973-r0-dvd-cover/.
Accessed 22.05.2015 ............................................................................................... 23
Figure 15. “Journey to the Lower World” was purchased for Walker Art Gallery,
National Museums Liverpool through the Contemporary Art Society's Acquisitions
Scheme for 2008-2009.
http://old.contemporaryartsociety.org/our-work-with-public-collections/acquisitions-
scheme/journey-to-the-lower-world-2004-marcus-coates. Accessed 22.05.2015 .... 24
Figure 16. Alejandro Jodorowsky. Comic “The Technopriest”. After the Greek tragedy
of "The Metabarons," Alexandro Jodorowsky comes back to his biblical roots with this
v
quest reminiscent of Moses and set on a galactic scale. To top it off, the characters
and the theme of virtual reality are tailor-made for artist Zoran Janjetov ("Before the
Incal"), who finds in Jodorowsky his perfect match.
http://www.humanoids.com/book/451#.Vk9Ehr9M6pB. Accessed 06.12.2015 ......... 26
Figure 17 and 18. At the “In Between” space, Flagcx, a MAI collaborator in Brazil,
present an open workshop with Marina Abramovic to explore new possibilities for
performance art through its intersection with technology and science. Flagcx's
speakers Luisa Martini, Roberto Martini, and Boo Aguilar take turns talking about the
investigation and discussion of technologies related to virtual realities and self-
quantifying. They are joined by neuroscientist Adam Horowitz, from MIT.
http://www.mai-hudson.org/terra-comunal-content/2015/5/5/overlapping-memories.
Accessed 15.12.2015 .......................................................................................... 26/27
Figure 19. Marcus Coates “Dawn Chorus”, Screenshot You Tube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCCpnDtgxXk.
Accessed 15.12.2015 ............................................................................................... 28
Figure 20. We are now homo electronicus.
http://tedxtransmedia.tumblr.com/post/31266391758/we-are-now-homo-electronicus-
global-all-knowing. Accessed 06.12.2015 ................................................................. 29
Figure 21. University of Waterloo: Virtual reality technology has been around for
decades, but it is only now that we are able to create high resolution photo-realistic
virtual environments and render them in real-time.
https://uwaterloo.ca/urban-realities-laboratory/about/facilities
Accessed 14.12.2015 ............................................................................................... 40
Figure 22. California, as we consider it, has its beginnings in 1846. The United States
government sent surveyors down to Mexican territory and California in search of
gold, Minerals and mines are important to empires – there was never any successful
empire that wasn’t in control of its own mines In 1846, the U.S. declared war on
Mexico to acquire California. 1849 marked the beginning of the Gold Rush. We need
to understand the term “Gold Rush” as it applies to people to work on the internet.
The dot-com boom of the late 1990s has often been referred to as a new gold rush,
vi
and there are parallels. Both featured the wealthy and powerful destroying the
environment. Original notes by Joey deVilla on July 15, 2009
http://www.globalnerdy.com/2009/07/15/futureruby-talk-fighting-the-imperial-
californian-ideology/. Accessed 22.05.2015 ............................................................. 42
Figure 23. Images of internally generated sensations of light with geometric shapes
and no memory-based content (phosephene images) in ethnographic reports and
prehistoric rock art studies.
http://psychedelic-information-theory.com/phosphene-form-constants. Accessed
25.12.2015.
Figure 24. The most primal generative visual experiences may be ones created by
the visual cortex alone, or ones involving the visual cortex in close collaboration with
entheogenic triggers or external psycho-visual simulate, such as stroboscopic
lighting.
http://www.dataisnature.com/?p=1979. Accessed 25.12.2015
Figure 25 and 26. Chart, shown in two parts, in which Lewis-Williams attempts to
demonstrate that Paleolithic cave images, as well as those of the Bushman tribes,
are spatial transformations of the entoptic form-constants.
http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20281/Philosophy%20of%20M
agic/My%20Documents/Cave%20Art%20and%20Trance%202.htm. Accessed
25.12.2015
Figure 27. To enter ecstatic trance unusual body postures are used which were
pictured for thousand years in ancient arts. Ritual body postures “Paleolithic Venus”
reconstruction based on the big number of statues (21000 BC) discovered at the
excavation at the Kostenk, Voronezhsk oblast, Russia
http://applied.world-psychotherapy.com/article.php?post=471. Accessed 14.12.2015
.................................................................................................................................. 44
Figure 28–34. Semi Ryu. Screenshot, Art Project, Interactive Art, Virtual Puppetry
with Spiraling Interaction, Virtual Shaman: Sound Activated Puppet. “YONG-SHIN-
GUD” (calling-dragon-spirit), consists of the artist’s performance with live music,
storytelling and 3D motion graphics, and the audience’s participation. “Yong-Shin-
Gud” is a Korean word, named for a special shamanic ritual that evokes dragon spirit.
vii
Driven by storytelling and musical instrumental play, “Yong-Shin-Gud” starts with 3
components: the virtual world, the real space of the performance room, and a sound
activated puppet, “Virtual Shaman,” who mediates between the virtual and the real, in
the same way of Korean Shaman ritual, “Gud”, composed of the binary pairs and
Shaman. The virtual sound activated puppet eventually acquires the ultimate trans-
state of shaman, by spiraling interactive dialogues with the real puppeteer.
http://www.semiryu.net/?page_id=59. Accessed 14.12.2015
http://semiryu.net/movie/VirtualPuppetry.mov. Accessed 14.12.2015 ................ 47-49
Figure 35. A shaman of the Sitka-Qwan Indians (Alaska), wearing a ritual mask, is
doing a healing.
http://www.shamanism.ws/healing.html. Accessed 22.05.2015 ................................ 51
viii
Acknowledgements
The function of the shaman in digital culture has been something which has
interested me ever since I came to West Cork in 2003. The isolation, not only of
those who live in West Cork, but from elsewhere in Europe propelled and inspired me
to investigate the subject more closely. When I became a student at the Dublin
Institute of Technology in 2012 it seemed an appropriate subject which would bear
further investigation.
Having been away from formal study for many years I found, as one would expect,
that writing and researching for this thesis was a challenge in itself. However, many
friends have helped, in many ways and I would like to acknowledge that support
here.
I would like to thank Brian Fay and Tim Stott of DIT for their support, ideas, analyses,
feedback and comments on my research. Richard Bartlett helped make the final draft
more comprehensive. I appreciate also the encouragement, advice and support of
Owen Kelly.
Special thanks must be made to Fergus Murphy and Glenn Loughan for sharing their
valuable experience with me. I also gratefully acknowledge Semi Ryu of the
Department Kinetic Imaging Commonwealth University, Virginia for offering me their
assistance during my studies. Finally but not least, on a more personal level, my
thanks goes to all my friends, who have been a crucial source of spiritual support.
ix
Declaration
This thesis is submitted by the undersigned to the Dublin School of Creative Arts,
the College of Arts and Tourism, Dublin Institute of Technology in part fulfillment of
the examination for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Visual Art.
It is entirely the author’s own work and has not been submitted previously for an
award to this or any other institution.
Signed: __________________________________ Date: _________________
1
Shamanism, Art and Digital Culture:
Cause and Effect.
Abstract
This paper explores the postmodern [quasi] shaman/artist and the potential of
shamanism as a therapeutic tool benefiting and curing our ´online` culture in order to
maintain their audience in the ´offline` world.
1
A rising number of people no longer
retain their place in just one physical world whereby they challenged our
contemporary understanding of physical reality.
2
Virtual Reality [VR] or cyberspace
3
will be our new medium for education and dissemination of information.
4
While there
have been recognizable benefits to society from the digital revolution, especially in
terms of the accessibility of information, there are a number of concerns. Despite a
flood of data and the use of personalized information systems problems of this world
would remain unaffected. Discourse about various anxieties and neuroses that are growing
out the use of digital technologies will be considered.
5
/
6
At the beginning of the second decade
1
When a computer or other device is not turned on or connected to other devices, it is said to be
"offline." This is the opposite of being "online," when a device can readily communicate with other
devices.
http://techterms.com/definition/offline. Accessed 21.11.2015.
2
According to Rosenfeld, ´Contemporary citizen [...] live, play, and work in multiple realities: real life
reality, simulated reality, augment reality, virtual reality, and hyper reality`.
Kimberly N. Rosenfeld, Digital online culture, identity, and schooling in the twenty-first century (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015., 1.
3
The word "cyberspace” is credited to William Gibson, who used it in his book, “Neuromancer”, written
in 1984. Unlike most computer terms, "cyberspace" does not have a standard, objective definition.
Instead, it is used to describe the virtual world of computers.
http://techterms.com/definition/cyberspace. Accessed 29.09.2015.
4
According to Mary Spio, CEO of Next Galaxy, a developer of innovative content solutions and
consumer virtual reality technology, VR is poised to be our new medium for education and
dissemination of information.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2015/05/22/how-virtual-reality-may-change-medical-
education-and-save-lives/. Accessed 20.11.2015.
5
http://tedxtransmedia.tumblr.com/post/31266391758/we-are-now-homo-electronicus-global-all-
knowing. Accessed 20.11.2015.
6
Data volumes grow in our exceedingly connected, globalized world. Contemporary Scientists fear
through alignment [rather than a system of totalitarian control over the individual] of many individual
acts a manipulation of perspectives and decisions, which may lead to an incapacitation of the citizen
by state-planned behavior control. According to Gerd Gigerenzer we stand at crossroads: ´Big Data,
künstliche Intelligenz, Kybernetik und Verhaltensökonomie [...] könnten [...] zu einer Automatisierung
der Gesellschaft mit totalitären Zügen führen. Im schlimmsten Fall droht eine zentrale künstliche
Intelligenz zu steuern, was wir wissen, denken und wie wir handeln`.
Translation by Detlef Schlich: ´Big Data, artificial intelligence, cybernetics and behavioral economics
[...] might [...] lead to an automation of society with totalitarian features. In the worst case a central
artificial intelligence might control what we know, think and how we behave`.
http://www.spektrum.de/news/wie-algorithmen-und-big-data-unsere-zukunft-bestimmen/1375933.
Accessed 17.11.2015.
2
of the 21st century our ´burn out society` suffers increasingly from neurological diseases
such as depressions, ADHD
7
, BPD
8
and burn-out syndrome
9
/
10
. Solutions have to be found
how to get online and offline culture into balance.
Introduction
Understanding the change from offline to online culture, the challenge for the
shaman/artists in a virtual culture is, in this regard, a central goal for this research.
Consequently, this study aims to describe how things [digital] can afford change, in
cooperation with us in an analogical sense. The ancient tool of shamanism confirms
the healing of the contemporary quasi shaman/artist. In the time of virtual reality a
part of this methodology is its examination. Suzi Gablik’s book “The Reenchantment
of Art”
11
identifies the task of a re-spiritualization of society and has been chosen
here as an appropriate instrument to achieve previously mentioned aims.
Nonetheless, ‘the function of the shaman/artist’ [especially in digital culture] as a
concept is difficult to study in isolation because a sense of this archetype is
influenced by various factors. Important among them would be the interaction
amongst members of one’s group which might yield consistent patterns, categorized
and seen increasingly as a digital culture which thereby prefers to communicate and
find the "self" in virtual reality whose focus amalgamates disciplines of computer
science, psychoanalysis and philosophy, amongst others.
7
ADHD/ADD is usually described as being made up of three core behaviours: Predominantly
inattentive type - problems of attention, distractibility, short-term memory and learning. Predominantly
hyperactive type - impulsive, poorly self-monitored behaviour. Combined type - most children with
ADHD/ADD fall into this category.
http://www.hadd.ie/article/what-adhdadd#sthash.JU8en4tm.dpuf. Accessed 29.09.2015.
8
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) can cause a wide range of symptoms. These can be broadly
grouped into four main areas: emotional instability (the psychological term for this is affective
disturbance), disturbed patterns of thinking (the psychological term for this is disturbed cognition),
impulsive behaviour, intense but unstable relationships with others
BPD is a serious condition because many people with the condition will self-harm and attempt suicide.
It is estimated that 60-70% of people with BPD will attempt suicide at some point in their life, and 10%
will succeed. A study carried out in 2010 found that half of all people with BPD will completely recover
and around 80% of people will remain mostly free of symptoms for at least four years.
http://www.hse.ie/eng/health/az/B/Borderline-personality-disorder/Causes-of-borderline-personality-
disorder.html. Accessed 29.09.2015.
9
According to A. Weber and A. Jaekel-Reinhard, ´To date, there is no generally accepted definition of
burnout, or binding diagnostic criteria. According to the most common description at present, burnout
syndrome is characterized by exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced satisfaction in performance.`
http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/7/512.abstract. Accessed 29.09.2015.
10
Byung-Chun Han, The Burnout Society (Standford, California: Stanford University Press, 2015., 1.
11
Suzi Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art (New York: Thames and Hudson,1991)
3
This paper investigates whether virtual reality, combined with shamanistic
performance (active or interactive) can help in this regard. Participants learn to find
their initial ways of interaction to solve a given problem [for instance the re-
spiritualization of ´a` soul in the digital age/VR]. Participating ´offline` from an ´online`
interaction, contrives to engage the whole being. This paper suggests that by
researching this subject through an interdisciplinary lens, not just the aspects of
intellect and technology issues [especially of mass communication and virtual reality]
but the emotional, psychological, ethical and spiritual parts of us as well. Voices from
the world of art, science and philosophy need also to be considered.
This paper is in four parts. The first three will critically assess our culture supported by the
reflection of theorists, artists and philosophers’. The final part establishes a definitive
conclusion. I will refer briefly to the relevance of Gablik’s book “The Reenchantment of Art”
because she establishes such a central and valuable role in guiding the reader towards a clear
understanding of the subject at hand. Chapter 1 investigates the chronological perspective of
the shaman in art and culture. Some techniques of shamanism must be identified and
understood in a historical and socio-cultural context from the 19th and 20th centuries
before it can be adapted to others. A brief reference to some post-war German
shaman/artists should help to create an historical awareness of this subject. Chapter 2
discusses the role of the shaman artist in contemporary art. It explores the impact and
influence of artists practicing shamanism. By aiming to identify the creativity of contemporary
artists, vis-à-vis their use of shamanistic principles and by discovering how these principles
work, clarification of what makes it shamanistic can be more easily demonstrated and how they
can be revealed as being shamanistic. The impact of the move from offline to mass media
online culture will be reflected by the ideas and opinions through the eyes of critics and
philosophers. Chapter 3 considers the pros and cons of online digital culture and hosts the
eclectic discussion on virtual reality and the impact of the function of the shaman artist in virtual
culture, before examining the work of shaman/artists working in a digital environment to clarify
whether cyber shamans can heal their audience in the ´offline` world.
12
12
Schlottmann explains the term Cyber shamanism ´ [...] is used in different ways. It is used as a self-
designation by some neo-shamans who are regularly online to promote their spiritual content or by
virtual artists who work in the spheres of magic and mystic. In particular, in the esoteric scene, the
term cyber shaman has gained great popularity and is used in conjunction with self-awareness,
healing and magic. Thereby, the boundaries between neo-shamanism, neo-paganism and
cybershamanism are often blurred.`
https://www.academia.edu/6184047/Cyber_Shamanism_in_South_Korea. Accessed 18.10.2015.
4
Finally, the conclusion summarizes and reviews the 3 previous chapters by discussing the
re-spiritualization of our culture in the proposed manner by adapting Gablik’s
methods into the requirements of digital culture in the 21th century. Consequently the
disadvantages of the current method are also discussed. Future directions are
provided that could be helpful in advancing our understanding of the evolution of the
human being in times of trans-humanism. The paper closes with my own perspective
whether the virtual reality is able to incorporate our ancient shamanic consciousness and,
moreover, describes my intention to examine how artists can then go on to use this in a
creative and healing way.
5
Chapter One
The Role of the Shaman in Western Art and Culture: A Historical Outlook.
Each of us is now being drawn, in one way or another, toward a great vision. It is more than a
vision. It is an emerging force. It is the next step in our evolutionary journey.
Gary Zukav
1.1 Introduction
This chapter looks briefly and chronologically into the appearance of Shamanism in western
culture. After defining the principles and its healing and cleansing properties the paper will then
relate the work of Kandinsky to the influence of theosophy and the occult. Is there something
distinct about contemporary practice, compared to the approach of a spiritual artist in the late
19th century vis-a-vis their tendency toward shamanism? Next, studying its historical context
through post-war German artists such as Beuys and his student Anselm Kiefer should create
an awareness of times past. Both of them re-engage the (German) Romantic tradition
13
of the
artist as seer and savior. To show the diversity of shamanistic principles this will be followed by
examples of the use of shamanism in its cultural context and will close with an ephemeral
summary of some voices on the sentimentalised desire towards primitivism.
Gablik suggests a re-framing of the modern world-view and its assumptions. Transforming old
modes of understanding includes for her that we need to become "exquisitely skilled engineers
of change in our mythologies". One of her major issues is: ´How can we overcome the
ignorance of western cultural sensitivity towards moral and spiritual issues?"
14
Our society is
critical regarding the development of psychology and spirituality, and rejects its belief structure.
Her view was that psychological attitudes regarding the dynamics of transforming personal and
cultural myth could be seen as very useful to the progress of reframing our culture.
15
13
Bonnie Roos analysis of Kiefers artwork in ´Anselm Kiefer and the Art of Allusion: Dialectics of the
Early Margarete and Sulamith Paintings`. Roos describes in her essay both women as alluded to in
the poem and in the artwork. In exploring the archetypal role each plays in representing both the
Holocaust and Romantic narratives leading up to the time of the National Socialists.
14
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 4.
15
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 10.
6
1.2 The Attendance of Shamanism and the Principles through the Lens of Western
Culture
One of the first scientific definitions of ´shaman` was given by the Russian ethnographer
V. M. Mikhaĭlovskiĭ (1892). He stated that the shaman is ´an intermediary in man’s relations
with the world of spirits.
16
In general, interest in shamanism dates back to the seventeenth
century, and analytical studies began to appear in the eighteenth century. By 1870, Sir John
Lubbock specified shamanism as the fourth stage of the evolution of religion.
17
Roberte N.
Hamayon has labeled the three-step history of approaches to the shaman’s behavior during
the past 300 years as ´devilization, medicalization, and idealization`.
18
However, shamanism is accepted by primitive peoples of all 5 continents and receives as a
result, the social status of priests, doctors, teachers and psychotherapists of western society.
As healers, magicians, soothsayers, sages and artists, they were the first ´consciousness
researchers`.
19
Figure 1. An illustration of a shaman in Siberia, produced by the Dutch explorer Nicolaes
Witsen in the late 17th century. It is the earliest known pictorial depiction of a Siberian
shaman to have appeared in Europe, where Witsen's account first popularised the term
"shaman".
16
Ake Hultkranz, „Introductory remarks on the study of shamanism. ´ SHAMAN An international
Journal for shamanistic Research. (Molnar & Kelemen Oriental Publishers), 1993/2007, 2.
17
Ake Hultkranz, „Introductory remarks on the study of shamanism. ´ SHAMAN An international
Journal for shamanistic Research. (Molnar & Kelemen Oriental Publishers), 1993/2007, 5.
18
Kocku von Stuckrad,´Reenchanting Nature: Modern Western Shamanism and Nineteenth-Century
Thought`.
http://www.kockuvonstuckrad.com/downloads/download02.pdf. Accessed 20.09.2015.
19
Carlo Zumstein, Schamanismus (München: Diederichs Verlag, 2001), 16.
7
Figure 2. Russian postcard based on a photo taken in 1908 by S.I. Borisov, showing a
female shaman, of probable Khakas ethnicity.
Psychologist Dr. Carlo Zumstein, a founding member and director of the Swiss Foundation for
Shamanic Studies describes it as the basic technique of a practice which is thousands of years
old and arguably, can promote an awareness of its influence on universal power and/or
energy.
20
For him Shamanism is first of all a cognitive science and he holds that its core is
hidden from the rational thinking of the distant scientist as well as the reader, sitting at home.
In Zumstein’s view, shamanic rituals need to be practiced in order to feel their healing and
magical powers.
21
Shamans work on behalf of others, when they access the spirit world. In
order to obtain these transformations the indigenous peoples explore monotonous drumming,
dancing, drug taking, fasting. For thousands of years they sought to improve their techniques,
and rituals and refined and deployed these healing practices for their tribal members.
22
20
Zumstein, Schamanismus, 13.
21
Zumstein, Schamanismus, 13.
22
Zumstein, Schamanismus, 13 – 16.
8
1.3 The Misconstructions of ´Noble` Savages
Primitivism and the potential disruption of tribal artefacts into Western culture are part of an
extensive media discourse. Tim Stott mentioned that this group were dependent upon artefacts
from the Dresden Ethnographical Collections. He suggested that we should also look out of the
primitivism involved in Western contemporary artists by appropriating the rituals and roles of
other cultures. Misunderstandings and prejudices often resulted, and he refers to Emil Nolde´s
book “On Primitive Art” from 1912 where he explained and described the primitive ´artist` as
one who simply appreciates making art. The impact of Western artists informed and inspired
by these primitive ´artists` uncoupled such artefacts from ritual, magical practices.
23
Christian
Klotz adds to this discourse that even if the Modern Primitive scene always dealt respectfully
with indigenous cultural property, it shouldn’t be ignored that dealing with foreign culture even
today is biased with colonial rating concepts/evaluations like the own/stranger as well as
civilization/wildness and modern/primitive.
24
1.4 An Unusual Relationship: The Occult, Theosophy and Modern Art
An alliance of modern art and the occult began, according to James Webb, in 1890 in Paris, at
the time the center of artistic and occult experiments. Shamanism can be considered to be of
the occult. Peter Jones suggests that Jung already verified the occult experience in
shamanism.
25
Their methods like channelling and spirits in animal form
26
are similar to other
occult practices and beliefs. The result was rampant cults that developed strongly, particularly
in Germany and Russia. This begs the question is there something distinct about
contemporary practices from the spiritual artist in the late 19th century in their tendency toward
shamanism?
The Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944) in 1896 settled in Germany and was the
central figure of the Expressionist movement.
27
In 1910 he painted, in the opinions of many
23
Dr. Tim Stott, E-Mail BA(hons), MSc, PhD Lecturer in Art History and Theory, Dublin School of
Creative Arts, Dublin Institute of Technology, July 2015
24
http://d-nb.info/1032312858/34. Accessed 29.09.2015.
25
According to Jones, ´Jung was convinced that the only way to heal neuroses was through what he
delicately called experiences of the numinosum, behind which term as the Red Book clearly shows are
the occult experiences of the shaman, being in the presence of a divinity or spiritual being.`
Peter Jones, The Other Worldview: Exposing Christianity's Greatest Threat (Kirkdale Press:
Bellingham 2015), Kindle Book.
26
´This animals called power animals and shape shifters`
http://www.allaboutspirituality.org/shamanism.htm. Accessed 29.09.2015.
27
Justin Wintle, ed. Makers of Modern Culture; Volume 1 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), 791.
9
critics, the first abstract picture.
28
Kandinsky (Fig. 3) states as essential that an image is formed
due to an inner necessity. He describes an inner voice which led him to perceive naive and
sensitive sensations, becoming the motor of his creative impulse. Suffering impressions of an
over-saturation he was jealous of the life civil servants, because they could relax when their
working day was through whereas he could not.
29
/
30
Kandinsky allegedly saw colours when he
listened to music - when his auditory cortex was stimulated, his visual cortex was instantly
stimulated.
31
Initiatory suffering is also a path for the modern shaman. Enjoyable experiences
make life pleasing, but this journey doesn´t create any change and has nothing to do with the
shamanic path.
32
Did he wander, perhaps, with his hypersensitivity through the ordeal of role
of being a shaman? Peg Weiss showed that Kandinsky's paintings consistently reflected an
underlying message, that ´his belief in the shamanist calling of the artist to provide a means of
cultural healing and regeneration`.
33
28
James Webb, Das Zeitalter des Irrationalen. (Wiesbaden: Marixverlag, 2008), 486.
29
Kandinsky was saying ´after their working hours they can relax completely [...] but I had to see continuously`.
Ulrike Becks-Malorny, Kandinsky (Cologne: Taschen GmbH, 2007), 56.
30
Some Voices say that this cross wiring can make day to day activities distractive. ´Raindrops on an
umbrella send flashes of colour across ones visual field. But for artists, especially for Kandinsky, this
disorder opened a wave of creativity`.
http://sites.bu.edu/ombs/2012/02/21/inside-the-mind-of-creative-geniuses/. Accessed 22.11.2015.
31
Ossian Ward researched that ´Kandinsky is believed to have had synaesthesia […] colours and
painted marks triggered particular sounds or musical notes and vice versa. The involuntary ability to
hear colour, see music or even taste words results from an accidental cross-wiring in the brain that is
found in one in 2,000 people, and in many more women than men.`
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3653012/The-man-who-heard-his-paintbox-hiss.html. Accessed
22.11.2015.
32
´Suffering as an Initiation. Traditionally the shaman must "attain to intimacy with the
supernatural by visions of death". The old must die so the new can be reborn. The healing
comes from the world beyond, the very world that the shaman will later walk as a participant
and partner with the forces that lay there`.
http://istina.rin.ru/cgi-bin/eng/print.pl?id=456&sait=2. Accessed 29.09.2015.
33
Peg Weiss, research professor in the fine arts at Syracuse University, has published
widely on Kandinsky and was the organizer of the exhibition Kandinsky in Munich, 1896-
1914 for the Guggenheim Museum. She shows that Kandinsky's knowledge of Finno-Ugric,
Lapp, and Siberian shamanism and folklore provided him with an indelible palette of
iconographic references that resonated in his work—from his earliest paintings to his last.
Identifying specific ethnographic and folkloristic motifs in his iconography, she argues that
despite numerous stylistic changes, Kandinsky's paintings consistently reflected an
underlying message: his belief in the shamanist calling of the artist to provide a means of
cultural healing and regeneration.
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300056478 . Accessed 29.09.2015.
10
Figure 3. Wassily Kandinsky
Contemporary artist, Greg Wyatt, inspired by Kandinsky’s principles of shamanism, conceived
that his art should serve others.
34
Wyatt’s work is based on the philosophy of ´spiritual
realism`.
35
For Wyatt Kandinsky emphasized both the spiritual aspects of art
36
and the need for
artists to recognize the social responsibilities of their work.
37
In 1911 Kandinsky published
“Concerning the Spiritual in Art” in which he describes the spiritual revolution which was then
occurring.
38
Later with his co-editor Franz Marc (1880 – 1916) he consciously provided the
“Blue Rider” almanac with a "shamanistic" theme, which symbolized their belief in the new art
as a metaphor for cultural healing and salvation.
39
34
´ [...] Unsere Seele, die nach der langen materialistischen Periode erst im Anfang des Erwachens
ist, birgt in sich Keime der Verzweiflung des Nichtglaubens, des Ziel- und Zwecklosen. Der ganze
Alpdruck der materialistischen Anschauungen, welche aus dem Leben des Weltalls ein böses
zweckloses Spiel gemacht haben, ist noch nicht vorbei. Die erwachende Seele ist noch stark unter
dem Eindruck dieses Alpdruckes`. [original German version]
´ [...] Our soul, after the long period of materialism, at last begins to awaken from despair born of
unbelief, lack of purpose and ideals. This nightmare of materialism, which has turned the life of the
universe into an evil, useless game, has not yet past. The awakening soul, while trying to free itself, is
still under its domination`.
Wassily Kandinsky, ´On the spiritual in art - Das Geistige in der Kunst`. 1911.
https://archive.org/stream/onspiritualinart00kand/onspiritualinart00kand_djvu.txt. Accessed 20. May
2015..
35
http://gregwyattsculpture.com/biography/. Accessed 20.05.2015.
36
´ [...] So entstand teilweise unsere Sympathie, unser Verständnis, unsere innere Verwandtschaft mit
den Primitiven. Ebenso wie wir, suchten diese reinen Künstler nur das Innerlich- Wesentliche in ihren
Werken zu bringen, wobei der Verzicht auf äußerliche Zufälligkeit von selbst entstand`. [original
German version]
´ […] Thus, our sympathy, our understanding, our inner affinity to the Primitives came partly into
existence. Like ourselves, these pure artists sought to express Inner truths in their work and, in
consequence, automatically repudiated all consideration of external accidents`.
Wassily Kandinsky, ´On the spiritual in art - Das Geistige in der Kunst`. 1911.
https://archive.org/stream/onspiritualinart00kand/onspiritualinart00kand_djvu.txt. Accessed 20. May
2015..
37
Robert Wuthnow, Creative Spirituality - The way of the artist (Los Angeles: University of California
Press), 2001.
38
Mark C.Taylor, Refiguring the Spiritual (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 21.
39
´But of course the most telling demonstration of Kandinsky's deep ethnographic interest was his
inclusion of ethnic artifacts in the ground-breaking and influential Blue Rider almanac of 1912. A wide
variety of ethnic objects was illustrated in the almanac, most having to do with themes of healing and
salvation: Bavarian "miracle" paintings, a Ceylonese dance mask of the demon of disease, an Easter
11
Mark Taylor notes that ´Kandinsky reclaimed and reinterpreted his Russian orthodox heritage
through the theosophical writings
40
of fellow Russian Helena Petrova Blavatsky (1831 –
1891)`. Taylor argues that ´She was well known to be possessed of paranormal powers and
her journeys through Europe, Egypt and India fed her spiritual interest and inspired her to
develop a syncretistic system that brought together strands of Eastern and Western esoteric
religious and philosophical traditions.`
41
(Fig.4)
Figure 4. Left: Helena Blavatsky. Right: Logo of the Theosophical
However, Kandinsky and Marc were not the inventors of mysticism; this was already
anticipated by Edward Munch (1863 – 1944) and founded in Dresden in 1904 by the
Expressionist group Die Brücke.
42
Kandinsky’s ideas on colour resulted from his study of
Rudolph Steiner (1861 – 1925), who himself had been influenced in this regard, by Goethe.
Kandinsky attended lectures on Steiner's (Fig. 5) ideas
43
in Murnau and Berlin. As evidenced
in his library.
44
Island ancestor figure, and so on.`
Peg Weiss, (1986) "Kandinsky and "Old Russia": An Ethnographic Exploration," Syracuse Scholar
(1979-1991): Vol. 7: Iss. 1, Article 5.
http://surface.syr.edu/suscholar/vol7/iss1/5. Accessed 29.09.2015.
40
The most basic tenet of theosophy is that ´all men have spiritually and physically the same origin`.
Taylor, Refiguring the Spiritual, 22.
41
Taylor, Refiguring the Spiritual, 22.
42
Webb, Das Zeitalter des Irrationalen, 487.
43
Taylor explains that Steiner discovered in Goethe´s scientific investigations and reflections on colour
`What he believed to be a way to penetrate the surface of appearances imaginatively and to uncover
spiritual reality underlying everything`.
Taylor, Refiguring the Spiritual, 29.
44
Webb, Das Zeitalter des Irrationalen, 486.
12
Figure 5. Rudolf Steiner
1.5 Steiner’s Heritage
It is no coincidence that Steiner´s anthroposophy does not only inspire Kandinsky’s work.
45
Occult notions of liberation and spiritual revolution penetrated the artistic movements of the
surveyed postwar generations.
46
Josef Beuys´ protégé Anselm Kiefer (born in 1945) for
instance developed epic-scaled, dense sculptures and paintings (Fig. 6 and 7). They are often
exposed to elements like acid and fire, and incorporate materials such as lead, burned books,
concrete, thorny branches, ashes, and clothing. Spirituality has been recognized by both the
Bohemian as well as elsewhere in society.
47
Whereas Steiner influenced the German artist,
Joseph Beuys, Blavatsky´s theosophy influenced Kandinsky.
48
Moreover, Beuys disagreed
with Kandinsky’s view of abstraction and the dematerialization of the work of art, but
sympathised with his spiritual vision and understanding of Art's redemptive power.
49
45
Taylor mentioned that ´Steiner played a decisive role in transmitting 19th century philosophy to 20th
century artists. Whereas Blavatsky sprinkled references to romantic poets and idealistic philosophers
throughout her writings, Steiner examined their works carefully and developed a serious philosophical
system of his own. `
Taylor, Refiguring the Spiritual, 28.
46
Anselm Kiefer, Josef Beuys` protégé critically engages with alchemy, myth and memory, referencing
totems of German culture and collective history. Kiefer’s vast-ranging references have included the
Black Forest, Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, and Caspar David Friedrich’s Romantic landscapes, as
well as Kabbalah mysticism.
https://www.artsy.net/artist/anselm-kiefer. Accessed 21.05.2015.
47
Webb, Das Zeitalter des Irrationalen, 49.
48
Taylor, Refiguring the Spiritual, 23.
49
Taylor, Refiguring the Spiritual, 23.
13
Figure 6. “Margarete” (1981) by Anselm Kiefer (Saatchi collection)
Figure 7. “Sulamith” (1983) by Anselm Kiefer Oil, emulsion, wood-cut, shellac, acrylic, and straw on
canvas Original Size: 290 x 370 cm.
14
Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) a Luftwaffe pilot survived a plane crash due to the help he received
from Nomadic Tartars during a Russian recovery maneuver in the Crimea in the winter of
1943. Stott notes that "His recovery at the hands of the Tartars became part of his myth-
making."
50
Beuys` subsequent reflection on his experience led to an interest with
shamanism.
51
He already made use of its principles in his art during his fluxus period, as he
began to perform acts of a ritual nature.
52
The performance action "Coyote" (20. – 25.05.1974) was one of the most influential
performance works of the 20th century (Fig. 8 and 9). He spent days in René Block's
Manhattan gallery space with a coyote, before being driven straight back to the airport and
flown home. The coyote is sacred to Native Americans, and represented an aspect of the
country’s past that Beuys valued.
53
For Caroline Tisdall, the images of this performance are as
iconic and provocative now as they were initially.
54
He was strongly influenced by shamanic
principles. Beuys’ willpower was addressed in a conversation with the coyote to conjure up his
view of this culture.
55
(Fig. 10)
50
Stott further explained ´...which he tried to correlate with Germany´s post-WWII development. In
many ways, Kiefer continues this role`.
Tim Stott, E-Mail, BA (hons), MSc, PhD Lecturer in Art History and Theory, Dublin School of Creative
Arts, Dublin Institute of Technology, July 2015
51
Heiner Stachelhaus, Joseph Beuys (München: Econ Ullstein List Verlag, 2001), 26.
52
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/63668/Joseph-Beuys#ref246931. Accessed
20.05.2015.
53
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-coyote-i-ar00695. Accessed 20.05.2015.
54
Caroline Tisdall, Joseph Beuys, Coyote. (Germany: Schirmer Mosel, 2008), Blurb.
55
Physicist Wolf knows the technique of the Aborigines. From the observation of the animals they
develop instructions, examples and models for their own everyday behaviour.
Fred Alan Wolf, Die Physik der Träume (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG,
1997), 167.
15
Figure 8. Beuys Performance “Coyote”
Figure 9. Beuys Performance “Coyote”
16
Figure 10. For instance: Dingoes are valued companion animals to traditional Aboriginal peoples.
Dingoes are as Australian as Aboriginal peoples.
1.6 The Influence of Shamanic Principles in Science
Dr. Claude Poncelet, scientist and shamanic teacher, offers a developing connection to the
wisdom and power of the spiritual forces in our lives. For him modern shamanism is an ever-
changing practice that welcomes both scientific discoveries and our personal experience.
Shape shifting is seen as powerful means of building empathy, gathering insight, and
experiencing our fundamental relation to every part of reality. In his opinion shamanism
enhances both work and family life, revealing novel solutions to challenges, healing the
environment, and more. He sees no inconsistency between science and spiritual knowledge.
56
Whilst human consciousness has clearly benefitted from contemporary research into
psychology and neurology, shamanistic technicians could be seen to have transformed our
state of mind. Scientists from various disciplines are using the techniques and principles of
shamanism in the belief that they will achieve a better understanding of the effective treatment
of mental disease.
57
Fred Alan Wolf is a professor of theoretical physics. Working in dream research he takes a
different approach. His research into the ´Dreamtime of the Aborigines`, conveys the certainty
that we still have a lot to learn about the connection between dreams and the universe.
´Dreamtime` is a timeless storyline that runs parallel to their everyday activities.
58
The term
56
http://www.amazon.com/The-Shaman-Within-Physicists-Dimensions/dp/1622031970. Accessed
28.09.2015.
57
Zumstein, Schamanismus, 13 – 16.
58
Wolf, Die Physik der Träume, 159 – 160.
17
doesn’t descend from the aboriginal, but was coined in 1896 by Frank Gillen, an English
researcher.
59
Wolf points out that it does not exemplify the aboriginal language, and dream has
a different meaning for ancient peoples compared to today's Western world, and is more likely
to maintain a scientific relationship with nature. Nevertheless, he hopes that western-trained
eyes will discover an evolutionary line of demarcation by exploring shamanic principles in
Aboriginal society (Fig. 11). He hopes to discover the ´big dreamer` and with him the imaginal
field
60
of the great dream (Fig. 12) which, thereby, reveals itself.
61
Figure 11. Aboriginal boys and men in front of a bush shelter, Groote Eylandt, circa 1933
59
Wolf, Die Physik der Träume, 162.
60
´This concept is coined by Henri Corbin and describes (in short) a reality that exists outside the usual
perception of our normal waking state.´
Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a scholar, philosopher and theologian. He was Professor of Islam &
Islamic Philosophy and a champion of the transformative power of the Imagination and of the
transcendent reality of the individual in a world threatened by totalitarianisms of all kinds. One of the
20th century’s most prolific scholars of Islamic mysticism.
http://henrycorbinproject.blogspot.ie/2009/10/mundus-imaginalis-or-imaginary-and.html. Accessed
19.05.2015.
61
Wolf, Die Physik der Träume, 8.
18
Figure 12. Dreamtime Chart
Wolf was not the first scientist using the ancient tools of shamanism to inform his work.
Physicist Wolfgang Pauli, developed his theories in quantum mechanics in the 1930s with the
help of his dreams and C. G. Jung who is considered by some people arguably
62
as 'Shaman
of the West`.
63
Ernst P. Fischer is aware that some psychologists are not fully convinced of
62
SARA CORBETT mentioned in her article about Jungs “The Red Book” that ´Some people feel that
nobody should read the book, and some feel that everybody should read it. […] What he wrote [Jung]
did not belong to his previous canon of dispassionate, academic essays on psychiatry. […]Instead, the
book was a kind of phantasmagoric morality play […]. Jung evidently kept “The Red Book” locked […]
The central premise of the book […] was that Jung had become disillusioned with scientific rationalism
— what he called “the spirit of the times” […] And yet, Carl Jung’s secret Red Book […] will be
published […] by W. W. Norton and billed as the “most influential unpublished work in the history of
psychology.” Surely it is a victory for someone, but it is too early yet to say for whom`.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html?_r=0. Accessed 04.12.2015.
63
´“I fell into the mystery”. Jung states after he has been squeezed by the black snake and saluted by
Salome [6]. Reading “The Red Book”, we see the enormity of the price Jung paid for his wisdom, and
come to appreciate the extent of his courage and eventual self-mastery. This is a record of a
thoroughly shamanic descent to the Underworld, and of long testing and initiation in houses of
darkness from which lesser minds and feebler spirits might never have managed to find their way
back`
19
Jung’s interpretation of dreams and point out that anyone who can be analyzed by him, soon
has the dreams that Jung fit into the picture. Pauli assured us, however, that he himself
interpreted his dreams, and Jung only sometimes provided comments.
64
1.7 Conclusion Chapter 1
Nonetheless, this chapters’ intention is to create a historical awareness of the shamanic
cultural-social influence upon western culture and contemporary artists. Gablik blames modern
western culture which tends to focus solely on the logical aspects of the mind, rather than
allowing a broader validity of experiences, known as ´visionary`.
65
It seems that the principles
of shamanism are adaptable in many ways. If one is sensitive enough to escape the trap of
sentimentalised desire, not [only] romanticising or misunderstand and misuse this ancient tool,
it can have therapeutic and cleansing power as well as it can be used as a source of inspiration
for creativity or informer for artistically or scientific work. Working with this basic knowledge of
the functions of the shaman, chapter two will introduce and examine contemporary artists using
the somewhat stunted abilities of a shaman in order to enlighten their work and/or the
audience.
http://carljungdepthpsychology.blogspot.ie/2012/02/carl-jung-shaman-of-west.html. Accessed
29.09.2015.
64
Ernst Peter Fischer, Die aufschimmernde Nachtseite (Lengwil, Switzerland: Libelle-Verlag, 2003),
119.
65
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 43.
20
Chapter 2
Re-spiritualization of Contemporary Art and Online Culture according to
the Theory of Critics
2.1 Introduction
This chapter investigates if contemporary Shaman/Artists compare themselves to
indigenous Shaman. Do they have the same acceptance in the modern society as
the shamen in an aboriginal culture? Introducing shamanistic practices as different
strategies used by artists will address this issue. In order to create awareness about
the shift from ´offline` to ´online` culture, which is a major goal of this chapter’s
interdisciplinary research critics, philosophers and scientists will discuss this subject
reflecting on art practice, science and mass media communication.
Gablik is aware that those who want to learn to enter the ´Dreamtime` have to use
the knowledge of Shamanism and its rituals, to enable us to reconnect with our
archetypal memory that informs and maintains the loss of our integration with
nature.
66
What changes are necessary to turn a society suffering from a crisis of faith
into optimistic individuals?
67
How might we achieve this? This paper investigates
whether artists can implement corrective measures, with the help of ancient rituals
and knowledge to transform the essentials of our cultural progress in order to reframe
our culture.
68
66
She suggest as example to look up the artist Fern Shaffner and the photographer Othello Anderson,
known for marking the passage of the seasonal equinoxes and solstices with special rituals.
Rationalisation, abstraction and the control of the ego, not only determines the world we live in but
how we identify with it. According to Gablik a particular development in our worldview is that we are
losing our sense of the power of imagination, myth, dream and vision. She indicate that social renewal
can be created by individuals as long as they believe in the possibility of it. ´The significance of what
we do is to reenact or remember old ways of healing the earth` Shaffner states. ´An ancient rhythm
takes over; time does not exist anymore. We perform the rituals to keep the idea alive`.
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 42.
67
Vilém Flusser, Medienkultur, (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag 1997), 40.
68
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 25.
21
2.2 The Creative Heritage of the Shaman: Through the eyes of Shaman/artists
Mark Levy points out that most of us cannot experience this form of power in quite
the way artists do. His opinion is that ´Like shamans, modern artists are different in
character from the rest of society`.
69
Thereby artists like shamen accept their ability
to enjoy enhanced powers of seeing, hearing, and dreaming, which help them to
travel through different realities. He noticed that the modern artists/shamans use this
to transform, enlighten, heal and empower their audience too.
70
Considering Mark
Levy’s notion, this research continues with the introduction of 3 contemporary
shaman artists: Marina Abramović, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Marcus Coates.
Abramović uses Shamanism and mythological imagery, amongst others, to
deconstruct western stereotypes of South Slavic cultures.
71
Josef Beuys’ influence on
her is obvious. She has already performed his piece ´How to Explain Pictures to a
Dead Hare`.
72
(Fig. 13) ´The artist is present` suggests Yoko Ono’s (1933)
performance as ´Cut Piece`, which involved her being on stage whilst members of
the audience cut and removed pieces of her clothing.
73
Abramović’s and Ono’s ritual
performance might reinforce Gablik’s argument for the need to become ´exquisitely
skilled engineers of change in our mythologies` and might show a notion of her
concept of re-spiritualization; but the ancient technology of Shamanism has plenty of
applications in art.
74
69
Mark Levi, Technicians of ecstasy: Shamanism and the modern artist (Norfolk, Connecticut:
Bramble Books, 1993), xvii.
70
Levi, Technicians of ecstasy: Shamanism and the modern artist, xvi.
71
http://depts.washington.edu/slavweb/18BSSLLF/abstracts/13..pdf. Accessed 16.08.2015.
72
Originally performed first in 1965.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/How-to-Explain-Pictures-to-a-Dead-Hare. Accessed 06.10.2015.
73
Ono remarks in her artist statement: ´...Cut Piece is my hope for world peace...When I first
performed this work, in 1964, I did it with some anger and some turbulence in my heart. This time I do
it with love for you, for me, and for the world. Come and cut a piece of my clothing wherever you like
the size of less than a postcard, the one you love. My body is the scar of my mind`. (Ono 2003) Banes,
Sally. Lepecki, Andre. Eds. The Senses in Performance, London, Routledge, (2007), 170.
74
For instance: ´The concrete and often surreal poetic actions Jodorowsky asks his patients to engage
break apart the dysfunctional persona with whom the patient is identifying connecting them with a
deeper self. Taking the same elements associated with a negative emotional charge, Jodorowsky
recasts them into positive action enabling patients to pay the psychological debts hindering their lives`.
http://www.shamanportal.org/display_details.php?id=2407&country=north%20america&category=Res
ources&sub_category=Books. Accessed 06.10.2015.
22
Figure 13. Marina Abramović. “How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare”.
23
Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) is a filmmaker (Fig. 14), writer and innovative
psychotherapist
75
living in Paris. His work has been influenced by the transformative
power of shamanic and genealogical principles. His method to heal is to use the
powers of dreams, art, and theatre.
76
Along with Zen, he learnt surrealistic
Shamanism from painter and writer Leonora Carrington
77
and Pachita
78
, spiritual
massage from Doña Magdalena
79
, and sex magic practices from Reyna D’Assia, who
claimed she was the daughter of G.I. Gurdjieff. The often surreal poetic actions
presents the shamanic and genealogical principles Jodorowsky discovered while
living in Mexico where he became familiar with the cures provided by folk healers.
80
75
[He calls it the transformative power of shamanic psychotherapy.]
http://www.innertraditions.com/isbn/1-59477-336-5. Accessed 06.10.2015.
76
https://www.scribd.com/doc/138021063/Psychomagic-the-Transofrmative-Power-of-Shamanic-
Psychotherapy-Alejandro-Jodorowsky. Accessed 06.04.2015.
77
Leonora Carrington is the last surviving member of the inner circle of Surrealists from pre-war Paris,
and in the art world her status is legendary.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/7618799/Leonora-Carrington-last-of-the-great-
Surrealists.html. Accessed 06.10.2015.
78
The shamanic healer Pachita was an important influence on the development of psycho-magic.
From her Jodorowsky learned the importance of "Sacred Trickery", the successful mixture of
suggestion and magic, combined with faith. For three years he lived as an assistant regularly in their
psycho surgery.
http://doxa.me/the-spiritual-journey-of-alejandro-jodorowsky/. Accessed 06.10.2015.
79
Doña Magdalena teaches Jodorowsky in 40 intensive days a sensitive body, mind and soul treated
Massage. With minimal movements.... layer by layer peeling off history and past for the sake of
healing. She called this technique "Scratching"
http://www.alejandro-jodorowsky.de/leben/lehrer.html. Accessed 06.10.2015.
80
For instance: For a young man who complained that he lived only in his head and was unable to
grab hold of reality and advance toward the financial autonomy he desired, Jodorowsky gave the
prescription to paste two gold coins to the soles of his shoes so that all day he would be walking on
gold.
http://www.alejandro-jodorowsky.de/leben/lehrer.html. Accessed 06.10.2015.
24
Figure 14. Alejandro Jodorowsky. “The Holy Mountain” (1973) DVD Cover.
The third shaman/artist Marcus Coates (1968) is renowned for his work in film, which
explores the encounter between the human and animal worlds, a key theme
throughout his work. He regularly appears in his films, often as a shamanic figure
interacting with members of the public
81
and also works with photography, sculpture
and sound. However, when it comes to contemporary shamanism Coates, created a
shamanistic discourse between him, the abandoned Heygate estate in south London
and its former residents (Fig. 15). The artist has been visiting this site near the
Elephant & Castle for years – getting to know residents before they were turned out
in 2008 and 2009, listening to stories, even moving in with some before eviction day.
He realises that archaic culture has become part of corporate culture and decides to
counter this with some visions of his own, using meditation, self-induced trances and
unique head-covering to envisage the ´re-spiritualisation` of the site. He explains:
´There are millenniums-old traditions of 'visions'; of shamen whose imaginings were
used to try to solve intractable problems. These days that has become a corporate
81
http://visualarts.britishcouncil.org/collection/artists/coates-marcus-1968. Accessed 21.05.2015.
25
thing, rich developers have visions, councils have visions. Archaic culture has
become part of corporate culture`.
82
Figure 15. “Journey to the Lower World” was purchased for Walker Art Gallery, National Museums
Liverpool through the Contemporary Art Society's Acquisitions Scheme for 2008-2009.
How do these three artists integrate the principles of shamanism in their work? The
symbolic language used in Jodorowsky´s Psychomagic
83
that the artist/shaman
employs to alter his patient’s consciousness can be compared to surrealist art. Villas
analysis found that ´In comparing to him and Abramović their ultimate intentions are
different – Jodorowsky’s is to heal people whilst Abramović aims to incorporate art
82
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/apr/08/marcus-coates-artist-elephant-
castle(Accessed 18.10.2015.
83
According to the online encyclopaedia britannica ´Jodorowsky developed a form of personal therapy
that he called ´psychomagic, ` which combined insights from Jungian psychology and the tarot. (He
was an avid tarot reader and for years performed weekly mass readings.) A key aspect of
psychomagic is ´acts` that one must perform that enact a metaphorical solution to one’s...`
http://www.britannica.com/topic/psychomagic. Accessed 20.11.2015.
26
into life`.
84
/
85
Coates’ reflection on his current influence as a shaman doubts that his
performance really helps to change the world, though he is still convinced to choose
this way if his work [for him] provides more answers than questions.
86
Jodorowsky
acknowledges that his surreal therapy [Psychomagic] does not intend to replace a
medical treatment. It only suggests solutions for psychological abandonment that are
not cured by pills or surgical engagement.
87
However, all artists use the expression of
contemporary technology to inform their art. In one of Jodorowsky recent works, the
comic adventure “Technopriest” (Fig. 16) he sets his characters and the theme of
virtual reality in a universe of technological advances, paradoxically matched only by
the cruelty and the barbarism of the forces controlling it.
88
Abramović presented an
open workshop in Brazil (Fig. 17 and 18) to explore new possibilities for performance
art through its intersection with technology and science.
89
“Dawn Chorus” (Fig. 19)
another work of Coates was a film installation where he used digital technique to
express similarities between bird and human behaviour.
90
Nonetheless, debates and
doubts about a functional relationship between art and science are vacant, but
sceptics can be proven that this can be traced back to the Egyptian pyramids.
84
According to Villa, ´Jodorowsky and Abramović are both learning to develop spiritually in the work
that they do, but it is also possible to draw similarities here between drama therapy and the work of
Abramović, as she is saying that developing creatively is beneficial for the wellbeing of a person`.
http://dantevilla.tumblr.com/post/5621338166/dissertation-an-investigation-into-alejandro#_ftnref2.
Accessed 06.10.2015.
85
´In claiming that Abramović, makes a clear-cut distinction between life and art, I do not imply that art
is for her a negation of life. On the contrary, it is an essential part of the artist’s life, hers as well`.
Marina Abramović, Artist Body (Milan: Charta, 1998), 49.
86
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/apr/08/marcus-coates-artist-elephant-castle.
Accessed 21.05.2015.
87
Jodorowsky, Alejandro. Praxisbuch der Psychomagie. Oberstdorf: Windpferd Verlag, 2011.
88
Jodorowsky worked as a writer together with the Visual Artists Zoran Janjetov and Fred Beltran.
http://www.humanoids.com/book/451#.VhQ0XyvYQkE. Accessed 06.10.2015.
89
Flagcx's speakers Luisa Martini, Roberto Martini, and Boo Aguilar take turns talking about the
investigation and discussion of technologies related to virtual realities and self-quantifying. They are
joined by neuroscientist Adam Horowitz, from MIT.
http://www.mai-hudson.org/terra-comunal-content/2015/5/5/overlapping-memories. Accessed
07.10.2015.
90
A quote of him might express his idea behind this work: “We can only guess at what a frog or cat
sees, what a dolphin or bat hears. The same world is sensed and resonates differently for different
species”. http://fabrica.org.uk/exhibitions/dawn-chorus/. Accessed 01.12.2015.
27
Figure 16. Alejandro Jodorowsky. “The Technopriest.”
Figure 17. At the “In Between” space, Flagcx, a MAI collaborator in Brazil, present an open workshop
with Marina Abramović …
28
Figure 18. … to explore new possibilities for performance art through its intersection with technology
and science.
Figure 19. Marcus Coates “Dawn Chorus”, Screenshot You Tube.
29
2.3 The Creative Heritage of the Shaman: Through the Eyes of Critical Thinkers
2.3.1 The Stone Age, the Art and the Science of Program
History seems to indicate that the two disciplines art and science cannot exist without
each other, they change in order to recreate new associations. The question then is,
can we say that artists’ especially quasi shaman/artists’ are like scientists? Both
study, get inspired by materials, people, culture, history, religion and mythology. Both
learn to transform information into something else. In ancient Greece, the word for art
was techne, from which we get the words technique and technology —terms that are
appropriately applied to both scientific and artistic practices. Robert Eskride
explained that ´both are a means of investigation`. Together they involve ideas and
theories which are then tested in places where creative thoughts and action combine
in the laboratory and the atelier.
91
However, considerations turn up about the various anxieties and neuroses that are
growing out of using digital technologies.
92
A result of this discourse is a question like
´What kind of species are we evolving into? ` (Fig. 20). Derrick de Kerchkove
93
asserts that
From the Stone Age to the Mechanical Era, humans have never ceased
to be extended by their machines. Now we are plugged into electrical
contraptions of one kind or another. With the electronic era we are
being augmented, not just extended. The species is ´Homo
electronicus`
94
: global, all-knowing, with powers well beyond the magic
of Harry Potter.
95
91
Adapted from a lecture by Robert Eskridge titled ´Exploration and the Cosmos: The Consilience of
Science and Art`.
http://www.artic.edu/aic/education/sciarttech/2a1.html. Accessed 07.10.2015.
92
´ […] like panic at being disconnected `.
http://tedxtransmedia.tumblr.com/post/31266391758/we-are-now-homo-electronicus-global-all-
knowing. Accessed 07.10.2015.
93
Derrick de Kerckhove is Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology and Professor in
the Department of French at the University of Toronto.
http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/derrick.htm. Accessed 10.10.2015.
94
In 1980, Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy probably coins the term by publishing a book by Sedlak
entitled Homo Electronicus.
http://science-artificer.iwarp.com/rich_text_8.html. Accessed 10.10.2015.
95
http://tedxtransmedia.tumblr.com/post/31266391758/we-are-now-homo-electronicus-global-all-
knowing. Accessed 07.10.2015.
30
Figure 20. We are now homo electronicus.
Kerchkove might be inspired by the theorist, artist and shaman Marshall
McLuhan.
96
/
97
For McLuhan all medium are an extension of some human facility. As
he put it in 1967…
The wheel is an extension of the foot, the book is an extension of the
eye, clothing an extension of the skin, electric circuitry an extension of
the central nervous system.
98
96
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) was the first major communications theorist of how the new media
have the power to transform human nature. Today, McLuhan is back in the spotlight again, this time as
the first seer of cyberspace.
http://www.marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/. Accessed 10.10.2015.
97
Donald Theall discussed the influences that shaped McLuhan´s ideas and examines his roles as ´
[...] North American precursor of French theory (Baudrillard, Barthes, Derrida, Deleuze); artist; and
shaman`.
http://www.mqup.ca/virtual-marshall-mcluhan--the-products-9780773531543.php. Accessed
10.10.2015.
98
Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage, (Madeira, CA: Gingko Press, 2001),
31-40.
31
Understanding Kerchkoves in the light of this might condense his notion regarding
our evolutionary journey whilst it conveys us towards a [hybrid] era where we control
language and we, in turn, are controlled by its [hybridity of] electronic extensions.
Kerchkove is equally aware that this power is also controlling us.
99
He explains that
humans have now developed into a silent reading culture, which controls language.
Before electricity became such a central and important aspect in all our lives we went
through the evolution of oral and written language which included the practice of
habitually reading out loud. Language still needed our body to express itself first of all
in spoken, and later in written form and now we are able to read in silence, without
speaking [still through our subject, the body] whilst electricity can easily express
language without a human body.
100
Thus, electricity is a hybrid. It is not written or oral
language but it is able to visualize and verbalize, originally having been controlled by
humankind.
101
Jeremy Howard acknowledges the capability of computer algorithms.
Already thoughtful and creative he introduced an algorithm based on convolutional
neural networks to combine the content of one image with the style of another.
102
/
103
However, even if we ran the risk of being manipulated through the electronic, for
Kerchkove it is still an advantage - having language extended by electricity. For him
´We are programmed as we program`.
104
99
´The thing about electricity is that it is not just written language and it is not just oral, is between, it is
a hybrid, so you really lose a lot of control. On the other hand, you gain a great deal of powers that
you wouldn’t have because language extended by electricity is immensely powerful. But it is power
that is also controlling you`.
http://www.jotdown.es/2012/08/derrick-de-kerckhove-english-version/. Accessed 11.10.2015.
100
John Markoff states that ´Scientists [...] have created artificial intelligence software capable of
recognizing and describing the content of photographs and videos with far greater accuracy than ever
before, sometimes even mimicking human levels of understanding. [...] The software then writes a
caption in English describing the picture. Compared with human observations, the researchers found,
the computer-written descriptions are surprisingly accurate. [...] At the moment, search engines like
Google rely largely on written language accompanying an image or video to ascertain what it
contains.`
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/science/researchers-announce-breakthrough-in-content-
recognition-software.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1. Accessed 22.11.2015.
101
He noticed that: ´We take power over the most important medium of all, which is language. As we
take power of it we develop an identity, we develop some privacy, and we acquire some depth. [...]
The problem is either you control language or it controls you. That’s the story of oral society versus
written society and is the story of written society versus electronic society. In an oral society language
controls body, because it is dominant and you are subject to it`.
http://www.jotdown.es/2012/08/derrick-de-kerckhove-english-version/. Accessed 11.10.2015.
102
Jeremy Howard - Big Data & Machine Learning, Jeremy Howard speaking at Exponential Medicine
on November 9th (2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WBpJKDv1U8. Accessed 24.11.2015.
103
http://deepart.io/page/about/. Accessed 24.11.2015.
104
http://tedxtransmedia.tumblr.com/post/31266391758/we-are-now-homo-electronicus-global-all-
knowing. Accessed 20.11.2015.
32
2.3.2 ´Homo Electronicus` vs. ´Homo Digitalis`
For Byung Chul Han the digital revolution is an indicator of our crisis. He refers to the
prophecy of psychologist Gustave Le Bon
105
in his work ´The Modern` which
predicted the decline of culture as early as 1895 [which he described] as the ´Age of
the masses`.
106
/
107
His ideas of cultural development were based on his belief that
the character or ´soul` of the people determines their progress, and that this
character took the form of an unconscious ´collective mind`. Le Bon identified the
mass as a phenomenon of a new system of rule.
108
Han recognized that those living
in the 21st century have eschewed the media habits of the forbears and have
engaged almost exclusively with the digitized culture. He refers to these people as
the “Digital Swarm“. However, he is missing the classic characteristics of the mass:
soul and spirit,
109
moreover he sees a new species rising, the ´Homo Digitalis`.
To identify the character of the ´Homo Digitalis` Han first refers to ´Homo
Electronicus` which Marshall McLuhan labelled in 1960 a mass man [man of masses]
without identity. McLuhan described this phenomenon as ´The electronic inhabitants
of the globe`.
110
Linked to all other people he was ´a nobody` depending on mass
media. He compares him with a member of an audience in a global sports stadium.
These places of mass meetings/rally don´t exist anymore in the world of Han´s
´Homo Digitalis`. The inhabitants of the digital network form a [special] gathering
without a meeting [More an accumulation without a gathering]. Without soul and
105
Charles-Marie-Gustave Le Bon (1841 – 1931) was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and
physicist. He was the author of several works in which he expounded theories of national traits, racial
superiority, herd behaviour, and crowd psychology.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Gustave_Le_Bon. Accessed 11.10.2015.
106
"The era in which we will enter will be in truth the age of the masses." " Das Zeitalter in das wir
eintreten wird in Wahrheit das Zeitalter der Massen sein.
Byung-Chun Han, Im Schwarm, Ansichten des Digitalen, (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2013),
18.
107
Le Bon's thesis that the behavior of crowds was based on emotion rather than intellect was
influential in several arenas, with mixed results. His work on crowd psychology was used by media
researchers to develop propaganda and advertising techniques to influence the public. These ideas
were also adopted by Adolf Hitler as he mobilized large crowds of people to act based on their
emotions and fears, often in ways that they would not have done based on their individual beliefs.
Le Bon recognized that his work revealed great dangers to society and he warned that if the masses
were to gain control, human society would revert to barbarism.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Gustave_Le_Bon. Accessed 11.10.2015.
108
[The original term of the French, Herrschaftsverhältnis does not exist in the English language but is
very well known in German language.]
109
Han, Im Schwarm, Ansichten des Digitalen, 19.
110
Marshall McLuhan invented the term Global village. His insights made the concept of a global
village, interconnected by an electronic nervous system, part of our popular culture well before it
actually happened.
http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_mcluhan.htm. Accessed 11.10.2015.
33
without the spirit they are intended mainly for themselves isolated like hikikomori
111
who sit alone in front of the display. Han summarizes that the "Homo Electronicus"
could participate in the electronic media such as the radio which still drew an
audience, while digital media already isolated [the masses].
112
Thus, the ´Digital
Swarm` lacks the common soul and the nature of the mass human being, united by
an ideology to march in one direction. Hence ´Homo Digitalis` which is for Han not ´a
nobody`, but ´an anonymous someone`. His species 'Homo Digitalis` has their
solidarity replaced by privatisation, which continues until the dissolution of soul and
spirit.
113
Jean Baudrillard goes one step further, not only seeing the inner world but the
´disappearing` people, noting that not only artificial intelligence, but all high-tech
areas illustrate the fact that ´behind his doubles and prostheses, his biological
cloning and virtual images of the human being`, the humans use it to steal away.
114
2.3.3 The Power of Codes
McLuhan proposed that after the Scientific Revolution
115
, we shifted from a ´acoustic`
culture to a ´visual` one. He opines that our visual sense began to dominate our
acoustic sense, altering the way we think and how we interpret everything. McLuhan
argues that in a visual universe we begin to think in a linear way, one thing following
another along a timeline rather than everything existing simultaneously.
116
111
Hikikimori literally meaning "withdrawal," came to be discussed as a social problem afflicting
Japanese youth from the late 1990s. This was largely through the efforts of psychiatrist Saitõ Tamaki
who coined the term.
https://books.google.ie/books?id=SH9iAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA230&dq=what+is+a+hikikomori&hl=en&sa=
X&ved=0CC4Q6AEwA2oVChMIx6Sg5e7yAIVBP1yCh1o8QtL#v=onepage&q=what%20is%20a%20hik
ikomori&f=false. Accessed 11.10.2015.
112
Han, Im Schwarm, Ansichten des Digitalen, 21.
113
Han, Im Schwarm, Ansichten des Digitalen, 25.
114
Jean Baudrillard, Die Illusion und die Virtualität, (Bern: Benteli 1994), 15.
115
The Scientific Revolution resulted from a monumental series of discoveries, especially those in
astronomy and related fields, in the 16th and 17th centuries.
http://hti.osu.edu/scientificrevolution/lesson_plans. Accessed 07.10.2015.
116
He states that ´In acoustic culture, the world, like sound, is all around us and comes with us from all
directions at once. It is multi-layered and non-hierarchical and has no centre or focal point. An image
in visual culture is fixed: It´s in front of you`.
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html. Accessed 10.10.2015.
34
For Flusser man is an alienated animal, creating visual symbols in order to classify
them in code, whereby he attempts to provide the world with elevated meaning in this
way by affecting, eventually, our entire thinking and feeling.
117
Before the invention of
writing nonlinear images were the crucial means of communication.
118
The invention
of linear code dates back to the third millennium BC. From Mesopotamian
pictographic cylinders numerous secondary code forms such as hieroglyphics,
number quotations, alphabets, logical code and the codes of the individual branches
of science.
This programmed tissue of codes was designed during the last 5000 years and
changed, was rejected and became redundant in Flussers eyes and subsequently
dissolved eventually completely. His observations were published in 1978. He
realized that in this ancient tissue already ‘islands’ from new non-linear technical
codes pulsate and dominate. Television, transport codes, DNA- models etc.
deconstructed during the last 5000 years’ old fabric of linear codes. Flusser felt that
human beings are overwhelmed by these non-linear influences and lose their faith in
the universe.
119
He goes on to say that western civilization appears to be limited to an
understanding of our universe according to linear codes, western logic and
mathematics of scientists. If this manipulation becomes complete and belief is finally
lost, man eventually rejects the idea that this universe is organic.
120
According to Gablik, Robert Johnson’s mental faculties appear to be depleted if he
has to define the ´soul`. For him, the soul represents neither a feeling nor an image.
He complains that the attitudes of alpha males shaped this world already into a neat
and tidy planet where souls can only create unnecessary complications. Gablik´s
idea of re-spiritualization suggests that being able to shift from logical, linear modes
of knowing into the collective dream body, one must begin by separating oneself, to
some extent, from the world of ordinary, everyday activities, in order to find that inner
117
[Flusser says for instance that even if we do not understand the two million years old code (circles
built from stones and bones of bears), we recognize at least the sense-giving intention.]
Flusser, Medienkultur, 21, 23.
118
Flusser, Medienkultur, 22.
119
In his essay ´Glaubensverlust` [The loss of faith] media philosopher Villem Flusser gives us to
understand that we are in danger of becoming overwhelmed and disconnected from our sense of self
and have lost our collective power to make positive change in the world.
Flusser, Medienkultur. 29-40.
120
Flusser, Medienkultur, 39.
35
centre of archetypal energy contained in myth that has been made by our society to
seem archaic. She warns at the same time, that it doesn´t make sense to imitate an
archaic cultural style. Opening oneself up to the broad range of visionary experience
risks the danger of creating a mind-set that can make the idea of other worlds
unthinkable.
121
However, Flusser notes that computers were invented for the purpose of accelerating
the calculation of differential equations. Numbers no longer had to be written and
read. This was considered as an inhumane activity. The new challenge for man was
to improve how to program the machine for calculating. Flusser observed that even if
it seems that children master this new level of consciousness playing, the feeling
remains that these are guided by the programs.
122
/
123
For him, the one who cannot
read the new code, is already illiterate ´In a sense at least as radical as it was the
Scripture ignorant in the past.`
124
2.4 Conclusion Chapter 2
Ancient technology of shamanism has plenty of applications in art but can we say
that the contemporary shaman/artists have a similarly important role in comparison to
the role of the indigenous shaman healing his/her peoples in Australia or elsewhere?
121
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 47.
122
The brain scientist Michael Madeja researched that: "Numerous studies in children show, among
other things an increased risk for poorer school performance, sleep and attention problems, when
much time is spent in front of screens." On the other hand he explains that "Brain researchers have
shown that the learning of written language in kindergarten can be compared with the learning results
on the computer. It leads to the construction of the same functional nervous system (the Visual Word
Forming system in so-called occipitotemporal cortex region) as we know it from traditional learning of
the written language. With such studies the neuroscience of pedagogy are pointing out that computer
use by children does not necessarily lead to the dumbing down and that there are things that you can
learn useful also to the computer."
http://m.welt.de/gesundheit/article112361058/Digitale-Demenz-Von-wegen.html. Accessed
22.10.2015.
123
Dr. Tim Bell is interested in child-friendly teaching basic IT concepts of general education schools.
It develops ideas and projects for lessons that teach without any technical equipment ideas of
computer science (among other children playing sorting algorithms and computer science in general to
visualize). The New Zealand Professor calls on its website "Computer Science Unplugged".
http://csunplugged.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/unplugged-book-v1.pdf to develop and pass on
the presented material. Heise Verlag, CT 2015 Issue 23, 170.
124
Computers have developed in a way that promote algorithms, not only to create numbers, points
and bits. They gathered these bits initially to rigid lines and areas in order to progress with ultimately
coloured body and tones. This improved to a position today which is able to produce all tangible,
alternative worlds [only from numbers!]. Not only scientists but intellectuals and artists in particular
should understand and work with these codes in order to reach a new level of consciousness to
participate in future culture.
Flusser, Medienkultur, 52.
36
Artists attest to an increased sensitivity, but the artists in this chapter appear self-
abnegating and consider themselves as a creative/supportive option or an additional
therapeutic tool for society rather than a classic healer. Should they be considered in
the same way as scientists because they get inspired by materials, people, culture,
history, religion and mythology? When it comes to mental health problems they still
recommend professional help. Although there have been numerous examples of
technology being manipulated by those who do not have the interests of our
community at heart, it still represents the better efforts and outcomes of those who
do.
37
Chapter 3
Digital Culture and Ideologies:
Identifying the Function of the Shaman Artist in Virtual Reality
3.1 Introduction
The definition and relativism of the shamanic paradigm and art, and the relevance of
the shaman in contemporary art in the VR will be considered in this chapter. It will
consider whether cyber shamen can heal their audience in the ´offline` world
125
,
initially categorizing virtual reality and taking a brief look at the history and the
philosophy of virtual reality and its technologies
126
leading to identifying the
connection between the principles of shamanism in art and digital technology,
especially in the virtual environment of cyber space.
127
Following this, artist Semi Ryu
discusses her work which is practicing shaman rituals in the environment of virtual
reality.
128
In order to understand the impact of the digital revolution this research
closes by critically assessing our virtual culture through the reflections of theorists,
artists and philosophers.
125
Schlottmann explains the term ´Cybershamanism` ´ [...] is used in different ways. It is used as a
self-designation by some neo-shamans who are regularly online to promote their spiritual content or by
virtual artists who work in the spheres of magic and mystic. In particular, in the esoteric scene, the
term cybershaman has gained great popularity and is used in conjunction with self-awareness, healing
and magic. Thereby, the boundaries between neo-shamanism, neo-paganism and cybershamanism
are often blurred.`
https://www.academia.edu/6184047/Cyber_Shamanism_in_South_Korea. Accessed 18.10.2015.
126
The concepts behind virtual reality are based upon theories about a long held human desire to
escape the boundaries of the ‘real world’ by embracing cyberspace. Once there we can interact with
this virtual environment in a more naturalistic manner which will generate new forms of human-
machine interaction. http://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/concepts.html. Accessed 29.09.2015.
127
A Virtual environment is a computer-generated, three-dimensional representation of a setting in
which the user of the technology perceives themselves to be and within which interaction takes place;
also called virtual landscape, virtual space, and virtual world.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virtual+environment. Accessed 30.09.2015.
128
Ryu is a media artist who specializes in experimental 3D animations and virtual puppetry, based on
Korean shamanism and oral tradition of storytelling. YONG-SHIN-GUD for instance is a virtual
interactive puppet performance driven by sound input, such as storytelling and musical instruments.
Inspired by the Korean Shaman ritual, ´Gud`, this live puppetry consists of 3 components: the virtual
world, the real space of the performance room, and a sound activated puppet, "Virtual Shaman," who
mediates between the virtual and the real.
http://www.semiryu.net/?page_id=1459 . Accessed 29.09.2015.
Her work "Ritualizing Interactive Media: From Motivation to Activation" looked critically at the notion of
interaction, particularly at the blurred boundaries between user and object in ritual, which she argues
our "desire" for is as ancient as it is instinctive. Ritual’s goal, she claimed, is to "overcome the
separation and become one" and in the process interactivity undergoes a primary passage from the
physical to the spiritual.
http://leonardo.info/reviews/jan2005/qi_grigar.html. Accessed 29.09.2015.
38
3.2 The Order of Cosmic Engineers
3.2.1 Virtual Ideologies
Kimberly Rosenfeld opines that a growing number of people no longer reside in just
one physical world, challenging our contemporary understanding of physical
reality.
129
How does this then fit into Gablik’s contention, when she suggests that we
need to step back from the ´over-realistic prejudice of Western society`, for a more
open model of consciousness? Her ´transformative vision task` refers to the re-
enchantment project,
130
reassuring us that, although we might reach a visionary
mode, that does not, of itself, mean that we have to ´step-fall into the romantic age or
regress from the world of modern consciousness.`
131
The idea that we live in multiple realities is acknowledged in postmodern theory.
Rosenfeld refers to works by Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Jameson, and
Best & Kellner.
132
The virtual reality generates an abstract new world. Online games,
advertise ´offline` for players to create ´online` a nonhuman avatar.
133
Participating
gamers/users can make new rules in this digital reality and build new environments
where the physical rule of the ´real` do not apply.
134
Baudrillard’s term hyperreality,
135
reflects Lacan’s idea, that there is no reality without the ‘participation of the
imagination’.
136
Psychoanalysis often indicates that reality is whatever connects us to
129
According to Rosenfeld, "Contemporary citizen [...] live, play, and work in multiple realities: real life
reality, simulated reality, augment reality, virtual reality, and hyper reality."
Kimberly N. Rosenfeld, Digital online culture, identity, and schooling in the twenty-first century (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 1.
130
Jose Argüelles explains that it is certainly the case that the artist who survive best in contemporary
"left-hemisphere" culture [which] is usually the one who internalizes and adopts its rational values.
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 47.
131
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 47, 48.
132
Rosenfeld, Digital online culture, identity, and schooling in the twenty-first century, 9.
133
This term comes originally from Hinduism. The meaning is: ´A manifestation of a deity or released
soul in bodily form on earth`.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/avatar. Accessed 24.11.2015.
134
´One of this advantages is, that the player’s digital embodiment can create special powers not
possible in the real world.`
Rosenfeld, Digital online culture, identity, and schooling in the twenty-first century, 8.
135
Baudrillard coined the term in 1994: ´It is an image or simulation, or an aggregate of images and
simulations, that either distorts the reality it purports to depict or does not in fact depict anything with a
real existence at all, but which nonetheless comes to constitute reality.`
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hyperreality
136
Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) was a major figure in Parisian intellectual life for much of the twentieth
century. Sometimes referred to as ´the French Freud`. He is an important figure in the history of
psychoanalysis. The theory of the three registers of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real forms
the skeletal framework for the various concepts and phases of most of Lacan's intellectual itinerary.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lacan/. Accessed 03.11.2015.
39
others, and that what we share with others is a ´symbolic order`.
137
Moreover, the
´virtual` does not have a singular meaning anymore because one finds it in different
categories.
138
How can we understand the vertiginous cosmos of virtuality? How should we live in
it? How should it live within us? Patricia MacCormack suggests
139
that, in order to be
accountable posthumans
140
we need to establish a ´ […] creative future of joy - a
future that the human cannot think […] - the human cannot belong`. She refers to
Felix Guattari and the cosmogenic
141
ecosophy
142
.
143
/
144
Spike Jonze’s film ´Her`
follows a different approach. The isolation of the human main character from other
human bodies leads to an intimate relationship with a non-embodied person, an
The Symbolic Order [short form] is the social world of linguistic communication, intersubjective
relations, knowledge of ideological conventions, and the acceptance of the law (also called the "big
other"). Once a child enters into language and accepts the rules and dictates of society, it is able to
deal with others.
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/definitions/symbolicorder.html. Accessed
03.11.2015.
137
Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, Laura Croft, (Suhrkamp; Auflage: EA 2001), 73.
138
Like ´Professional virtual reality, consumer, psychological and technological`.
Rosenfeld, Digital online culture, identity, and schooling in the twenty-first century, 10.
139
#ACCELERATE MANIFESTO for an Accelerationist Politics
MANIFEST: On the Future by Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek
´7. We want to accelerate the process of technological evolution. But what we are arguing for is not
techno-utopianism. Never believe that technology will be sufficient to save us. Necessary, yes, but
never sufficient without socio-political action. Technology and the social are intimately bound up with
one another, and changes in either potentiate and reinforce changes in the other. Whereas the
techno-utopians argue for acceleration on the basis that it will automatically overcome social conflict,
our position is that technology should be accelerated precisely because it is needed in order to win
social conflicts.`
http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/.
Accessed 03.11.2015.
140
Definition of posthumanism: The idea that humanity can be transformed, transcended, or
eliminated either by technological advances or the evolutionary process; artistic, scientific, or
philosophical practice which reflects this belief.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/posthumanism. Accessed 03.11.2015.
141
Cosmogenic - Produced by interaction with cosmic rays. Pertaining to the branch of astronomy
dealing with the origin and history and structure and dynamics of the universe; "cosmologic science";
"cosmological redshift"; "cosmogonic theories of the origin of the universe"
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cosmogenic. Accessed 03.11.2015.
142
A philosophical approach to the environment which emphasizes the importance of action and
individual beliefs. Often referred to as "ecological wisdom," it is associated with other environmental
ethics. http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-3404800474/ecosophy.html. Accessed 03.11.2015.
143
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/cosmogenic-acceleration-futurity-and-ethics/#_ftn20. Accessed
03.11.2015.
144
Which requires humans ´to bring into being other worlds beyond those of purely abstract
information, to engender Universes of reference and existential Territories where singularity and
finitude are taken into account by the multivalent logic of mental ecologies and by the group Eros
principle of social ecology; to dare to confront the so as to make it inhabitable.`
Félix Guattari, Translator Ian Pindar and Paul Sutton, The Three Ecologies (London: the Athlone
Press, 2000), 67.
40
Operating System (OS) who calls herself Samantha. As it comes to a philosophical
argument between him and the OS [Samantha] discussing the question of whether
true personhood – true humanity – requires a human body, specifically whether true
humanness requires an embodied community of persons, she countered: ´What if
you could erase from your mind that you´d ever seen a human body…and then you
saw one.`
145
A psychological acceptance for a virtual approach, seems to be provided in a study,
by Deltcho Valtchanov in the Research Laboratory for Immersive Virtual
Environments (RELIVE) at the University of Waterloo (Fig. 21). The researchers were
able to produce physiological relaxation using views of virtual nature that was just as
intense as that seen in visitors to real-world green spaces.
146
145
Her, directed by Spike Jonze (2013; United States Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Home Video,
2014), DVD
146
In a recent work, the research laboratory for immersive virtual environments examined ´that a part
of the relaxation response to natural scenes hinges on specific properties of visual scenes that can be
defined mathematically (the relative proportions of finely detailed contours as opposed to the more
coarse "blobby" contours that are present in the image)`. Colin Ellard is an experimental psychologist
at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He explains, that the approach of the researchers has been to
lead participants on walks through city spaces while wearing gear that allows them to measure their
cognitive and emotional responses to what they experience. ´Participants are placed into highly
immersive simulations of city spaces using sophisticated head-mounted displays and precise motion
tracking. They are able to walk freely through photo-realistic simulations of urban spaces that are
replete with depth, colour, and motion`. Scientists monitored their gaze and their movements along
with their physiology using a set of unobtrusive sensors while they do so. Collin Ellard mentioned also
that they have ambitious plans to move beyond these initial steps to build more comprehensive
models of both existing and hypothetical city spaces in their lab, he see a big chance that virtual reality
can help to provide more tools to determine how to grow great cities.
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/04/cities-psychology-neuroscience-urban-planning-study.
Accessed 18.10.2015.
41
Figure 21. University of Waterloo: Virtual reality technology has been around for decades, but it is only
now that we are able to create high resolution photo-realistic virtual environments and render them in
real-time.
For Claude Poncelet, physics and shamanism has been linked from the start. His
thinking is based in a spiritual dimension of reality where everything is connected.
The physicist and shaman create public sacred aspects in technologies like
computers, cars, smart phones and even in power plants. Nature uses technology to
create the form of men, men created these forms from nature, thus all these forms
are included and have a sacred aspect for Poncelet. He is convinced, that we will not
solve this crisis unless we understand and see the sacred in the other technology of
nature. He develops new practices which can be used for him in the modern world by
dealing with the shamanistic principles. He notes that anthropocentrism
147
has
pushed the human species to be so destructive to the environment leading to climate
change. Being aware, that history belongs to those who write the books, he still
hopes that human species can learn to transform their excellent [in his opinion] skill
of creating tools into an ability to support further live and harmony for this planet.
148
147
Anthropocentrism is a philosophical viewpoint arguing that human beings are the central or most
significant entities in the world. This is a basic belief embedded in many Western religions and
philosophies.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/anthropocentrism. Accessed 18.10.2015.
148
Claude Poncelet and Anne Hill discuss his new book "The Shaman Within: A Physicist's Guide to
the Deeper Dimensions of Your Life, the Universe, and Everything".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QQ1tbRjzHM. Accessed 18.10.2015.
42
Professor Robert M. Geracy
149
completed this proposed vision and promised that in
the very near future that technological progress will allow us to build extremely
intelligent machines and to duplicate our own minds into machines so that we can
live forever in a virtual area of cyberspace. In his opinion artificial intelligence will be
´the single most important 21st Century’s technology of enchantment`. Unlike Max
Weber who, in common with other sociologists believes that technology
fundamentally disenchants the world, Geracy agrees with Allen Newell that "The aim
of technology, when properly applied is to build a land of faerie."
150
Geracy suggests
that we would be well advised to sort out how those promises function within our
culture, regardless of whether or not we accept them.
151
Again, Gablik’s proposal might be appropriate as she recommends that our culture
should learns to include the ability to 'dream forward` in order to rescue the power
and importance of vision.
152
Yet, can society, after the failure of Californian ideology,
continue to believe that ancient spiritual technologies like Shamanism can be used
as a therapeutic tool?
153
The democratization of media was supposed to be a
massive force for good. The ideology was to turn the world into a better place through
technology.
154
Media theorists Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron criticise that ´It´s
eclectic and contradictory blend of conservative economics and hippie radicalism
reflects the history of the West Coast - and not the inevitable future of the rest of the
world`. They warn that the technologies of freedom are turning into the machines of
dominance.
155
Rosenfeld cautions that the neoliberal agenda is monetising identity.
149
Geraci is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Manhatten College. He is the Principal
Investigator for a National Science Foundation EAGER grant studying meaningful and transcendent
experiences in virtual worlds, and received a grant to study the intersection of religion and artificial
intelligence at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore (2012-2013)
Robert M. Geraci, Apocalyptic AI (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), Blurb
150
Geraci, Apocalyptic AI, 9.
151
Geraci, Apocalyptic AI, 167.
152
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 50.
153
[For Julian Reyes, producer of Electronic Awakening, a documentary on rave culture's 21st century
is electronic music already modern shamanism.]
http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler/digital-shamans-and-spiritual
technologies/Content?oid=2272244. Accessed 18.05.2015.
154
´The Californian Ideology was developed by a group of people living within one specific country with
a particular mix of socio-economic and technological choices`.
http://www.alamut.com/subj/ideologies/pessimism/califIdeo_I.html. Accessed 21.05.2015.
155
Media theorists Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron additional mentioned, as late as 1995, that it
was still accepted this ‘west coast’ ideology expressed the only way forward to the future. It seems like
nothing has challenged this thinking notwithstanding the same forces of capitalism using it.
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/hrc/theory/californianideo/main/t.4.2.1%5B9%5D.html. Accessed
21.05.2015.
43
Corporations, especially technology based corporations, use the same cultural
codes, practices and norms of digital online culture that they find in the practice of the
open source movement or behind the symbols of activist groups operating online
such as Anonymous and Wikileaks.
156
(Fig. 22)
Figure 22. “California”, as we consider it, has its beginnings in 1846. The dot-com boom of the late
1990s has often been referred to as a new gold rush, and there are parallels.
157
156
Rosenfeld, Digital online culture, identity, and schooling in the twenty-first century, 143.
157
Joey deVilla mentioned that ´The United States government sent surveyors down to Mexican
territory and California in search of gold, Minerals and mines are important to empires – there was
never any successful empire that wasn’t in control of its own mines In 1846, the U.S. declared war on
Mexico to acquire California. 1849 marked the beginning of the Gold Rush. We need to understand
the term “Gold Rush” as it applies to people to work on the internet`.
http://www.globalnerdy.com/2009/07/15/futureruby-talk-fighting-the-imperial-californian-ideology/.
Accessed 22.05.2015.
44
3.2.2 The Politics of Vision and Sound
The Ethno-pharmacologist and Shaman
158
Christian Rätsch is not compelled by the
manipulating characteristic of politics. He provides in his work the structural
connections between shamanism, art, techno culture and cyberspace. For him all
these inherent cultural phenomena use different techniques to reveal other realities.
He notes that it was Max Knoll at the Technische Hochschule Munich, who carried
out an extensive investigation on electrically induced "phosphenes".
159
In
accordance, these optical phenomena can be triggered by various stimuli (Fig. 23
and 24).
Figure 23. Images of internally generated sensations of light with geometric shapes and no memory-
based content (phosephene images) in ethnographic reports and prehistoric rock art studies.
158
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-97012845.html. Accessed 18.10.2015 )
159
Knoll and his colleagues ´found [in the early years of 1960] that pulses in the same frequency
range as brain waves (from 5 cycles per second to about 40) were most effective in producing
phosphenes. He tested more than 1000 people and found that all of them, after becoming dark-
adapted, saw at least a flickering light; by concentrating carefully about half of the subjects also a saw
geometric figures` [This source mentioned that to date it seems that archaeologists, anthropologists
and art historians have merely touched on this or used it in only a small and specific area of study, not
utilising its universal potential.]
http://www.oubliette.org.uk/Three.html. Accessed 18.10.2015 )
45
Figure 24. The most primal generative visual experiences may be ones created by the visual cortex
alone, or ones involving the visual cortex in close collaboration with entheogenic triggers or external
psycho-visual simulate, such as stroboscopic lighting.
46
Rätsch refers to Reichel-Dolmatoff who explained that these ‘form constants’
160
and
altered states of mind are culturally processed. They appear mainly in the shamanic
arts (Fig. 25 and 26).
Figure 25. Part I. Chart, shown in two parts (Fig. 25 and 26), in which Lewis-Williams attempts to
demonstrate that Paleolithic cave images, as well as those of the Bushman tribes, are spatial
transformations of the entoptic form-constants.
160
Form constants and entoptic phenomena are largely geometric forms and phosphenes or entoptics
are non-culturally biased. [...]Because these form constants and phosphenes are derived from the
human nervous system, "all people who entertain altered states of consciousness, no matter what
their cultural background, are liable to perceive them" (Eichmeier and Höfer 1974; Reichel-Dolmatoff
1978).
Hallucinations are more complex, culturally controlled iconic visions. It is not only the human element
which is susceptible to hallucinations, but the whole mammalian population (Siegal and Jarvik
1975:81-104). 'Non real' visual percepts would have been experienced long before the Upper
Palaeolithic. It has been widely accepted that the human nervous system is universal and that it is
much the same now as it was in the Upper Palaeolithic.
http://www.oubliette.org.uk/Three.html. Accessed 18.10.2015 )
47
Figure 26. Part II.
Reichel-Dolmatoff studied the Tukano tribe of the Amazonian rain forest. He reported
many similarities between their phosphene motifs in shamanic art and a taxonomy
developed several decades earlier in a series of psychophysical experiments by Max
Knoll.
161
161
´These phosphene motifs are often use to decorate the walls of their houses. [...] The same kinds
of images observed during ayahuasca intoxication also appear "during fleeting states of dissociation,
daydreaming, hypnagogic states, isolation, sensory deprivation, or other situations of stress
(1996:33)."`
Art Leete, Paul Firnhaber, eds. Shamanism in the Interdisciplinary Context, (Florida: Brown Walker
Press, 2004), 62.
48
Moving from the visual to the influence of sound, artist Nana Nauwald explains that
the ritual pose in conjunction with a rhythmic excitation of about 210 bpm [beats per
minute] is a key that can open many doors into "other realities" (Fig. 23). Throughout
the globe the voice, the drum and the rattle is the most important and most powerful
tool for the shaman to move the perception, induce trances, to provide healing and to
connect everything with the non-visible worlds and forces. Nauwald explains that
even the rhythm of a ballpoint pen, which is tapped on the table, people can drop into
a trance.
162
A deeper examination of her work exhibits an awareness between
creative interaction of artistic creation and a "different kind of perception" and should
be seen in this research and discussion for the reader as a source of inspiration and
information of a future discourse.
Figure 23. To enter ecstatic trance unusual body postures are used which were pictured for thousand
years in ancient arts. Ritual body postures « paleolithic venus» reconstruction based on the big
number of statues (21000 BC) discovered at the excavation at the Kostenk, Voronezhsk oblast,
Russia
Nevertheless, many of the ideas of techno-artists, influenced by rhythm or ´beats per
minute` originated in traditional, ethnic and shamanic music. By 1995 Rheingold
compares the dead matter of the computer, re-animated with life, by the Spirit of the
software with the shaman drum enlivened by the shaman. For him, the computer is
162
Nana Nauwald, Goodman, Felicitas D. & Friends, Ekstatische Trance (Haarlem: Binkey Kok, 2010),
55.
49
an extension of our nervous system [this fits Kerckhove’s concept {mentioned in
chapter II} with regard to the advantage of having language extended by
electricity].
163
Techno, which is based on the infinite repetition of fractal sound
structure is thus, for Rätsch the consequent transmutation of archaic shaman music
in the technological information age: A modern version of the shaman drum.
164
Scott Hudson described the ´rave` as a form of a socially produced spiritual healing,
comparable to shamanic, ecstatic healing documented in ethnographies of small-
scale non-western societies, and to spiritual experiences in modern western
subcultures. He realized that much academic discourse focuses on the rave as a
hedonistic and temporary escape from reality.
165
This view is plausible and
informative but he still argues that it is incomplete because it ignores the concomitant
poignant and spiritual experience that it provides.
166
The DJ acts
167
much like a
shaman reacting to key symbols and guiding those present to an ecstatic journey.
The techno culture established for Rheingold the virtual world, whose production
results from previous formal, mathematical thinking because raves installed data
helmets and data tents to visualize cyberspace mythology.
168
/
169
3.3 The Cybershaman and Contemporary Art
Semi Ryu is a media artist who specializes in experimental 3D animations and virtual
puppetry, with the subject of interactivity in Korean shaman ritual and oral tradition of
storytelling. In South Korea shamanism [musok, mugyo] has survived the challenges
of modernity and asserts its place in the religious structure of the country. Since the
beginning of the New Millennium, Korean shamans preserve a very strong online
163
Christian Rätsch, Schamanismus, Techno und Cyberspace (Solothurn, Nachtschatten Verlag,
2015., 7.
164
Rätsch, Schamanismus, Techno und Cyberspace, 18, 19.
165
Hudson researched that "Writers who support this position argue from a "neoconservative" (Foster
1985: 2), postmodern perspective that emphasizes the prominence of nostalgia and meaninglessness
in modern amusements."
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~jporter/Hutson_Raves-Spiritual-Healing.pdf. Accessed 19.10.2015.
166
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~jporter/Hutson_Raves-Spiritual-Healing.pdf. Accessed 18.10.2015.
167
The term "technoshamanism." was coined by Fraser Clark, who helped organize two prominent
London dance clubs.
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~jporter/Hutson_Raves-Spiritual-Healing.pdf. Accessed 18.10.2015.
168
Rätsch, Schamanismus, Techno und Cyberspace, 24.
169
Flusser, Medienkultur, 52.
50
activity.
170
Dr. Dirk Schlottmann questioned if cyberspace is becoming a new, or the
new, sacred space, and does it just provide an ´illusion of sociality` or is there
evidence of genuine social interactions online which can lead to or enhance human
communities? In other words: Can a cyber mudang [Korean word for shaman] heal
their audience in the ´offline` world?
A mudang is In Korean religion a priestess who employs magic to effect cures.
171
Lee Hae Kyeong is a mudang and hypothesized that Korean cyber shamanism of the
future might change. The traditional shamanic ritual practice transforms into a self-
contained form in which elements of other religions, cultures and arts will be
mixed.
172
Semi Ryu agrees with Lee Hae and quotes Deleuze who noted that it is no
longer a question of each individual entity, rather, the question is what happens to
the communication between different disciplines, cultures and societies. For the
shaman/artist every individual becomes through this process a source of movement
and interaction.
173
Semi Ryu’s research revealed that ´ […] virtual puppetry may benefit those who have
difficulties communicating in traditional ways`. Transformed to the puppet, the
puppeteer/participant feels inspired to express something that was not revealed in his
or her everyday life.
174
One of her virtual art works is the “virtual shaman” a sound
activated puppet. Any sound input coming into the microphone, such as musical
instrument sound and storytelling motivates the mouth, body and facial expression of
the 3D virtual puppet on screen, in real time.
175
She explains that participants of this
170
South Korea is known as one of Asias most economically prosperous and dynamic regions with the
best Internet connectivity and speed in the world.
https://www.academia.edu/6184047/Cyber_Shamanism_in_South_Korea. Accessed 18.10.2015.
171
´In Korean religion, priestess who employs magic to effect cures, to tell fortunes, to soothe spirits of
the dead, and to repulse evil. [...] also known by numerous other names in various parts of Korea.`
http://www.britannica.com/topic/mudang. Accessed 18.10.2015.
172
https://www.academia.edu/6184047/Cyber_Shamanism_in_South_Korea. Accessed 18.10.2015.
173
Ryu researched that ´Our interactive routines have continued, from micro to macro scale, in order
to confirm our existence in everyday life. This universal repetitive pattern of human activity is ‘the
ritual’. It is ritual because it is the archetypes of cycles driven by human instinct, regardless of their
cultural and historical period.`
Ryu, S. (2005), ‘Ritualizing interactive media: from motivation to activation’, Technoetic Arts 3:2, pp.
105–123, doi: 10.1386/tear.3.2.105/1
174
It can be criticism or free imagination. She further explains that ´The puppet has been functioned as
a revolutionary interface to bring people free speech and imaginative storytelling`.
175
Ryu explained that ´unlike traditional puppets, virtual shaman is motivated by sound, not by strings,
rods or hand triggers. [...] Although the puppet and the puppeteer are not analogous, they are perfectly
united by their relationship and interactions. In the end, the puppet becomes the image of the
51
performance feel very relieved through this transformation, and compares it with
acting in front of a mirror: ´In a moment of absolute freedom, we realise our forgotten
selves by transforming our bodies into different things`.
Figure 24. Semi Ryu. Screenshot Artists Performance.
Figure 25. Semi Ryu. Screenshot Artists Performance: Live music, storytelling and 3D motion
graphics.
puppeteer and the puppeteer confirms himself, as our continuous act in front of a mirror. We become
eager to transcend our socially oppressed flesh. We choose to wear "masks" and perform as
"marionettes." It is the powerful motivating force of the ritual, moving from physical to spiritual`.
Ryu, S. (2005), ‘Ritualizing interactive media: from motivation to activation’, Technoetic Arts 3:2, pp.
105–123, doi: 10.1386/tear.3.2.105/1
52
Figure 26. Semi Ryu. Screenshot Artists Performance. 3 D Animation between live puppet storytelling.
Figure 27. Semi Ryu. Screenshot Artists Performance. Milan, Italy.
Figure 28. Semi Ryu. Screenshot Artists Performance. Milan, Italy.
53
Figure 29. Semi Ryu. Screenshot Audience Participation: Storytelling, singing and talking.
Figure 30. Semi Ryu. Screenshot Audience Participation: Storytelling, singing and talking.
3.4 Conclusion Chapter 3
Rosenfeld speaks about a cyber society.
176
For Poncelet, it is not a contradiction
suggesting, as an activist, to reconnect and acknowledge the sacred in the
mainstream of our modern world.
177
According to him, an achievement seems to be
to adapt, copy or eventually [probably] upload the principles of shamanism into the
virtual reality on a creative way to generate artistically an online awareness and
176
´A virtual culture, a paradigm that ranges from simulation to hyper reality. It is a parallel culture with
its own population, rules and relationships. A public sphere where social, political, economic, and
cultural interactions happen`
Rosenfeld, Digital online culture, identity, and schooling in the twenty-first century, 12.
177
He mentions, that ´in establishments and technology to get a different view with it and become an
activist on a sacred way`.
54
compassion for the cyber society. A side effect might be that the offline culture
benefits from it as well.
After at least 5000 years of domination by linear education the nonlinearity of
shamanism in combination with artistic inspirations could be an appropriate tool to
align our human sense within the nonlinear virtual reality for therapeutic matters. It
seems that a transhuman
178
movement already exists in order to develop
Nietzsche's
179
idea of the overman (Ubermensch)
180
. Nonetheless, as long as the
inability to connect with other human beings isn´t the new norm in a quasi-beginning
of the post-human world the work of shaman/artists like Semi Ryu´s Virtual Puppetry
contains inspiring future potential in cyberspace and other artists might follow, both,
disembodied or not.
4. Final Conclusion
The impulse of Shaman/Artist creates a responsibility to adapt the shamanic
principles to our contemporary world, provided they are familiar with contemporary
tools when it comes to our online culture. Previous comprehensive overviews
concerning the paradigm of Shamanism indicates how this ancient tool has been
conventionally intellectualized in terms of mystical and occult relations with the spirit.
178
´Transhumanism is a loosely defined movement that has developed gradually over the past two
decades. It promotes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the opportunities
for enhancing the human condition and the human organism opened up by the advancement of
technology. Attention is given to both present technologies, like genetic engineering and information
technology, and anticipated future ones, such as molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.`
http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/values.html. Accessed 05.11.2015.
179
´Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who
challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality. His revitalizing philosophy has
inspired leading figures in all walks of cultural life, including dancers, poets, novelists, painters,
psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and social revolutionaries.`
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/. Accessed 08.11.2015.
180
´[…] Nietzsche had something in his mind about how a man should be more than just human-all-
too-human, regardless if he was one or not. All these ideas had been pondered on and developed
though all his works. The concept then seems to reveal much about the way Nietzsche saw life. […]
An overman as described by Zarathustra, the main character in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is the one
who is willing to risk all for the sake of enhancement of humanity.`
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~pj97/Nietzsche.htm. Accessed 08.11.2015.
55
Figure 31. A shaman of the Sitka-Qwan Indians (Alaska), wearing a ritual mask, is doing a healing.
Having a general idea through the lens of this paper to the last 100 years of the
relevance of shamanism in art, philosophy and science should help to distinguish the
notions and individual purpose between artists, philosophers, scientists and other
creative thinkers to extend the perceptive discourse of technology and society and
being for many of these voices, a recognition that a reconciliation between scientific
and spiritual views is needed, to get a better balance in culture. With all their
misgivings, Barbrook and Cameron still see a positive outcome in the rebirth of the
modern. Whose ´to avoid elitism, the European artist-engineers must construct a
cyberspace which is inclusive and universal`.
181
The research of this paper supports
this notion.
There are possibilities to adapt the potential of shamanistic principles into the 21st
century, as it is one of the ancients healing and cleansing tools of society. When
revisiting Gablik’s re-spiritualization of our society, care and compassion are for her
the tools of the soul. Aspects, unfortunately often ridiculed by society. She refers to
Gary Zukav, who suggests cultivating the compassionate self to create a
181
They stress that ´Even if it is not in circumstances of their own choosing, it is necessary for
Europeans to assert their own vision of the future and to ensure that all citizens are included within the
digital future. […] Knowing that `no-one knows exactly what the relative strengths of each component
will be. […] that ‘collective intervention will ensure that no social group is deliberately excluded from
cyberspace`.
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/hrc/theory/californianideo/main/t.4.2.1%5B9%5D.html. Accessed
21.05.2015.
56
compassionate world, knowing that a cultural re-enchantment will not happen quickly:
´The status quo is deeply entrenched, and no new paradigm will suddenly eliminate
the present order`.
182
Transitional times created around the year 1990 an undefined
period between detachment of the old and attachment to the new. Gablik said that ´it
has been suggested that five to ten percent of a group of people need to change in
order to create change in the whole`. Might the potential of virtual reality be strong
enough to make Gablik’s, mission true and transform the future of a realignment of
society?
183
Klint Finnley found that virtual reality has made inroads in helping to treat
serious phobias, post-traumatic stress, and burn victims’ pain. The price of VR
184
technology drops
185
/
186
. His research states that therapeutic virtual technology tools
are advancing and are in the near future will become available. Even Dani Roig a co-
founder of this concept acknowledges, humbly: ´We just democratized these kind of
treatments`.
187
Does cyberspace become only a new extension of the notions of
neoliberalists or might Gablik´s wish in fact come true and more people imagine that
our present system can be replaced by something better?
188
182
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 178, 180.
183
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 181, 183.
184
[virtual reality]
185
Howard Rose, who has spent the past 20 years building virtual worlds for medical researchers
mentions that the earliest practical VR technologies were flight simulators used by the military, and
much of the VR hardware industry has focused on this market. ´People were making their bread and
butter on military gear`, Rose says… ´And they weren’t motivated to make it cheaper`. That’s
changing.
VR systems have cost tens of thousands of dollars, making such therapy available to a small
percentage of people. Psious, however, is now able to sell a bundle of hardware—including a Homido
headset, a smart phone and a haptic feedback device—for $300.
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/virtual-reality-wont-just-amuse-will-heal-millions/. Accessed 18.10.2015.
186
Shamanistic rituals combined with a 3D Sculpting system for instance can be used soon for
collective transformations [online and offline] to create a collective healing and cleansing experience.
Using Razer Hydra as input controllers and displayed on the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 VR
headset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnqFdSa5p7w. Accessed 18.10.2015.
187
Finnley experienced an airline simulation, created by River Company Psious, which is a virtual
reality version of exposure therapy, an approach to treating anxiety disorders such as phobias and
post-traumatic stress disorder. The idea is to gradually expose someone to the source of their
anxiety—flying, for example—in a safe setting in a way that enables them to face that fear in the real
world later. The company offers several other simulators, including ones to help with arachnophobia,
fear of needles, claustrophobia, and public speaking.
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/virtual-reality-wont-just-amuse-will-heal-millions/. Accessed 18.10.2015.
188
Gablik suggests: ´Closeness, instead of distancing; the cultivation of ecocentric values; whole-
systems thinking; a developed discipline of caring; an individualism that is not purely individual but is
grounded in social relationships and also promotes community and the welfare of the whole; an
expanded vision of art as a social practice and not just a disembodied eye`.
Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 181.
57
However, Semi Ryus work is a good example of ritualization via interactive media
and suggests a deeper investigation. It might be an opportunity for a compassion in a
quasi-transhuman society in which to shape a new vision for the future, to build on
positive experience and reject negative ones. We need to discuss the effects in order
to make the right decisions now so that we are prepared for the future but we
shouldn´t forget that in our recorded history, the 21st century ´offline` culture still
exists. The human body has been referred to as an impressive machine. It has its
own electrical system. The heart is a pump that keeps the blood flowing through the
body from birth to death and rarely needs repairs.
58
Appendix
Semi Ryu. Visual Essay Screenshots, You Tube.
59
60
61
62
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