“Art unleashes and intensifies, through the principles of composition, what science contains and slows down through the plane of reference, precisely the creative and destructive impact of vibratory forces on bodies, on collectives, on the earth itself. And it is only philosophy that is able to understand this common element shared by the arts and the sciences, for it is only through the mediation that philosophical concepts offers that artistic sensations and scientific theorems can interact without colonization, without the one taking over the operations of the other” (62).
I like this pair of sentences. They are carefully worded, structured, and balanced, almost in resonance with the triadic system of interdisciplinary harmony for which Grosz advocates. While I share her enthusiasm and idealism for this type of dialog/relationship among various systems of thought, expression, practice, knowledge, etc, I am simultaneously reminded of how lacking/rare a triadic system of logic (or anything) even is, in so many things far beyond art/science/philosophy. For example, take the Federal government of the U.S., and its three branches of government — executive, judicial, and legislative — all coordinated in elegant theoretical balance with one another in order to protect their intended function and integrity, so that they too “interact without colonization, without the one taking over the operations of the other” (62). But we all know how slippery and easily corruptible these well intended, intricate systems play out. In the case of the U.S. government, the intended triadic system is flawed from the very start, ironically reenforcing mono/binary thinking instead. e.g. The executive branch reenforces the power of one in practice (maybe two if the vice president counts), and two in the electoral process (p.s. the dominant two party system we default to is an embarrassment, an oversimplification and dangerous polarization of values/platforms/issues that are not mutually exclusive, not to mention a complete insult to the very idea of “democracy” the very system is pretending to uphold). The legislative branch reenforces two in the senate, meanwhile congress and the judicial system are dealing with numbers too big (as in, various, with no consistency, predictable uniformity) for the mono/binary mind to grasp at in a meaningful way. But three — three is the magic number we continue to gravitate towards in every attempt to break this system of logical default. Any yet three, somehow keeps devolving to two, and then one. What’s up with that? What is it about this pull to the binary, and then — the singular/point? Why do we see soooooo many attempts to develop this triadic threshold, fumble under the very weight of the thing — skewed, overpowering, unbalanced disharmony (ego?) — it is trying to break away from? And why is the binary (two) — an even number / harmoniously quantitative / seemingly perfect ratio — paradoxically the root of the dangerously reductive tendency that seeks to organize “the world” in such a way that it ignores and represses complexity to such a degree, that when it finally does resurface, it is categorized as something “unnatural”, irreconcilable, as something then defined and explained as a dysfunctional convolution (e.g. schizophrenia).
This tendency to want to “snap to the grid”, to quantize (like in music software, not quantum theory) is something I’ve been reflecting on for a while. It was one of my fascinations with the kinds of questions and experiments that Ben proposed about rhythm, meter, and perception. What is it about 1:1, 4:4, 2:1? Our brains and our bodies keep taking us there, for better or worse. And I realize, once again, I’ve taken this out to the metaphysical outskirts, but I don’t think it’s unfounded. Lots of questions, lots to ponder…