I would like help with an idea that is roaring around in this feeble noggin' of mine. I hope Shawn doesn't mind. I can't post images yet until I get one more window installed in the remodeled studio area. I'd like help coming up with a symbol for a universal idea. What physical utensil or object represents the ideals handed down from generation to generation throughout human cultural history. What object represents the culture and knowlege handed down from mother or grandmother to daughter? Image- black background with small childs hand outstretched towards an aged adult female hand bearing........what? What physical object represents all these cultural ideals and knowlege? I've tried wheat stalks, rice stalks, beads, beads w/cross, knife, ect. But these all are lacking a universality. There must be some object that transcends cultures. Blood? I'm stumped and come here to all of you. The creativity here is awesome and hopefully you can help me with this idea. You are welcome to run with this idea and hopefully get a Pulitzer or something. Thanks Shawn. James, a regular

-- JAMES (JAMES_MICKELSON@HOTMAIL.COM), July 26, 2000

Answers

nope, shawn don't mind :-)

-- shawn` (shawngibson_prophoto@yahoo.com), July 26, 2000.

Well James, only food crosses all cultures. If you look into the rain forests, even clothing as we know it disappears. And food is hardly universal - the grains vary from place to place, and farm animals don't exist in lots of places, and here in the US, we don't eat monkeys.

Are there any universal symbols? The sun comes pretty close, and babies may work. But I think you're looking for something that doesn't exist...

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), July 26, 2000.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

-- Altaf Shaikh (nissar@idt.net), July 26, 2000.

is the small hand giving/offering it to the aged adult, or asking for/in need of it? good and very interesting challenge and I would like to work on it. thinking...

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), July 26, 2000.

the first part of your posts suggests "handing down" but the question makes me feel like the kid wants something. still thinking.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), July 26, 2000.

Breaking bread, maybe? Planting a seedling? Maybe just a portrait of the girl with the woman in shadow behind, with her hand on girl's shoulder. Woman looks at girl, girl looks in camera. Careful with the clothes

Try reading Joseph Campbell's Primitive Mythology Series for lots of good ideas. Maybe you'll find something in Vol. IV titled "Creative Mythology". Or his most popular book, "The Power of Myth", I think it's called. I haven't read that one in years and can't find my copy right now... t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), July 26, 2000.

It sounds to me like you need a series of pictures, showing objects from different times and/or cultures.

-- John Kantor (jkantor@mindspring.com), July 26, 2000.

I think an ice cube would look cool -- it's water, so it's universal, but it's also temporary, fleeting, melting away...

-- Steve Leroux (steve@bigadventures.com), July 26, 2000.

How about an image of Earth?

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), July 26, 2000.

I donn't feel any one symbol exists, but, in an attempt to convey that symbol you have created a mystery so why not capitolize on the msstry. Use an old parchment (or something similiar) wrapped package. Something old with hidden meaning.

-- Larry Szoke (lszoke@icom.ca), July 26, 2000.

If you were to think Mapplethorpe: A Penis.

The only universal things I can think of has to do with ourselves. Think emotions? Think war? Think hunger? Think happiness? Think love?

Objects very rarely relate emotional impact, unless they're highly contextual - and it that case, they automatically lose their universal appeal.

-- Edward Kang (ekang@cse.nd.edu), July 27, 2000.

How about an image of the woman as a young girl? Representing the knowledge and experience of age.

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), July 28, 2000.

James,

Delving back into an earlier life, three texts really helped me understand the idea of archetypal universality (in a literary context, but could also apply to photography) ; (i) Levi-Strauss' series of four books, beginning with "The Raw and The Cooked" - an easier introduction is either "Tristes Tropiques", or "Structural Anthropology", (ii) Frazer's "The Golden Bough" (I think a shortened version is available), and (iii) Edward Said's "Orientalism".

It will be difficult to preserve a sense of mystery, which leads the viewer to a sense of what is unspoken, or unseen. Many of the ideals of earlier generations were never written down, and only conveyed orally. The act of naming, or writing, or capturing on film, distinguishes the original thing from what is created through language or pictures, which leads to a loss of mystery, but also enables knowledge - a kind of fortunate fall. The earlier suggestion of a melting ice-cube is really good, I think ; another suggestion(not as good) might be based on the older hand partially covered in sand, in which some form of image is inscribed, with the sand flowing into the younger hand, in which the same image is beginning to form. Alterntaively, a different image could form - i.e. a wheel in the older hand could become something like a silicon chip in the younger hand. Best regards, fw

-- fw (finneganswake@altavista.net), July 30, 2000.

response to 'Idea'

Why do you anything in the hand? Surely the viewer's imagination can be restricted by the presence of any object?

Jack

-- Jack McVicker (jack.m@virgin.net), August 03, 2000.

Response to Idea

The Universal idea that you speak of can't be found in an object, although man and woman have tried to express it this way. It is the idea handed to us thru our Mothers and Fathers, tho warped in some instances to an unrecognizable expression. It is at once, formless and being of form; It is Love. AS It is God; It is us; It is all that is.

-- Wayne Crider (waynec@apt.net), August 04, 2000.

A kiss. Simple, straightforward, yet easy to interpret in a universally understood way; also, easily mis-understood, universally.

-- susan romine (donaldblan@aol.com), August 13, 2000.