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PAINPANG.COM: MISSION

WHO/WHY

WHO WE ARE

WHY WE ARE HERE

PICTURING

THE UNNAMABLE

WHY WE ARE HERE

WHO WE ARE

WHO/WHY

The two passages below come from a 2003 play,

The Inviolate Mythomaniac, by A. Wang.

And it is being presented here

as an encapsulation of

Painpang.com's

mission.

"Prologue"

(from The Inviolate Mythomaniac)

Illusionist #1 takes the stage:

Who Are We?

What Are We Doing?

Why Are We Here?

"I believe art is best suited to present, expose, and clarify the theatrical nature of all theoretical models. I believe art is best equipped to show how all thoughts, perceptions and experiences are theoretical Models of Importance clamoring for attention in the theatre of the mind. I believe this because I believe art is the most visible setting to observe truth coming to blows with untruth. Art is the most visible arena where reality comes into contact and conflict with unreality... and draws real blood. Art is the dress rehearsal for death that never gets it just right. It never can for the living. The living are just too busy living. But great art's flawed rehearsal for death, its unreality, is always straining to tremble and echo with the indecipherable reality of just what will become of us when conscious life passes through death's door. And this... is the primal scene of action for all forms of consciousness. This long awkward goodbye is the gateway to the origin and destiny of consciousness. It is the answer to who and why we are... who and what we will become."

Illusion of Importance

[Taste. 'No one really knows what art is. And no one really knows the value or importance of art because of this.']

"Forget art. How important is the whole of life: everyone and everything of importance to you and me? All that we deem to be important is imagined to be important first and foremost. Imagination is key to every form of belief. The more you believe in something, the more imagination is required of you to sustain that belief. For believing in something is believing in something's importance first and foremost. And there is no uncontested proof or measure of anything's importance. There is no uncontested proof or measure of anyone's importance. There is no uncontested proof or measure of life's importance. There is no uncontested proof or measure of any form of life's importance. In short, there is no uncontested proof or measure of any form of importance. So believing, faith, in something's importance is an act of imagination, ... and this act, ultimately, may or may not also be real."

The Players

"Art is not the only attempt to guess the importance of things. When there is no incontestable sense of importance, it all becomes a guessing game. Guessing the importance of things is the ultimate game. It's the only game... the only real game that everyone plays... must play. Everyone knowingly and unknowingly plays this game, but no one really knows if it's real or not. All great artists are masters of this game. All great artists are masters of creating a sense of importance: their's and yours. All great artists are masters of dumb luck and the prevailing fashions of change that delegate importance to this or that person or thing. And all master manipulators of importance are tricksters in the eyes of all that is unproven and unknown... and all that is unprovable and unknowable.

• Truth. 'No one can say whether art is a truth or a lie, because no one knows just what art is.'

"This is just the smallest sampling of the horrible doubts that plague any good artist and his art. Art is, and should be, a constant hotbed of tremendous uncertainty. And it is the force of art's fervent uncertainty that has the power to illuminate our closest encounters with the Unknown. For art's conflicts fuel its passions. And art's passions reveal its powers. It is art's power to illuminate what we do not know that makes its highly and hotly contested subject of truth... value... importance... and reality the most highly visible and the most universally intelligible.

"Art is... and always will be... open to attack from all sides precisely because of the high visibility and universal intelligibility of this one particular arena for contesting the importance of things. Art is the most transparent arena for contesting one's own sense of importance in all matters of importance. For art not only contests its own importance even as it contests all other matters of importance, but it communicates it powerfully by making a spectacle of it. Art was always vulnerable. But it knew how to translate that pain into something worth knowing. And it often knew how better than most. It is precisely this painful vulnerability of art that empowers and enriches those who partake of this strange activity or process for transforming pain into some transfiguring passion. It is precisely the artist's pain, fear, and uncertainty... of not ultimately knowing who he is... why he is... what he is worth... and what he is doing... here or anywhere... that drives art's powerful impressions and bold statements, as courageous art nevertheless makes a show of it. A good show.

"Most everyone is madly, blindly, beholden to the appearance of truth that they largely, lazily, wearily, take for granted. But the artist is not, only because art does not allow him to. Art will not give him a moment of peace or rest, because art is forever changing.

"What is truth for the artist who understands truth and reality in terms of images... moving images... images moving images... images moving through space... time... energy... images moving us mentally and emotionally? What is truth to an artist if the image (he is pursuing) is always changing, moving? Why should an artist stand for the truth if the truth will not stand still for him? Why should an artist stand for the truth if the truth does not give him a leg to stand on? Why should an artist stand for the truth if the truth will not stand for him? What is truth to an artist when the image he pursues or possesses seems so important one moment, then not the next?! What is truth, let alone a career, to an artist, when the importance of the image he possesses and the importance of the image he pursues is so precariously unstable? Things cannot help but fly apart under these conditions, including the truth. So how can anyone realistically think of building any kind of career on such shaky ground, let alone a career devoted to the unfaithworthy importance of an artistic image? And, as any artist who works with photography, film, video, digital imagery... can tell you, even the camera can lie.

"Memory lies too. Ask the memory expert. Any critical understanding of how eyewitness testimoney is often just as unreliable (or creative) as ink blot tests when it comes to the mental construction, recall, reconstruction, and perception of so-called undoctored images of reality will illustrate the point that you do not have to be an artist to (intentionally or unintentionally) manipulate and invent one's image of reality with one's mind and imagination. What is reality to an artist if he more than anyone else understands the fluid nature of the mental and emotional picture? He understands that his reality is an 'image' first and formost. And grasping the nature of this image —grasping the nature of his image of reality by grasping the nature and reality of images— is his most important duty, his most important reality. It is his mission. He understands that his reality is his image of reality... the reality he imagines he is hungrily pursuing and possessing in the form of images... and that the reality of these images changes... the closer his ravenous heart gets to them and observes them. What is reality to an artist if the image (he is pursuing and possessing) is forever changing, moving? What is reality to an artist if his reality is always changing the closer he gets to 'it'... the closer he observes 'it'... the more clearly he pictures 'it'? Every image is simultaneously a de facto reality in and of itself and a misleading impression of something else. Image is everything and image is nothing!

"If you are looking for peace and security; do not become an artist, do not pursue art. If you are hoping to find peace and security by finding certain truth, permanent reality or uncontested beauty in art, you will be tragically disappointed.

"But if you are simply looking for an awe-filled awful good fight show between the True and the Untrue, then press on. If you are looking for the highest, most refined blood sport between the Real and the Unreal, then press on. If you have come to see the most acclaimed, most spectacular grudge match of all times, between The IMPORTANT and The UNIMPORTANT —the only contest that really matters, between the only contestants that really matter— then by all means press on. If you have come to witness whether the Beautiful will triumph and vanquish the Ugly, or whether the Ugly will gloriously defile the Beautiful, then press on. If you are wanting to get a good look at the gruesome crime scene left by a fierce encounter between the only suspects present here —you and I— then press on. If you want to get a real good look at the suspicious character you suspect started this fierce encounter with all that we accuse of inciting our deepest, most painful, most terrifying suspicions about what exists and what does not exist, then press on. If you are wanting to get closer to the unspeakable... closer to the godforsaken scene of the tragic accident... closer to that a head on collision between what is and what is not, then press on. The crime of the century awaits you. Spectacle of spectacles awaits you. The game has begun. Godspeed. Press on."

"Epilogue"

(from The Inviolate Mythomaniac)

Illusionist #1 returns to the stage:

"I want the exposition of this play to faithfully represent our most common assumptions about the world in order to expose the speculative, conceptual, and ideological nature of all models of the world, and not just the ones presented by art. I want this exposition of the play to expose how our most basic assumptions shape the perceptions, thoughts, feelings and experiences that build our models of the world."

J. Krishnamurti : "Theory means a way of observing."

Professor David Bohm : "It is the same as 'theatre' in Greek."

J. Krishnamurti : "Theatre, yes, that's right. It is a way of looking. Now, where do we start? A common way of looking, an ordinary way of looking, the way of looking depending on the viewpoint of each person—the housewife, the husband? What do you mean by the way of looking?"

Public Eye vs. Private Eye

"All theoretical models are theatrical (in the sense that Krishnamurti and Bohm mean). All theatrical models are theoretical. A theory is any action that engages the mind's eye. It is the action of seeing. It is the mind's eye in action. It is all the action that takes place in the theatre of the mind. All theoretical models are theatrical in the sense that both are acts of seeing. The only visible difference is that the theatre of the mind is invisible while the other theatre is quite visible. And the most important consequence of this dramatic difference of visibility between the two types of seeing or two types of theatre is that one is a largely private theatre... a private act of seeing... while the other is quite public. But theoretical models become more closely identified with theatrical models when theory is shown and explained in a public setting, such as a public school or academic conference or published journal. And theatrical models become more closely identified with theoretical models when the theatre shows us how everyone lives largely in their own private worlds... of the mind, helplessly living in the private world of their own mind's eye even during the very theatre performance that is trying to expose this universal human predicament of individual isolation.

1. All theoretical models in the public eye are theatrical models.

2. All theatrical models are theoretical models that have gone public.

3. All models are both theatrical and theoretical because they are both public and private.

Theatre of the Real vs. Theory of the Real

Question: "All theatrical models are theoretical. But are they real? Is theatre as real as theory? Are some theories more real than theatre? Is theory or theatre ever real?"

Answer: "They are as real as their ideas are. So it all depends on what ideas are and where they come from. For the nature of an idea depends on its origin. Is an idea real or unreal? Is it true or false. Tell me where your idea came from and I'll tell you what it is."

[ ideation (n) : the formation or conception of ideas by the mind ]

"Where do ideas come from? Some think ideas come from the world. Some think ideas come from the imagination. Some think they come from both. Trouble is... that no one really knows what the mind or imagination is. And without a firm grasp on what the mind and imagination is, how can you really grasp the world you perceive through them? So how can anyone say ideas come from the world or the imagination when we don't really know where or what these places are? But since theatre is supposedly all about pretending to some, let us pretend that we do know and continue on. Let us say ideas are conceived in both the imagination and the so-called real world. Let us say imagination and the world simultaneously give birth to all ideas conceived by man. This said, I will further say that it is impossible to separate, compare or measure the so-called unreality of the imagination's contribution to the formation of an idea and the reality of the physical world's contribution to the formation of an idea. For the scientific materialist will say halucinations, delusions and ordinary flights of fancy can all be reduced to some biochemical physical origin, but he cannot say these imaginings are any less real than their supposed physical origin. The only thing he can prove is what exists, not what does not exist. So even an extreme materialist can never prove any imagining to be an unreal entity. Nor can he separate this unreality (that he cannot prove exists) from reality. He cannot compare a nonreality. He cannot measure nonreality. The only thing you can prove is what exists, not what does not exist. Nor can you separate or measure what you cannot prove exists. Every idea is both real and imaginary because the imagination is no more and no less real than the physical world even from the perspective of an extreme materialist. It is pointless to speak of the imagination... the imaginary... imaginary things... as if they were unreal. Every idea is both real and imaginary because the imaginary is real. And what is reality if not largely memory transformed by imagination and imposed on our perceptions in the form of assumptions or theories? Every idea is both real and imaginary because the real is imaginary. Much of what we do and who we are... are lazy theories, that is, warm and fuzzy notions, beliefs taken on faith, taken for granted, assumed to be true, because it is easier to assume, barely conscious, dimly realized, and not aggressively imagined. Every idea is both real and imaginary because the real is often weakly imagined. Theatre, however, is an opportunity to counter this entrenched indolence with aggressive imagination. Bad theatre is lazy theatre that is hardly any different from the lazy day-to-day assumptions that routinely sleepwalk through our lives. Theatrical models are no more and no less real than theoretical models, because the basic reality of their specific ideas depends on the basic reality of every idea. And that reality will always be both real and imaginary.

"All models are ideational and, therefore, hypothetical. Why? Because every idea is both real and imaginary. Every idea is real to the extent that one deems it believable enough to be important and attention-worthy. Every idea is an act of imagination to the extent that one imagines it to be important enough to believe in and pay attention to. This real and imaginary quality of every idea exists simultaneously. The real and the imaginary is occuring simultaneously everywhere an idea occurs. Because consciousness itself is both real and imaginary whenever it is deliberating a matter (or question) of importance. And when is consciousness ever not deliberating matters/questions of importance? Only when consciousness does not exist. Consciousness is the importance-of-consciousness. Consciousness, that is to say, awarenesss, and a sense of importance go hand-in-hand. One does not exist without the other. And every form of consciousness is simultaneously real and imaginary because all matters and questions of importance are ultimately matters (and questions) of faith that are unprovable. ... Beginning (and ending) with our very own Sense of Importance:

'Am I important? Is any one? Any idea? Any thing?'

It is here —right here— where the real and the imaginary experience their fiercest life and death encounters.

"But is there more... here, in this play and elsewhere, for you and me? Is there more here than just a common sense assault on common sense? I will let you decide. So where do we go from here? Press on."

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