experiment: data complex 7 | a world apart | video art
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After several weeks of editing, I have completed my most recent video in my “Experiment: Data Complex” series. It is entitled ” A World Apart” and it focuses on the historical, and current separatist constructs that have negatively affected African-Americans and society as a whole. The Data Complex series brings together modern digital technology, and ambient music with various visual artistic styles such as Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Futurism to convey its message. Recently I watched the video of the Jay Z performance art piece entitled “Picasso Baby” at the Pace Gallery in New York City. His merging of Hip Hop culture and High Art culture was impressive. As a digital artist, and an African-American artist, I believe as Jay Z so eloquently said, that (and I paraphrase) it is a time for us to take the technology and expand our vision for the world to see. I hope to always push forward and merge the boundaries of digital art, video art, and contemporary soundscapes as tools to bring together “A World Apart”.
variations | when biking le tour, we discover more about ourselves
The pleasure of the moment. In retrospect, a sense of warmth. The night turning to morning …
I was very excited about waking up at 6:30 a.m. to watch stage 9 of the Tour de France. The stage is a 168.5 km trek through the Pyrenees in Southern France. For me the mountain stages are the most exhilarating of all the various stages. The trek from Saint Girons to Bagneres de Bigorre includes four category one climbs, each over 5000 feet and a category 2 climb. A test of man and machine. I believe that climbing is my best skill as a rider, and I certainly can relate to the difficulty inherent to climbing. Whether it is mountain biking or road biking, I love the challenge. Climbing is very meditative; slow and methodical. One has to really focus inward. On the breath, and on the movement of the body. Everything is recorded over and over again. Sometimes with much pain. Physically and mentally is can be quite exhausting, but in the end very rewarding. There is a certain ‘Peacetime’ when the silence of nature, movement and breath come together. An inner bliss without end.
variations | when, without moving we travel to a new vision
on the road
to Silence
> at last
quiet stillness
‘I think, therefore I am’, is far from the truth revealed in Silence (our thoughts are not who we are). As I move forward, stillness surrounds me. The ever-present moment awakens through the noise of distractions, attachments, thoughts. Creativity begins to make its presence known. The true vision that laid hidden … emerges.
There are moments, when traveling without moving; my mind turns inward. Often the idea for a new piece comes to me in the stillness of repetitive motion e.g. when driving home from work late at night or during the day riding my bike for hours. Both experiences are brought to a new level when simultaneously interwoven with ambient music of some kind: Inventive and emotional. Ethereal and far-reaching. Both movement and sound collapse the night and day into the black hole of my ever-expanding need for creativity. With each movement forward, with each night and day, like a sought out mystery, it mysteriously reveals itself. In Silence, I become one with my creative Truth.
Music for Backgrounds: Bvdub from the cd Resistance Is Beautiful and the track Nothing Like You. Perfect for that ride, drive or creative spark.
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variations | in a silent way
moving inward
floating forward
> finding the self
through the silent way …
The day continues, not un-like many other days; the miles, attachments, and memories forever with me … I feel the need to search for the path that will only bring the present moment to bare. Thoughts come and go. Emotions rise and fall. Circumstances are unending, but the silent way brings awareness, clarity, stillness and freedom. I find myself traveling without moving, seeing the beauty that surrounds me, and know that I am blessed in this present moment.
variations | sunrise and chakra flowers for meditation
“Sometimes our thoughts and feelings in the light of a new day, will take us places we long to go. Where the beautiful waking sunrise of a new day, offers our meditation a meaningful pursuit. It is here we find our thoughts renewed with the bold light of insight, peace, and rejuvenation”. ~ Walter Smith
Weekly Photo Challenge: Love | Give Love by MC Yogi (giving4living mix)
Keep the world spinning, do yoga, meditate, be conscious, live compassionately, and give LOVE …
Weekly Photo Challenge: Geometry
This piece is one of my favorites. In designing this digital collage I was attempting to bring the mind to a point of focus. Everlasting Consciousness. The Awareness of Light. This piece may not necessarily point to more traditional forms of geometric art. But I do believe it does perhaps achieve an ethereal, spacial, mathematical sensibility. Consciousness is design. Consciousness in its geometric form … is Divine.
The Secret Place Of Lingering Memories
the life of memories
an endless vastness
– timeless
without world’s end
stretching beyond yesterday’s dream
and tomorrow’s infinite horizon
the life of memories
and its inner fortress
– the secret place
The Path To Grace And The Summit Of Ascension
Last night
I had a dream
So deep
Forever freeing
Never a moment
Did I long for awareness
Of the waking world
Here on the path of Grace
Beauty
Stillness
Love
As I ascended
Through the floating
Orbs of mystery
– past – time
And the Grace
That is You
Another Earth
No longer outside my window, but here within … Another Earth
Another Earth
Peaceful – Beautiful – Magnificent
– the home within our hearts …
Post Canvas And Paint: Another Meaningful World
Outside my window, in a virtuous world, there can only be … a willingness to let go.
Another Meaningful World
if every day
it meant something
– to you
– to the mirror in me
to protect the heart
even the whole of the world
would i hold my dying breath
to let it all go …
Images For HD Video: The Perception Of Time (A Beating Heart Remix)
Reality is the way we see things …
http://youtu.be/2fYwhvPeRds — The Perception Of Time (A Beating Heart Remix) Copyright 2012 – Walter W Smith – Music by Stars of the Lid
While watching a recent NOVA program, entitled The Fabric of the Cosmos, I once again became fascinated with the subject of “time” and our perception of it. It appears scientifically, that time exists in a “space-time continuum”. Simultaneously existing. Integrated. Both influencing each other. A theory developed by Albert Einstein. My video delves into the human condition of the beating heart as an integral part of past, present and future; as being one without division; all that ever was, is, and will be.
This reality, if one takes the scientific approach, will create for us, another way of thinking about our lives. It can produce an uncertainty of sorts. Does it relinquish us from our past? Does it make the present moment more significant? Does it liberate us from the fear of the unknown–the future? Do our attachments, our thoughts, even our beliefs change and reconstruct themselves? Does our change in perception change even our bodies on a molecular level? Do we become more infused with All There IS?
Yes, I believe so. I can only feel emancipated. Why, because it connects me to everything. I can feel my heart beating as it once did and as it will forever. I can sense the surge of the cosmos and the essence of eternity existing within my very being.
It is beautiful … my reality of time and my beating heart.
P.S. in 1984 I saw the production of Einstein on the Beach at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It is a post-modern opera produced and created by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass. It is based on Einstein’s theory of the space-time continuum. Beautiful and energetic, I highly recommend viewing it on YouTube.
Here is a link to a segment of Einstein on the Beach.
http://youtu.be/Q80xaxpBWjY — Knee Play 5 by RQLVN
Post Canvas And Paint: Into Recollection 03
Recollection is the means in which we are awaken to the essential…
Recollection is freedom from the superficial
Recollection is an awakening to the essential, a journey to the absolute or ever-deepening awareness which never ceases to be all-important and in its light alone everything else discloses its true meaning. It is a meaningful integration or union of the entire person; a realization of its true self out of the depths of its being. It is the soul knowing and becoming aware.
Meditate with intent…
Namaste
Post Canvas And Paint: Into Recollection 02
Distraction can also be thought of as the inability to discern what is the object of our focus…
Recollection and contemplation
There are times when speaking of distraction we mean that we are so imprisoned by a certain object or emotion, that there is the inability to concentrate voluntarily on any other object. This phenomena can be thought of as distraction in a relative sense only. It is not that we are unable to concentrate or focus at all, but find it impossible to control our attention at will; unable to release it from the object or emotion that has captured it. We are without the means or capacity to direct our attention to the object which at that time should be the focus our attention.
Meditation is the beginning of Recollection…
Post Canvas And Paint: Into Recollection 01
Distraction can be thought of as the inability to focus or concentrate…
From distraction to recollection
… What then is recollection? It is chiefly an antithesis to distraction. We can say that sometimes we are unable to recollect ourselves in meditation: we are at once distracted. We are unable to focus our attention on any one point; we are controlled by the endless stream of thought and the embodiment of our associations; our mind is scattered; the complexity of life is perplexed. In its proper revelation, this state of mind, in which we cannot attend fully to any one object and fail to penetrate the logos of being, but carried away by the machinations of fantasy, is defined as distraction.
Music From India – Hazrat Inayat Khan
Music from India – Hazrat Inayat Khan. North Indian classical music.
Hazrat Inayat Khan (Urdu: عنایت خان ) (July 5, 1882 – February 5, 1927) was the founder of The Sufi Order in the West in 1914 (London) and teacher of Universal Sufism. He initially came to the West as a Northern Indian classical musician, having received the honorific “Tansen” from the Nizam of Hyderabad, but he soon turned to the introduction and transmission of Sufi thought and practice. Later, in 1923, the Sufi Order of the London period was dissolved into a new organization, formed under Swiss law, called the “International Sufi Movement”. His message of divine unity (Tawhid) focused on the themes of love, harmony and beauty. He taught that blind adherence to any book rendered religion void of spirit. Branches of Inayat Khan’s movement can be found in the Netherlands, France, England, Germany, the United States, Canada, Russia and Australia. ( Wiki )
The Waking Dream That Brings Such Beautiful Light
Sometimes it only takes a moment to feel a dream has something to say….
The waking dream in the morning light
a soft moment …
of transition
– sleeping in slumber
– waking in peace
an ethereal awareness
here
now
– in the present moment
centered
in an intuitive way
– to life
– to meaning
a very dreaming day …
Images For Android Phones: 4 Views 1 Place – 04
There is always more than one truth to contradict any one belief ….
Post Canvas And Paint: Abstract 09 – The Unending Edge Of All Things
When I was reborn and when I died I remembered only one thing … I AM, All THAT IS – UNENDING….
The unending edge of all things
Creativity is an essential part of being human, a vital force without which we can exist, but not truly live. – Ann Cashman
Namaste.
Post Canvas and Paint….
I Really Want To Meet Your Sensitivity With Compassion And Love (A Hit The Mark Remix)
In a moment, my only desire is to meet your sensitivity with my thoughtfulness and longing….
Being centered with you
They tell me that love and compassion is a journey without measure….
Not unlike an arrow whose flight is true….
The Silence Series: Chakra Colors For Meditaiton – Vishuddha (Pale Blue)
Colors that bond us with our imagination and All That Is….
I believe that this chakra truly applies to all of us, but especially to the heart of the artist, writer, poet and all individuals who love to create. It is the motivating energy source for self-expression. We as artists and writers live our lives searching for our voice; manipulating images, dancing through forms, designing structures, solving equations and imploring words, searching for the right combination to get our ideas across. And in the process we discover new things about ourselves. We learn to share with confidence. This is the power of the 5th chakra.
The Sanskrit word for the 5th chakra is Vishuddha which is translated as meaning pure. When this chakra is in balance you feel confident in speaking your truth. Some of the keywords associated with Vishuddha are creative expression, knowledge, abundance and flowing manifestation. It is governed by the thyroid, metabolism and the immune system. The location of this chakra is the area surrounding the throat. The sense is hearing and the sound associated with it is HAM.
Slowly bring your attention to the throat area and silently repeat the mantra … HAM … HAM … HAM…
The 5th chakra Vishuddha
Peace be with you on your journey inward….
Namaste
The Silence Series: Chakra Colors For Meditation – ANAHATA (Green)
At the core of All That Is … is the Heart….
I think this is my favorite chakra. It seems to resonate with me in a deep and profound way. While meditating I reach out towards the heart within; rejoicing in its beating pulse, embracing the connection to my life’s blood, and falling in love with the healing energy. This is ANAHATA, the Heart chakra. The principles guiding this chakra are Love, Faith, Duty, Awakening and Devotion. The energy source of this chakra provides healing and functionality for the respiratory, circulatory, and immune systems. It’s related sense: Touch.
With gentle ease and focus bring your attention to the 4th chakra which can be found in the heart region. Breathe in the rich sustaining color of deep green. This is the source of unconditional love (in giving and receiving) and the home of profound openness. When open, you feel the power of love and the willingness to go forth without fear or resentment. There is a great sense of peace and harmony with yourself, life, and All That Is….
It is a good practice to try to maintain your focus on each chakra for about 5 to 10 minutes.
The sound of the 4th chakra is … YAM.
Breathe in the rich color of deep green and repeat the mantra … YAM … YAM … YAM …
The 4th chakra ANAHATA
I want to give a special thanks to Deepak Chopra, whose teachings are a major source of my inspiration and information for this series.
Namaste….
Music For Backgrounds: Ajad – Reiki Vol. 2 (Reiki Music 2: Music for Love)
The wonder of healing and finding the true Self … resting in peace with All That Is…
Today, I awoke to some very inspiring posts. They brought to my attention the essence of our lives spent in gratitude for All That Is and our remarkable ability to be creative, while discerning our immense capacity to love and be loved…
This morning I wrote a short text to my sister, telling her I loved her dearly. February, is a difficult month for us. Both my Mother’s and daughter’s birthdays are this month. Both, including my father, sadly have passed away. It is just her and I now.
I needed to reach out to my sister, share the love, tell her that she was in my thoughts and I hold her dear….
I am in the middle of my Chakra Colors for Meditation series. A collection of mindful images that I hope promotes a desire to journey within—to find a place of healing, peace, and love. I thought an interlude that included some soothing Reiki music would be just the thing to enhanced your contemplative experience of the day
Remember to breathe softly, focus your attention and stay centered.
Ajad – Reiki Vol 2 (Reiki Music 2: Music for Love) 59:53
Here is the link to The Silence Series: Chakras Colors for Meditation – 1st chakra Muladhara (Red)
n e w d i g i t a l s c a p e s 