Performance Art and Shamanism

This site is under construction
 
 
INTRODUCTION 

A shaman is a cultural stereotype.  For sixteenth century Indians he is a medicine man.  For Amazonians living in Brazil he is a half-man, half-spirit ,  a messenger of the gods.  The Greeks had their shamans, humans who were interpreters of signs and signals both from nature and gods.  Soothsayer, fortuneteller, doctor, healer, magician, shaman. 

The pilgrims had Thomas Moore. The Greeks had Socrates.  The Germans had Hitler.  

In our culture, the stereotypical shamanism or guruism is seen in much the same way it has been seen for centuries, as a bridge or insight to things that are unexplainable. 

Empirically we cans sense the shaman and the mysteries float about us. 

But does he exist?   I propose that it doesn’t matter much, if a man calls himself a Shaman the burden of belief is on the believer, or the non-believer.  The Shaman just does his job and shamanism, or magic, does its job. 

So today like so many ages ago we come upon the performance artist.  In New York City today there are hundreds of performance theaters.  They are all interested in technology.  They are all interested in mystifying their audience with any new media that they can hack, create, invent or hybrid.  These performers are shamans.  They offer an interpretation and half-way-point between nature and other. 

It makes sense - many artists frequently use their environment in their work, so it is a natural progression that these video cyber and performance artists would use all of the techno-gadgetry that they can find. 

Most performance artists use this technology while making a commentary on the societal or political dilemmas in our modern technologically advanced world. For example, the white noise that we barely notice anymore, the codes and data that our children swallow every day. 

Does technology hound us or help us?  Is it to our detriment to be mystified by it?  Will there be a generation of people that cease to be mystified? 

Or will there always be magicians, interested in both science and art whose sole determination is to shock the world?