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MORE THAN HUMAN

Una mente llena de corazón ve un mundo de belleza y compasión. Un corazón santo ha amado muchas veces. El cuerpo magnético mueve el espíritu. Ríos de luz fluyen a través de todo ser.
A heart-filled mind sees a world of beauty and compassion. A holy heart has loved many times. The magnetic body moves spirit. Rivers of light stream through all being.

Video by ATOMIK, MX

 

Eres más que humano. The More Than Human exhibition for ARTE EXPUESTO, curated by Delia Pérez Salinas Tijerina, was exhibited through the month of September 2023, offers a symbolic look at embracing mortality through the concept of the soul. Roses, water, and terrain within the body are reflected in the poetic images, animation, and texts reconciling fears of death to bring about an understanding of the continual flow of life as imaginary states of being. 

 

More Than Human rose to popularity, as a term, through the work of American philosopher David Abram. His views on animism and consciousness as connected with all terrestrial and cosmological life coincide with my sensitivities and instincts. In deconstructing the notion of supremacy humans have relative to nature, with or without technology, the connection can be easily taken for granted. The chasm between humans and nature reveals itself as ideological and now, technological. The chasm is therefore imaginary. As the body first eats with the eyes, More Than Human offers the felt sense of sublime beauty in visually rhythmic forms, textures, and colors to cultivate an embrace of mortality.  The artworks realize the realm of the imaginary as sacred, to consider perceptions of time, ceremony, and sensual ritual to access the strength courage bestows onto individuals who embrace vulnerabilities. As a humble action made within, the understanding of humanity as completely interrelated with the breadth of existence, reverence for the soul, heart, and mind blossoms. Cultivating an embrace of mortality More Than Human invites viewers to a space created within grace by remembering the spirit within them, which is connected to all being and becoming. 

 
Locations, Montererry, Nuevo León, Mexico:
  • Blvd. Américas y Constitución
  • Paseo de los Leones y de la Cima No. 2349
  • Rogelio Cantú y Malvinas (Zona Cumbres)
  • Carr. Nacional frente a Pueblo Serena Punto Aura
  • Lázaro Cárdenas y Alfonso Reyes
  • Morones Prieto y Ayutla
  • Av. Fundidora fte. a Parque Santa Lucía (Punta Cero)
  • Rogelio Cantú y Humberto Lobo
  • Gómez Morín fte. Paseo San Pedro (Palmas)
  • Morones Prieto (UDEM)
  • Blvd. Diaz Ordaz fte. a Grupo Lala
  • Blvd. Diaz Ordaz fte. Préstamo Express
  • Carr. Nacional km. 249 Residencial Punta

 

Artist Note:
As many do, I began considering the nature of consciousness at a young age. Oftentimes, spontaneous answers to questions I had not yet studied would arrive to my mind. Immediately I wondered where these came from, if they were true, and excitedly went to find out. My enthusiasm was quickly met with a complete shut-down from those around me to ask in such questions. The primary area I wondered about regards the space between the mind and body, and was guided to a knowledge that it was a deep space in and of itself. This did not mean, to me, my body was generating consciousness but playing a role in a dance with consciousness as expressed through thought. After weighing several sides of these matters, I arrived at the understanding that everything matters; all matter has consciousness. This knowledge arises from a wordless space. I often stand and wonder where everyone’s synesthesia went? Why do people believe they must take into their bodies a substance to generate awareness? Where did their individual will and connection with creativity go?
Subjective and individual consciousness expresses itself through blood, muscles, tissues, and, while circuiting, continues to defy pure reason and rationality. The notion of a totalistic or unitary consciousness always occurred to me as a dangerous concept. This instinctive or intuitive feeling was and continues to be explored through studying philosophy, theology, biology, cultures and ancient civilizations. Epistemology and technology expanding into artificial intelligence concerns. There are many definitions and debates about what consciousness is, where it originates, and how much of it is determined by free will or generative biological processes.

In practice, con = with, awareness = awareness. To be with awareness demands intrinsic, extrinsic, and relational understandings. Another would be the awareness of systems and the notion of the other, or that which is not the self, but an expression of a potential self. This other is, however, not self as governed by the choices of the individual. Further, the notion that consciousness is a harnessable form of energy, implies the existence of many worlds or at least many layers of cosmic existence. The word consciousness is often coopted by religions or the more dangerous thought-leadership implied by the definition of a leader having a follower. For the individual to self realize and transform their life experience as a creation in and of itself, requires: knowledge. The depth of knowledge still rubs against the concept of memory. To have knowing, a priori to experience, implies the existence of intelligence about biological processes, epigenetic transferring subjects to the individuals’ will to exert past “natural” instincts or reside within them. This situates contemporary discourses on transhumanism and the movement away from flesh into less tactile and sensory realms as a loss of consciousness. I perceive this loss of awareness harking back to ancient civilizations and the acceptance or denial of mortality.

 

Despite the ancient desire for eternal life to be realized by man himself, as expressed in the Epic of Gilgamesh, there is another method of lesser popularity in Hercules’s virtue. The pursuit to upload consciousness reveals a defiling offering to the connection to wholeness. So, if there is a unity in consciousness, this cannot be a purely universal and theistic understanding generating a breath of diversity in all forms. Over the past 29 years, I have felt an immense sense of loss tied not to my own life, but to the nascent awareness I sense all people can feel but block. Whether it is from the way humans are treated or the declining biodiversity, the vision of life playing out today is enabled by the value of imaginary systems over the virtue of reality.
Instead of jumping in to echo or parrot the same story as the masses seem to be forced to agree on, I have continued to question and study the nature of being, becoming, and consciousness to see if it is possible to find the origins of human violence and reduction of bio and ecological diversity. My curiosity led me through some dangerous experiences. While physical warfare is obviously dangerous, my experiences with verbal and psychological manipulation only became retrospectively obvious.

The MRI scan was taken from the body I inhabit. MRI scans can reveal pathologies as well as traumas. My experience taught me the theory of knowing something is still not as deep as having to integrate and embody the understanding. Many years later, after studying cellular metabolic and respiratory function alongside my childhood foundations in meditation and movement, I began to accept an understanding of the relationship between resonance and experienced reality. This insight led to both greater liberation and responsibility. Cellular reactivity to audible and energetic stimuli from the environment revealed formal proof of mind-body connection, evident in my MRI and blood labs. The proof of being more than a mind-body was revealed in surviving detrimental situations and becoming something else. In an expanded view, the material excesses produced today are paralleled, though not necessarily correlative or causative, to an increase in global suffering. This circles my memory back to the sense of knowing world grief as a young child.

 

In shedding identifications, greater quietness in meditation, nearing more consistent neutrality, the paradox of knowledge, understanding and transcendence began to come about. The Jungian phrase of love spanning hell and heaven is not one I take lightly or aim to glorify, though I do find his assessment correct. Where ignorance is found in humans, love turns to hell. Where learning is found in humans, love turns to heaven. In this way, the openness of vulnerability can easily remedy the violence of ignorance. The way love generates heaven or hell relies a great deal on individual and collective pursuits for knowledge. The question still about plurality means I can only offer a story or grains of salt but no recipe or prescription for anyone else. Though I have personally landed on truths that do not change no matter how many times I attempted to tie my brain into pretzels to understand particular canons of logic, I have come to a place of resting within a logic that has no canon, has no fight, but has a great deal of energy and will to unite.

 
Indeed, there are realms of consciousness, distinct from the mind. Whether epigenically or cosmically, those thoughts from my childhood came about and never went away. Despite my physical form changing, I find this ability human life to adapt available to anyone who is willing to learn and do it. It is not handed down by an overlord or guru: that would create more subjugation; it is not fought nor won, but it is something of the imaginary realm that each person alive today has various capacities to do with whatever they can, with what they have, to realize with their own hands. The imaginary and spiritual realms are deeply woven, and sometimes knotted.
Through these efforts and realizations, the poetic texts spontaneously occurred to me, just like the images and video. I was nearly led away from following my instinct. With the loving support of people close to me by spirit, particularly to this work: artist and curator Delia Salinas-Perez. I was encouraged to follow the instinct to bring the vision of the interior of the body and spirit to the exterior world. My intention is for the empirical represented by the artwork to offer spiritual and non-denominational meditative nutrition.
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