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As an artist of many different mediums (film, drawing, text, photography) I can honestly say that on one level it feels like a miracle when a viewer understands my work in the way that I intended it. And there is often another miracle, when the viewer sees something in my work that I did not consciously intend, but when they speak their truth it rings true for me as well.

I have studied the language of my mediums and how each of their material elements communicate differently across cultures and societies; I have studied the psychology of how individuals perceive and view art; I have studied symbols, metaphors, and archetypes across cultures; and I have studied how different states and stages of development in the viewer and the work communicate with each other. I believe all of these are factors in how the artist communicates to the viewer.

Yet, there is also something else involved here; something I learned in the form of both direct experience and teachings from some of the masters of art I have studied with over the years…this something else is that the more a creative work comes from a deeply personal meaningful place in the artist, the more universal its meaning becomes. This is the great paradox of art and meaning; the more personal the work the more universal and the less personal the work the less universal. Actor and playwright Sam Sheppard said it beautifully when he spoke to my class at the AFI many years ago. He said that if an artist starts with a deeply human truth, one from their own experience or one from the life of another, then the work becomes universal because what is true for one human heart resonates with all other human hearts.

As a practitioner of art as an integral spiritual practice, I also see myself as a creative channel for the Divine. When I align myself with the Creative Source as the Divine Suchness, Thou and I AM, the Source speaks through me into the work and out to the viewer. From this perspective, in addition to my own personal meaning being expressed in and through the work, I believe there is a higher meaning being channeled through me and the work that I most often am not even conscious of. Sometimes I discover this meaning when a viewer shares what they received from the work; other times, years later, I discover this hidden meaning when viewing my work from a different place in my own life journey. In the end, each individual views the work from where they are at on their live journey and when a work of art is a channeled work; I believe it has the capacity to become a kind of magic mirror in which the viewer receives the message that is perfect for them at that particular moment on their life path.

From an Integral perspective, I would say that meaning in art is tetra-resonant, in that a work of art can have subjective, material, cultural, and/or social resonance. This resonance channels meaning between the work of art and the viewer, and one can gauge the general message of the art work through any and all of these resonance channels/dimensions. The more this meaning is rooted in a deep truth in any and all of these dimensions, the more universal the message becomes.

In the end, as an artist I never know for sure beforehand if my intended meaning will translate to others; I can only strive to speak the truth as I perceive and feel it and attempt to communicate it through as many resonance channels and dimensions as possible. I have found that I feel that I have communicated with the audience if I have touched them somehow, and I have come to feel that the reception of my intended meaning is not as important as the reception of the meaning that arises through the wondrous and miraculous process of channeling the creative force…

*Image: Enlightenment by Diana Calvario (dicalva)

The term integral cinema was first used by French avant-garde filmmaker Germaine Dulac in the 1920s. Dulac employed this term to describe cinema that utilized the natural inherent language of the cinema to evoke the interior life normally hidden beneath the exterior life of the objective world (Flitterman-Lewis, 1996). This form of cinema was also called pur cinema or visual music, because of the contention by its adherents that the language of the cinema is a language all its own, more related to music or poetics, than to literature or drama. In order to liberate the cinematic image from literary or dramatic expression, “…Dulac sought to create for the spectator a ‘cinegraphic sensation’ that could be achieved through the contemplation of pure forms in movement—the melodic arrangement of luminous reflections, the rhythmic ordering of successive shots” (Flitterman-Lewis, 1996, pp. 69-70).

While Dulac’s theoretical writings and public discourses on integral cinema mostly focus on this definition, her films reveal two distinct types of cinematic approaches. Whereas some of her films did seek to explore pure visual music approaches of using cinematic imagery, movement, and rhythm to reveal the interior life, films like her 1928 classic, La Coquille et le Clergyman (The Seashell and the Clergyman), reveal the raw beginnings of a more comprehensive or “integral” approach that attempts to use the inherent language of the cinema to capture and express the interior and exterior lives of both the individual and the collective. Dulac hints at this approach when she writes, “It isn’t enough to simply capture reality in order to express it in its totality; something else is necessary in order to respect it entirely, to surround it in its atmosphere, and to make its moral meaning perceptible…” (Dulac, as cited in Flitterman-Lewis, 1996, p. 49).

This more comprehensive approach hauntingly captures some of the constructs of Jean Gebser’s integral worldview (1985) and Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (1995) while predating both by 21 and 67 years, respectively. These Integral constructs, as elementarily expressed in Dulac’s La Coquille et le Clergyman, include rudimentary cinematic representations of Gebser’s aperspectival structures of the concretion of time and interiority, and Wilber’s Integral framework of multiple dimension-perspectives with evolving levels of depth and complexity. More recent examples of these types of cinematic structures include: The concretion of time in films like Groundhog Day (1993), where concrete shifts in time affect objective and subjective realities; the concretion of interiority in films like The Matrix (1999), where individual and collective subjective realities are given concrete forms;  and multiple dimension-perspectives of evolving depth and complexity in films like Inception (2010), where the characters move through different dimensions of reality as they evolve toward deeper levels of understanding and being.

While Dulac’s integral cinema movement was a significant contribution to the evolution of the cinema in many ways, it was also short-lived due to several factors. In 1928, the year that Dulac made La Coquille et le Clergyman in France, Hollywood released the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), and ushered in the sound film era. For many film theorists and historians, the introduction of sound marked the downfall of the artistic trailblazing of the silent film era as cinematic artists attempted to adjust and adapt to the new technological advancement, and audiences became enthralled by the heightened sense of reality of the talking picture (Andrew, 1976). The following year Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí made Un Chien Andalou (1929), which took the avant-garde cinema world by storm and established a precursor of postmodern relativism and meaning deconstruction as the center of gravity for the artistic worldview of experimental cinema, overshadowing Dulac’s more integral vision (Ebert, 2000; Short, 2008).

Finally, since Dulac operated from an unconscious expression of a worldview that had yet to be named or theoretically mapped, her integral vision ultimately fell dormant. Wilber notes that some kind of prescient emergence of integral consciousness appeared sporadically throughout Western civilization in the early to mid-20th century. Examples of this emergence include Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga (1921/1990), Jacques Maritain’s Integral Humanism (1996), and Vladimir Soloviev’s Integral Christianity (Kostalevsky, 1997). Wilber also notes that these integral visions, along with Dulac’s, were short-lived because they were initial emergences not supported in all four fundamental domains of experiential, material, cultural, and social realities (Wilber, personal communication, July 20, 2010).

Beginning in the mid-1990s, concurrent with the dissemination of Wilber’s Integral Theory, there has been a growing movement of individuals and groups who have been applying integral principles to their personal and professional lives. In the domain of the cinematic arts, scholar-practitioners have explored the application of Integral Theory to cinematic story creation, acting, and video game design (Melody, 2008; Ornst, 2008; Silbiger, 2010). In addition, several cinematic artists have begun to explore and engage in dialogue about Integral Theory in relation to both their personal and professional lives (Aronofsky & Davis, 2006; Brill & Wilber, 2006; Crichton & Wilber, 2004; Konietzko & Davis, 2007; Ormond & Wilber, 2004; Stone & Wilber, 2007; Wachowski & Wilber, 2004). Wilber’s Integral Theory was also an inspiration to filmmakers Larry and Andy Wachowski (Wachowski & Wilber, 2004) in the development of The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), and The Matrix Revolutions (2003). The Wachowski brothers also invited Wilber to record a commentary on the films for The Ultimate Matrix Collection (2004), a complete DVD set of the films.

Nearly three quarters of a century after Dulac’s work, many people within the integral and cinematic arts communities are raising the same question that Dulac asked many years ago: “What is Integral Cinema?”

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This material is an adapted excerpt from: Kaplan, M. A. (2010). Toward an integral cinema: The application of integral theory to cinematic media theory and practice. Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, 5(4), 112-138. Copyright © 2010 by Integral Institute. The complete article is available for download at Integral+Life.com.

Germaine Dulac’s La coquille et le clergyman is available for viewing online in its entirety at: http://www.ubu.com/film/dulac_coquille.html

ABSTRACT: Germaine Dulac’s “integral cinema movement” of the 1920s and her integral cinematic work, La Coquille et le Clergyman (1928), are analyzed from a historical and theoretical perspective. Results suggest an early introduction of integral consciousness into cinematic media that corresponds to and predates the integral theories of both Jean Gebser and Ken Wilber. Defining characteristics of what may constitute an integral cinematic work are mapped out and developed into a set of evaluation criteria using the works of Dulac, Gebser, and Wilber. A test of these evaluation criteria with the viewing of several motion pictures is summarized; the results suggest that several past and recent films demonstrate qualities that could be said to constitute an integral cinematic work. A preliminary typology of forms of integral cinematic creation, and the potential benefits and challenges for the application of Integral Theory to cinematic theory and practice are presented and discussed.

Published in The Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, 2010, Volume 5, Number 4, Pages 112-138.

If the co-evolutionary dance between the Pluralistic worldview movement in the LL cultural holon and the Information Age in the LR social holon is evolving to the next level, that of an Integral worldview movement in the LL cultural holon, the question arises: What is the equivalent Socio-Techno-Economic Age in the LR social holon?

There are many indicators that suggest that this next age is already unfolding, as information technologies and networks evolve into convergent technologies, networks, and systems. Terminologies like convergence media appliances, virtual reality, immersive environments, avatars, embedded technologies, and augmented realities are swirling around in the information soup. Entertainment streams across multiple delivery platforms into our theaters, homes, cars, computer screens, phones, gaming consoles, and even through digital walls in the architectural and social spaces around us. The movie Avatar immerses us in its world through immersive IMAX 3D technology telling us a story about becoming technologically immersed in another body and reality. Gamers take on virtual personas and play each other in living rooms and on cell phones across the globe. On other technology fronts, human and natural realities are converging as well, from genetic modification to hybrid and nanotechnologies. We ride around in hybrid vehicles, eat genetically modified foods, wear nanotech clothing, attend virtual concerts, purchase goods and services in a virtual economy, and communicate with each other through phones that are also computers, radios, televisions, and global positioning devices.

One of the first observers of the convergence trend in media technologies was MIT political scientist Ithiel de Sola Pool who noted an emerging media convergence process that he called the “convergence of modes” in which the lines between media platforms are blurred and “the one-to-one relationship between a medium and its use” is eroded (Pool, 1983, p.23).

American media scholar Henry Jenkins extended this work through his observations of a co-evolutionary trend between convergence media socio-techno-economic forces (LR) and what he calls convergence culture (LL), noting that “convergence does not occur through media appliances, however sophisticated they become. Convergence occurs within the brains of the individual consumers and through their social interactions with others” (Jenkins, 2008, p.3). This new convergence culture is made up of individuals and social networks that engage with and integrate dispersed media content into meaningful wholes. Jenkins notes that this co-evolving techno-cultural movement appears to be ushering in an “…era of media convergence, collective intelligence, and participatory culture” (Jenkins, 2008, p.170).

Another hallmark of this Convergence Age is the increased capacity for embodied “perspective-taking.” Whereas the Information Age gave us a multitude of information and information sources, the Convergence Age portends to offer us the capacity to take on a multitude of perceptions and worldviews, one of the essential qualities of the Integral perspective.

Both Pool and Jenkins note that the capacity to navigate this rapidly evolving and convergent environment is incredibly complex and challenging. If this trend is indeed the co-evolutionary movement in an Integral-Convergence Age, then the Integral worldview would be the most appropriate level of consciousness for fully comprehending and mastering this unfolding era.

One of the coming major tipping points in the emergence of this Convergence Age will most likely be the widespread disbursement of high speed and high bandwidth communication networks advanced enough to fully handle immersive, embedded, and virtual realties. While this technology already exists, its widespread dispersion is dependent on various political and financial constraints…so this tipping point in the technological and communication domains can occur very soon or take many years to actually reach its evolutionary moment. Google’s recent announcement of their intention to bring this type of widespread and advanced networking technology to the world is an indicator that there is indeed movement toward this particular tipping point.

Wilber notes that as we evolve up the evolutionary ladder, greater depth and span also brings greater challenges and potential dangers (Wilber, 2003). This new Convergence Age also ushers in the potential threat of nano-viruses, genetic mutation, the erosion of direct human contact social structures, and many other new challenges.

Many of these threats come from the potential misuse of these higher technologies by individuals and cultures operating at a lower worldview. History is full of horrific examples of this mismatch between consciousness and technology, from the holocaust to the potential for nuclear terrorism. The complex and often push and pull co-evolution of consciousness and technology is interestingly reflected in the film Avatar, which appears to be a convergence technology movie with a Pluralistic worldview center-of-gravity, telling a story about the use and abuse of convergence technologies by a dysfunctional mythic-rational human culture against an idyllic (Pre/Trans) magic-mythic alien culture.

As with all evolutionary movements, there is great challenge and also great potential. As one nanotechnology futurist website proclaims… “We are approaching an evolutionary event horizon, where the organic and the synthetic, the virtual and the ‘real’, are merging together into an operational ecology, an existence morphology for which there is no precedent in the history of which we are currently aware” (http://www.historianofthefuture.com/).

REFERENCES

Henry Jenkins (2008). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: NYU Press.

Ithiel de Sola Pool (1983). Technologies of Freedom: On Free Speech in an Electronic Age. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Ken Wilber (2003). Volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy: Excerpts A, B, C, D, and G. Available at: http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/kosmos/index.cfm/

*Originally published at Integral Life

One of the ways to deepen the practice of seeking, receiving, and following divine guidance is to unpack our constructs of the Divine Source.

Integral Theory has a great practice to help open our perceptions of Source. It is called the The Three Faces of Spirit and can be found at:

http://integrallife.com/awaken/spirit/practice-three-faces-spirit

In addition to the five elements of integral theory, which comprise the basic foundation of the AQAL model, there is an another more advanced aspect that is important to mention. This aspect is less of a new element and more of a complexification of the first one (the quadrants). Each of the perspectives associated with the four quadrants can be studied through two major methodological families, namely from either the inside (i.e., a first-person perspective) or the outside (i.e., a third-person perspective). This results in eight distinct zones of human inquiry and research. These eight zones comprise what integral theory calls integral methodological pluralism (IMP), which includes such approaches as phenomenology (an exploration of first-person subjective realities), ethnomethodology (an exploration of second-person intersubjective realities), and empiricism (an exploration of third-person empirical realities). The above figure includes all eight zones and their respective labels.

Integral methodological pluralism operates according to three principles: inclusion (consult multiple perspectives and methods impartially), enfoldment (prioritize the importance of findings generated from these perspectives), and enactment (recognize that phenomenon are disclosed to subjects through their activity of knowing it). As a result of these commitments, integral theory emphasizes the dynamic quality of realities as being enacted through a subject using a particular method to study an object. That object can be a first-, second-, or third-person reality. For example, we can study first-person psychological realities as an object of investigation just as easily as we can study third-person biological realities.

- Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Ph.D. (2009). AN OVERVIEW OF INTEGRAL THEORY: An All-Inclusive Framework for the 21st Century. Integral Institute, Resource Paper No. 1, March 2009, pp.16-17.

“Integral theory is an all-inclusive framework that draws on the key insights of the world’s greatest knowledge traditions. The awareness gained from drawing on all truths and perspectives allows the Integral thinker to bring new depth, clarity and compassion to every level of human endeavor — from unlocking individual potential to finding new approaches to global-scale problems.” (From the Integral Institute Website)

Reflecting on the current state of the industry, it seems to me that the Techno-Economic Base (T-E) of the industry is shifting from level 6 (Green/Pluralistic/Informational) to level 7 (Teal/Integral Systems/Trans-Informational or Virtual). This shift appears to be driven/co-created by a transition from separate/pluralistic media technologies and platforms (i.e.: Movies, TV, Gaming, Web, etc.) to more integrated, cross-media, and virtual technologies and platforms (i.e.: Material delivered/integrated across multiple convergent, immersive, and embedded mediums), represented by a shift from level 6 to level 7 in the Communication/Media (C/M) developmental line. As the nature of the medium is shifting, cinematic media artists are embracing these advances as a means to expand their artistic expression across these multiple platform environments. This in turn is shifting the Artistic/Aesthetic (A/A) line from level 6 to level 7 as well. While these three lines appear to be shifting in tandem, it also appears that the Business/Markets (B/M) line is stuck at level 5 (Orange/Rational), as the industry’s business community frantically tries to apply their old models of finance, distribution, and marketing to the emerging new techno-creative-communication environment (see chart below).

There are indicators of some potential shifts in the Business/Markets (B/M) line, including a major restructuring of Disney’s studio model to meet the changing media environment and the release of James Cameron’s Avatar, which appears to be attempting to cross the integral media threshold by offering content immersion (IMAX 3D), platform convergence (Theatrical/Game simultaneous release), and a foray into virtual aperspectivalism (Character-to-Avatar perspective shifts). It should be interesting to see if these forays will be part of a vertical rather than horizontal change. Either way, I believe the industry is poised at the edge of a tipping point between the relativistic/information age and the approaching integral/virtual age. Only time will tell if the American film industry will cross this threshold through a single major shift, or several smaller transitions, or a combination of both major and minor shifts, or if it will be a turbulent or peaceful transition. Since several members of the industry have already begun downloading the Integral Operating System (IOS) into their consciousness, I think we are in for a wondrous and wild ride.

References

Wilber, K., Pattern, T., Leonard, A., & Morelli, M. (2008). Integral life practice: A 21st century blueprint for physical health, emotional balance, mental clarity, and spiritual awakening. Boston: Shambhala.

American Motion Picture Industry Social Holon Sociograph