A general definition of art premises that art is to be seen (heard, or touched). In order to see, a product or an object is required. On the contrary, my art has no product or tangible object to show. My art is a process. Neither have I things to show nor exhibit in a gallery, though 95% of people ask me, “how do you display your art?” “how do you track your art?” “ This is yet to be answered. What is a verb to materialize an ongoing day-to-day process that cannot be captured but flows away in a river of time? What is a verb to make an invisible, untouchable process tangible? If I discover the verb, it would make my communication to the others easier. I may know a possible verb: “to live with.” The only way of appreciating my art is to enter into it.
My definition of community is that “people are loosely connected beyond chronological and geographical distances and yet involved in one another’s decision-making process at a turning point in their lives.” I launched and developed many communities. Not all of them meet the definition. Some remain a cliche “community” in a broader sense. A “team” formed to achieve a goal of a project or business isn’t a community.
Therefore, I designed a framework where my friends and people could knock on a door and step into my life. That is, “life with.” They become a participant of my process. Becoming an actor in it is the quickest way of appreciating my art.
My art consists of multiple facets of social experimentations. Although it’s complex, I’m going to give it a try to dissect it and answer to a frequently question, “What’s your art?”
- Experiment in community:
I shape a new community that is the closest to the community by my definition. My community members are loosely connected to one another beyond chronological, geographical, and mental distances. Nevertheless, they will possibly get involved in one another’s critical decision-making process at a turning point in their lives.
2. Experiment in money as energy, currency:
Shifting numerous psychological meanings and connotations attached to money. Opening an alternative channel in which money is dealt differently from the conventional measurement in the capitalistic market (i.e. the equivalent exchange system of labor, socially value-added, and money). Instead, this is an experiment to exchange money with love, trust, and generosity without return, responsibility, obligation, and power dynamics that the money-goods exchange usually causes.
3. Experiment in a working style
Working is living by my definition. To work doesn’t necessarily mean that you are paid. Paid or unpaid? Employed or unemployed? Under contract or under the table? Enough to cover rent and bills or do I have to cover from my own pocket? Such a criteria for choosing a job and everyday behavior is based on the equal (value) exchange system between money and labor. I think and act out of that box. On the other hand, I don’t go for the “without money” thingy. Being anti is not my stuff. I make a decision on my work by fully (at least learning to) optimizing all the data that I can acquire, from scientific hard data and numbers to movement of spirits in elements. As a result, my decision-making process and motivations for actions are more likely different from general human behaviors in the current capitalistic society. Apparently, money influences less my everyday life choices. I expand my capacity to access as much available data as possible in the universe.
4. Experiment in the relation between the body and the mind
Through self-observation, I elucidate a link between the body and the consciousness. Interactions of the two affect which words I choose and which behaviors I select in my daily life. I carefully monitor and analyze differences in physical, physiological, psychological, mental, and cultural influences.
5. Search for the intrinsic nature of human being, as an animal species
What is wildness, instinct, and intuition? What is innately given potential in humans? I discover answers to those questions by being attentive to the finest subtleties of humans’ trivial actions, instead of being engaged in so-called “wild” and “physical” activities such as sports, athletics, and outdoors. The human physicality and intuitions are not limited to a self-sufficient life in countrysides or farming or hunting in woods. Humans use their bodies 24/7 regardless of a kind of activity. We use our bodies during sleep and brain math problems. Athletes and explorers aren’t the only wild and intuitive humans. How can I tap into human wildness and intuitions, which is largely dormant within my body in the post-modern highly developed society?
6. Creating the view on death and life
I internalize my own death and prepare for it intentionally. But, I don’t live with the “If I should die tomorrow” concept. Neither does it please me nor make sense to me. I prefer not living desperately for my life everyday, as if it would end tomorrow. Death is always here. Never leave us alone since our birth. I see it as a positive phenomenon. There is always a possibility where we become the Schrödinger’s cat ourselves in a second. We are walking towards death. To live is to be dying. The first step towards death is taken much earlier than when we recognize it. How do I ready myself for death? I want to grasp the moment of death, be alerted and conscious of death, accept it, and become it. I have no clue how I would die. A disease? An accident? A murder? A suicide? No matter what, I prepare for it every single day, by staying clear and aware of my true nature as a human animal. That’s why I practice Tibetan Bön (Buddhism) dream yoga.
7. Making my life a piece of art (this is the foundation of all my activities)
We generate ideas, expectations, and wishes to our society constantly. “What if we had such and such a society?” “What if we could do this and that?“ “That would be much more fun than what it is now!” These ideas formulate ideal views on our life and world. My art is to actualize the ideas. I live up to my philosophy in daily life. It’s the same as painting, building a sculpture, or making a movie. I just don’t utilize a secondary medium in order to crystalize my philosophy. My medium is my everyday life. I don’t attach much importance to “to show” and “to exhibit” my art to the others. It may not be easy for them to comprehend it as art. You can’t see, hear, or touch it as an object. But, I receive money and make my living out of this art (cf. see above: experiment in money as energy and currency). How to breathe, how to walk, how to encounter people, how to choose every and each behavior, how to sustain my life financially, socially, and psychologically, and how to spend every second. In order to make my life a piece of art, it is essential that my body, mind, and soul are always together and that my mind and soul reside in the body happily and consistently. This is the clarity of consciousness. I practice to attain the state of mind by Tibetan dream yoga, which encompasses all levels of consciousness; waking, dreaming, sleeping, and dying.
Everyday is A Piece of Art 