The KOU KOU artist is committed to bringing to bear new as well as traditional combinations of technologies to evoke alternative perceptions of reality.

Any image, painting or photograph can evoke in the viewer alternative perceptions of the underlying pictorial theme or themes – be they landscapes, nudes or other scenes. What is evoked by an image is a function of the image, the viewer, and the state of the viewer of the moment. A simple explicit image of an ordinary object, like a photograph of a pencil in a magazine advertisement, is likely to generate a relatively narrow band of concensual perceptions. It is just a picture of a pencil. It is not likely to generate strong emotional or intellectual responses (although even a most-simple image can sometimes evoke these in some viewers.)

An artist’s portrayal of a pencil, on the other hand, can generate a broader band of alternative perceptions, perhaps a set of alternative perceptions refocused in some way. The artist does this by introducing elements of context, perspective, shape, color, collage, hue, intensity, background, dimensions, etc. To the extent that such a portrayal evokes interesting alternative perceptions, views into alternative universes of what could be, the work of the artist is viewed as art. A drab image of a lonely pencil on a bare table in a jail cell speaks to one set of perceptions; a pencil draped Dali-like over an orange on writer’s table speaks to a different set; a starkly realistic image of a broken pencil with spilled ink on a schoolgirl’s desk to a third set.

The existence of alternative perceptions of reality is deeply rooted in science, quantum theory physics in particular. Until perceived, reality (of say an electron) is only virtual; it exists as a wave with many different possible existences. Only when actually perceived does the reality assume the nature of a physical particle with a particular existence and its associated characteristics (like position, energy, etc.). That existence is unpredictable before the act of perception. Each different way the particle can show up can interpreted as the state of that particle in a different alternative universe. Sounds kooky? No, KOU KOU! Quantum physics is at the bedrock of physical science today. Many things in our world including nuclear reactors and microchips depend on quantum behavior. Effective functioning in our complex pluralistic world requires that we humans also see matters in their alternative-universe interpretations, and we KOU KOU artists are committed to that end.

There is no limit to windows into alternative universes featuring something so simple as a pencil. There is no limit in principle to what can be art. Yet, there have always been practical limits based on constraints of the media. Creating a master-works oil painting, including all of the preliminary sketches, required months of time, sometimes years. Art KOU KOU in its uses of new technologies vastly expands those limits, to a horizon beyond which we cannot now see.

Art and Re-fractalization of reality

Please write us about your reactions to Art KOU KOU at vegiuliano@comcast.net

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