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F E M E's




Fused ~ Expressions ~ Modifying ~ Emotions

   Within the first few days after the bombing of Baghdad (begun with bitter irony on the
day we in the United States honor Martin Luther King Jr.), while monitoring the media I noticed a subtle shift in the way information and images were being presented. Where in the very early stages news reports provided coverage of peace marches and voices of dissension, one day in virtual unison the networks stopped airing utterances of those voices, and shifted to an entirely pro-war slant. Frequent stories of arbitrary sounding public opinion polls proclaiming that the majority of the masses supported the bombings, along with the controlled feeds from the military gave me the distinct impression that a virtual ambush had occurred within the information machine. From observations of radio talk show callers and my own discussions with people, I perceived a startling and uncanny shift of opinion and dialog which corresponded with the changes in the media. Where once there was a degree of receptivity and free exchange of discourse, now when one might simply raise questions regarding policy the response was generally knee-jerk. Sound bytes from television were being parroted verbatim, often having nothing to do with the attempt to invoke open, even hypothetical dialog.

   These impressions, coupled with my aforementioned faith that an evolving society increasingly aware of its interconnectedness intuitively grasps that what hurts one hurts all, ruddered my ruminations into the realms of belief, rationale, and emotions; and instigated a curiously consuming inquiry into the mechanics of language and other systems and codes which inform our perceptions.

   To a large measure it appeared that through the cunning usage of Orwellian double-speak a Zeitgeist was defined which seemingly succeeded to subjugate the mass mind. We've often proclaimed "never again" regarding atrocities waged against humanity, particularly in this century. How is it that we can become oblivious and numb towards suffering? Since we all essentially wish for the same in life -happiness, peace, freedom, security, comfort, free-will; then why do we allow another to be denied? What is it which truly unites us all, touches our core essence and appeals to the inherent decency we all accept as an ideal or concept, yet less than fully access or exemplify consistently enough to truly make a difference?

   As these musings continued to assert themselves and I pondered on processes of communication, I individuated two modes in which we gather information and formulate
our reality:

through intellect as concepts, thoughts ideas and rationale;
through emotion as feelings and direct experience.

That the emotion based part of the reality formulating equation tends to effect a more profound impact upon an individual is self-evident, yet have we really made any conscious efforts to inform our communication from this perspective? Of course artists do this whether with or without conscious intent. Suppose there was a way to empower our presentation of information so that it is felt -bypassing intellectual analysis and reaching a more infinite aspect of ourselves. We've notice how tragedy from afar is somewhat vague, yet when it strikes close to home we put aside ideology and come together. It pours us back into our humanity and reclaims our decency.

   Surely just as firmly held beliefs and opinions often contribute to division and separation, so to do emotionally charged attitudes. Fear based emotion. Since fear based beliefs are accessed almost exclusively from  intellect (rarely are there any immediate, tangible threats which activate adrenaline), boundary dissolution accessed through emotion essentially short-circuits the illusionary beliefs that are sustained by intellect. My sense is not so much that if one could feel the suffering of another -rather- if one could connect through direct experience to all that we value as beings, we begin to accelerate the dissolution of illusionary boundaries and embrace only the most uplifting principles and policies.

   It is from this perspective that I sought to articulate a sort of syntactical frame for communicating through emotions -the quest for the proverbial Language Of The Heart,
if you will. One evening in late February as I was contemplating Memetics and the concept
of Meme's  — a fascinating look at how information and cultural themes essentially infect the minds of the populace and replicate themselves just as genes do in the biological domain, first postulated in 1976 by Richard Dawkins in his book "The Selfish Gene" — I began to formulate a structure from which I'd hoped to pedestalize a possible way to understand and approach learning, behavior modification and entertainment as a sort of virtual direct experience; aiming to access the most infinite aspects of self. With memes as my inspirational springboard, I coined the term FEME's. Fused Expressions Modifying Emotions.
 
 

Where I thought of Meme's as being the smallest unit of meaning/the germ of an idea, perhaps being grammatical in nature; I imagined Feme's to be the smallest unit of feeling, with image being the defining theme. I further constructed my Meme-to-Feme modeling strategy by imagining that where memes might be thought of as horizontal, discreet bits of information; femes would be pictured as vertical, multi-layered compact blasts of sensory imagery. That if ALL of the senses were determined as being vibratory phenomena, and if the nebulous realm of emotions could be imagined as vibratory -I suppose then that one
could establish resonant points between various sensory input data, and use this information to consciously construct total immersion in sensory "imagery" which perhaps may in fact amplify particular emotive states, with the aim to access a certain universal receptivity and accelerate growth in areas of behavior, learning or otherwise assist in wholistic integration.
 
 

Note:
Approached as a metaphor, which is my primary objective, my hope is that it may inspire those in media and the arts to embrace perhaps a subtle shift in thinking. As an artist,
I have found myself venturing into exciting areas of expression as I invoke this concept
to inform my intent, and employ it as a sort of systems approach to achieve an aim...

Approached as a "science", my sense is that this concept likely has its share of holes. Lacking a background in the "hard sciences" of mind, emotions and other areas of human physiology, I've less than spent a significant amount of time on my own thinking through the likelihood of any of this actually being "quantified and formalized" for the scientific community. In this respect, it is my desire here to merely receive opinions, criticism (no flames...PLEASE ; ), input and such. Based on my preliminary assumptions and notes, some of the possible areas which research might touch upon include boundary dissolving, imagination catalysis, and synesthesia.  Arrangements have been made to further explore these preliminary, pending publication notes as a hypothesis; fleshing it out with contributions from various entities and hands-on research in conjunction with hEartherapy and LIGHTsource Technologies on the island of Kauai.
 
 
 

Watch for news about an upcoming interactive website, online journal, the refined and detailed outline of Feme's as a hypothetical study, examples of Feme's currently in production, events, and other Feme related themes...

Feme Me