psemme

How can it be that … who I am didn’t exist before I came to be, and that, someday … who I am will no longer be …?

Peter Handke’s Song of Childhood

I’ve shared some thoughts on the idea of “being”. But by discussing my being, the notion of authenticity appears – how can you be sure I am who I say I am – i.e. the being of which I speak is, in fact, me?

I’m not going to digress into the ancient history of “proof of identity”. We’ve all encountered it many times – from fingerprints to birth certificates to facial recognition software, the list goes on. Future posts will delve more deeply into the creative possibilities of identity proofs.

Proving your identity, however, is actually secondary to a more fundamental form of authentication – proof of existence.

“Are you alive??” is usually more important than “Who are you?”.

Turns out “being” has two essential qualities – existence and identity. These elemental questions of existence, I believe, are core creative motivators.

Sounds weird. Prove that you exist! I think that’s easy enough in the moment – “I’m standing right in front of you!”. But when you change the tense of the command to “Prove that you existed!”, things get a little bit more complicated.

Think about it – if confronted with the demand to prove that, say, your friend, Bobby Miller, actually existed, what would you produce as evidence – photos, videos, audio recordings? But how would anyone know that was actually Bobby? Likewise, if one thousand years from now, you want to prove that you, in fact, walked the Earth, what evidence would you leave behind? The normal answer is memories, stories, legends.

I argue that the act of creating is a form of “existential proof”. Creating something (anything) is an announcement to the universe, a validation, that you exist. These proofs can be stored, organized, combined, and later retrieved.

“Being” matters. Even if you discard everything but the most base physical realities, your “being” impacts the world – from tiny butterfly effects to raising a child to accidentally burning down your neighbor’s barn. But the act of creating, makes you the storyteller – moves your stance from passive to active.

I create things to prove that I am alive, right here, right now. Creating is an act of living, and my creations are proof of my existence, now and forever. These intentional actions that I am taking, in this space-time, are as unique as my fingerprint.

For me, the act of creating is more valuable than what gets created. The story of an artwork’s journey from nothing to something is what defines an artist. Capturing that journey results in what I am calling an “existential proof”.

What do we do with all this? My next posts will (hopefully) demonstrate the directions I’d like to pursue and share.

Title image © Robert Lawson – “The Story of Ferdinand”