“LIKE ECHOES OR MOONLIGHT”: AFTER THE VIDEO, AN HAIGA COMPOSITION

Susan Kahn verses with Roberto Alborghetti art

The fields of earth and sky

Are like echoes or moonlight

Reflecting the sun

I campi di terra e cielo

Come echi o luna

Riflessi del sole

From videoclip to haiga composition. “Like echoes or moonlight” is another step of my collaboration with psychotherapist and poet Susan Kahn. We had previously collaborated on a music video (“Like Echoes… Like Lacer/actions”). Now, in a different kind of espression, but fusing again Susan’s words with my artwork – an image of torn posters and urban signs – we present an haiga: a combination of haiku and visual art. So enjoy this visual which gathers Susan Kahn poetry and my art ( “Voices and Echoes From The Cities”, 2011, Canvas+ mixed media, 70×50). As happened in the videoclip (below the links) inspiring words from the world meet an image of ripped ads and urban signs.

VIDEOCLIP LINKS

http://animoto.com/play/oVfBh5Ao1WMYbwgjjIPBhQ

http://youtu.be/LXcLuw1XkWE

http://vodpod.com/watch/16031097-like-echoes-like-laceractions?u=robertoalborghetti&c=robertoalborghetti

http://blip.tv/laceractions-lacerazioni/like-echoes-like-lacer-actions-5931611

FROM HAIKU TO HAIGA

Haiga is a style of Japanese painting based on the aesthetics of haikai, from which haiku poetry derives, which often accompanied such poems in a single piece. Like the poetic forms it accompanied, haiga was based on simple, yet often profound, observations of the everyday world. Stephen Addiss points out that “since they are both created with the same brush and ink, adding an image to a haiku poem was… a natural activity.”

Just as haiku often internally juxtapose two images, haiga may also contain a juxtaposition between the haiku itself and the art work. The art work does not necessarily directly represent the images presented in the haiku. Stylistically, haiga vary widely based on the preferences and training of the individual painter, but generally show influences of formal Kanō school painting, minimalist Zen painting, and Ōtsu-e, while sharing much of the aesthetic attitudes of the nanga tradition. Some were reproduced as woodblock prints. The subjects painted likewise vary widely, but are generally elements mentioned in the calligraphy, or poetic images which add meaning or depth to that expressed by the poem.

ABOUT SUSAN KAHN

http://emptinesscafe.wordpress.com/

http://www.emptinessteachings.com/Emptiness.html

Susan says: “I work as a psychotherapist in private practice and as a nondual consultant. Nondual means not two, not separate. My teaching, writings and poetry reﬂect a way of seeing everything as interrelated, interconnected and as lacking a truly separate essence or nature. In Buddhism, this lack of “own being” is referred to as emptiness. This perspective is reflected in western Postmodern philosophy as well. It is the notion of a fundamentally separate self and all other phenomena that is seen in both traditions as the main cause of human suffering and conﬂict, and that I find to be an inspirational insight.

ABOUT ROBERTO ALBORGHETTI

https://robertoalborghetti.wordpress.com/

www.artslant.com/ew/artists/show/134694-roberto-alborghetti

www.youtube.com/user/lacerazioni

Professional reporter, author and visual artist, Roberto Alborghetti has written more than thirty books (biographies, interviews, stories). He worked in magazines and newspapers and produced Tv documentaries. Editor in chief of magazines concerning didactic, education, edutainment and media literacy, he leads workshops and conferences and has won important journalism Prizes. He created “LaceR/Actions”, a multidisciplinary project concerning a research about torn posters and urban “signs”. In 2009, he published “Lacer/actions, Pics of torn (publi)city”, gathering a selection of 40 pictures chosen among 35.000 pics that Roberto took during his research. In July 2010, thirty thousand people visited his show “The Four Elements of LaceR/Actions”. Roberto Alborghetti artworks are also taking part to experiences about sensorial and emotional perception (sinestesys) and kinesiologic tests. In October 2011, he participated at Parallax Art Fair in London (La Galleria, Royal Opera Arcade, Pall Mall). “The Huffington Post” (September 2011) wrote about his artwork devoted to Nine Eleven Fallen; article by dr. Srini Pillay, Psychiatrist, Harvard clinician, brain imaging researcher, executive coach, author. Art critics and experts said that Roberto Alborghetti’s art has an “exceptional and evocative dynamic”, “a strong power of language”; it shows “new points of observation that overwhelm canonical trial systems”, “breaking the current patterns of visual art.” Alborghetti’s Artworks “are explosions of color, passion, joy, sorrow, story, emotion, beauty, love…”, “They touch us on the raw and go straight to the heart”, ” a provocation to our eyes and to our mind”.