Let´s say dialogitivity? | Leonardo/ISASTwith Arizona State University

Let´s say dialogitivity?

By Guillermo Muñoz
Dialogo   I like words, because all of them are metaphors. There are words that we think that really are “things”, like “table”, “ball” or “door”, for example. But, may be is only because we forgot their metaphorical sense. I guess that there would be some technical word to name them, but, let´s play and, yes, use same metaphors. So, we can call them, hidden metaphors? Deadly ones? Zombie metaphors? Doesn´t matter whatever is your choice, I´m interested in the process, the linking between the “object” and its name. During the process we need to cross a frontier, from our perceptions through our imagination, and give it back. May be this is creativity? I don´t know, but, in my opinion, creativity, rescuing all its metaphorical meaning, may be is not the best word. It comes from creation, and creation is related to Demiurge, a religious entity that from nothing creates the universe. May be now you are expecting that I would start to speak about Big Bang, conservation of energy, and so on. However, this is not the case. I would like to speak about Japanese gardens. Many years ago, I was just listening a very nice history about a travel to Japan. An artist went there to enjoy a couple of years for research, and he was surprised by these Japanese gardens, in the middle of the houses. In some of them they replaced water by white sand, and this sand was patterned all days. I was curious about the patterning. What does it mean?, function? May be it is to create tensions, or flux, some idea of movement. You know it, the link is done as a movement, connecting spaces. For example, real and fantasy, as a mirror does. Here at Djerassi we have our particular Japanese garden. Between Artist house and Artists Barn we walk several times in the day through kind of “white sand” patterned path. We can call it “the hunger white path”, because some of ours, when we cross it upwards, we just go to have dinner. But I prefer “the dialogic stony path”, because when we return from dinner we do it in couples, having some feedback and dialogs following our conversation after eating. Yes, it is nothing related to creation. It is sharing, mixing, dialoging. This is the deal in art/sci expeditions. Everything is on movement. Even when we thought that our feets are fixed on the land, we discovered that our world travels through space as fast as we can not imagine. To catch up the picture, we use words from other. Ideas, from a third one. Walking, watching, listening. Done in group. So, returning to this metaphorical playing, instead of creativity, let´s say dialogitivity?