Horizon of expectations

In the speech, Khruschev once claimed that communism was already visible on the horizon. When a listener asked, 'Comrade Khruschev, what does "horizon" mean?', the leader advised him to consult a dictionary. There, the listener found the following entry: 'Horizon, an apparent line that separates the earth from the sky and disappears as you approach it.'

The 'horizon of expectations' is only partly structured by experience; events do not always coincide with expectations, although those expectations are, of course, strongly influenced by their prehistory in the 'space of experience.' In the modern world, this tension between experience and expectation evokes a different experience of history. Partly because of the disintegration of the Christian concept of the Judgement Day, the 'horizon of expectation' moves up, and the future becomes 'less attached' to the past. At the same time, an eventual improvement of one's fate is less likely 'in the hereafter' and more likely 'in the present,' an experience that manifests itself in the emerging use of the concept of 'progress'.

From Art in Progress by Maarten Doorman p.24

Pictures, like words, are what we are made on.

"I am an inquisitive and chaotic traveler. I like discovering places haphazardly, through whatever images they might have to offer: landscapes and buildings, postcards and monuments, museums and galleries that house the iconographic memory of a place. Much as I love reading words, I love reading pictures, and I enjoy finding the stories explicitly or secretly woven into all kinds of works of art – without, however, having to resort to arcane or esoteric vocabularies. … I am guided not by any theory of art but merely by curiosity."

Every good story is of course both a picture and an idea, and the more they are interfused the better the problem is solved. Henry James, Guy de Maupassant

"Pictures, like stories, inform us. Aristotle suggested that every thought process required them. “Now, for the thinking soul, images take the place of direct perceptions; and when the soul asserts or denies that these images are good or bad, it either avoids or pursues them. Hence the soul never thinks without a mental image.” … existence takes place in an unfurling scroll of pictures captured by sight and enhanced or tempered by the other senses, pictures whose meaning (or presumption of meaning) varies constantly, building up a language made of pictures translated into words and words translated into pictures, through which we try to grasp and understand our very existence. The pictures that make up our world are symbols, signs, messages and allegories. Or perhaps they are merely empty presences that we fill with our desire, experience, questioning and regret. Whatever the case might be, pictures, like words, are the stuff we are made on."

From Reading Pictures by Alberto Manguel

‘My Self’ by Wergeland (Norwegian poet)

"My soul rejoices in the spring joys of Heaven

and shall partake of the Earth’s.

It glows more intensely than the spring stars, and it

Will soon blossom with the flowers.

Wondrous evening star. I bare my head.

Like a shower of crystals your radiance falls upon it.

There is a kinship between the soul and the stars".

Vigeland on Art

"People want to know 'the meaning'; they do not care about the rest. They want to be able to take out 'the idea' and 'the meaning' and put it back again like a book on a shelf. As though 'the meaning' were the most valuable aspect of a work of art. Look at the grandest of all works of art, Michelangelo's 'Dio crea il sole et la luna'.This work goves the impression of undiluted passion (aside from cracks, and so on) today as before, even though we all know that that was not how the solar system was created. - No, if one cannot allow oneself to be lifted, if one is not capable of being entranced by a work of art, transported by it, then one will never 'understand' it. People usually stand in front of a work of art with a stiff neck, rather than with bowed head. In fact, one must approach a piece of art with the mind of a child. Otherwise you will never understand it".

The power of cyberspace

"Community on a global scale.  Think of it: a cross-cultural, cross-functional,
globally dispersed team, linked by a continuity machine, driven by a common
enterprise vision, sharing in the common values of the emerging global culture,
and producing out of their cultural, organizational, and technical richness and
complexity a constant flow of wisdom.  A true global cosmopolis in cyberspace".

O'Hara-Devereaux & Johansen, 1994, p. 420 
Globalwork: Bridging Distance, Culture, and Time

Notes on Art Education

Cultural Sustainability, cultural engagement and visual culture plays a big role in development of values and the transferring of belief systems.

Visual art making acknowledges previous learning, personal meaning making, the real world and audience. It presents a platform for critical self reflection and a space to facilitate the ongoing mediation of society, cultural values and citizenship.

It would have been interesting to explore how art making affirms our consciousness about the world and self through creative engagement and communicative knowing. How can we develop students’ capacities to engage creatively with learning in environments that provide opportunities for thoughtful participatory understanding about self as a citizen of the world, or as a citizen of the world, or as a member of none’s national or local community. It is identifying and reflecting that an understanding of one’s world is dependant on knowing how contemporary society communicates its values and beliefs informed by economic, environmental, cultural and political forces. In a world dominated by the triumpth of the image, multi-modal practices and visual culture (Duncum, 2003), being visually literate is fundamental, and having the skills to creatively engage with communicative knowing within the dominant discourse is essential to the active construction of an individual’s values, beliefs and identities.

Source: Creative Engagements with Visual Culture, Communicative Knowing, Citizenship and ContemporaryVisual Art Education 
Kathryn Grushka, University of Newcastle

Three Dilemmas of Virtue

[...] Each of the three older Pendawas are commonly held to display a different sort of emotional-moral dilemma, centering one or another of the central Javanese virtues. Yudistira, the eldest, is too compassionate. He is unable to rule his country effectively because when asks him for his land, his wealth, his food, he simply gives it out of pity, leaving himself powerless, poor, or starving. His enemies continually take advantage of his mercifulness to deceive him and escape his justice.

Bima, on the other hand, is single-minded, steadfast. Once he forms and intention, he follows it out straight to its conclusion; he doesn’t look aside, doesn’t turn off or idle along the way – “he goes north”. As a result, he is often rash, and blunders into difficulties he could as well have avoided.

Arjuna, the third brother, is perfectly just. His goodness comes from the fact that he opposes evil, that he shelters people from injustice, that he is coolly courageous in fighting for the right. But he lacks a sense of mercy, of sympathy for wrong-doers. He applies a divine moral code to human activity, and so he is often cold, cruel, or brutal in the name of justice.

The resolution of these three dilemmas of virtue is the same: mystical insight. With a genuine comprehension of the realities of the human situation, a true perception of the ultimate rasa, comes the ability to combine Yudistira’s compassion, Bima’s will to action, and Arjuna’s sense of justice into a truly moral outlook, an outlook which brings an emotional detachment and an inner peace in the midst of the world of flux, yet permits and demands a struggle for order and justice within such a world. And it is such a unification that unshakable solidarity among the Pendawas in the play, continually rescuing one another from the defects of their virtues, clearly demonstrates.

Book: The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973

Author: Clifford Geertz

Chapter: Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols p. 139.