>>> Personal Development Seminars
Lecture
A belief is something that operates in the background. Beliefs are convictions that shape each person’s worldview. They do not rest on a rational or logical foundation; rather, they are always rooted in non-rational elements. Recognising our deepest beliefs and understanding how they operate helps us avoid being mechanically governed by these patterns of thought and feeling. We may discover that some beliefs are useful, others unnecessary, and some even harmful to our lives. Every sphere of relationships, country, culture, social group and family has its own particular beliefs, which are in turn influenced by broader ones. We can therefore examine how individual beliefs operate within a larger structure that we call a Belief System, made up of more general, shared convictions. There are individual, group, local, cultural and historical-period beliefs. Our interest is to analyse and uncover beliefs about art and artists in relation to the period in which they were formed and to the present day.
Seminar
Artists may believe that they are unusual, exceptional, perhaps even superior beings, while others see them as solitary, individualistic, free and tormented by existential concerns. How much of these stereotypes can be traced to deeply rooted beliefs that guide both artists’ behaviour and other people’s attitudes towards them? We believe that the Belief System concerning art and artists that still operates within us needs to be brought up to date. Certain emotional attachments to established patterns of behaviour may actually conceal our inability to adapt to changing times. The seminar begins by analysing the idealistic and Romantic myth of art and the artist, to which we remain strongly attached. We will identify its useless or harmful aspects, which need to change, and its valuable aspects, which deserve to be strengthened.
Seminar topics
Who can attend
For artists who feel the need to question their own Belief System. Maximum participation: 30 people.
Duration
The seminar comprises 16 hours on Saturday and Sunday, plus a two-hour lecture on Friday evening.
Fee
The fee for each seminar is agreed upon with those interested.
Download workshop information sheet (PDF, Italian)
Lecture preview
Il “software” che ci permette di operare
There is no art, nor any form of expression in any field, that is unrelated to a prior interpretation of the world. Every human expression arises from a psychosocial background, from a worldview already established in the mind. This is not a theoretical question but an existential condition from which no human experience is exempt. We call this pre-existing mental framework a Belief System (BS).
The psychological function of beliefs is to provide answers to the difficulties of the world, whether these arise in interpersonal relationships, in our relationship with ourselves, or from our profound ignorance of natural, historical and social phenomena.
A belief is a mental solution that we construct, individually and socially, to fill the absence of answers when confronted with phenomena. It is an effective mechanism of psychological balance. For example, not knowing what moves the stars, I imagine a god of the sky who controls them. In this way I create a belief that explains that reality to me.
When a Belief System generates a comprehensive worldview, we may say that we are dealing with a “culture”. A culture is like an immense archive of beliefs that seek to provide compensatory answers to most external phenomena—natural, historical and social—as well as internal ones, including emotional, psychological and mystical experiences. A culture is therefore rich in stories, myths, folklore, art, laws, rules and norms that seek to explain the complexity of human life, nature and the universe. This is what we mean by “culture”: a comprehensive vision of the world.
Not every Belief System, however, gives rise to a culture. And when a culture declines, it is not always replaced by an equally broad and open view of reality. The dictatorial cultures of history, which claimed to guide people towards happiness, offer examples of this.
So far, an open and respectful Universal Human Culture that values the diversity of human beliefs and ideas has yet to emerge.
We will analyse the Belief System surrounding art and seek to transform our convictions, directing them towards a universal Belief System.