FAQs

My basic assumption is that our underlying nature is unconditional love. This latter assumption might appear an outrageous ontological claim in a context that is experiencing the passing of the postmodernist era.

Despite that, my artwork accepts many of the postmodernist claims such as the distrust of grand narratives. At the same time, my artwork also attempts to disrupt these postmodernist claims through a personal narrative that unfolds and reveals the luminosity of unconditional love. Although this could be considered a contradiction, the personal nature of my poetic discourse does not pertain to a universal ontology but a personal ontology that, in empathy and introspection (phenomenological method), you could find the claim to be yours as well through your own experience: The possibility to intuit yourself as Being Poetry, a concept I have developed in relation to unconditional love. [1. This concept will be defined with clarity in the future at the site beingpoetry.com]

Although I use the label of postmodernism to describe my historical context, I believe that labels should not be used to define people who are alive; to label a living human being does not make justice to the fact that we are not static, but constantly changing and evolving. Therefore, I do not adhere to any -ism that could label me. I would prefer modesty by those who would claim for others what they strongly believe are or should be. The closest to a label when trying to define my current of thought is that I consider myself and my surroundings as Being Poetry, i.e. as a poetic act of creativity or unfolded agapism. That said, one should not confuse Being Poetry as a static notion, but as a fluid process that cannot be contained in an -ism.

The word philopoiesis comes from the Greek word philos (φίλος)[1. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=φίλος ] which means love and the verb poiesis (ποίησις)[2. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=ποίησις] which means to create.

Together, these Greek terms form a new concept that describes the process of loving creation, that is a creator of love as well as a lover of creation. And because these terms are the roots of our language, the definition cannot be very precise. It can be open to interpretation. In this case, I am using an interpretation that approaches to the process of creative love, and therefore, opens up the possibility of the concept of being poetry.

If poiesis is to create and philos to love, then we have found a word that describes the love of creation or creative love.[1. See the definition of philopoiesis here. ] Thus, a philopoiet is a lover of creating. Whereas creation can be related to social theories and modes of production, the addition of the prefix philo- transforms the word poiesis into a new philosophical stance.

This position adopts the concept of creative love from the work of the philosopher and scientist Charles S. Peirce. He was most noted for the development of the notions of semiotics and pragmaticism. Peirce argues that there are three forms of evolution:

evolution by fortuitous variation, evolution by mechanical necessity, and evolution by creative love.”[2. Peirce, Charles S. “Evolutionary Love.” In Philosophical Writings of Peirce, 364. New York: Dover Publications, 1955. ]

I have focused in the latter because creative love is a form of philopoiesis if we consider the term philo- to be agapistic, that is, related to unconditional love, as Peirce does in his concept of creative love. How can we convert a philos to an agape? I argue that all kinds of love contain an implicate agape. However, not everyone expresses these forms of love with an unfolded or revealed agape. For example, a philial love might not be agapistic at a first glance, but it could be, if one unfolds or unconceals its agape. Thus, a sister may feel an unconditional love toward another sister without this agape losing its philial nature. [3. I have developed this concept of unfolded agape at greater detail in a thesis that will eventually be posted online at http://beingpoetry.com ]

Therefore, a philopoiet is a poet, a poiet, that loves creation and creation loves back, in such a way that their work reflects truth by unfolding an implicate (unfolded or unconcealed) agape in all things, the creative love underlying existence.