Damian Bannon

Convergence

Posted on 27 April 2009

I  attended  a talk by Professor Lawrence Weschler on April 20th, in the Science Gallery, Trinity College Dublin. I have to confess that I hadn’t heard of him before but was intrigued by the description of a talk about contagious ideas and images.

Prof. Weschler was discussing ideas from his book : Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences. As I understood it, he looks for themes in images that repeat across disciplines and different periods of history. One example was Che Guevara’s body on display and Rembrandt’s anatomy. He talked about the images from Christianity that repeat; crucfixion; madonna and child. Some interesting notes comparing Spiderman movies to these images.

He also writes at http://mcsweeneys.net/ where a convergence contest is hosted. Entrants submit their discoveries for comment and it makes for interesting reading.

I’m not sure how much is making connections fit what you’re looking for in the first place. For example, the popular idea that owners look like their dogs - well, if you go through all the owners for a particular breed you’re bound to find someone that looks close.

But I have an interest in photography and it is intriguing to wonder much my perception of a good photograph a conscious thing, or subconsciously  triggered by previous influences.

More interesting I thought was the historical path that images can take. Prof. Weschler described the notion that Christianity story may have succeeded because it encapsulated many human stories into one. Images have been created over the ages within Christian imagery because they allow portrayal of basic human stories and this has been a vehicle to carry them through history. In modern times, we see the images repeated and having influence because they are so ingrained into history and education. This is not a simple system but has feedback as each new generation interprets and creates new art.

I wonder how the speed and breadth of media availability through the internet and modern broadcast media will influence the spread of these ideas. Will they cause dilution through so many creators of content or the opposite as broadcast media reinforces stronger ideas.