The methods employed in this project were to make manageable the complex realities globalisation and the co-existence of culture experiencing the pressures of modernity and modern capitalism. The project was to make a simple framework and structure designed for "seeing the world" from east to west and north to south, without simplifying these realities out of existence. The ambition of the project was to work with on "global" scale through working with complex local realities.
How can art help us see the world?
In considering the cardinal directions of East and West, and of North and South, the following questions and answers came up:
Q. East and West?
A. Geographically and culturally they are often paired as "orient" and "occident", terms relating to rising and setting of the sun, and that originate in Europe and so to an extent "eurocentric". Originally, the term Orient was used in Europe to designate the Near East, and later its meaning evolved and expanded, designating also the Middle East or the Far East. So, current usage of the term orient in British English, and often involving the term Oriental (generally considered offensive as a label for people from Asia), is used to refer to the geography of the Far East, East and Southeast Asia, including China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia and Laos. So, China for the East and Europe in the West?
EAST
WEST
Q. North and South?
A. The North–South divide is broadly considered a socio-economic and political divide. Generally, definitions of the Global North include the United States, Canada, Europe, developed parts of Asia (the Four Asian Tigers, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) as well as Australia and New Zealand. The Global South is made up of Africa, Latin America, and developing Asia including the Middle East.
NORTH SOUTH DIVIDE
The North is home to all the members of the G8 and to four of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. At the time of the project there were seven members.
G7 Countries (G8 minus Russia)
Today the G8 is also comprised of seven members, as in March 2014 Russia was suspended indefinitely following the annexation of Crimea, whereupon the political forum name reverted to G7. In 2017 Russia announced its permanent withdrawal from the G8. However, several representatives of G7 countries stated that they would be interested in Russia's return to the group.
Per capita income
World map showing countries above and below the world GDP (PPP) per capita, currently US$10,700. Source: IMF (International Monetary Fund). Blue above world GDP (PPP) per capita Orange below world GDP (PPP) per capita
The North mostly covers the West and the First World, along with much of the Second World, while the South largely corresponds with the Third World. While the North may be defined as the richer, more developed region and the South as the poorer, less developed region, many more factors differentiate between the two global areas. 95% of the North has enough food and shelter. The Global South "lacks appropriate technology, it has no political stability, the economies are disarticulated, and their foreign exchange earnings depend on primary product exports." Nevertheless, the divide between the North and the South increasingly "corresponds less and less to reality and is increasingly challenged."
In economic terms, the North—with one quarter of the world population—controls four-fifths of the income earned anywhere in the world. 90% of the manufacturing industries are owned by and located in the North. Inversely, the South—with three quarters of the world populations—has access to one-fifth of the world income. As nations become economically developed, they may become part of the "North", regardless of geographical location; similarly, any nations that do not qualify for "developed" status are in effect deemed to be part of the "South".
Representation of the global through the local
For the "EAST" and the "WEST", two places, two localities, one in each zone. Both places having comparable per capita income. The commission from Oldham Art Museum and Gallery made it a simple choice for the western location, and the fact that Philip Courtenay's brother is a resident of Tainan in Taiwan was also an obvious choice, and means to simultaneously explore two places using photography.
Oldham
Philip Courtenay in Oldham and Mark Courtenay in Tainan set about this collaborative photographic research conducting many conversations and taking photos of everyday life in these two cities. There were historical and contemporary industrial and commercial connections between Oldham and the so-called Far East, including an Oldham based textile machinery manufacturer providing finance in the late 19th century for Mitsubishi to purchase machinery for export. In the late 1980's Oldham became a communication and transportation hub for the north of the United Kingdom for electrical goods manufactured in Taiwan.
The NORTH - SOUTH divide and Eurocentrism
For the "NORTH and "SOUTH" the idea was to use text to present information and ideas about the contemporary north-south divide.
The use of brief quotations projected on slides from A Fate Worse Than Debt - The World Financial Crisis and the Poor 1988 by Susan George, and Eurocentrism by Samir Amin.
Susan George's text looks at how it was that Third World countries managed to accumulate a staggering trillion dollars' worth of debt? She was questioning who, in fact, ends up really shouldering the burden of reimbursement? How should "NORTH" deal with the debt crisis?
Susan George answers these questions with the solid evidence and verve familiar to readers of 'How the Other Half Dies'.
Debt-induced economic austerity is destroying the lives of countless Third World people who derive no benefit from the borrowed billions but must now make great sacrifices to bail out their elites. Northern economies stagnate and unemployment soars as the South serves the banks first and slashes imports.
Nature pays too, as natural resources are cashed in to service debt. Yet the crisis could be a fantastic opportunity to create greater economic justice. With enough popular pressure in both North and South, the 3-D solution - Debt, Development, Democracy - could make debt an instrument not of oppression and despair but of liberation.
Not much has changed in thirty years!
Since its first publication thirty years ago, Eurocentrism by Samir Amin has become a classic of radical thought. Written by one of the world’s foremost political economists, this original and provocative essay takes on one of the great “ideological deformations” of our time: Eurocentrism.
Rejecting the dominant Eurocentric view of world history, which narrowly and incorrectly posits a progression from the Greek and Roman classical world to Christian feudalism and the European capitalist system, Amin presents a sweeping reinterpretation that emphasizes the crucial historical role played by the Arab Islamic world. Throughout the work, Amin addresses a broad set of concerns, ranging from the ideological nature of scholastic metaphysics to the meanings and shortcomings of contemporary political Islam. This second edition contains a new introduction and concluding chapter, both of which make the author’s arguments even more compelling.
The original publication of Samir Amin’s Eurocentrism in 1988 was a much needed historical materialist rejoinder to post-structuralist and postcolonial critiques. … Amin not only demonstrated that he was in agreement with some of the postcolonial criticisms of Marxism, but was able to explain how historical materialism itself could provide even stronger critiques of the eurocentrism within its own tradition. … In these days, when it is still somewhat fashionable to dismiss the Enlightenment and modernity as eurocentric, the re-released and expanded Eurocentrism is very important. …. this version of Eurocentrism strongly and obviously embeds itself within the Marxist tradition, defending the reasons for an historical materialist approach (but one that is not eurocentric).—Joshua Moufawad-Paul, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
Samir Amin’s fascinating book on the crucially important subject of Eurocentrism ranges from the spread of Hellenism with the conquest of Alexander the Great to the triumphs of imperialism and transnational capitalism of the 1980s. While essentially thoughtful and analytical, this study is quite rightly informed with outrage against European arrogance and with sympathy for the non-European victims on the periphery of the present system.—Martin Bernal, author of Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization
The installation design for GRACE - World-as-Idea
The title of the work comes from reading a note found in the Richard Wilhelm translation of the I CHING or book of changes.
The 22nd "hexagram" in the I CHING is Pi / Grace, and "shows a fire that breaks out of the secret depths of the earth and, blazing up, illuminates and beautifies the mountain, the heavenly heights. Grace - beauty of form - is necessary in any union if it is to be well ordered and pleasing rather than disordered and chaotic."The notion that art is essentially concerned with ornamentation and beautification is an understandable way of considering aesthetics, and in so doing, therefore, separating art from an engagement with the struggles of existence, and the often "less than beautiful" qualities of everyday life.
"Grace brings success. However, it is not the essential or fundamental thing; it is only the ornament and must therefore be used sparingly and only in little things."
"In human affairs, aesthetic form comes into being when traditions exist that, strong and abiding like mountains, are made pleasing by a lucid beauty. By contemplating the forms existing in the heavens we come to underatnd time and its changing demands. Through contemplation of the forms existing in human society it becomes possible to shape the world. (1)" (pages 90-91)
1. The hexagram shows tranquil beauty - clarity within, quiet without. This is the tranquility of pure contemplation. When desire is silenced and the will comes to rest, the world-as-idea becomes manifest. In this aspect the world is beautiful and removed from the struggle of existence. This is the world of art. However, contemplation alone will not put the will to rest absolutely. it will awaken again, and then all the beauty of form will appear to have been only a brief moment of exhaltation. hence this is still not the true way of redemption. For this reason Confucius felt very uncomfortable when once, on consulting the oracle, he obtained the hexagram of GRACE. (Note on page 91)
The categories Beauty and Ugly have differing use value. Beauty excludes the ugly and "distasteful"! Considering all that is ugly is by contrast inclusive, including the possible discovery of hidden beauty in what is overlooked, discarded, ignored and de-valued!
This project aimed to maximize the use of the effect of an aesthetic impact in the design of the installation. This was a strategy to help an audience find a mode of contemplation of the beauty of everyday living, and simultaneously able to consider the appalling injustices experienced by the many by a system based on the enforcement of inequalities by the few that have, upon those who have less.
What you can see in the video
In a darkened space between galleries, a sequence of slides were projected onto a circular form on the floor, showing images from Oldham and Tainan supported by text, especially for the photos from Tainan. Included in the sequence were texts showing quotations from the texts by Susan George and Samir Amin.
The circular form placed on the gallery floor consisted of sand covered with salt, a magical combination with the projected images, in that the salt grains and sand seem to capture the projected light, and to glow in the low light similar to a video screen. The circle of sand and salt (earth) was contained by a rim of steel and wood. Across the edges of the circle film loops projected images of fire and water.
The structure involved echoed the so-called Yellow River Map and the map of the River Lo. The Yellow River Map shows the development out of even and odd numbers of the so-called "five stages of change" (wu hsing, usually incorrectly called elements).
The Yellow River Map
Water in the north has sprung from one of heaven, which is complemented by the six of the earth.
Fire in the south has sprung from the two of the earth, which is complemented by the seven of heaven.
Wood in the east has sprung from the four of the earth, which is complemented by the eight of earth.
Metal in the west has sprung from the four of earth, which is complemented by the nine of heaven.
Earth in the middle (t'u, the soil, the earth substance is distinguished from ti, the earth as a heavenly body) has sprung from the five of heaven, which is complemented by the ten of earth.
The Writing from the River Lo
The second arrangement, according to which the numbers separate again and combine with the eight trigrams, is that of the Lo Shu, the Writing from the River Lo.
(page 309)
Number symbolism
Richard Wilhelm discusses the origin of number symbolism in his Introduction (page xlviii) and sets out a view of the way "the seeds of a free Chinese natural science" were "replaced by a sterile tradition of writing and reading books that was wholly removed from experience" that would not sit comfortably alongside Joseph Needham's account of things in his Science and Civilization in China. Although, it has to be said, Needham was also to some extent Eurocentric in pursuing his so-called Needham question:
"Needham's Grand Question", also known as "The Needham Question", is this: why had China and India been overtaken by the West in science and technology, despite their earlier successes?Andre Gunder Frank's Re-Orient argues that despite Needham's contributions in the field of Chinese technological history, he still struggled to break free from his preconceived notions of European exceptionalism. Re-Orient criticizes Needham for his Eurocentric assumptions borrowed from Marx and the presupposition of Needham's famous Grand Question that science was a uniquely Western phenomenon. Frank observes:
Alas, it was also originally Needham's Marxist and Weberian point of departure. As Needham found more and more evidence about science and technology in China, he struggled to liberate himself from his Eurocentric original sin, which he had inherited directly from Marx, as Cohen also observes. But Needham never quite succeeded, perhaps because his concentration on China prevented him from sufficiently revising his still ethnocentric view of Europe itself.
The I Ching uses a type of divination called cleromancy, which produces apparently random numbers.
Six numbers between 6 and 9 are turned into a hexagram, which can then be looked up in the I Ching book, arranged in an order known as the King Wen sequence.
The interpretation of the readings found in the I Ching is a matter of centuries of debate, and many commentators have used the book symbolically, often to provide guidance for moral decision making as informed by Taoism and Confucianism.
The hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing.
