For the past few weeks, my practice has explored ways of how love and interrelationships could be affected by this modern day and age (including AI, augmented reality, etc). However, I also keep coming back to the old and historic perspective of this side of things.
As an extension to my work from last semester titled Do you speak the universal language (2019), I continue to dig deeper into the different interpretations of love in different cultures. In particular, I have read quite a bit about the 8 types of love that the Ancient Greeks narrowed life into. These are Agape, Eros, Philia, Storge, Philautia, Ludus, Pragma & Mania. Discovering more on what each of this mean have made me asked myself a very interesting question:
Maybe that's why we put so much pressure and responsibility into the idea of love because there is so much complexity that we are trying to fit into just one word?
Hence, I've decided to make a text work based solely into these words, what they could mean, and how much weight they each hold. My aim for this work is for people to further understand the different types of love there is and the often misconception between:
"Person A loved Person C more than they could Person B"
when in reality it actually means: "Person A loved Person C differently than Person B"
It wasn’t a stronger or weaker kind of love, it was just different.
I haven't finalised this work yet as I still need to paint them but I've edited both colour ideas that I had in mind in the mockups below:
In addition to this, a couple of books that I also started looking at in regards to this work (and hopefully future works) are:
Symposium - A philosophical text by Plato (c. 385-370)
- “According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”
- “Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.”
- “According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.”
A Plea for Eros - A collection of essays by author Siri Hustvedt (2006).
