Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Reaching Out

 

Letter to a cosmologist,

because my best friend said "why not write to him?"



"........
Your comment about going backwards into the simpler past to better understand the complex present, was an aha moment for me.  Now I get what I have been doing by instinct. 

            My current work started as a short story for an arts installation. Species on the Verge (also a video) and Water-The Flow (fashionRIP) were prior gallery shows that dealt with the human connection to Nature. I was planning another when my path switched. The last piece was to have been an exploration of climate change. However, the melting metaphor resulted in another kind of story and in the process, it outgrew the mediums. 

            Now the script is vast and unwieldy. It is like a hologram in my mind, filled with information relationships and connections. I have unearthed enough evidence to change the story. Knowing how human beliefs constructed this “reality” in a way that limits our species greater potential is maddening, even painful. Lately i have been working through the lens of play, it helps.

 “….   . change the world, change the metaphor, change the story.” These are some of Joseph Campbell’s last words to Bill Moyer. I heard them quoted after I had started this letter. Make of it what you will.
          
 I have collected several AAs and a Bachelors in Environmental Science and Communications (2012) I continue auditing and exploring ever more fields of study. The historic accounts are simpler, in number and variety. The information is sometimes shocking, humorous and or naive in today’s light. When played forward the cumulative record gets us “here.”  As in Big Bang, so too, in life.
           
So now what? I have been trying to find a way to get a peer review forum going, but so far it has been “good idea,” and that’s it. This is too big to do alone. I would really appreciate any tips, ideas, links to anything in kind, further inquiry, whatever.

Sincerely,
deborah j barnes