Neil Nieuwoudt

Subjectivism

2012-01-31T02:43:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Subjectivism is a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. In extreme forms like Solipsism, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective awareness of it. One may consider the qualified empiricism of George Berkeley in this context, given his reliance on God as the prime mover of human perception.

Metaphysical subjectivism

Metaphysical subjectivism is the theory that reality is what we perceive to be real, and that there is no underlying true reality that exists independently of perception. One can also hold that it is consciousness rather than perception that is reality (subjective idealism). This is in contrast to metaphysical objectivism and philosophical realism, which assert that there is an underlying 'objective' reality which is perceived in different ways.

This viewpoint should not be confused with the stance that "all is illusion" or that "there is no such thing as reality." Metaphysical subjectivists hold that reality is real enough. They conceive, however, that the nature of reality as related to a given consciousness is dependent on that consciousness. This has its philosophical basis in the writings of Descartes (see cogito ergo sum), and forms a cornerstone of Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy.

Joburg Fringe Art Fair 2011

2011-09-30T00:20:00.000-07:00

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-09-23-fringe-comes-into-its-own/

An article about this years' Joburg Fringe Art Fair...

8

2011-08-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

A Theoretical version or projected model of the Universe, a doll's-house or microcosm.

Words from a Magpie...

2011-08-17T01:35:00.000-07:00

"Doors of Perception_Aldous Huxley" taken from the foreword by J.G. Ballard

"... All his life Huxley was driven by a need to understand the mystery of human consciousness, a quest that led him from Christian mysticism to the religions of the Far East and the pseudo religions of California. Unusually for a literary intellectual, of his day or ours, Huxley was intensely interested in science, and much of is original work lies in the border zone between religion, art and science.
The Doors of Perception sits in the centre of this magnetic ground. Huxley was fascinated by early research in the neurosciences, and in particular by the neurotransmitters in our brains and the way in which these chemical messengers control our view of ourselves and the world around us. Despite the wonders of human consciousness, Huxley believed that our brains have been trained during the evolutionary millennia to screen out all those perceptions that do not aid us in our day to day struggle for existence. We have gained security and survival, but in the process have sacrificed our sense of wonder.
The dismantling of these screens and the revelation of the richer world beyond them has long been the task of art and religious mysticism, but Huxley suspected that modern pharmacology possessed even stronger weapons in its armory of psycho-active drugs. In the Doors of Perception he describes an afternoon in Los Angeles in 1953 when he first ingested mescalin, the active principle of the sacred cactus known to the Mexicans as peyotl, and saw the gates of a new world open before him.
From the start he realised that his insights were not into himself and his modest personal history, but into the universe around him. Over the years there have been endless accounts of mescalin and LSD trips, but none can match Huxley's description of the hallucinatory realm that expanded before his eyes. The shutters before his mind at last fell away, revealing the wonders of existence to his self-centered and earthbound mind.
In the Doors of Perception and its sequel, Heaven and Hell, Huxley speculates that
human beings will always need some sort of chemical aid to free themselves from the inherited limitations of their own nervous systems. Forty years after his mescalin trip beside a Hollywood garden, when we have flown to the moon and girdled our planet with an entertainment culture more suffocating than anything visualised in Brave New World, we may be right to think that the epidition that Huxley undertook into his own brain is the last journey waiting for all of us, whether by chemical means or through some less hazardous door, the inward passage to our truer and richer selves. "

ಈನ್ಸ್ಪಿರತಿಒನಲ್ ರೆದಿಂಗ್...ನನ್ನ್

2011-08-17T01:25:00.001-07:00

More Digital Prints (mixed media)

2011-05-20T03:57:00.000-07:00

New Digital Prints

2011-05-20T03:54:00.001-07:00

New Mixed Media Works

2011-05-20T03:10:00.001-07:00

Joburg Fringe Video Berlin

2011-05-06T04:39:00.000-07:00

I have recently been invited to Joburg Fringe Video Berlin, where one of my most recent video's will be shown. For more info about the exhibition (opening 26 May 2011), please visit
http://www.7hours.com/_Actual_Page/html/JoburgFringeBerlin/AgterBerge_JoburgFringeVideoBerlin.htm

"Imperial" Solo Exhibition, AVA, Cape Town

2011-01-30T08:59:00.001-08:00

Upcoming Solo

2010-12-06T04:16:00.000-08:00

Video

2010-08-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

This video was shown at the Kimberley Hotel in Cape Town. You can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOTtturjY9I but be warned it might be somewhat offensive to certain people.

Digi Works

2010-08-16T08:37:00.001-07:00

VIDEO

2010-08-04T00:54:00.000-07:00

I recently started using an open source program called alchemy to create stills for short vids that I make using Image Ready and IMovie. They will be shown at galleries and events soon. One at the Kimberley in Cape Town, called the Big Hole, curated by Cat Ocholla and the other at ORE Gallery in Obs, Cape Town. Here is a link to one of the vids. Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDY-LopJxdQ

New Digital Works

2010-08-04T00:31:00.000-07:00

untitled digital works

2010-02-20T11:31:00.000-08:00

strange flowers II

2010-01-31T04:19:00.000-08:00

strange flowers VII, mixed media on paper, 2009
strange flowers VI, mixed media on paper, 2009

strange flowers

2010-01-31T04:05:00.000-08:00

   strange flowers IV, mixed media on paper, 2009
   strange flowers IV, mixed media on paper, 2009
   Strange flowers III, mixed media on paper, 2009
   strange flowers II, mixed media on paper, 2009
   strange flowers I, mixed media on paper, 2009

more muse...

2009-12-03T09:53:00.001-08:00

muse V, collage, ink, pencil, digital 2009
muse IV, collage, ink, pencil, digital 2009

muse

2009-11-16T09:41:00.000-08:00

New work on paper

2009-11-06T04:09:00.000-08:00

ink and oil on paper, collage, 2009
pencil and ink drawing, collage on paper, 2009

ink drawing and collage on paper, 2009

Esoterica

2009-08-19T03:07:00.000-07:00

Esotericism or Esoterism is a term with two basic meanings. In the dictionary sense of the term, it signifies the holding of esoteric opinions,^[1] and derives from the Greek ἐσωτερικός(esôterikos), a compound of ἔσω (esô): "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward", mystic. Its antonym is exoteric. In the scholarly literature, the term designates a series of historically related religious currents including Gnosticism, Hermetism, magic, astrology, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, the Christian Theosophy of Jacob Böhme and his followers, Illuminism,Mesmerism, Swedenborgianism, Spiritualism, the theosophical currents associated with Helena Blavatsky and her followers. There are competing views regarding the common traits uniting these currents, not all of which involve "inwardness", mystery or secrecy as a crucial trait.

Esoteric knowledge, in the dictionary (non-scholarly) sense, is thus that which is available only to a narrow circle of "enlightened", "initiated", or specially educated people.^[2] Esoteric items may be known as esoterica.^[3] In contrast, exoteric knowledge is knowledge that is well-known or public; or perceived as informally canonic in society at large.

Finally, it can be noted that esotericism, beside its scholarly and dictionary definitions, can be used in a loose, popular sense: not in order to denote e.g. mystical knowledge or practice, but rather informally to mean any perception or knowledge that is for the advanced individual such as theoretical physics, or that pertains to the minutiae of a particular discipline, such as "esoteric" baseball statistics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoterica

Buddhist Anarchism

2009-07-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

Some observers believe certain Buddhist teachings form a philosophical ground for anarchism.

Buddhism is rooted in three fundamental truths of the universe, the dharma seals, viz.:

1. Everything is in a constant state of change, nothing is permanent. (anicca)

2. That "suffering" exists everywhere in Samsara. (dukkha)

3. That everything is devoid of a "self." (anatta)

Thus, there can be no "perfect State"; from this Buddhist anarchists infer that it is only possible to try to approach an ideal community for all. Any man-made institution is impermanent as well as imperfect, as people and the world change constantly. Further, no material wealth or political power will grant people permanent happiness— unenlightened satisfaction is an illusion that only perpetuates samsara. Individual liberty, while a worthy goal for anarchists, is nevertheless incomplete, to the extent that it precludes our common humanity, since there is, ultimately, no "self" that is inherently distinct from the rest of the universe.

That being said, the aim of a bodhisattva is to try to minimize the amount of suffering that goes on during the lives of conscious beings. The socialist anarchist argues that both the state and capitalism generate oppression and, therefore, suffering. The former, the state, is an institution that frames the desire for power, and the latter, capitalism, the desire for material wealth. Trying to control other human beings, in the view of Buddhist anarchists, will only cause them to suffer, and ultimately causes suffering for those who try to control. Trying to hold on to and accumulate material wealth, likewise, increases suffering for the capitalist and those they do business with.

Compassion, for a Buddhist, springs from a fundamental selflessness. Compassion for humanity as a whole is what inspires the Buddhist towards activism; however, most, if not all, political groups tend to go against the Eightfold Path that steers Buddhist thought and action. Thus, anarchism, lacking a rigid ideological structure and dogmas, is seen as easily applicable for Buddhists.

Those who have seen the conjunction of anarchism and Buddhism (in various ways) arguably include Uchiyama Gudo, Edward Carpenter, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Lala Hardayal, Liu Shipei, John Cage, Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Gary Snyder, Jackson MacLow, Peter Lamborn Wilson, John Moore, Kerry Wendell Thornley, Max Cafard, William Batchelder Greene, as well as the pro-Situationist Ken Knabb and others.^{[citation needed]} The anarchist thinker Peter Kropotkin saw primitive Buddhist communities as embodying the principle of mutual aid,^[2] and Matthew Turner noted that some Buddhist priests were involved in the anarchist movement in Japan in the early part of the 20th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_anarchism

zero

2009-05-07T09:21:00.000-07:00

Zero, Cotton thread handstitched on canvas, acrylic,oils, varnish, 95 x 95 x 10cm, 2007

zerolifezerodeathzeropainzerolikezerodislikezeromonsterzeroherozerocagezerosignalzerostoryzerobirthzerobeginningzeroendddo

Laws of the Universe II

2009-05-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

Death XIII, Digital photograph of a mixed media sculpture/assemblage manipulated with photo shop.

I couldn't sleep last night, I got up at 2 o clock in the morning and couldn't sleep so i watched tv, then after two hours of watching interesting shows about the drug war in america and how it doesn't make sense and that they should just legalize it like the Dutch so that they can control it better and another program from suprememastertv.com aboout global warming the end of the world and how we can stop it if we all become vegetarians - Be Veg- Go Green. :)

Then I tried sleeping again and still couldnt sleep so by 5 o clock i decided to get up. then I worked on my art and drank coffee with a cigarette or two and then i came here to the gallery to send you a letter and to upload some work onto the website (my work)

...Lest we should forget that we are traveling through space on a large living rock (that might be the reason why I couldn't sleep last night ,sometimes you remember that you are infinitely small.

Laws of the Universe

2009-05-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

from The Hermetic Tarot (Based upon the Esoteric Workings of the Secret Order of the Golden Dawn) by Godfrey Dowson.

Ave Lucifer

2009-05-01T14:10:00.001-07:00

Ave Lucifer, Cotton thread hand stitched on canvas, acrylic, oils, varnish, 60 x 120cm, 2008

ave lucifer

2009-05-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

Ave Lucifer

Ave Lucifer, We are all Holy

Not just the Priest, the Pastor and

The Politician

Ave Lucifer, Everything is Sacred

Not just the Religion

Ave Lucifer, Your time is spent

Your Illusion is coming to an End

Your jewels are worthless

But a high price we’ll pay none the less.

Ave Lucifer, Alas it has come to an end

Your materialistic Empire

Is not sustainable

There are many wrongs in the world today, innumerable. One sometimes has no idea where to start. The only place it seems is with our selves. That is the only logical step for us to take.

If you think about it a lot of our world’s problems spring forth from an incorrect understanding, incorrect behavior, and an incorrect attitude towards life. Nobody can change your views on life, nobody can force someone to see things differently, it is not possible. You can only change your own views on life and open your own mind to different opinions and possibilities. I can only change my own life. That is where our true power resides.

Ave Lucifer is in reference to incorrect belief systems or forms of government that suppress or oppress basic individual freedoms. It doesn’t even have to be on a larger scale, that form of denial of human rights can take place in the workplace or in a relationship between family, friends or lovers. It can be interpreted in various scenarios. The point is the individual has the power to change or to affect that negative situation by speaking out, taking action.

Process of creation and destruction

The key to the ‘assemblages’ lies in the process and not in the final product. The process that I go through, by taking older works, cutting it up and reordering it to form a new composition is where the artwork takes place, constantly recomposing and reordering. The process is in that way symbolic. The idea of not being attached or holding on to the things in the past, but using those experiences or “products” for a base to start from and to learn from. Recycling and not just discarding. The feeling that I get by generating the new work, the over all idea that comes forth during the process then stimulates the title. So I don’t start with an idea, but with old ones that I have discarded, then I go through a process of chaos/destruction, and rebuilding to form a new order. Holding on to what worked and letting go of what didn’t. That is a correction/change that we go through either subconsciously or consciously everyday. It is a process of evolution.

Zero

This work is more ritualistic/symbolic than ideological. The process of stitching would also represent a healing process, a stitching up of open wounds. The figure O also has symbolic and esoteric value and representing the whole, or eternity, the circle of life, beginning and end being a continuous process where every end is a beginning and every beginning an end.

The reason for the title is that the finished product has zero meaning, it is the process that carries meaning. That is where the adjustment/equalizing/correcting process takes place.

Essentially my work is about the process of creation and destruction. Energy can never be completely destroyed, and every action has a residual effect. In time every action or energy takes another form.

A NEW ANALOGY

a new world order

It has been quite a journey, that my art has taken me on, introspectively (and I say this at the risk of sounding like a cliché, I know)

I started out with painting in the traditional sense, but now I’ve found that I assemble/stitch more than doing using actual paint brushes.

I am not interested in creating an illusion, I am interested in the true nature of things. One of those things being the law of change. We constantly go through a process of change and suffer accordingly if we try to hold on to things unduly.

An artwork should be a meditative object that offers us a glimpse of the reality of the universe. It should exist in two worlds, in the material and the spiritual world. It should transcend matter, transcend the mundane.

A NEW AESTHETIC_a new ugly

I work intuitively, but after a while, I guess, there’s a border line difference between intuition and instinct.

I try to make works that I want to make. I see the imperfections in the world not as faults, beauty can be found in imperfections.

Essentially we live in Chaos and have convinced ourselves that there is structure and stability. Change is inevitable and the only stability to be found is to accept it.

Anti-pretty Art

Anti-hero Art

Untitled

2009-05-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

Untitled, 60 x 60cm, Mixed media, hand stitched cotton thread, varnish, acrylic, oil and canvas assemblages, 2006

Untitled

2009-04-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

Untitled, 60 x 60cm, Mixed media, hand stitched cotton thread, varnish, acrylic, oil and canvas assemblages, 2006