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theory
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the what(s) and the vague why(s) in belonging
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an introduction
october 18, 2018 it is hard for me to pin the date of when my artistic research about belonging has started. it seems that this quest has been there for many years. however, i can say that 2016 was the year when i decided to document this investigation and to include it in my artistic practice; assuming that it was not subconsciously embedded in my previous works. belonging the term – to be and to long – in other words the longing to be, suggests the integral relationship between belonging and existing. but what is belonging? and is there a universal definition for it? in my research book under the name “performativity of belonging – between utopia and dystopia” various definitions of the term have been investigated, none were satisfactory and that is why an attempt from my part to define it would go as follows: "belonging is an urge to co-exist, or to validate exiting by means of interacting with other beings and/or entities." it might be a broad definition, however it would be the one that i feel currently valuable. as belonging within a social context is the need to merge or join or be accepted in a group. the urge to group might have originated from the instinctive homosapien fear of being alone without disregarding the human obsession in mortality, due to his/her awareness of it. however, regardless of the why question, this urge to group requires a certain amount of compromises. unless we assume that man is not greedy by nature and that man is in total harmony with his surrounding. man’s homosapien instinct to collect, thus own/possess, comes to mind. the need to compromise required a social contract where the parties involved, willingly or as some kind of a settlement, agree to abide with a collection or signs and symbols. how these signs and symbols were created and who intervened in making them and when did that event occur is something that does not relate to a certain time and space. however, what i would assume in our current situation is that we are born into them and with them due to evolution, not negating that they themselves have evolutionary potential. the need to be accepted by a group, and thus feel that one belongs to it, demands submitting to the signs and symbols that are/were created by the group. of course arguing whether submitting is a lack of choice and thus a diminishing of human freedom thus assuming that to belong means to be less free is a valid. |
research method
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the research formulated its own tools with time. it mainly took the ripple effect shape; alternating between myself as an investigating artist looking through theorists, philosophers, writers, and artists that dealt with the subject matter then questioning and infusing these collections with my own critical way of thinking thus leading to questions and findings, on the one hand. on the other hand, i have reached out to academics, philosophers, writers, journalists, and artists who are interested in the subject matter, communicating with them through letters. in that sense, an exchange of such letters back and forth became one of the research tools.
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letters
an ongoing exchange of letters between me and people involved in the research (currently this link is kept private as the research is still in progress) |
findings
and questionsa series of finding that lead to more questions in a continuous spiral form (currently this link is kept private as the research is still in progress) |
