Imaginary Worlds

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Comment by Ted Phipps on December 21, 2007 at 11:10am

While thinking of art and fantasy, I stumbled upon an art book that talked about the a wooden doll dated 22,000 BC. The doll is only about 4 inches tall and appears to have been carried in the travels of cave families and past on from generation to generation. Similar dolls have been found in caves throughout the world.
The doll is called the Venus of Willendorf. It is a carved figure of a woman with wide hips and robust thighs. This apparently was man's fantasy of the ideal woman back then as her imagine suggest strength to survive pregnancy and the ability to provide an abundant supply of milk. Her layers of fat ensure that she can survive cold nights in the ice age as well as provide a source of storage for nourishment.
I read the story and thought, how does this compare to the Barbie doll? Boy, how much our fantasies have changed of the ideal woman.

Comment by Ted Phipps on December 21, 2007 at 10:51am

I have to agree with your response. Both negative and positive fantasies play an important part in our development.

Comment by Stacy Esch on December 21, 2007 at 9:02am

I think positive fantasies are way less destructive than negative fantasies, which probably manifest in most people as anxiety, sometimes to devastating degrees. Anxiety before a test can be a good thing for some people who are able to process their fear into raw energy that helps them succeed, but for others it may just cause them to freeze up and fail to really express their potential. I've had teachers who consciously used fear as a tool in the classroom, but I've never aspired to that method myself.

I see negative fantasies all over the media, both in our entertainment and in our infotainment, and I really can't see the value of them myself. Usually I find them so destructive; they don't make us better in any way that I can figure out.

Whereas in real art, negative fantasy plays an important role. Tragedy, for instance, is a kind of negative fantasy, you might say. But it doesn't demean or depress--it evokes deep compassion and stimulates real thinking. A real tragedy (as opposed to a melodrama) makes us question things at a very deep level and its those questions that are valuable to us. Not only that, but because we are experiencing the tragedy together, we can raise the questions it provokes all together. A melodrama gives us trite and easy answers we quickly dismiss because the conversation would be predictable and obvious if we tried to talk about it.

Comment by Stacy Esch on December 19, 2007 at 8:50am

Great question! Let me think about this before I rush a reply.

Comment by Ted Phipps on December 18, 2007 at 12:39pm

Thinking of students. My daughter is taking finals this week. She was pulling her hair out last night fearing the worst, "I'm going to do terrible, I'm goint to fail...." My wife and I tried caliming her down trying to protray positive outcomes, "You're going to do great, you're going to ace it...."
While neither effort seemed to appease her, I wonder if the fantasy, whether if it be positive or negative act as buffers in life.
We fear the worst, but hope for the best. Isn't this what movies and art in general feed off.
Which is better, positive or negative? The "Secret" book relies on the positive, while many spot coaches rely on the negative. How do positive fantasies v negative fantasies affect the direction we take as humans?

Comment by Ted Phipps on December 18, 2007 at 12:23pm

Maybe it goes both ways, we reflect and we project. Sometimes we view the glass as full; other times half full.

Comment by Stacy Esch on December 18, 2007 at 8:18am

Ted, thanks for your thoughts. I will look for the books you mentioned; they sound interesting!

I think fantastic worlds have been with us since the dawn of consciousness, and that art is a language that developed simultaneously with our other abilities to communicate, but it is such a large word and contains so much that it's difficult to pin down sometimes. I think, though I'd like to study it further, that we go through cycles in our preferences when it comes to the arts we enjoy. Although art is this powerful language we use for all sorts of purposes, I think one of them is to communicate our human potential.

I like your analogy that an artist is like an antenna, but I think an artist can be a transmitter as well as a receiver, a creator and a destroyer. If artists act as conduits for the clues that tell us where we're headed, do they also shape where we're headed?

It's really the old question: does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? Marketers have figured out the answer to this, it seems to me.

Comment by Ted Phipps on December 17, 2007 at 11:50pm

Stacy,
You state, "Our fascination with fantasy in popular film is another sign to me that imaginary worlds are becoming more and more appealing."

Then again maybe fantasy is what makes humans different than other animals - our ability to imagine and then create.
Think of how scfi has played a significant role in aerospace. Would we be able to fly a man-made plane if man did not first fantasy about flying like a bird.
In neurology there is a principle called "peak shift" that demonstrates how exaggeration plays a key role in our evolution.
Art whether it be writing or drawing acts as an antenna to where we are proceeding as an society. This was the essence of the book "High Tech - High Touch."
Another good book to check out is "RenGen." It just came out this year and talks about how art intermixed with information access is shaping the next gen of adults.
Ted

Comment by Ted Phipps on December 17, 2007 at 11:32pm

Stacy, interesting endeavor

Comment by Stacy Esch on December 17, 2007 at 8:29am

I think we like to remove ourselves from the real world in these fantastic stories, but ultimately they're not satisfying if they don't bring us back in some kind of meaningful way. What's so appealing about them for me is the liberation. Thinking realistically can feel like swimming in concrete sometimes. Fantastic worlds seem to lift us up and away where we can get the full play and joy of our imaginations again like we used to as children. That's my short answer, anyway!

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