I continue to learn from your work and really love following this story from homelessness to Pope L’s work. For now I will contemplate on Pope L’s words ‘humor and uncomfortableness are FRIENDS.’
thanks for the intro to Pope L -- I haven't heard of him before but I was really moved by his piece Crawl and his description of the dangers that he put himself in, which he talks about in the video you shared. It's interesting how he took his art to the streets like this in locations where people would not have expected to see performance art or to understand what was going on. What a powerful piece. I'd really like to the South London Gallery show. Wondering if I can get there before it closes.
Yes, I think there's something extraordinary about artists who put themselves in the line of fire like this. The show is worth making the effort for IMO!
So clever how you compare and contrast current affairs to art. I'm certain I would have seen the teetering art installation and wondered what it was trying to tell me, and then you go and make it look so effortless to think about it from a particular lens. Genius.
I don't know of Pope L's work so that led to some wonderful exploration last night. To your statement 'there still exists a strong current of Victorian sentiment focusing on individual responsibility as the solution to poverty, and that people who draw heavily on social support are ‘lazy scroungers’.' Pope L's work and video /crawl highlights a stigmatisation and exclusion, an ignored outgroup - we place a negative bias i.e lazy scrounger to maintain a our positive view of the world and enhance our own position - the 'Just world hypothesis'. I think what comes through for me is how we use gaze aversion to push what we see an uncomfortable to the bottom of our subconscious. I think that Pope L plays with that concept, his/his families lived experience and treats us all to a version of something uncomfortable.
Yes please. Mentioned aversion gaze to my students today as I faced a wall of silence standing in front of Marcel Duchamp’s urinal at Tate Modern today…
Yes and no, typically a cognitive response it could be behavioural (learned) - which I think might be happening when we see people who we stereotype as homeless.
The opposite of gaze aversion is a deliberate act, a dominance stance if you like.
Neurotypically we think gaze aversion helps us manage cognitive load (though we are learning more about this too!) and we’re fairly certain gaze aversion is a way to handle a fear of failure - it’s studied frequently in classroom settings between teacher /child interactions for example.
For autism spectrum disorder gaze aversion is involuntary/subconscious to eye contact (emerging theories in this space).
Thanks very much for this introduction to Pope L's work. I hadn't heard of him before but I'm glad I have. We need more artists using art to change people's way of thinking - it has the power affect on a deeply subconscious, visceral level, to create a felt experience rather than just an intellectual appreciation. And the world desperately needs people to engage fully right now, not swipe away.
I continue to learn from your work and really love following this story from homelessness to Pope L’s work. For now I will contemplate on Pope L’s words ‘humor and uncomfortableness are FRIENDS.’
Yes! What a divine way of phrasing it.
thanks for the intro to Pope L -- I haven't heard of him before but I was really moved by his piece Crawl and his description of the dangers that he put himself in, which he talks about in the video you shared. It's interesting how he took his art to the streets like this in locations where people would not have expected to see performance art or to understand what was going on. What a powerful piece. I'd really like to the South London Gallery show. Wondering if I can get there before it closes.
Yes, I think there's something extraordinary about artists who put themselves in the line of fire like this. The show is worth making the effort for IMO!
So clever how you compare and contrast current affairs to art. I'm certain I would have seen the teetering art installation and wondered what it was trying to tell me, and then you go and make it look so effortless to think about it from a particular lens. Genius.
I don't know of Pope L's work so that led to some wonderful exploration last night. To your statement 'there still exists a strong current of Victorian sentiment focusing on individual responsibility as the solution to poverty, and that people who draw heavily on social support are ‘lazy scroungers’.' Pope L's work and video /crawl highlights a stigmatisation and exclusion, an ignored outgroup - we place a negative bias i.e lazy scrounger to maintain a our positive view of the world and enhance our own position - the 'Just world hypothesis'. I think what comes through for me is how we use gaze aversion to push what we see an uncomfortable to the bottom of our subconscious. I think that Pope L plays with that concept, his/his families lived experience and treats us all to a version of something uncomfortable.
Genius you say? You'll give me a big head, Leila. Is gaze aversion subconscious?
I think I’ll write about gaze for my next substack!
Yes please. Mentioned aversion gaze to my students today as I faced a wall of silence standing in front of Marcel Duchamp’s urinal at Tate Modern today…
Yes and no, typically a cognitive response it could be behavioural (learned) - which I think might be happening when we see people who we stereotype as homeless.
The opposite of gaze aversion is a deliberate act, a dominance stance if you like.
Neurotypically we think gaze aversion helps us manage cognitive load (though we are learning more about this too!) and we’re fairly certain gaze aversion is a way to handle a fear of failure - it’s studied frequently in classroom settings between teacher /child interactions for example.
For autism spectrum disorder gaze aversion is involuntary/subconscious to eye contact (emerging theories in this space).
Eye contact and perception of humanness is important because these elements help us with social interactions. (P.s Robotics and aversion is a rabbit hole 🕳️ https://www.scienceupdate.com/2018/11/robot-gaze-aversion/)
Holy cow that robot gaze thing! Wow!
Thanks very much for this introduction to Pope L's work. I hadn't heard of him before but I'm glad I have. We need more artists using art to change people's way of thinking - it has the power affect on a deeply subconscious, visceral level, to create a felt experience rather than just an intellectual appreciation. And the world desperately needs people to engage fully right now, not swipe away.
Agree with all of this Lucy! Thanks for your thoughts, and SO GLAD you have found a way to comment at last!