"High Up, the Sea is Flat: Notes on Contemporary Art"

Author: Zhai Mo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: "The way of Heaven benefits without harming, the way of humanity acts without contending," "All things carry Yin and embrace Yang, with the intermingling of energies creating harmony" (from the Laozi). This is the highest commandment of the "Eastern Bible"! Most ancient civilizations of the world have declined and perished in their struggles for dominance, yet only Chinese civilization has endured for five thousand years without interruption or extinction. The fundamental reason lies in our ancestors' advocacy of a cosmic worldview that unites all things, a humanistic perspective that sees the world as one family, a methodology of tripartite harmony, and a theory of transcending heights to reach the level of the sea. This is the benevolent genetic gift we offer to all humanity, and this is the national spirit we should vigorously promote! — Zhai Mo
This book is the author's recent art journal, where the author, standing outside the discipline's center, wanders and adapts to circumstances, presenting his advocated "Four Theories" in a way distinct from traditional concepts:
- Theory of Civilizational Integration. The trend of civilizational development is the multidimensional integration of major beliefs (upper, middle, lower), major cultural lineages (past, present, future), and major systems (left, middle, right).
- Theory of Design Innovation. The essence of design lies in creating anew—creating new objects, new ecological environments, new ways of survival, new quality of life, and new values of life, to benefit the serene coexistence and enduring cohabitation of all humanity.
- Theory of Art Transformation. The process of artistic transformation is from primal elemental change to classical harmonious change, then to modern disruptive change, and finally to contemporary convergent change.
- Theory of Unified Aesthetics. Every existence is a cipher of the great universe, and beauty is the sudden realization and decoding of this cipher. When universally unified, it becomes the order of Heaven.
The book conveys the latest insights from the author's interdisciplinary research, which takes art and design as its starting point.