Quatrain #7: Collective Unconscious

So I've been wondering about this experience of finding visually congruent forms. The discovery of these similarities from wildly different situations are weeks or months apart. Assembling them conjured up a mélange of being both mystified and intrigued. It's not like I pre-meditated the idea of, "I think I'll seek out red and yellow color notes today." To be perfectly honest, the import chronology of these images goes 2, 4, 1, then 3. It would be logical to assume that I saw them in the order presented in this quatrain, but if that were the case, it would make for an entirely different visual metaphor, if at all [view it]. The assembly viewed above might imply that seeing "1" meant that I sought out "2," and then especially "3 & 4" to round out the collection, but again, that's not the case.

I've stated this in a previous posting, but the experience of finding is pure serendipity. There is no plan. All I can do is trust the intuitive response when I find it, trust the unconscious whisper, look at this, take this, and then move forward. I saw this t-shirt the other day with a classic Yoda quote on it that said, "do or do not, there is no try." And it's a lot like that. I'm just doing.

So then, is this process pre-visualization? Not so much. Then is this process post-visualization? Definitely. I edited the next paragraph from the graduate essay I wrote on visual literacy, and although it requires a little extra bending of one's brain, it can help define what I'm doing. It defines what a lot of artists are doing.

So regardless of the prefixes of "pre-" (earlier) and "post-" (future), both modes of seeing define the profound connection they have to an antecedent of some kind. Each final image [quatrain] does not truly supplant these earlier fragments, because they have collectively become the anterior. The idea of post-visualization parodies the idea of pre-visualization, and helps identify postmodernism, or as cultural theorist Jean-François Lyotard states, "Postmodern would be understanding according to the paradox of the future (post) anterior (modo)." If this just confuses the heck out of you, don't worry. But if you think about how people created art with the technologies of the modern era, compared to now, then the definition of the postmodern era might make a little more sense.

So after all that dissection of process, you might be wondering about the title of this quatrain, which is the real reason why this posting is here. Well, that's another Jungian thing that I like to think about, and that I've have something to say about, but ultimately what that something is relies on you.