Sterling Crispin
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Work from his oeuvre
“I am interested in the turbulent event horizon between consciousness and objective reality, and the ways in which subjectivities can be manipulated through ritual, mindfulness and magic systems. my current area of interest lies in the relationship between these issues and our exponentially accelerating networked global culture that will result in a technological singularity; a theoretical event in the future when machine intelligence surpasses humanity and births the posthuman era.
a reoccurring influence in my work is the buddhist concept of sunyata. emptiness. the void. sunyata is the infinite and absolute, all things coexisting in one fluid field , an infinite expanse empty of independent entities and forces. sunyata has been called “the great void” , “zero” , “emptiness” and “the ultimate truth”.
one way to understand sunyata is to try to understand written and spoken explanation of it. the other way to understand sunyata is through observation. sunyata is somewhat intangible and an indefinable concept.
this is because there is no worldly knowledge, be it general studies, science or philosophy, that can lead to the attainment of the state of sunyata. the only path to its realization is via an passionate and discriminating mind. It is beyond the common worldly understanding.
with that being said, this brief definition from wikipedia does a good job at outlining the surface level concept
sunyata signifies that everything one encounters in life is empty of absolute identity, permanence, or an in-dwelling ‘self’. this is because everything is inter-related and mutually dependent – never wholly self-sufficient or independent. all things are in a state of constant flux where energy and information are forever flowing throughout the natural world giving rise to and themselves undergoing major transformations with the passage of time.” – Sterling Crispin