Phenomenology of Artists and their perception of the world

Have you ever looked at an Artist’s work and thought “Wow, this exactly encaptures how I feel..”, if you haven’t you need to do your research because it’s truly a life-changing experience that you DON’T want to miss out on. Whether it’s poetry, sculptures, paintings, theater, or music; art always makes me re-evaluate my perception of the world. I often wonder what kind of experiences has this artist had that have shaped their mind and thinking to express themselves this way. How are they able to translate their thoughts into works of art that communicate the same message/experience that they felt or went through?
Self-expression in today’s world is such a complex and difficult thing. I feel like no matter how you express yourself in whatever shape or form, people will have a million different opinions of you ranging from good to bad. Even in simple everyday communication, people have so many different perceptions of the world based on their life experiences that what you say can be perceived in a million different ways. But, how is an artist able to so VIVIDLY and CLEARLY communicate something to people all around the world, who have a million different perceptions, and still give entirely the same message?
If you’re having a hard time understanding what I mean, let me show you some works of art and think to yourself about what this means to you.

“Can’t Help Myself” By Sun Yuan and Peng Yu

“This is just a robot carrying on its programmed motions..” you might think at first glance. But after watching the video for longer than a minute, you might feel an emotional response stirring in you for a multitude of different triggers depending on your life experiences and your own phenomenology.
Does this robot symbolize your feministic way of life? Trying to un-do all of the patriarchy, while society persists to treat you less than a man, not equal.
Or, does this robot symbolize your relationship with your body? Trying every diet known to man but never being considered just right, rather “too small” or “too big”.
Or, does this robot symbolize your struggle to make ends meet? From getting a degree to getting your desired job, your ever-so-increasing standard of living can never make any paycheck enough.
Or, does this robot symbolize your relationship with your parents, a significant other, or an old friend? You love having them in your life, but it’s an ever-lasting circle of ups and downs.
Perhaps, this robot symbolizes your relationship with food. You promised you would do better for yourself but you go back to your stress-eating habits and can never say no when you should.
There are so many interpretations of art, and all of them point back to the viewer’s experiences, upbringing, and gender, which have all shaped them to have those interpretations. But what are those experiences and phenomena that have shaped you, the viewer? What are they for the artist?
To conclude, I personally think it is very interesting to ponder these questions. To me, this is what phenomenology is all about, what makes us do the things we do, or think the way we do.

Unruly Bodies

Unruly Bodies

People are all brought into this world as newborns not knowing a single thing. We all have the same beginnings so why is it that we are all so unique? Phenomenological research, answers that question. Everyone experiences the world and interacts with the world in their own distinctive ways. For example, if I compared my childhood to my father’s, our daily schedules were the exact same, but every encounter was completely different.

I woke up and got dressed in fresh, clean clothes. He woke up and wore the same clothes he slept in. I ate a nutritious breakfast with oats and eggs. He ate a plain piece of bread. I rode the bus to school. He walked three miles to school. I sat at a desk and took notes with a pencil and notebook. He snuck into a random class and took notes mentally because he couldn’t pay his teacher. I went home to do homework. He went home to plow the fields. I ate a bowl of spiced noodles for dinner. He had a bowl of plain porridge for dinner. I showered in a bathtub. He bathed himself in a lake. I slept on a soft mattress, covered with a blanket. He slept on a straw mat, next to a small fire.

His background led him to become strong headed and incredibly traditional. Every decision he makes is based on survival, regardless of any emotional appeal. Although, he tries to push his values onto me, I disagree with many of them. The way we each view the world are very unalike because we had different scenarios thrown at us, even if it was the same task. This form of comparison is very limiting because we can only analyze specific situations, but it is still insightful into how people develop their set of morals as they react to their experiences.

It is natural that society has expectations on how genders are supposed to act. Based on how the world portrays men and women in the media, women are expected to be seen as more reserved and act more feminine whereas men are seen as more forceful and masculine. These stereotypes are presented all the time in society and these traits in women and men is what most people would expect when meeting a man or woman. Gender Role expectations has become so prevalent in society that men and women who act outside of the norms would be viewed as more inferior and most likely face some sort of oppression. For example, if a man would be seen showing more feminine mannerisms, they are more likely to be seen as more inferior and not as “manly” like. People would also try to associate sexual orientation with masculine and feminine personality traits. If a woman were to be presenting more masculine mannerisms, people would most likely that she would be a lesbian. A couple years ago, I was trying to catch a bus ride home from my community college and I was just sitting down on a bench at the bus station. There was man who walked up to me trying to sell his mixtapes and played some of his music for me. I gave a listen, and we started talking about music and stuff. Later in the conversation, he suddenly stops talking and looks at the way I was sitting on the bench. I had my legs crossed sitting down and I he apparently viewed that as how a women would sit. He then asks me, “Why are you sitting like that?” and he also asks, “Do you really want to have that lifestyle?”. I told that this is just how I sit and he didn’t say anything afterwards. The fact that he had asked me those questions made me feel like I was different and that I should not be sitting the way I was because that’s not how men are supposed to sit. He was making the association of my feminine mannerism and my sexual orientation and make it seem like I’m choosing to have this lifestyle.

Have you ever wanted to insult people in a way that makes it impossible for them to call you out on it? Are backhanded compliments too direct for you? I have just the thing for you. It’s called a microaggression. You may be wondering; “Gee willikers! What makes something a microaggression? Why is it micro and not regular-sized or macro?” Well, allow me to explain.

A microaggression is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority)”. This technique is usually used to demonstrate a person’s place in a sociological hierarchy without outright speaking about it.

This can happen in many different ways for many different people. I will now provide a couple of examples I have witnessed.

During one of the meetings for a hobby group, the members were discussing cosplay. One of the people mentions that they saw a person whose gender they were unable to assume. Because of this, they chose to say, “I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl so I just called it an it.” I would consider this a microaggression because their language implied that when a person does not conform to the gender norms engraved into their mind, this person would no longer consider the gender non-conforming person to be a human being. This is obviously bad because we are dehumanizing living human beings for very arbitrary reasons, and alienating trans people who hear ideas or statements such as this.

Another example would be from a friend. They were walking to school and someone, out of nowhere, began to touch their hair. This is unusual because the person had seen hair that was different from theirs, and decided to touch it without asking. The friend found this experience to be similar to that of an exotic animal in a petting zoo. It was also dehumanizing and uncomfortable. 😦

A question plain and simple but as it passes my ears it’s as complex as latin 

Like an ancient spell I don’t quite understand what it’s asking of me

Then I see as I feel my body contort and transmute under the syllables 

Bones crack and fur grows I am now beast relegated to glass enclosures and timed meals

I am watched daily to dangerous to be let free of my cage but just exotic enough to be entertaining 

It’s then that i’m released into open air where my fur is once more just hair my fangs once more become teeth I am human

Yet i feel that beast pawing at me under my flesh waiting to be released by that spell once more 

It was Christmas morning in San Francisco, California and my uncle was taking care of my aunt’s pets before coming over to my grandparent’s house to meet up with everyone for Christmas festivities. As my uncle was walking back to his car, one of the neighbors approached him to complain about how he couldn’t see down the hill to get out of his parking space because my uncle’s van was too big. (My uncle drives a large white utility van. It’s for his work and his only means of transportation.) The neighbor, living in an affluent area in San Francisco, immediately assumed my uncle didn’t live there and had no right to park his car there. He didn’t know my uncle was staying with family and that he had just come from the house next door. The neighbor backed up his demands that my uncle moves his car with several rude, racist, and classist comments to my uncle, including the rallying cry of racists everywhere, “go back to where you came from.” The kicker of the story is that my uncle is actually Native American (Navaho). This white man, who is living not only in a state, but a country that was stolen from Native Americans told a Native American man to “go back to where he came from.” This was Christmas morning and my uncle, who has a “let’s all get along temperament, was left feeling pretty down. The whole encounter made him feel like he was just viewed as an unwanted outsider, who could be treated as a lower life form who had no right to park in a particular neighborhood. This wasn’t the first time people have discriminated against him based on his appearance, nor was it the most dramatic and potentially life-threatening occurrence. The thing that really hurt was that it was Christmas morning and the racist Scrooge of the neighborhood had not discovered the true meaning of Christmas. People make assumptions, that’s normal, but feeling justified in acting in a hurtful and hostile manner simply because of these assumptions is wrong. That neighbor didn’t just assume my uncle was Hispanic, he also assumed that because of what my uncle looked like, he didn’t belong in such a wealthy area. The neighbor also assumed that he then had the right to order him to move his car and throw in a racist rant as well. Why? Why did the neighbor feel he belonged there and not my uncle? Why did he feel free to treat someone this way? Because America is a segregated country, not only by skin color but by income and since my uncle didn’t fit the norm of the neighborhood, this man decided to come outside of his multi-million-dollar house on Christmas morning, morph into the love child of Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch and feel entitled to dump his racist vitriol on my friendly and kind uncle. The moral of this story is whatever your assumptions are, everyone, deserves to be treated with respect, and don’t be a racist bigot.