INTRODUCTION

Why Art?    Why Disturbing Art?     What is Disturbing Art?

WHY ART?

Probably since the beginnings of formal human thought, and once basic problems of survival and security had been resolved, humans then had time to think about other things, and thus many then turned to themselves and began self-examination. One of the main questions they pondered was their own identities - who am I, and what makes me more than just a mere animal which fights, eats, shits, fucks, and then goes to sleep, and then the next morning repeats the same things all over again? We begin to wonder if there is more to us and life than just these base activities - we ask, "Is this all I am?", "Is this all there is to life?"

In this way our mind cries out for diversion, distraction, escape, surprise, fun, or some kind of intense distracting feeling - anything that will take us beyond the bare routines that are neccessary only for the maintenance of life.

In response to our desperation, humans supplement those bare neccessities of life with four categories of activities that are designed purely to enhance the QUALITY of life - (1) recreation, (2) creativity, (3) religion, and (4) education. (The order of importance varies with different people.)

But - again - is that the full extent of the purpose of these activities - just to provide distraction and diversioon from the endless routine of life, and it's inevitable end in death?

Not quite - because the routines of life are already filled with distraction - events soaring out of our control, and ffilled with overwhelming feelings - of sadness, happiness, fear, threat, ediification, etc. Thus, the routines of life are naturally in the course of time constantly being interrupted anyways. Thus what else does the mind cry out for besides distraction and diversion?

To handle such surprises of life, these four categories of activities also provide explanations, and rehearsal to help us prepare for such surprises and challenges, and catharsis for the feelings that often explode within us. Thus they give us a sense of control, readiness, and knowledge that hopefully will help us cope with these interruptions to our routines and our diversions.

Cope with what? What is threatened? What in life creates this need?

When life is numbingly routine, or life is so painful, or joyful, or elsewhere seriously threatened - then our physical bodies, our mental sanity, our emotional stability, and what we value and possess ... are threatened ... in other words, who we are is threatened - our identity is threatened! Intense emotional and physical challenges threaten what we see ourselves as dependent on for basic existence - what we identify with - how we view ourselves.

Thus in our diversionary activities, we are actually practicing, and learning about our identity - who we are - so that in time of crisis, when that identity is threatened by extreme experiences, we will be better prepared to handle that threat, and thus maintain our identity - who we think we are.

And ultimately, all the rehearsal, catharsis, learning, escaping, distraction, etc. is about one final thing - it is our way of preparing for the final crisis, the greatest threat - which is the unstoppable approach of our inevitable death - the ultimate threat to our identity.

When we think about that - that all the play, creativity, worship, and education is really what we are doing to prepare for our death, that final, inevitable, threat to our identity - then we can assess how effective we really are preparing ourselves for that. If we are only escaping and distracting ourselves, then how well are we really preparing ourselves for when the real thing comes along - in fact how are we really preparing ourselves when even minor threats or challenges to our identity come along?

Considering this point of view, can we see how we might redesign our recreation, creativity, worship, and education to better prepare ourselves for that inevitable encounter?

It's just a thought ... just something to think about...

WHY DISTURBING ART?

• Do not most people spend their lives running from the hardships and nastiness of life, and yet life is filled with problems, loss, dissappointments, mistakes, death, etc.
  

• When passing a car wreck, most people guiltily crane their necks hoping to get a view of the bodies, and then chide themselves for doing so. Thus, we are unwillingly fascinated by catastrophies, disasters, war, and the paraphenalia and mythology of death (graveyards, mummies, etc.).
  

• Almost all schools of psychology describe a darkside to human personality - the shadow as Carl Jung called it. It is an important part of us, and yet we spend all of our energy to suppress it, hide it, avoid it, and minimalize it's influence, and yet it's influence is felt and seen in most of our thoughts and actions, and it's mirror in the world is seen everywhere in the form of problems, loss, dissappointments, mistakes, death, etc.
  

The problem is that a life where a large part of it is suppressed and avoided is an imbalanced life, even if that part is frightening.

If that part of life were understood, and controlled and guided with respect, then it's harmful impact would be minimalized, and it could even emerge as a constructive part of life because it would teach us things that directly relate to the difficulties found throughout life anyways.

Dark disturbing art serves such a function by providing people a safe, and yet emotionally and intellectually powerful medium through which they can explore the dark, frightening side of their own selves and their lives.

WHAT IS DISTURBING ART?

Art which challenges norms and taboos in emotionally disturbing ways.

Major subjects are spiritual, existential, psychological, social, political, cultural, erotic, etc... for example juxtaposing beauty and decay, beauty and pain, beauty and death, in such a way that would stimulate disturbing feelings such as bringing up erotic and disgusting feelings at the same time, that hopefully would then stimulate the observer to examine his/her concepts about physical beauty and the natural physical processes that inevitably affect the physical body such as disease, aging, decay, and death.

Usually this is achieved by very realistically depicting pleasing or common place objects (which the audience can easily identify with) in fantastically or horrifically distorted ways, or by combining them with fantastic or horrific objects (for example depicting attractive human features or body parts combined with decaying, moldy machinery).

In addition, an atmosphere of mystery, uncertainty, potential threat, etc. is often also created by obscurring the familiar object or scene (as for example in a fog), or partially hiding it (for example by showing it partly in shadow), or optically distorting it (for example by showing it reflected in an imperfect mirror, or on the surface of water, or by viewing it through a smudged window).

Most interesting is when the juxtaposition of the common and the comfortable with the macabre is made in subtle, covert, indirect, and/or subconscious ways so that the disturbing elements are difficult to pinpoint making the art that much more disturbing, and hopefully stimulating reflection and introspection, and hence theoretically that much more effective at delivering it's existential, political, cultural, erotic, etc. message.

Below are some examples of how different themes might be explored in disturbing ways:

• Psychological:  exploration of fears and anxieties (for example of death, disease, decay, the unknown, gender ambiguity, etc.), compulsiveness (TV, food, work, etc. - also related to anxiety), automatic behaviors (especially in relation to cultural norms).
• Political:  exposure of class elitism, and other forms of bigotry.  Exploration of Corporate-driven consumerism excesses.  Expose of corruption and hypocrisy in government, high society, and Evangelical and other organized religions.  But often Disturbing Art is specifically apolitical out of protest against the dehumanization found in modern politics.
• Cultural:  exploration of our cultural concepts of beauty, death, etc.  Exploration of alienation and dehumanization found in modern industrial society.
• Philosophical:  explores alienation and dehumanization found in modern culture, relativity of truth and goodness, the ambiguities, paradoxes and ironies of life and reality, and the mysteries and challenges found in our own inner nature (especially when we break free of cultural norms and taboos), and outer natural environment.  Explores debates such as - determinism vs. free-will, nature vs. nuture, spiritualism vs. materialism, religion vs. science, etc.
• Erotic:  confrontation of sexual taboos and norms.

Such art is found in all cultures in all times.

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This type of art overlaps with many other types that communicate strong messages, challenge cultural taboos, tend to portray dark subjects such as death or evil, or impossible or fantastic situations, but these other genres have a different primary focus than being purposefully disturbing in order to accomplish their goal.  Some examples of this are:

• Erotic Art:  predominately sexual - designed to arouse sexual feelings through directly or indirectly sexual imagery.
• Fetish Art:  predominantly sexual - designed to arouse sexual feelings through objects of long-term sexual obsession or association.
• Dark Art:  predominantly focused on darkside or existential topics such as loss, alienation, confusion, chaos, melancholy, decay, death, etc.
• Political Art:  predominately political - designed to arouse usually negative feelings of social and/or political concern.  Usually these include anger and repulsion, but sometimes can also be aimed at excitement and loyalty/patriotism.
• Shock Art:  overtly shocking - designed to arouse usually negative feelings of shock, repulsion, etc. through direct confrontation of social taboos.  Sometimes other emotions are stimulated such as excitement.
• Fantasy Art:  focused primarily on mythic figures, creatures, and situations, and often are strongly narative or have a message.  Only sometimes this art can be disturbing if the figures are evil, or the message is dark.
• Science Fiction Art:  focused primarily on speculative scientific objects and situations that do not exist yet.
• Religious Art:  focused primarily on religious or spiritual themes and situations, and usually meant to inspire spiritually.  Sometimes can be disturbing if the situation contains evil or painful messages.
• Impossible Objects:  Representations of 3-dimensional objects in 2-dimensional drawings in which the 3-D spacial relations are distorted so as to confuse the mind.  This creates a deliciously disturbing experience but it is not usually an emotionally disturbing experience, or an experience that challenges cultural norms or taboos.  It is primarily an experiential exercise in mathematics, and in the physiology of the limits of physical perception.

Such art represents the chaotic fringe of any healthy society that challenges it's status quo, and thus helps assure that that society will continue to grow and evolve overcoming and discarding what is no longer working, and developing new forms and ways that help the society be even more effective at accomplishing it's goals - the physical, intellectual, psychological, and spiritual prosperity of it's members.

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