Integral Education: The CIIS Blog

Practices in Counter-Socialization

By SUSANNAH MAGERS, curatorial intern, The Arts at CIIS

In early February media theorist Gene Youngblood delivered the first of a two-part lecture series at the San Francisco Art Institute, reflecting on ideas he first articulated in 1970 in his prophetic and political tome, "Expanded Cinema," in which he considered how the coming advances in telecommunications could best be utilized for social good. His contemporary reflections on our hyper-Twittered world are (albeit necessarily) bleak. The relative optimism of "Expanded Cinema" has been replaced with an explicit, unambiguous denunciation of society’s current state of decline, or to use his terminology, a total “global-eco-social-crisis.”

The broadcast (a term he uses to describe the power structures that create and administer the images, language, and culture by which we model ourselves) has more or less created a society of self-oppression and collaborative social control: “Here you are, in the fields of freedom, and yet you huddle in front of the broadcast.” To break free from the broadcast requires, a “daily practice of counter-socialization,” or immersion in alternative media outlets. The exhibitions currently on view at CIIS take on this challenge to create countercultural narratives that point to social, political and economic imbalances in contemporary society. Their individual practices make visible—as well as push against—predetermined or mass-culturally sanctioned narratives about their lives and futures, and of our cultures collectively.

Ali Dadgar’s exhibition, "Radiant States: Reflections on Solidarity" (on the 4th Floor of the CIIS Main Building), is a direct engagement with the visual language of a countercultural communications revolution. Invoking the ubiquitous icon of the raised fist, hands are depicted in various states of protest and solidarity. Tightly clenched, making a peace sign, or opened, palm out, each image was found online: “I started to focus on this powerful, yet vulnerable gesture across different cities including Cairo, Oakland, Tehran, and Damascus, where protesters disseminated their own footage. In isolating, extracting, and processing these upraised arms, I want viewers of my work to feel—in the pixelation of the image—its deterioration, its falling apart, its loss of color and density.”

Regardless of their provenance, then, each image conjures a similar feeling—but what Dadgar seems to be getting at is the simultaneously critical yet hopeful posture of this familiar gesture. With the ongoing unfolding of recent revolutions and protests (from Egypt and Tunisia to the Occupy movements) these images point not only to what has happened, but what must continue to. Dadgar’s accompanying video piece references another essential aspect of revolution, the sounds of protest. Recorded during a performance in 2011, "Five Minutes of Infinite Solidarity," in which Dadgar beat on large sheets of clear Mylar to produce thundering, reverberating sounds, the video captures the light reflected from the mylar and the rhythms from six different chants of resistance. In black, white, and gray tones, the reflected light undulates, at times speeding up to a frenzied, feverish pace, at others trembling, and barely moving. These repetitive, frequently shifting shapes, sounds, and forms mimic the anxious, unpredictable atmosphere of the protest environment.

On Catharsis and the Interdisciplinary Project: HOMELESS IN HOMELAND, Part 3

By SARIA IDANA, a theater, literary, and music artist, committed to freedom of expression as a means to develop action connection and intimacy. Her work focuses on personal and global struggle in conjunction with human resiliency. She is a Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA student.

Saria Idana will be performing her solo show HOMELESS IN HOMELAND on March 1-3 at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, Calif.

Catharsis is present in HOMELSS IN HOMELAND in three ways. First, through a dramatic arc in both the theater piece and spoken word album; second, in what I have learned from the different art forms speaking to each other as they develop multiple layers of meaning; and third, in how I have been changed on a personal level by engaging with the topics. The combination of these allows the audience to experience their own catharsis. When an artist has been changed through the process of making work, the showing becomes a sharing not a telling. This manifests through intention and into stance and tone. The action of sharing gives the audience permission to engage with the material in a more intimate way.

Structurally, the main character—based on me—goes through mental and emotional breakdowns and breakthroughs, which is a traditional form for catharsis. This is a classic structure developed with Aristotelian theater in ancient Greece. This dramatic arc invites the audience to identify with the protagonist and to go through mental and emotional shifts as the protagonist does. On a personal level, engaging with this material has changed my relationship to my own identity both as an American and as a Jew dedicated to the human rights of all people.

From feedback I received, I know catharsis has occurred for a number of audience members; I consider even the political hate mail emailed to me evidence of this. In both formal and informal post performances discussions, audience members have expressed having altering. This has been demonstrated through intense crying—coupled with bits of laughter—to people saying, “I just never thought about it quite like that”;  “it” has been applied to different aspects of identity, history, and experience shown in the narrative of the play, but most often refers to the Middle East conflict.

On Catharsis and the Interdisciplinary Project: HOMELESS IN HOMELAND, Part 2

By SARIA IDANA, a theater, literary, and music artist, committed to freedom of expression as a means to develop action connection and intimacy. Her work focuses on personal and global struggle in conjunction with human resiliency. She is a Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA student.

Saria Idana will be performing her solo show HOMELESS IN HOMELAND on March 1-3 at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, Calif.

Making the multi- and interdisciplinary body of work HOMELESS IN HOMELAND has been cathartic for me artistically; I have come to deeper articulation of how the different artistic forms relate to each other in process, production and performance. I have released some self-criticism and have more clearly define my multi- and interdisciplinary nature while better understanding how I relate to each form. Word, or poetry, is how I access thought, meaning, and message. Word is where I start; it defines the process which then is refined on the page, in performance or song. Acting is how I tell story and engage with compassion. It is where I can allow for multiple and strong perspectives to live. It is a way of remembering. Song is how I process and transform my own emotional experience. Soundscape is how I create a believable environment to draw myself and/or the audience deeper into the material.

Movement is how I feel, it is the articulation of the unnameable. It is how I understand and embody personal and cultural experience, emotional, and physical landscape. Movement styles are deeply connected to both personal and cultural identity. Most of the conversation of identity in the solo show is not accomplished through language but through gesture and seven forms of dance; modern, hip hop, Israeli folk dance, samba, salsa, flamenco, and dervish turning.

From an interdisciplinary perspective I have experienced how these forms are enhanced by each other, both through clear fusion and by having multiple forms developing material at the same time. This heightened awareness of the power of having multiple art forms in conversation is new for me and the focal point of my artistic catharsis. Before, I simply appreciated engaging in all these forms, and having many outlets at the same time, but the many outlets were often not related, and I did not fully believe that the forms could relate in such a deeply integrated way.

On Catharsis and the Interdisciplinary Project: HOMELESS IN HOMELAND, Part 1

By SARIA IDANA, a theater, literary, and music artist, committed to freedom of expression as a means to develop action connection and intimacy. Her work focuses on personal and global struggle in conjunction with human resiliency. She is a Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA student.

Saria Idana will be performing her solo show HOMELESS IN HOMELAND on March 1-3 at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, Calif.

In a previous blog titled "A Recipe for Art that Moves," I discussed catharsis and my belief that it is a necessary ingredient for making affective art, “art that moves." Both mentors and colleagues asked me to articulate my relationship with catharsis in my own work. Without declaring myself “a good artist who makes art that moves," I will share how I have approached and experienced catharsis in my multidisciplinary body of work called HOMELESS IN HOMELAND and how it has affected audiences.

Catharsis is present in this body of work in three ways; firstly, for me personally; secondly, for me as an artist learning how my different art forms relate to each other; and thirdly, catharsis lives within the structure of the material. These three things together have allowed audience members to experience catharsis of their own. In this first blog I will discuss how I have been personal changed. In the second I will discuss my artistic discoveries and how I have been changed as an artist. In the last I will address the cathartic structure of the material and how audiences have been affected.

A brief reminder: Catharsis is commonly defined as a mental, emotional, or spiritual purification through an intense experience. In art this is achieved by giving audience members an engaged experience that offers new perspective. Often it is achieved by triggering an emotion either through memory or aesthetic context. Human beings’ relationship to catharsis is dynamic and ever changing, as Augusto Boal outlined in his book "Theater of the Oppressed." I have come to think of catharsis as an experience that changes or deepens one’s perspective.

Personally, I was changed through creating HOMELESS IN HOMELAND. I did not conceive of the project so much as I was compelled to write, move, and sing as a way to personally process after my first trip to Israel-Palestine in 2007. After a year I realized I was making an interdisciplinary body of work that eventually took form between 2009 and 2011. The material focuses on Jewish-American identity, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the human desire for a place of belonging, of home. It is comprised of a solo show, a manuscript of writings including the play script and related poems, and a spoken word album that will be released later this year. The material has taken many forms as a result of my multi-disciplined process, but also because I believe these themes are ripe and relevant for the times and wish to reach many different kinds of art going audiences.