.:.. .. M e d I t a t I v e P u l s e i n F l u x .. ..:..

Ashanti Brenda Biagioni
12/2005
Sound Design/SFAI

Expanded Perspective -
“Video artists do not create images. What they do is to visualize the unseen and invent new ways of seeing. To expand audience's visual experience……make use of the camera lens to break the boundaries of our perceptual power and diversify the images of ordinary city life in dissimilar ways. Through the lens, images are captured, transformed and composed into new forms of representations. Thanks to the video artists, we see what we can't see.”
By Kedy – Videotage, UGC Cinema, Hong Kong

There is a pulse that exists and vibrates within each and every one of us. This pulse is constantly changing by the influence of events and desires in our lives. There are a vast array of influences that trigger our minds and hearts in the everyday flow of the ever-changing occurrences of life. So many examples are present within how we live our everyday life, from the simple to the most complex inside us. Whether we experience chaos or harmony, the option of transformation within the dance of life is always present.

The sensory environment around us feeds into our beings, shifting our physiological state as well as psychological state. Every living being that exists has a magnetic fluctuation occurring in it. All life forms have an electromagnetic nature and definite oscillation frequency in its essence. In our outer environment there are multiple frequencies around us, shifting their vibrations and pulsating from a variety of sources at once. These pulses continuously flow in a flux through every place we travel in everyday life. To meditate and coexist with our world around us we must meditate and coexist with the world within us. This is where our sensibilities to frequency vibrations can be understood.

By weaving together the everyday and the sacred I generated an example (Through video) of how meditation in daily life is expressed. In this video montage, “Meditative Pulse in Flux”, explores examples of a pulsating flux of rhythms within different aspects of society from South East Asia to San Francisco. Showing clips from a monastic life in Thailand and Cambodia to rhythmic scenes from the streets of American life. These images explore an interconnectedness of consciousness from around the globe.

My project connects this consciousness through showing the similarity of pulse, rhythm, energy, motion, emotion, movement, and patterns of different cultures. Showing a similar thread that may connect the pulses of everyday life and mundane activities to a more sacred intentional motion. With the use of video and audio, this is expressed in a stream of consciousness flow and flux.

My emphasis on showing the juxtaposition of meditative acts in a temple to transitions of everyday city life, was to show that meditation is a state of consciousness that can be experienced anywhere, in any moment of our lives. We do not have to be strictly in a temple or quiet mountain top. Although there can be a great deal we can learn from
these experiences. I strongly feel it is important to integrate spirituality in every thing we do, in every place we go, every space we are in. Finding ways to bring a more peaceful and harmonious, stress free experience in daily life. Even in the bustling, busy streets of the city, airports waiting for a flight, or walking to school/work. Why not shift your awareness and switch the channel of your awareness of consciousness during these moments? These moments are an important part that can influence our day.

Meditative awareness can take many forms. From sitting quiet and Still, to more concentrated slow movements such as tai chi. also sound can be a meditative focus. The pulse that is experienced is what is important. A meditative pulse can be generated also by chanting, singing, and playing intentional music. In "Meditative pulse in flux" I incorporate Buddhist Monks chanting as well a scene of my friends and I in the hills of Marin Head Lands. Sound vibrations play an important part of cultivating a flux of peaceful rhythms. In Asia Mantras are recited to help one focus on the moment, healing and/or prayer.

In "Meditative Pulse in Flux" I show examples of how this in done in different parts of Asia. All of these scenes were shot in unplanned spontaneous happenings during my
travels in India, Thailand, Cambodia, and San Francisco. My goal was to capture meditative situations I have noticed in my environments. Through these findings I was inspired to make a video project to share my view with others. How I displayed this video required further thought in representation in a different social context. I believe things need to be experienced as well as demonstrated. I always try to bring a different
a level of interactivity in multimedia events. It is through experience, in the visceral, kinesthetic, that we begin to understand on a personal level.

My approach for the RX showing of this video montage was to incorporate a meditation circle in the gallery itself. At first I realized there was debate over this issue. Understandable, since this sort of this does not often happen. ( In America anyway) This is my point in breaking the barriers of the boxes we can confine our selves in. Be it on a conscious or unconscious level, I try to play with different ways we can experience time and space. Changing the ordinary to extraordinary. Meditation, in its subtle ways can be wonderfully extraordinary in just a short period of time. I decided not to hold back on the meditation in the RX
Gallery to prove my theory in this social experiment. In the end it succeeded, beyond others doubt in this issue. In the actual test, at least a dozen people voluntarily participated. Others who were just walking in through the front door felt a warm calming welcoming to the gallery space. It indeed proved that meditation can shift ones awareness, transforming how we feel, and changing the channel of our consciousness.

A few other artists that I have discovered exploring similar ideas are Alex
Grey, Ron Dilg, Marie José Burki, and Neelon Crawford.

Alex Gray is a visionary artist working with many mediums. He also teaches Art & Meditation course based in New York, San Francisco, and LA. Since 1970's Alex has been performing and sharing his inspiring work. He is a well renowned artist, as a painter, performer, and teacher. Currently he has a gallery in NYC, COSM, which opened in September of 2004. During which he has had meditative, music, and multimedia gatherings every month.
www.alexgrey./com
www.microcosmgallery.com/

An example of meditation incorporated at the beginning of the gallery event in NYC: “ Starting December 1st the New Moon, a time for setting intentions, will be celebrated at COSM with meditation and creative manifesting. The ceremony will be led by Alex and Allyson Grey. 7pm - Doors Open, 7:30pm sharp - Meditation Begins with inspirational music and readings. Doors will be closed until 8:15 when Meditation ends.”
www.cosm.org/



Ron Dilg’s Indwelling (16mm, color)
“ INDWELLING is a journey involved with the search from the everyday into the overday. It sings the song of pursuit, turmoil, encounter, balance, transcendence and structure. It wears the face of everyman-looking, finding, looking. The accumulations of existence. Composed as visual poetry.” --R.D.

Marie Jose Burki, a Swiss video artist who presently lives in Brussels, Belgium. She is a renowned video artist, explores our relationships with nature, language, technology, and time.
“Her video works seek the possibility of locating a space for reflection and contemplation within our fast-paced electronic culture. She dissociates video from its characteristic bias towards narration in favor of a more abstract meditation on the connection between images and perception of time. In each of her videotapes, she sets out ‘to discover the amount of time that each image needs.’ Movement and duration are employed through cinematic techniques: panning, splicing, slow-motion, montage, dissolves, close-ups and long shots, along with an emphasis on the characteristics of traditional art-making, such as colour, form and content. “ www.yorku.ca/agyu/exhibitions/burki.html

Neelon Crawford’s Mobius (1971) 16mm, color.
“ The material for this film was shot primarily on the West Coast during 1969-1970. Divided into eight sections, MOBIUS defines a motion from downtown San Francisco, through a forest fire in the Los Padres National Forest, a student practicing Tai Chi Chuan, to the southern Big Sur coast. This film pertains to sensing the intensity of an energy that surrounds one.” --N.C.



Buddhism and Black Belts
“The martial arts of Japan have been strongly influenced by the meditation practices of Zen Buddhism. Though Japan is not a very religious country, the ancient Buddhist traditions still influence society. This video, filmed in Japan, looks at the connection between Buddhism and day-to-day activities and the value of meditation for our own lives.” .28 min)
www.stfx.ca/coady-library/vidlist.html