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Saw this on the tube and have absolutely no idea what it means. Existentialism is polite? I should hold hands with couples at all times? Anyone know?
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wonderlustinglynda: #artontheunderground #MichaelLandy #tube #CentralLine #London #publicart #moquette #tubespotter #tubegeek #underground #transport
wonderlustinglynda: Phew I'm not stupid. It's a work of art called 'Acts of Kindness' by Michael Landy (best known for his work Breakdown where he destroyed every single possession he owned on Oxford Street)
Newest project work, the theme being Existentialism. I chose to look at how people perceive their own freedom and take it for granted, and in doing so, raise awareness for prisoners of concience. Inspired by the story of Burmese Khun Bedu, serving a 37 year prison sentence for a peaceful protest- launching a wave of informative balloons, I have designed a website giving users a platform to express and use their freedom by customizing a balloon with their own beliefs and release it upon the internet. It gives users an appreciation for their Existentialist human rights and opens their eyes to injustice worldwide. The imagery of the balloon pulling along the burden of its ball and chain highlights the potential consequences- the price of freedom. Though until the user's freedom has been exercised, the ball and chain remains hidden- its appearance leading to users questioning their freedom- "Would I have made that decision had I known the consequences?". Not knowing the risks made them truly free.
The beautiful truth is that we as human beings are free to stand against what we choose, despite the consequences. Khun Bedu and other prisoners of concience are serving unjust sentences and must be freed, but until this is achieved, they are still essentially free to believe. The balloons will continute to float despite their heavy burden.
Existentialism, 2011
oil and acrylic on canvas, oil and silkscreen on galvanized steel with lightbulb
86 x 126 x 1.5 inches
Desire rarely introduces itself as a democratic process. It does not wait to be voted on. It does not stand at the threshold of the self asking whether it may enter. It appears first as arrival, as inclination, as orientation, as a subtle but unmistakable shift in the body toward something not yet possessed and perhaps not yet fully named. This image attempts to hold that strange and humbling reality. The man stands in the hallway, composed in posture, outwardly restrained, but already bent inwardly toward something beyond the frame. Nothing visible explains his orientation. The object of desire remains hidden. That absence matters. The image is not about the thing wanted. It is about the experience of finding oneself already turned.
That distinction belongs to the lived-world of Confessions to the Empty Chair. The book does not treat desire as a neat sequence in which a sovereign self calmly surveys options and then chooses one. Again and again, its world reveals desire as something encountered before it is managed. The heart is often affected before it is articulate. The imagination is already occupied before the intellect arranges its defense. Longing is not first experienced as moral argument or philosophical category. It is lived as pull, as atmosphere, as pre-reflective movement. One realizes it after one has already entered it.
Phenomenologically, this matters because it exposes the difference between willing and wanting. Modern people often prefer to imagine themselves as governed chiefly by decision, as though agency were the deepest fact of consciousness. Yet lived experience tells a more complicated truth. There are moments when wanting arrives with the force of disclosure. Something becomes salient. A person, possibility, memory, fantasy, or future begins to shine with a significance that was not consciously authored in that instant. The world gathers itself unevenly. One path thickens. One absence grows magnetic. One horizon begins to organize the attention. Desire is not yet action, but it has already changed the field.
This image uses the hallway precisely because hallways are spaces of transition. One is neither fully arrived nor fully gone. Such spaces embody the in-between condition of desire itself. The self has not yet acted, but neither is it untouched. The man is still. His composure remains intact. Yet his body has already confessed what his words have not. He leans toward something withheld from view. The scene therefore honors one of the deeper psychological truths: wanting can precede endorsement. We are often moved before we are persuaded. We are drawn before we have justified the draw.
That insight becomes especially significant in the world of Confessions to the Empty Chair, where desire is never reduced to appetite alone. It can reveal, distort, expose, or reorder. It may disclose what the self loves. It may also disclose what the self lacks, avoids, fears, or secretly worships. In that sense, desire is not morally simple. It is revelatory, but not necessarily trustworthy in every form. It tells the truth about our orientation, though not always about our rightful destination. This is why the book’s treatment of longing often carries both fascination and danger. Wanting opens the self, but it also removes illusion. It shows that the soul is not as self-possessed as it pretends.
Theologically, the image also gestures toward the ancient recognition that human beings are creatures of love before they are creatures of analysis. We move toward what appears good, beautiful, consoling, promising, or alive. Even our confusions testify to this structure. We do not merely think our way through the world; we are drawn through it. Desire names that drawnness. Yet the tragedy and dignity of the human condition lie here: not everything that calls to us deserves us, and not everything that deserves us calls loudly. The soul therefore discovers itself in tension between attraction and judgment, immediacy and discernment, movement and meaning.
Psychologically, “Wanting Does Not Ask Permission” refuses the flattering fiction that all desire is deliberately chosen. Some of the most decisive movements in a life begin below the level of announced intention. A person notices that he is already attentive, already preoccupied, already turning inwardly toward what he claims not to have chosen. That recognition can feel destabilizing because it weakens the myth of absolute control. But it can also become a moment of honesty. One cannot meaningfully govern what one refuses to admit. The first act of maturity is often not mastery, but recognition: this has already arrived in me.
The image therefore does not celebrate surrender, nor does it condemn desire with easy severity. Instead, it describes the first truth any serious moral or existential life must confront: the self is not the sole author of its own impulses. Something can appear within us before we have arranged ourselves around it. Something can call us before we have decided whether to answer. That is not freedom’s end; it is freedom’s beginning. Only what is recognized can be judged rightly. Only what is admitted can be offered, resisted, purified, or received.
In the world of the book, this is one of the enduring burdens and revelations of consciousness. We do not control what first appears in us. We control what we do with it, whether we hide it, worship it, deny it, confess it, feed it, or submit it to truth. But before all that, there is the humbling instant this image preserves: the soul discovering that wanting has already entered the room.
Paris, France
France: Existentialism in Paris
Summer 2018
Our first time seeing the Eiffel Tower in Paris! My friend is found directly underneath it. The streets at first seemed so casual until we turned to see the gorgeous tower facing us. Truly an incredible experience!
As his relationships with his few friends deteriorates, a man looks out at a desolate post-apocalyptic world, and comes to the realization that he is slowly floating towards alienation and loneliness.
Since the topic of my portfolio is existentialism, I would like to start explaining my topic starting from humanity. I used my self-portrait as an example for a human. I used the photos of Taizhou Medical City Convention Center in China as a frame of my self-portrait. The environmental design around my self-portrait symbolizes the world. As a result, the collage illustrates the life of a person. At the same time, I created a link between my topic and my prospective major Architecture.
One last couple's holiday before baby. We'd thought of doing Paris several weeks ago, but opted for a night in London instead--cheaper, and less walking. Unfortunately, we hardly left the neighborhood where Jake works, but I think he appreciated associating downtown with something other than lectures and exam-grading.
The day consisted of a gigantic bookstore, a pizza lunch, the National Gallery, a wonderfully affordable Ethiopian dinner, and Waiting For Godot at the Royal Theatre. We then hit this really wierd Italian restaurant by our hotel to discuss the play over dessert--a perfect venue for a conversation about Beckett and existentialism.
"Huis Clos" Play Rehearsal In Progress. Follow us www.mesmeriseme.co.uk/what-is-hell, twitter.com/#!/HuisClos_2011, www.facebook.com/pages/Huis-Clos-MesmeriseMe-2011/1212970...