BUILDING
THE HUMAN
Driftwood, Discovered, Outer Banks, NC 2017
Artist’s Note: How do we embrace both change and objectivity? How does human subjectivity become objectively true? These are some of the questions I was investigating in Building the Human. Using found items such as natural slate and driftwood, I wanted to reinforce our connection to nature and seek a new understanding of the naturalness of human values and civilization. There is a progression to the constructions: from the simple, found driftwood piece to the assemblage of the full human-esque figure, the complexities added via human evolution and development are represented.
The following quotes are taken from the accompanying essay, Building the Human. Read the entire essay here.
“The long history of Western philosophy can be read as either: an attempt to separate us from the ground beneath our feet, or separate us from our mythologies that keep us from being grounded.”
Context, Forged and Fabricated Steel, Found Slate, 18” x 20” 9”, 2017
Swirling Contexts, Forged and Fabricated Steel, 24" x 18", 2017
“Plato, as he is generally understood, believed the world of ideas was ‘above’ the world of the senses. His Allegory of the Cave demonstrated that the world as it appears to us is not the “true” world, but merely a shadow of reality. This separation of the intellectual from the sensual—which over the next several centuries, evolved into deceptively more subtle versions—still exhibits power in contemporary life. And in the post-truth world in which we often find ourselves, we see that the damage to human progress is not just academic, but very real.”
Two Significant Pieces, Forged and Fabricated Steel, Found Slate, Found Wood, 21” x 13” x 13”, 2017
“With science largely out of the values game and philosophy linking values to “mere” contingent, social constructions, the ability to garner objective value has since been met with skepticism and cynicism. What remains are competing opinions and entrenched ideologies which become matters of faith. Without this facilitation in our public discourse, we are often left with factions who resort to the manipulation of “facts,“ or even to violence.”
“How can we bridge the gap between perspectivism and objective values in the natural world?”
Upright Form, Forged and Fabricated Steel, Found Slate, Found Wood, 34” x 10” x 5”, 2017
“Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) took up this task in his existential philosophy. One distinction of his work was his creation of compound words in order to disassociate our reflexive understanding of them. His essential word “da-sein,” for example, often simply translated as being in English, literally translates in German as being-there, critiquing the idea of a mere, abstract, and disembodied being that exists no-where in particular. “In-der-welt-sein” or being-in-the-world speaks directly to the reality of our natural context; being is wholly integrated and embedded in a real, tangible, and physical world.”
Standing Figure, Forged and Fabricated Steel, Found Slate, Found Wood, 73” x 28” x 19”, 2017
“The picture of the world that emerges from the ideas elaborated in this essay is one of an integrated, holistic existence, inseparable, not only from each other and the world, but the very universe itself . . . It also points the way to universal values and breaks us out of our various silos and bubbles toward a shared experience, without robbing individuals of their powers to act and express themselves.”
“‘Letting beings be’ does not mean keeping to ourselves or encouraging others to do the same. It means we come to others as Kant would wish us: as end in themselves—individuals who have unknowable creative potential. They, like us, can leave behind real value by merging our unique ideas with the material world in innumerable, and yet unimagined, ways; not for ego’s sake, but to truly benefit our fellow travelers on spaceship earth.”