Transcendence

I recently watched a documentary called the Transcendent Man.  It is the story of inventor and futurist, Ray Kurzweil.  It tells of his vision for the future and his yearning for eternal life. He is a very intelligent and interesting man, but has some very real problems about not being able to deal with the death of his father and his own mortality. The world that Kerzweil  predicts for 2040,(a little to quick I think??!!), is a world where machines develop consciousness.  He argues that humans and artificial intelligence will meld via nanotechnology, wiping out all human tradegy, and ultimately turn humanity into gods..  When I think about how fast we have come from the Industrial Revolution to what I call the “Jetson era”, his predictions seem plausible.  But will we become Gods???  Immortals living in a mathmatical platform via the internet???  Sounds crazy as hell, but I can dig it.  I just doubt I’ll be able to afford it. 

Whenever I am presented with epic ideas I always think about how that translates to the arts, and more specifically my pursuit to make art.  What is my pottery, the marks I scratch on paper, the tubes of color i squeeze out, my simple sad melodies on the piano in the face of such grand visions of eternal robot life?  

I think about how, if humanity was able to attain immortality and all the knowledge of the universe was revealed, incredibly bored I would become.  More than half of anything I do is a result of my curiosity.  Which is why ceramic material suites me.  

There is a difference between Ray Kurzweil and I.  His transcendence exists off in the future dependent upon technology that does not yet exist.  Mine exists somewhere between the work of my hands and a primordial obsession with fire.  Technology that is very, very old!!  So maybe we can meet in the middle, maybe I can make a mold of Kurzweil’s face and fire it in the anagama.  Sometimes all that philosophical mumbo jumbo clouds my head, pictures of pottery clears it:)  So here is some pictures of work that is at Shoshin Studios!!

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