Join Quinn on Wednesday evening (September 4, 2024, at 1700 MST) for a talk with Dr. Sheldon Solomon, author of The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Quinn and Sheldon will talk about how artists differ in their response to death anxiety. What can an artist do to harness this powerful psychological phenomenon? Can the knowledge of our impending deaths make us more creative?
The Studio Q Show LIVE! August 31, 2024
Engaging with Themes of Mortality
"Camera Lucida" by Roland Barthes
Join Quinn for a discussion on how artists can explore themes of mortality. The conversation will reference Roland Barthes' book Camera Lucida, which delves into the relationship between photography and death. The wet collodion process, commonly used in 19th-century postmortem photography, is particularly suited to these themes due to its unique aesthetic. Barthes' insights on photography and its connection to death will serve as a central point in this discussion.
"Camera Lucida" is a profound meditation on photography, but it also deeply engages with themes of mortality. Barthes reflects on the nature of photographs as they relate to the passage of time, memory, and death.
Saturday, August 31, 2024, at 1000 MST
Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/ukhsywxuis
You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/live/SMZ_L8Zrx8I?si=fnfegB_v7KChp_19
You can read Camera Lucida here: CAMERA LUCIDA by ROLAND BARTHES
The Studio Q Show LIVE! August 10, 2024 at 1000 MST
Join Quinn to discuss Sheldon Solomon's video on bigotry, “Conversations with Solomon.” How can we use this for making art? What inspiration does this provide for creative and expressive work? Moreover, how is this connected the fear of mortality?
“Because cultural conceptions of reality keep a lid on mortal dread, acknowledging the legitimacy of beliefs contrary to our own unleashes the very terror those beliefs serve to quell. So we must parry the threat by derogating and dehumanizing those with alternative views of life, by forcing them to adopt our beliefs and co-opting aspects of their cultures into our own, or by obliterating them entirely.”
― Sheldon Solomon, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life
The Studio Q Show LIVE! August 3, 2024 at 1000 MST
Join Quinn on Saturday, August 3, 2024, for an hour and explore the relationship between creative and non-creative people and how they cope with mortality. Quinn will cover some of Ernest Becker's thoughts on Otto Rank's breakdown of how artists manage their anxiety about death.
Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/rdy5fe8ipy
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/FPPpLUQFz7U?si=uJZIftVEZFMVHzHs
The Studio Q Show LIVE! July 27, 2024 at 1000 MST Part 3
THE CREATIVE ANIMAL??
This week, Quinn will continue the series on The Creative Mind and Mortality, Part 3."This will address artist's unique perspectives on why they create art and the struggles they face in light of existential dread or mortality.
What does it mean to have a "creative practice"?
How does creating art help with the fear of death?
Do creative people process existential terror differently? If so, how?
Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death" and Otto Rank's book "Art and Artist."
Stream Yard (LIVE): https://streamyard.com/jc28hrjyd2
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/VeLDm2Xv2K0?si=nUy1SRxfR75J481P
“Phrenology” - Whole Plate Black Glass Ambrotype - Viernheim, Germany 2009
A Very Fine Line: Narcissism and Self-Esteem Boosting
Every time I start to write about narcissism and self-esteem, some wires get crossed and confusion sets in, and I try to wriggle my way out of explaining the difference between the two. There is a very fine line between the two, and it’s very difficult to explain the nuances.
Self-esteem is very important for psychological security. You need it; every human being does. But what is self-esteem? Most people think that it’s feeling good about yourself. And that’s true, but it plays a much bigger role than that.
Ernest Becker said that self-esteem is as important as food to a human being. That’s quite a statement, but I think it’s true. Self-esteem boils down to a very basic need: having meaning and significance in a world that values you. Most of the time, our culture provides ways that we can bolster our self-esteem. Getting a degree, accomplishing important things at your job, raising a family, or belonging to a certain religion or political group. Even joining in with the fans of a specific sports team. All of those cultural constructs can give us the framework for boosting our self-esteem and making us feel like we’re significant in a meaningful world. That’s what we’re after (psychologically speaking), whether we’re aware of it or not, and most aren’t.
There are plenty of harmful ways we try to find that comfort, too. Ernest Becker articulated some of the malignant traits of pursuing this; he called it, “tranquilizing with the trivial.” These activities include shopping, social media, drinking, drugging, etc. These are all ways humans “turn off” (or try to) the constant gnawing of mortality. Most of the time, we try to work within our cultural worldview and boost our self-esteem by following what’s appropriate and accepted in our culture. If our culture doesn’t provide obtainable ways to bolster our self-esteem, we'll resort to tranquilizing with the trivial, or worse.
I just read an article about America's declining IQ. It’s called “Our Falling IQ Shows in the Polls” by Sabrina Haake. You can read the article here. I can’t help but see that social media has played a big role in this, among many other things (see article). I’m worried about this country. These are not new concerns; they are just more present and potent than before. And I can’t help but tie all of this back to Becker’s theories and Solomon’s empirical evidence about death anxiety and terror management theory. It’s so easy for me to see the correlation and causation. Some food for thought.
On another note: I’ve been editing my book like crazy for a few days. I try to get some editing time in every day. It’s exciting to see it get closer and closer to becoming a real, published book! I know there won’t be very many people interested in it, but for those that are, I hope you’ll find it potent and thought-provoking.
Flight From Death: The Quest For Immortality
This is a great interview. The interviewer talks to the writer of “Flight from Death.” Ernest Becker and the Denial of Death (there are two parts and hopefully a third coming out soon).
“Sacred Trees” - 2022; Whole Plate - Platinum/Palladium Print from a wet collodion negative.
On Quinn Jacobson's work "In the Shadow of Sun Mountain (Tava Kaavi): The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil:" It's a poignant reflection on the historical and psychological dimensions of land ownership, colonization, and the human experience of mortality.
Jacobson's exploration of the unconscious denial of death and its connection to historical atrocities is thought-provoking. By linking these themes to the specific landscape and history of the Rocky Mountains, where he resides, he brings a personal and localized perspective to broader existential questions.
The integration of ideas from cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker and social psychologist Sheldon Solomon adds depth to Jacobson's exploration of mortality salience and existential anxiety. It's fascinating to see how these psychological theories intersect with historical and geographical contexts in his artistic practice.
Sunrise over the Organ Mountains - Las Cruces, New Mexico May 8, 2024 at 0640.
The Word "Terror" in Terror Management Theory (TMT) - Is It A Problem?
In "terror management theory," the word "terror" is used more abstractly, referring to the existential dread or fear of mortality that humans experience. It's not necessarily about immediate danger or physical threats, but rather the anxiety and discomfort associated with the awareness of our own mortality. So, while it may not align perfectly with the common usage of "terror," it's used to convey the profound psychological unease that comes with confronting the reality of death.
Recently, I was talking to someone about death anxiety and terror management theory and my interests and art (book) surrounding these topics. The conversation was fairly straightforward. In the end, they didn’t care for the word “terror” in “terror management theory.” They implied that it was a poor choice of words and that it was too much—a kind of turn-off. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to me, but this time I wanted to defend it. I had to think about it for a while but came up with the first paragraph of the post about the word terror in TMT.
“Imagine you’re afraid of dying. Terror management theory says we deal with this fear by holding onto beliefs and values that give our lives meaning, like religion or cultural traditions, and by boosting our self-esteem. Basically, we distract ourselves from the scary thought of death by focusing on things that make us feel good about ourselves and our place in the world.”
Terror is defined as “a state of intense or overwhelming fear.” I’m not sure about you, but that’s a pretty good definition for the way I feel about my death (slowly trying to come to terms with it). We all feel terrified about dying. Specifically, we want to be remembered, and we want our lives to have meant something (personal significance). We are worried about those we leave behind, or that our lives didn’t really mean much while we were here. Those are very difficult ideas to assimilate and accommodate. We need to find meaning and significance, and if we’re lucky enough to find those, we need to hold onto them and reinforce them in our lives every day. We feel this way because we are humans and we have the unique knowledge that we are going to die.
“In the City of Crosses” - April 27, 2024
Agreed Madness
It’s our “one month” anniversary today. We’ve been in New Mexico for 30 days, and man, time has whizzed by!!
Between unpacking boxes and running household errands, I’ve been slowly getting back on track to work on my book. I get excited about the thought of actually completing this work. It’s no longer a hope or dream; it’s close to becoming a reality.
“Man literally drives himself into a blind obliviousness with social games, psychological tricks, and personal preoccupations so far removed from the reality of his situation that they are forms of madness—agreed madness, shared madness, disguised and dignified madness, but madness all the same.”
These theories seem simple on the surface, but it takes some deep thinking and evaluation to really understand them and, moreover, to apply them to your life. My hope is that by sharing these ideas and concepts in a book, it will inspire people (especially artists) to engage with these theories and start to share them through their art.
I wrote a while ago about someone asking me if there was a movement in art around “death anxiety.” In other words, Becker’s and Solomon's (et al.) theories could form an entire art movement based on the theories dealing with death anxiety and terror management. This is what happened in existential psychology. There are people working on PhDs in terror management theory and have been for years; why not art? Not unlike impressionism, cubism, dada, etc.
In a lot of ways, all art does address these ideas, but rarely intentionally or consciously. It’s food for thought and a wonderful way to get people to engage with these ideas.
Importance of Creativity
"Both the artist and the neurotic bite off more than they can chew, but the artist spews it back out again and chews it over in an objectified way, as an external, active, work project. The neurotic can’t marshal this creative response embodied in a specific work, and so he chokes on his introversions.
The only way to work on perfection is in the form of an objective work that is fully under your control and is perfectible in some real ways. Either you eat up yourself and others around you, trying for perfection; or you objectify that imperfection in a work, on which you then unleash your creative powers. In this sense, some kind of objective creativity is the only answer man has to the problem of life.
The creative person becomes, in art, literature, and religion, the mediator of natural terror and the indicator of a new way to triumph over it. He reveals the darkness and the dread of the human condition and fabricates a new symbolic transcendence over it. This has been the function of the creative deviant from the shamans through Shakespeare.
Otto Rank asked why the artist so often avoids clinical neurosis when he is so much a candidate for it because of his vivid imagination, his openness to the finest and broadest aspects of experience, and his isolation from the cultural world-view that satisfies everyone else. The answer is that he takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it, he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art. The neurotic is precisely the one who cannot create." Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
“Big Changes,” 3.75” x 5” acrylic, charcoal, newsprint (mixed media).
Radical Mindfulness Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital
This is a book by Dr. James Rowe that I would recommend reading if you want to understand what I’m trying to address through my artwork and my life in general (my interests). He is addressing Ernest Becker’s theories and terror management directly. I’ve never seen anyone write about the results of death anxiety applied to politics and modern and historical problems directly. My book will address these theories in detail, but I’ve made it personal. I’ve explained how the theories have driven me both creatively and psychologically.
Radical Mindfulness examines the root causes of injustice, asking why inequalities along the lines of race, class, gender, and species continue to exist. Specifically, Dr. James K. Rowe examines fear of death as a root cause of systemic inequalities and proposes a more embodied approach to social change as a solution.
Collecting insights from powerful thinkers across multiple traditions—including black radicals, Indigenous resurgence theorists, terror management theorists, and Buddhist feminists—Rowe argues for the political importance of seemingly apolitical practices such as meditation and ritual. These tactics are insufficient on their own, but when included in social movements fighting structural injustices, mind-body practices can start to transform the embodied fears that give supremacist ideologies endless fuel while remaining unaffected by most political actors.
Radical Mindfulness is for academics, activists, and individuals who want to overcome supremacy of all kinds but are struggling to understand and develop methods for attacking it at its roots.