Modern Mythology and the Transmedia Revolution

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In Search of Myth and Meaning...

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"The point of mythology or myth is to point to the horizon and to point back to ourselves: This is who we are; this is where we came from; and this is where we're going. And a lot of Western society over the last hundred years - the last 50 years really - has lost that. We have become rather aimless and wandering."

J. Michael Straczynski

The Power of Myth was one of the most popular TV series in the history of public television.  In a series of six hour-long episodes, American mythologist Joseph Campbell peeled back the layers of mystery that had once shrouded our species ancient storytelling traditions.

Campbell blew away the accumulated funk of centuries of traditional academic inquiry, and connected the dots between mythic traditions that had once been separated by hundreds of miles, and thousands of years.  He postulated that there was a single mythic narrative, a monomyth that had been translated into many different languages, and disguised in the symbols of many different cultures--but one that essentially shared the same structure and sequence of events.

The Monomyth or "Hero's Journey" (Infographic Via The Royal Society of Account Planning)

Finding Joe

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“Nothing will see us through the age we're entering but high consciousness, and that comes hard. We don't have a good, modern myth yet, and we need one.”

Robert Johnson

 

Follow Your Bliss - Joseph Campbell from Christoph on Vimeo.

Mr. M

In the beginning, there was a sound, no, a voice, summoning him from the darkness. In between bouts of darkness, there was nothing but pain. 10,000 times he saw himself die in fire, with poison, being devoured, and always, always falling.

Heart Art and Meat Ethics

Please support indie art and independent artists. It's how these projects get made. Just 15 days left!

As I mentioned in several of the videos a few posts back on Words of Traitors, one of the primary dioramas that I'm using to stage the art in WoT was based on a hypnogagic state, a half-dream image of a pulsating heart with wires linking to various images and fragments of written text that represent the emotions binding us to the past -- but which also fixate us in time at all. It got me thinking, or feeling, really, a sense of the Bardo. I came out of the state crying, and cried for quite some time before I determined that I should attempt to build something like what I had seen.

It wasn't ever meant to be a statement about food. As a meat eater, I don't see any sense in the ritual and artistic use of organs to be any more wasteful than eating it. But we'll get to that in a minute, because that isn't why I made this thing. It isn't, in other words, what the heart is meant to evoke.

The heart generally symbolizes emotion for some reason or other, though it is especially funny to me when people eat hamburgers but get freaked out by organs. I simply wanted to approach the dream image as directly as I could.

Heart Art - Indie Production 101

Lilith sketch by ... me.

Hard at work on Word of Traitors, as are many of the artists.

Please help support us in getting this material produced. We have a way to go the next 20 days but it can be done if you get active along with us! 

Here's two videos about some of the dioramas I've just started building - which will be integrated digitally with mixed media pieces.


Video 1.



Video 2.

Here I am, babbling more about found art, working with what you have. Again, I had a lot I wanted to say about serendipity but talking to a camera you're holding it awkward. Feel free to ask me directly if you have questions about process, especially if you're an artist yourself.

No Gods, No Masters: Anarchy In Theory and Practice

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

Photos by Marjorie Hoover

"Even if the world was to end tomorrow, I would still plant a tree today." -anon

A timeline of my involvement with OPDX movement.

A Dream for the Blind: A Meditation on Tiresias

What power has "the light of truth" over blind Tiresias? 

Light divides; truth becomes double. A rift is thereby opened, separating truth disclosed by the light of 

reason from sacred, secret truths. What reality does this abyss have for Tiresias?

Tiresias experienced the truth of "the other side of existence" to which rationality, enlightenment, remains 

forever blind. The price paid for this sacred truth was the sacrifice of sight.

The offense commited by Tiresias was not against Hera: it was the decision itself, by which he betrayed his 

privileged knowledge of the fundamental non-duality of existence. Blindness was both his punishment and his 

recompense.

Blindness bestows the gift of prophecy. The blind visionary cannot but fail to enlighten those blinded by 

sight and light: sacred truth remains ineffable, incomprehensible according to reason and speach. 

Tiresias: the prophetic midwife present at the birth of the traged

What power has "the light of truth" over blind Tiresias? 

Light divides; truth becomes double. A rift is thereby opened, separating truth disclosed by the light of reason from sacred, secret truths. What reality does this abyss have for Tiresias?

Tiresias experienced the truth of "the other side of existence" to which rationality, enlightenment, remains forever blind. The price paid for this sacred truth was the sacrifice of sight.

The offense commited by Tiresias was not against Hera: it was the decision itself, by which he betrayed his privileged knowledge of the fundamental non-duality of existence. Blindness was both his punishment and his recompense.

Blindness bestows the gift of prophecy. The blind visionary cannot but fail to enlighten those blinded by sight and light: sacred truth remains ineffable, incomprehensible according to reason and speech. 

Tiresias: the prophetic midwife present at the birth of the tragedy named Reason.

"Man's destiny is to try to avoid the unavoidable. 

His eyes, although eager for light, 

persistently avoid the sun..."

(G. Bataille, Inner Experience)

Words of Traitors - Transmedia perk 1 Unlocked

A short walkthrough of my office at the time of working on this project, and a little talk on the whiteboard of how this project ties into some of the other material available here. 

Talking about some of the thumbnailing process as we get into layout and creative direction.

And finally, talking about the literary background and some of the process and circumstance that got this whole thing started.
(My back was acting up that night so that's why I'm lying down, if you're wondering.)

First transmedia perk unlocked by reaching $1000 goal!  Next unique perk is reserved for breaking $2500. Reaching our full goal will ensure a well produced and distributed illustrated book, and set us off running for the graphic novel that we are spinning out of one of the short stories in this book for a kickstarter and a somewhat unique artistic process involving CG and photographic source. Liking indie art in theory is one thing but coming in at the ground floor like this not only ensures that it gets made -- it also ensures that you will have the first edition pre-ordered and signed. (Who knows, maybe one day you can sell that for a lot of money on whatever replaces eBay.)

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]