Author: Alicia Farrell Miller, Fourth Year, Philosophy
Amount Requested: $30,000
The Euro-American intellectual tradition since the time of the ancient Greeks has been dominated by a continuous epistemological stance which presupposes a certain conception of man and of his relationship to the world. The Cartesian tradition of dualism only served to strengthen this philosophical trend, as we view ourselves as having the ability to transcend our physical bounds and occupy a fully rational and objective standpoint from which we can determine universal truths about the underlying nature of the world. In stark contrast to this stands the Chinese philosophical tradition which is based not on an ontology, but rather a cosmology. It does not preoccupy itself with metaphysical inquiry or absolute truth, but seeks instead to understand the relationships between men and between man and nature as these relational aspects are the formative elements of social life.
The differences between these epistemological foundations can be most clearly seen in the varying ways in which Chinese and Western cultures have constructed and shaped the spaces surrounding them, but these spaces do not only reflect a philosophy, they help determine it. It is rather difficult to challenge someone’s epistemological framework on an abstract level, but considerably easier when this framework is embodied in the space surrounding them. If we within the Euro-American tradition can not recognize both the origins and the limitations of our own epistemological framework, how can we ever presume to be able to understand another culture whose ideology is based on a completely different way of thinking about the world? In creating a digital video installation to recreate these spaces accompanied by a philosophical narrative, I propose to challenge a person’s assumptions about their place in the world in order to create a greater social awareness of the diversity of ways of understanding that have come into such conflict as we move towards a truly ‘global community’.
I foresee this project as consisting of three stages. The primary stage will be devoted to research and preparation. The second stage will consist of making a video journey through Chinese and Western public spaces by traveling to ten sites in China and to their artistic and philosophical counterparts within the Western tradition. The final stage will be the organization and editing of the video footage and the transformation of this footage into an installation and television compatible DVD.
Conceived as such, this project will culminate in an installation in which the viewers are surrounded by footage of the site accompanied by philosophical explanation and inquiry. Only when we as a society have realized that we can not occupy a fully objective standpoint from which to judge the world, can we come to appreciate perspectives different from our own. If we continue to write our own epistemological framework onto cultures and peoples who are equipped with radically different understandings of their place on the world we can never hope to achieve a truly global society. By examining how we relate to the spaces surrounding us and how we locate our sense of self within the natural order, we can begin to challenge and possibly redefine the limitations of our own conceptual structure. Limitations in our thinking are limitations upon our possibility for action. If we can ever have any hope of transcending those limitations, the first necessary step is to recognize that which is limiting us.
