Summary: Projects explore the meaning of “global artworks”. Through telecommunications, networked media, telepresence, Internet-art tests
- boundary between real and virtual social space
- boundary of virtual and corporeal institutions and experience
- political and geographic boundaries
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Project Title: Hundred Schools of Thought
Artist: Lily & Honglei, Land of Illusion Team
“During the sixth century B.C., the two sides of Chinese philosophy developed into two distinct philosophical schools, Confucianism and Taoism. Confucianism was the philosophy of social organization, of common sense and practical knowledge. It provided Chinese society with a system of education and with strict conventions of social etiquette. One of its main purposes was to form an ethical basis for the traditional Chinese family system with its complex structure and its rituals of ancestor worship. Taoism, on the other hand, was concerned primarily with the observation of nature and the discovery of its Way, or Tao. Human happiness, according to the Taoists, is achieved when men follow the natural order, acting spontaneously and trusting their intuitive knowledge.”
“These two trends of thought represent opposite poles in Chinese philosophy, but in China they were always seen as poles of one and the same human nature, and thus as complementary. Confucianism was generally emphasized in the education of children who had to learn the rules and conventions necessary for life in society, whereas Taoism used to be pursued by older people in order to regain and develop the original spontaneity which had been destroyed by social conventions.”
- Chinese Thoughts, from “the Tao of Physics” by Fritj of Capra
September 13, 2008 at 3:52 pm
An additional citation from the same author:
“From the beginning, this philosophy had two complementary aspects. The Chinese being practical people with a highly developed social consciousness, all their philosophical schools were concerned, in one way or the other, with life in society, with human relations, moral values and government. This, however, is only one aspect of Chinese thought. Complementary to it is that corresponding to the mystical side of the Chinese character, which demanded that the highest aim of philosophy should be to transcend the world of society and everyday life and to reach a higher plane of consciousness. This is the plane of the sage, the Chinese ideal of the enlightened man who has achieved mystical union with the universe. The Chinese sage, however, does not dwell exclusively on this high spiritual plane, but is equally concerned with worldly affairs. He unifies in himself the two complementary sides of human nature -intuitive wisdom and practical knowledge, contemplation and social action- which the Chinese have associated with the images of the sage and of the king. Fully realized human beings, in the words of Chuang Tzu, “by their stillness become sages, by their movement kings.”