Mnemonics, Formalism and Abstract Thinking
Hayagriva Tibetan Buddhist scroll
All visuals, all art is an exercise in mnemonics, from Monet’s “Water Lilies” to photographs from the fronts of wars, even the bland framed art as wallpaper in a hotel is intended to have an effect on our mind, that is, a non-effect. Tibetan scrolls, in contrast, are intended to take the mind down many corridors of association to spiritual enlightenment.
mne·mon·ic
/nəˈmänik/
noun
a device such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists in remembering something.
"the usual mnemonic for star types is O Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me"
It seems the hardest task in overcoming climate change is human intransigence about familiar patterns of thought and behavior. Once a thought is inculcated, it can be passed down from generation to generation and trigger confirmation bias. That can have all kinds of legal consequences, for example, policies based on assumptions about race, gender, and religion.
Narrative and mnemonics are converging as humans struggle to culturally adapt to recent changes. This is in line with the narrative framing we can observe in the current cold war between Putin and the West over Ukraine. Political skill has been reduced to storytelling with lethal implications. The device of convergent tropes are also being explored more aggressively by artists.
The “Ecoart in Action” book was discussed in a recent panel on the ecoartspace platform. The event was carefully choreographed and curated to frame how to understand the new forms described in the book. Zoom panels have become a new form most participants in art culture now routinely accept as a viable platform. Notably, stand alone visuals were almost entirely absent from this art event. Rather, it was headshots of speakers that most effectively conveyed the message. The intention of this panel was to bypass confirmation bias about what art is and what art does. This is a different kind of mnemonics than what we might routinely encounter walking into a gallery or a museum.
In creating a stand alone visual image, most artists focus on two issues:
The impact on the viewer and the cultural experience that creates context for what they see.
The significance to the artist and all an artist thinks and feels.
In designing my own book, I had to carefully consider and curate my visuals as mnemonics for my narrative and what it might message. The entire book implicitly framed my images.
I chose making a visual story of the visuals for my book, from a picture of me as a child, to portraits of my parents, to a chronology of major works in my career.
In contemporary art, we can contemplate the implications of one formal choice against another. A simple example is scale, as discussed in this article from 2016 by Eli Anapur. Formal choice can have remarkable implications in choice not only of form (literally painting vs. video) but also in platform, as, gallery vs NFT or when they converge. The mere idea of spatial location as a platform can transform the mnemonic experience.
What interests me is when the context, as in discussions of cryptocurrency and NFTs commodification define an abstract manifestation of something new implicitly interrogating economic systems, either reinforcing the worst aspects of extraction and self-indulgence, as Brian Eno contends or the harbinger of the end of capitalism thanks to Paris Hilton.
Where will the next mnemonic take our minds and how will we get there? More will be revealed.