Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D., Founder and Executive Director of the Integral Cinema Project, started us off with a deep dive into the basic patterns his years of research have revealed and then we opened it up for a deep community exploration of the topic.
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
What Makes a Media Work Integral?
Media Yoga - Media Shaman Studio Event
By means of the [cinematic] machine, in their own likeness, our dreams are projected and objectified. They are industrially fabricated, collectively shared. They come back upon our waking life to mold it, to teach us how to live or not to live. We reabsorb them, socialized, useful, or else they lose themselves in us, we lose ourselves in them. There they are stored ectoplasms, astral bodies that feed off our persons and feed us, archives of soul. (The Cinema, or the Imaginary Man)
Be sure to join us for our live discussion on
Wednesday May 19th at 12pm PT.
FIND OUT MORE HERE
How Consciousness is Embedded in Media
Be sure to join us for our live discussion on
Wednesday April 21st at 12pm PT.
FIND OUT MORE HERE
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IMDb Integral Movie and TV List 2020 Updates
The following are all the movies and television and streaming series that were tested and added to the Integral Movie and TV List on IMDb in 2020 (listed chronologically by release date):
It's a Wonderful Life (1947) - This Frank Capra Christmas classic is also an early stage integral work that maps how the main character George Bailey (James Stewart) evolves from egocentric to Kosmocentric circles of care and concern in a way that shows us how we can evolve through various stages while also holding onto earlier stage drives and projections. In George's case he holds onto his childhood egoic dream of being a world explorer and doing great and big things, all the while not realizing that he was already doing great and big things as he developed throughout his life. A beautiful journey that teaches us that it is often the little things we do in life that end up having the biggest impact in the long run. The film is also told directly from the Kosmocentric witness perspective from the angels watching over him beyond the dimension of the world of form.
Miracle on 34th Street (1947) - The quintessential Santa Claus movie of all time, this Christmas classic is perhaps the most magical Santa movie ever and yet it shows no magic directly. The miracles that Santa brings are miracles of consciousness. He is operating at a higher more integral level than everyone else and is able to see how they are trapped in their worldviews and constructs and he gently awakens them to higher dimensions of being and becoming. He is also very human in many ways, sometimes losing his faith that he can save Christmas, which only adds great depth to the wonderful performance by Edmund Gwenn. At the end we get a hint that this man may indeed be Santa Claus, but we are left with only a sense of standing at the edge of a great Kosmic mystery.
Rashomon (1950) - Profound cinematic masterpiece that puts the viewer in the integral witnessing state of being as the film deconstructs relativism and deconstructionism itself, making the pluralistic structure an object of our awareness and thus helping us to transcend it.
8 1/2 (1963) - Master Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical cinematic masterpiece is actually a deep integrally-informed exploration of the artists struggle to tap into and be a channel for the creative force of the universe. Fellini's main character is a famous filmmaker who is in preproduction of a film while being unable to access that creative force. His dreams help him seek for it in the past, in waking life the dreams bleed through and take him on a surreal creative journey to gaining that Kosmocentric witness perspective that feeds the artist's soul.
Local Hero (1983) - A magical little integrally-informed off-beat comedy that gradually has us feeling that everything we are seeing in this cinematic reality is at the edge of a vast conscious mystery, giving us a gentle and subtle taste of the Kosmocentric realities beyond the veil of what is known. This veil includes the separation between the manmade world we live in and the natural world we are cut off from as well as the great mystery beyond the stars. Amidst all this, our main character evolves from egocentric to the early beginnings of Kosmocentric circles of care and concern in an almost imperceptible way. Everything here is just below and beyond the surface, just beyond our grasp.
Field of Dreams (1989) - This magical film classic explores the healing of shadow material for individuals at various stages of development as they come in contact with the transcendent reality of the Field of Dreams itself. Through this journey we are taken to the edge of what can be known and hints at what is beyond, giving us a taste of the Kosmocentric Integral Witness.
I.Q. (1994) - A sweet little integrally informed romantic comedy that explores Einstein's famous idea that God does not play dice with the universe and applies it to love. The characters and the story subtly dance between our reality and hints of that greater force behind it. This wondrous lightness around such deep and heavy concepts produces a beautiful and sweet and silly Kosmo-centric journey.
50 First Dates (2004) - An evolutionary time-loop Kosmic love story where the narrative actually takes us through different circles of care and concern as the main character evolves through them. So we first start with the world as it evolves around him and his ego...then to a connection with another person, his love interest...who is stuck in her own personal 24 hour time-loop…then to her family...then to the greater community (the others at the brain institute) and finally the world at the end when he takes everyone with him as he does research for the planet and humanity itself. Pretty simple and fun movie that is at its heart essentially integral.
Eli Stone (2008): A funny, profound, deep and light integrally-informed series explores the neurological boundaries between brain and consciousness, between spirit and science, and between madness and mysticism. Eli Stone is also a hybrid genre work that beautifully integrates comedy, drama, and musical forms into a wondrously mystical legal procedural show. In the end this magical yet grounded work climaxes with a deep visceral existential experience of transcending the age old question between fate and free will by revealing a beautiful synergy between them.
Atlanta (2016) - An Integrally-informed series that finds hilarity in the absurd while unpacking the core traumas of being black in America. Creator & star Donald Glover (whose alter-ego Childish Gambino scored with the breakout hit This is America) plays Earn, a young Princeton dropout from a low-income neighborhood who begins to manage his cousin, a locally-famous rapper on the verge of breaking big. Atlanta unpacks how race intersects with every domain of society -- from the personal and interpersonal to the social and systemic -- and does so with a metamodern tone of plangent, loopy surreality.
Kevin (Probably) Saves the World (2017) - Fun off-beat comedy TV series with the main character Keven kicking and screaming his way through an integrally-informed transcendent education process. This process forces him to evolve through multiple stages of development on his way to fulfilling his destiny of saving the world…maybe…
WeRiseUP (2019) - Well-made conscious documentary seeks to empower us to rise to the great challenges we face as a species and meet this moment in history with deep passion. WeRiseUP goes deeper and more expansive than normal works in this genre by anchoring it in an integral framework.
Messiah (2020) - This complex and layered integrally-informed Netflix series unpacks the interrelationship of religion, consciousness, culture and society. This brilliant series seems to be consciously designed to bring more expansive awareness to viewers cross-culturally.
Star Trek: Picard (2020) - The sixth spin-off streaming series in the integrally-informed Star Trek universe is a sequel to the popular Next Generation series and feature films that finds an aging Captain Picard coming out of retirement for one last grand adventure that seeks to complete haunting unanswered questions and story arcs from the Next Generation storyworld.
Homemade (2020) - This Netflix short film series stitches together a bunch of shorts made by a crop of talented international filmmakers making films in and about quarantine. Together these shorts create a mosaic experience of the pandemic across the globe that gives us a sense of a bigger picture just beyond our reach. Truly beautiful, profound and deeply resonant and inspiring...and operating at the frothy edge of a new form of integrally-informed conscious media.
Palm Springs (2020) - An integrally-informed "Groundhog Day" evolutionary time-loop romantic comedy with two…or even three…or more…characters caught in a time-loop that is helping them all heal and evolve.
Tenet (2020) - Christopher Nolan's mind-bending time-twisting groundbreaking integral temporal cinematic work. Part spy movie, time-travel thriller where the future is at war with the present. Bullets going backwards and forward, people die in one time and come back to life in another, people in the past die in the future while people from the future die in the past. A truly wild temporal ride with the protagonist evolving through all the stages of development both in time and all at once. This film also has perhaps the cinema's first temporal war battle scene and becomes a visceral cinematic training in temporal field awareness.
Soul (2020) - A deeply moving, uplifting and transformative Pixar journey into the nature of human existence and the human soul. The main character evolves from an egocentric lost soul unable to see his relationships and the world around him beyond how they either help or hinder the fulfillment of his dreams of success to a Kosmocentric inspired soul, ultimately recognizing the depth and impact of his relationship with others and the world and the full transcendental beauty of all of existence itself. A journey deep into what it means to be human and what it means to be truly alive in all dimensions of sentient beingness.
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The above movies and series have integrally-informed elements to varying degrees according to testing criteria developed during research on the application of Integral Theory to cinematic media theory and practice. According to this research, a cinematic work is deemed to be integral if elements of the integral stage of development are represented in the cinematic form, style, structure, content, and/or are embedded in the material as a presence or atmosphere. These representations of the elements of the integral stage of development can include:
- The exploration and integration of multiple evolving dimensions and perspectives of lesser and greater depth and span;
- The concretion of abstract and interior dimensions and perspectives, such as time and interiority, in the service of evolutionary growth and development;
- An evolutionary story, event, and/or character progression that is given greater than or equal emphasis to conflict resolution, with progression developing vertically through at least three stages or levels of development;
- The evolutionary impulse as a driving force or causality pattern;
- The valuing of truth that is qualified by evolving perspectival fields;
- And/or a Kosmo-centric circle of care and concern that suggests an awareness, integration, and embracing of all of existence.
It should also be noted that the above works have been tested for having integral elements to ANY degree, which means some of these works have more of these elements than other works on the list. In addition, just because a cinematic work has integral elements does not automatically indicate its quality, though it will have elements of a more expansive worldview to some degree.
State of the Mediasphere - November 2020
Featured Topic: The State of the Mediasphere - November 2020
Virtual Discussion date: Sunday, November 15th, 2020 at 12 p.m. PT
The mediasphere is the collective ecology of the world's media. The mediasphere includes social and streaming media along with all dimensions of the Internet including the Dark, Deep and Surface web. It also encompasses interactive and immersive media like video games and VR, as well as more traditional media such as newspapers, journals, television, movies, radio, books, novels, advertising, press releases and publicity.
Join us this month for a special Media Shaman Studio series event with an exploration of the state of the mediasphere during this major transformative moment in human history. With the US election and various other similar challenge points happening at this time across the globe, the world is facing many great unknowns all at once.
Instead of featuring a movie or series for us to review for the month we are asking you to try to observe the mediasphere during this month and see if you can get a sense of what is happening locally and non-locally. Go outside your reality bubbles and try to get as many perspectives as possible of events as they unfold around you. If you are taking our Media Shaman Toolkit mini-course, use the sensemaking techniques we talk about there. Be aware of any stories, events, media expressions or general observations that call to you for further exploration. You are invited to share these at the bottom of this posting in the comment area and/or bring them into our live discussion on Sunday November 15th at 12pm PT.
In the live discussion we will share a perception practice to aid your ability to “read” the mediasphere zeitgeist, along with additional tools and maps to help us make sense of what is happening in the mediasphere. We will discuss how to seek the biggest picture we can and how to discern what the calling is for us in relationship to what is unfolding around us.
We will also be exploring how we can face our individual and collective shadow material that is being reflected in the mediasphere without getting caught in polarization or getting overwhelmed by the darkness we see. We will also explore how to help shepherd us through the Great Transition we are going through by helping to seek a new future unlike the past while also trying to help limit the collateral damage and suffering as the systems of the past necessarily collapse around us.
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Media Shaman Studio is a monthly in-depth public lecture and discussion series on the relationship between consciousness and media with host and facilitator, Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D and Jonathan Steigman. This series is offered for free and is open to all members of the Conscious Good Creators Network, the general public, and participants in our Media Shaman courses.
Media Shaman Toolkit Preview and Panel Discussion (Video Replay)
WATCH THE VIDEO REPLAY
Betsy Chasse assembles an expert panel on how to make sense and develop media literacy in a Post-Truth Age. The discussion makes the case for all filmmakers and content developers to awaken as Media Shamans, to use media to heal and uplift the individual and the collective.
She is joined by: Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. is an independent award-winning filmmaker and the pre-eminent theorist and practitioner of the application of evolutionary metatheories to moving image media. Mark is also the founder and executive director of the Integral Cinema Project.
Jonathan Steigman is a Bay Area activist, filmmaker, magician, communication consultant and independent researcher. Jonathan is also the Director of Communications at the Integral Cinema Project.
Anahita Parseghian is a visionary, strategist, entrepreneur, organizer, somatic trauma therapist, and plant medicine expert. Some of her recent creations include Project OneVoice, Sanity Sanctuary, and Plant Remedy.
Mark DeNicola is a social media strategist that since 2010 has helped clients meet and exceed their online goals, including helping a number of films hit the #1 spot on the US iTunes documentary sales chart.
Interested in becoming a media shaman?
Learn more about the 3 part video course
June 2020 Conscious Movie-of-the-Month
This month’s Conscious Movie-of-the-Month is Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017).
Virtual Discussion date: June 20, 2020 at 1 p.m. PT
During the pandemic we will be focusing on media that can help us during this crisis by lifting our spirits and helping us gain a deeper and more expansive understanding of the challenges around us.
This month we will be exploring Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017), a beautifully simple yet complex integral film that unpacks all the elements around the creation of Winnie the Pooh, and its effects on multiple dimensions of human life and experience. It is the story of an artist trying to elevate the consciousness of all of humanity through his art and how the creative process that unfolded for himself, his loved ones, his country and people all around the world helped to transform them all.
As the story unfolds, Goodbye Christopher Robin examines both the inner psychological aspects and the behavioral aspects of this great creative endeavor, and puts it in the context of the culture and the social systems. So we see how the society is emotionally repressive, how WW I affected the protagonist, how the class (caste) system interacts with the son's upbringing and emotional development, and much more. A key point is that the film is unpacking a Big Picture view and trying to find a higher truth. It's not just a pure Pluralistic film in which everyone's viewpoint is identically valid. It honors that everyone believes their own viewpoint (and inhabits it) but the audience (and some of the characters) can see a larger overview picture by the end.
This work has the potential to give us a deeper understanding of the personal, sociological, psychological and cultural forces at work in the Winnie the Pooh phenomenon and its creation. It also gives us a glimpse of the co-evolutionary process surrounding the impact of a work of art on the individual and the collective and vise versa, including its potential impact on the individual and collective experience of great human challenges like war and the evolution of a culture facing these great challenges.
In times of great challenge, like back then and here and now today, in our moment in time, the artists are called to be midwives of humanity's soul. And this film captures this calling with subtlety and grace.
If you have not seen Goodbye Christopher Robin you can stream it on most of the major streaming services. You can also rent it for free at most public libraries. We recommend watching the film at least twice, the second time with the intention of seeing any patterns of consciousness you had not seen before. You are also invited to share your thoughts, reflections and musings about the movie in our group's online discussion forum. And of course join us on June 20th at 1 p.m. PST for our virtual discussion of the film and how it speaks to us at this moment in human history. As part of our virtual discussion we will be sharing a perception practice specifically designed to use this film for training us in this new emergent consciousness.
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If you have not already joined our FREE Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Group/Club, you can still join us anytime by signing up for a free membership at the Conscious Good Creators Network.
Conscious Good Creators Network presents the Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Club with Integral Cinema Project Founder and Executive Director Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D., for anyone who wants to use media to raise individual and collective consciousness.
March 2020 Conscious Movie-of-the-Month
This month’s Conscious Movie-of-the-Month is Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time (2018).
Virtual Discussion date: March 21, 2020 at 1 pm (PT)
Join us this month as we explore the feature film A Wrinkle in Time, a beautiful, rich and groundbreaking integrally-informed cinematic work that uses an advanced experimental form of storytelling that attempts to integrate and find a synergy between the masculine/agency and feminine/communion patterns of the Hero's and Heroine's Journey.
This is the second film by director Ava DuVernay that we have explored as one of our Movie-of-the-Month selections, the first one being her feature film Selma (2014). DuVernay is at the vanguard of the new conscious media movement in African American Cinema, and in many ways she is leading the way while also acting as a midwife for a whole new generation of deep feeling and thinking integrative African American conscious media makers.
With this multilayered cinematic work, DuVernay attempts to create this synergy between the masculine and feminine styles of communication through the integration of both agency- and communion-centered camerawork, production design and editing. This is combined with a weaving together of an overarching traditional masculine and action-oriented linear story structure with a more feminine and communion-oriented non-linear story telling approach with multi-layered story streams and spiraling evolutionary arcs of both its characters and its story and the structures of consciousness in and around them.
Regrettably this great and noble cinematic experiment falters at the end with a small yet fatal flaw in the story and character lines of development at a peak transition moment. Because of this and the advanced experimental nature of the work, many critics and audience members had trouble deeply connecting with the film. That said, this is still a great cinematic experiment worth seeing and studying.
As always, you are invited to watch A Wrinkle in Time on your own and then join us for our virtual discussion on March 21st at 1pm Pacific Time. If you have not seen the film you can stream it online on most of the main streaming services or get a free rental from your local library. We recommend watching the film at least twice, the second time with the intention of seeing any patterns of consciousness you had not seen before. As always, you are also invited to share your thoughts, reflections and musings about the movie in our group's online discussion forum.
Find out more about our free virtual discussion coming up on March 21st HERE.
Dialogues on the Experience of Divine Guidance Video Interview Series
The Dialogues on the Experience of Divine Guidance video interview series is collection of all the psycho-spiritual teachers that have been interviewed as part of this research study.
This series includes in depth interviews with advanced teachers and mystics from the Shamanic, Judaic, Christian, Sufi and Hindu spiritual traditions as well as advanced teachers from A Course in Miracles and Transpersonal Psychology. Divine guidance techniques were used in the preproduction, production and post-production of these interviews and the researcher used the practices of each of the participants tradition before, during and after each interview. The results of this process included the occurrence of synchronicities in the lives of the researcher and each participant.
Transformative Media Creation and Reception Course
Announcing a new online course in
Transformative Media Creation and Reception:
Designing and Creating Transformative Media Experiences for Self, Other and World
with Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D.
Starting the week of November 3, 2019
This is a course for aspiring and accomplished change makers who want to learn how to use media to extend and deepen their efforts to create transformation in self, other and world. It will illuminate the comprehensive toolkit for designing media to catalyze healing, personal growth and the evolution of consciousness on an individual and collective level.
Together, we will learn about the co-evolutionary relationship between moving-image-based communication mediums, consciousness, media, culture and society, and how these mediums can be used as a driving force for individual and collective healing, growth, and revolutionary and evolutionary change and transformation. We will also be exploring how to consciously create and receive moving image works as a transformative practice for self, other and world through the development of both individual and group projects. No previous media-making experience required.
For more information and to sign up for this course visit:
Admissions: https://campus-coevolve.org/admissions/
October 2019 Conscious Media-of-the-Month
This month’s Conscious Media-of-the-Month is Game of Thrones (2011-2019).
During the month of October we will be having a special exploration of our first television or streaming series, the Emmy Award-winning internationally-acclaimed HBO cable series Game of Thrones. If you have not watched the series or need to review it again for our exploration and you do not have HBO, you can get a 7-day free trial of HBO Now for a quick review or pay for the full month if you are up to the challenge of trying to watch the whole series. You can also subscribe to HBO on both the Hulu and Amazon Prime streaming services.
We have chosen Game of Thrones for this month’s selection because we believe it is a groundbreaking series in the domain of conscious media and contains valuable lessons for conscious media makers and consumers. The series is groundbreaking because it represents the largest scale attempt at capturing a specific stage of human development and consciousness with the intent on taking us deep inside it and ultimately through it to the next human evolutionary stage. Hauntingly, the evolutionary turning point with which the series has ended also has profound resonance with the evolutionary turning point that humanity now faces in our "real" reality.
One of its most valuable lessons for us conscious media makers and consumers is to remind us that conscious media sometimes has to go into the darkness in order to wake us up. It is that intent for waking up that is the heart of conscious media itself. It is also important for us to realize that for media to wake us up or raise our consciousness, it first must meet us where we are at, and sometimes that means going down in the mud of life with us.
We will be posting various explorations of the series over the month and then as always have a live virtual chat about it at the end of the month. Please consider joining us on this profound exploration of a major work that has a lot to teach us about conscious media.
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If you have not already joined our free Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Group/Club, you can still join us anytime by signing up for a free membership at the Conscious Good Creators Network.
Conscious Good Creators Network presents the Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Club with Integral Cinema Project Founder and Executive Director Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D., for anyone who wants to use media to raise individual and collective consciousness.
Hacking "The Great Hack" - A Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Virtual Discussion
Please join us this Monday September 30th at 6:30pm PST for a live FREE virtual discussion of The Great Hack (2019), the recently released Netflix documentary on the Cambridge Analytica election hacking scandal and the role of Facebook in facilitating the mass data gathering that may have contributed to the passage of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.
Together we will explore how this documentary explores the relationship between our consciousness and our evolving media technologies. The Great Hack sounds an alarm that should be heard by all us conscious media makers and consumers. A war is being waged for control of our individual and collective consciousness, with our media, especially social media, being weaponized against us and used to tear our society apart.
We will also be exploring the nature of the new propaganda war on our consciousness and what we can do about it as conscious media consumers and media makers. This important conversation in our community will continue beyond this month’s exploration as we roll out courses to help train ourselves to answer the calling of this moment by using media to raise consciousness. Together, we can help win the battle for the hearts and minds of humanity.
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If you have not already joined our free Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Group/Club, you can still join us anytime by signing up for a free membership at the Conscious Good Creators Network at: https://conscious-good.mn.co/share/wPseacTS1JFJmxu8?utm_source=manual
Conscious Good Creators Network presents the Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Club with Integral Cinema Project Founder and Executive Director Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D., for anyone who wants to use media to raise individual and collective consciousness.
To find out more about this free event and register to attend visit: https://conscious-good.mn.co/events/hacking-the-great-hack-a-conscious-movie-of-the-month-virtual-discussion
The Big Picture of the NOW
Here, by popular request, is Mark Allan Kaplan, media psychologist and founder and Executive Director of the Integral Cinema Project, explaining why "All problems are problems of consciousness" as he unpacks the current global situation: how we got here, why it's unprecedented in world history, and why media in all its evolving forms may be the best and most powerful tool to awaken us into a new paradigm of being.
If you want to take a deeper dive, Mark will be teaching "Transformative Media Creation and Reception" for Campus-Coevolve.org starting in early October, 2019. (I am a Contributing Faculty Member.) To find out more, please visit: https://campus-coevolve.org/course/transformative-media/
You can also join us for our Conscious Movie-of-the-Month discussion group hosted by the Conscious Good Creators Network and stay tuned for our Conscious Media-making certificate program, also at Conscious Good. To find out more about these offerings visit: https://conscious-good.mn.co/
Media Ethics and "The Great Hack" - An Extended Movie-of-the-Month Exploration
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| Brittany Kaiser in The Great Hack (2019) |
We are extending our exploration of "The Great Hack" into this month while we await news about a potential live discussion with the filmmakers. In the meantime we thought we would explore the ethics of media, with particular questions around the issues brought up in this movie and the ethics of conscious media in general, starting with the question: Where is the line for conscious attempts to use media to change people’s minds?
Some people believe that even if you are trying to have a positive impact on your audience, any deliberate attempt to manipulate people’s consciousness is an unethical invasion of privacy.
On the other hand, most artists working in most arts specifically intend to have an impact on their audience.
Many of us in conscious media are attempting to raise peoples consciousness itself, or to raise awareness around certain issues or ideas.
Some of us, myself included, feel called to use the power of media as a force for good, to counter those who are using media in such unscrupulous ways as trying to convince people not to vote, to fan the flames of hatred and division, to deliberately misinform for political ends, or to suppress knowledge or action on global-scale dangers for the sake of short-term financial interests.
The big data driven propaganda machines The Great Hack spotlights are a clear and present danger to democracy itself, and emerging media technologies like “deepfake” videos can accurately create a false visual record of any person saying or doing things they never said or did. We are indeed entering a new frontier.
A war is already being waged for control of our consciousness and behavior, as evidenced in this movie, and the technologies being weaponized against us are evolving rapidly.
How do we combat this...without crossing the line ourselves? The Great Hack eloquently explores the awakening of whistleblower Brittany Kaiser's awareness of having crossed her own ethical boundaries without realizing it. It raises the question: How do we keep awake, aware and ethically grounded in a world of so many blurred lines?
Join our discussion at: https://conscious-good.mn.co/posts/3776892
If you have not already joined our free Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Group/Club, you can still join us anytime by signing up for a free membership at the Conscious Good Creators Network at: https://conscious-good.mn.co/share/wPseacTS1JFJmxu8?utm_source=manual
Conscious Good Creators Network presents the Conscious Movie-of-the-Month Club with Integral Cinema Project Founder and Executive Director Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D., for anyone who wants to use media to raise individual and collective consciousness.
“What the Bleep Do We Know” about Tapping into the Zeitgeist?
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| What the Bleep Do We Know (2004) |
Exploring What the Bleep Do We Know (2004) as this month’s Conscious Movie-of-the-Month selection has made clear that one of the major hallmarks of this work is that it somehow tapped into the zeitgeist, or the spirit of the times. The historical data suggests that a media works’ potential to achieve financial success or major transformative impact is directly related to its relationship to the zeitgeist, or collective field at the time of its release. Even traditional entertainment industry watchers have recognized this issue, as reflected in this Hollywood Reporter article from 2015. This is a wonderful insight, to be sure, but it begs a larger question: Is it possible to create a media work with the intention of connecting with the zeitgeist? Or is this too subtle and complex a connection for us to work with on a conscious and direct level?
Using What the Bleep as a case study I think is valuable for helping us examine this question. What we have learned from the filmmakers William Arntz and Betsy Chasse, and one of the distributors of the film, Ron Laurie, during this month was that they were conscious of it happening on some level at some point during the creation process, and they attempted to ride the wave the best they could in each of their own ways and as a team. Exploring their distribution efforts, we see an example of using an integral approach to consciously tap into the zeitgeist wave and maximize the ride…which they did successfully.
I have been researching this potential to consciously tap into the zeitgeist, or as we say in Integral Theory, tapping into the “evolutionary impulse,” or the driving force of the evolving universe. From this perspective the zeitgeist can be seen as the current collective field within the evolutionary stream of a culture and society. The key to tapping into it is to become conscious of the evolutionary arc behind this wave. Becoming conscious of the evolutionary arc that has led to any given moment in the life of an individual or the collective has the potential to give us the capacity to sense the energy of trajectory of this collective wave, and in turn the evolutionary impulse behind it. While this is a very complex and subtle process our research suggests it is indeed possible to consciously tap into the zeitgeist and evolutionary impulse, and thus increase our chances of both audience reach and transformative impact.
To learn more about this process and how you can ride the zeitgeist wave yourself, be sure to join Trina Wyatt, myself and special guest, What the Bleep co-creator, Betsy Chasse for our live virtual chat on Wednesday June 26th at 6 pm PST.
Conscious Media-Making Course
Conscious Good Creators Network presents an introductory course in Consciousness Media-Making with Integral Cinema Project Founder and Executive Director Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. for anyone who wants to use media to raise individual and collective consciousness.
About the Course
In this introductory course we will explore what is conscious media-making, what are some of the different potential forms of conscious media-making, and how different states and stages of consciousness effect the media-making process. We will also be exploring how these structures of consciousness within us are communicated between us, the works we create and the individuals and collectives that experience our works…and how this knowledge can be used to create deeper and more transformative media experiences for creators and viewers on the individual and collective levels.About the Instructor
Mark Allan Kaplan, Ph.D. is an award-winning filmmaker, transdisciplinary artist and media psychologist and researcher, and founder and executive director of the Integral Cinema Project. As an artist and media-maker Mark has been exploring conscious art and media since childhood, attempting to use these creative mediums to help himself transcend his own communication challenges of being a severe childhood stutterer and find his "voice" and use that voice to help raise the consciousness of himself, others and the world. He is considered by many to be one of the pioneers in the conscious and transpersonal media movements and is the world's leading researcher and theorist in the application of Integral Theory to the cinematic arts. For more on Mark visit his website www.markallankaplan.com, and for my on the Integral Cinema Project visit www.integralcinema.com.Details:
- Date: Sunday February 24, 2019
- Time: 12pm to 1:15pm PST
- Cost: Free (requires free membership to the network)
- Host: Conscious Good Creators Network
About Conscious Good Creators Network
Conscious Good Creators Network is a community-driven media platform for visual storytellers dedicated to raising consciousness. Conscious Good launched the Creators’ Network as a place where conscious creators and audiences can connect. It’s a place to interact with fellow conscious media tribe members, share resources, ideas and support one another.SIGN UP FOR THE NETWORK AND THE COURSE
2018 Integral Movie and TV List Update
So here are this last year's additions to the IMDb Integral Movie and TV List of cinematic works that tested positive for elements of the Integral structure of consciousness by the Integral Cinema Project. Some of these are new works released in 2018 and some are older works that have been rediscovered as integral gems from the past. For the complete list of Integral movies and series check out the full list at: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls074613980/
IMDb INTEGRAL MOVIE AND TV LIST UPDATES 2018
Wrinkle in Time (2018; Now On Demand and Disk) - Wrinkle in Time is a beautiful, rich and groundbreaking integrally-informed cinematic work that uses an advanced form of feminine-communion storytelling in its use of communion-centered editorial, camerawork and production design and its nonlinear spiraling evolutionary arc of both its characters and its story. In this multilayered work the shots and cuts are focused less on the action and more on deep and layered emotions, inner promptings and catharses, as the characters and story streams move the characters and us the viewer through various stages of development that evolve through a series of cycles back in and through each stage several times, peeling away different forms and levels of challenges in those stages that ultimately lead to deep yet subtle evolutionary growth. Regrettably this great work falters at the end with a small yet fatal flaw in the story and character lines of development at a peak transition moment. Still a great work worth seeing.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018; Netflix) - This feature length episode of the groundbreaking integral series from Netflix breaks even more new ground by integrating the interactivity between multiple storyworld streams and the viewer/player experience as we are given choices in how the story unfolds in real time. The integration of story, character and viewer experience even includes the main character starting to act like they can feel us the viewer manipulating their life. The multi-layered complex interconnections between the on-screen storyworld and the viewer/player reality produces a potentially profound experience of deep integral aperspectival awareness in us as we watch and play along. This integration leads us and the main character into intellectually, emotionally and existentially questioning essential aspects of free will, choice and the nature of reality, and potentially shifting us into the integral-Kosmocentric witness state in search of the "big picture" of existence.
Altered Carbon (2018; Netflix) - This Netflix original series explores the question of what part does death play in the evolution of consciousness, culture and society by transporting us to a sci-fi world where death has been eliminated by using technology to digitize consciousness and transfer to other bodies (sleeves). In the first season we see how the absence of death messes with the spiral of development in ways that causes us to potentially loose our humanity while increasing class divides and losing the gravity that draws us toward healthy growth and development and the evolutionary impulse itself.
Childhood's End (2015; Syfy) - A flawed Syfy cable mini-series adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's classic integral evolutionary science fiction novel that struggles to find its footing while still imparting the essential evolutionary trajectory of the original work. Even though it lacks the heart and spirit of the original story, one cannot help but feel the power of Clarke's universe and the tale of how the human race will ultimately transcend its limits (with a little help from some other worldly friends) and evolve into a Kosmo-centric species. There is also some of the wonderful archetypal power of the original's transcendent use of the demon/devil archetype.
Selma (2014; On Demand and Disk) - Selma is a multi-dimensional and multi-perspectival cinematic exploration of an event in the life of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. that reveals the various individual and collective forces that moved all sides of this profound political moment in American history. During this exploration, Dr. King is revealed to be both a flawed human being on the personal relationship level and a masterful integral thinker with the capacity to see a greater depth and span in the events around him than those around him could see.
Andromeda (2000-2005; Syfy) - A brilliant, integrally-informed science fiction universe and series based on some unused material by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. This wonderful little series has a progressively unfolding Kosmocentric center-of-gravity at the center of a hybrid mythic, rational and pluralistic storyworld that includes a wondrously simple yet complex exploration of the involution and evolution of consciousness, and an expanded perceptual field of sentient life and all its potential variations of beingness and becoming. Special thanks to Mark Le Sueur for bringing this work to our attention.
Star Trek Universe (1966-Present; Various) - Starting with the original Star Trek television series in 1966, through many itinerations up to the current Star Trek: Discovery streaming series, the Star Trek universe has given us a cinematic example of what an Integral moral universe would look like. With its evolutionary-aware Prime Directive and its trans-species post-Capitalist worldview, the Star Trek franchise has been planting integral consciousness seeds for over 50 years. While the episodes of the original series and the many spin-off series and the various theatrical itineration's vary in terms of just how integral they are in form and content, the center of gravity of the Star Trek universe is decidedly integral and evolutionary in heart and spirit, with the most recent works starting with the Star Trek (2009) theatrical reboot up to the current Star Trek: Discovery streaming series becoming much more integral across all expressive domains. Special thanks to Corey W. DeVos and Cindy Wigglesworth for their major contribution to an integral understanding of this profoundly influential cinematic franchise; be sure to check out their work on the Star Trek universe at IntegralLife.com.
Andrei Tarkovsky's Collected Works (1962-1986; Russia; On Demand and on Disk) - One of this year’s major research breakthroughs was the completion of our testing of the major cinematic works of Russian filmmaker and theorist Andrei Tarkovsky. What we discovered was that Tarkovsky's unique cinematic style, which he calls "sculpting in time," pervades all of his major works and is a masterful integrally-informed capturing of experiential reality. With long simple yet complex poetically choreographed shots that allow for a multi-layed unfolding of each successive cinematic moment, along with subtle shifts between narrative, visual, auditory, and temporal dimensions of individual and collective interior and exterior realities, Tarkovsky miraculously appears to be capturing and expressing a lived experiential reality in a profoundly visceral way. In addition, he seems to have a masterful capacity to capture and orchestrate gross, subtle and causal cinematic energies to create potential transcendental experiences and deep witnessing states in the viewer. With the addition of Tarkovsky's films into the integral cinema historical/evolutionary timeline we can see the deep impact his work has had on the evolution of integral cinema in particular and world cinema in general. The works included in this analysis are: Ivan's Childhood (1962); Andrei Rublev (1966); Solaris (1972); The Mirror (1975); Stalker (1979); Nostalghia (1983); and The Sacrifice (1986). Special thanks to Eugene Pustoshkin for bringing Tarkovsky to our attention and for sharing his deep knowledge of this integral cinema master and his work. For more on the Energetic Lens see Integral Cinema Studio (Kaplan, 2012)
La Jetée (1962; France; On Demand and Disk) - An avant-garde short using all still images to explore the nature of time, memory, dreams, human nature, the impermanence of the world of form and the evolution of self, culture and world, and in the end touches on the Kosmocentric witness at the edge of life and death.
Wild Strawberries (1957; Sweden; On Demand and Disk) - Ingmar Bergman's deeply reflective film explores the evolution of one man's life through memories, dreams, interactions and self-reflections. Through this process Bergman shows us how generational patterns imprison us and cause evolutionary regression, and how becoming a witness to these greater evolutionary and de-evolutionary patterns can awaken us and help us evolve further.
The Razor's Edge (1946; On Demand and Disk) - Adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's classic tale of a young man in search of the meaning of existence and his evolutionary journey toward a higher and deeper level of being and becoming.
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As you can see this has been a groundbreaking year for integral cinema with several works going beyond what has been done before in terms of integral cinematic expression and storytelling. In addition, the discovery of several important integral works from the past has given us a much clearer sense of the evolution of the embedding of the integral structure of consciousness in the moving image medium. In a strange way it seems that as our everyday reality is facing profound evolutionary challenges we are given a banner year of moving image works that help us expand and deepen our evolutionary awareness. Perhaps the collective evolutionary impulse is sending us a message...
Media Literacy for a Post-Truth Age
Announcing the release of "Media Literacy for a Post-Truth Age," an Integral Cinema Project presentation to the Carey Institute for Global Good outlining an integrally-informed approach to media literacy designed to help people discern what is the truth in this age of fake news, reality bubbles and invisible propaganda networks.
This approach has been developed from an integration of the some of the most recent understandings and advances in the fields of communication theory, propaganda theory and practice, media psychology, human perception research, and Integral, complexity and systems theories. Topics covered include identifying truth frames, discerning types of truth, sorting truth by spotting propaganda framing techniques, and a set of practices for good media literacy hygiene in the post-truth age.
Media Literacy for a Post-Truth Age: An Integrally-Informed Approach to Media Literacy for Media Consumers and Makers from Integral Cinema Project
My Transformative Creative Expression Experiment
I have been asked by several people what the origin and intentions are behind my most recent works of art.
Both the origins and intentions are multi-layered. In terms of origin, the deep origin of my current and past creative work is and always has been connected to my becoming a stutterer as a young child and using art as a means of communicating without words. In essence, my creative work became my voice.
The more specific "origin" of my more recent stream of creative works began back in April 2017 when I decided to do an experiment of creating a work of art every day for 45 days. The goal was to see if I could deepen my self-owning of identifying myself as "being an artist"...something that I have struggled with for most of my life. The 45-day time-frame was from the book Habits of a Happy Brain by Loretta Graziano Breuning. In the book Breuning explores how it takes 45 days of repeating a pattern (activity, behavior pattern, for instance) for it to begin to feel natural due to the laying down of the neural pathways for the pattern within the brain.
As part of the experiment I also recorded a video journal every day where I explored and reflected on my process. I used video journaling to see if I could learn to feel more natural in front of the camera. As a stutterer I have always had some degree of discomfort using my voice...especially on camera.
During my experiment I created at least one drawing per day, these being meditative mandalas and abstract forms arising from different states of consciousness. I also found myself animating some of my drawings, showing the various stages of creation and setting them to meditative music and sound in what I call art-in-motion videos. Somehow my process evolved to include a deepening, expansion and integration of my varied research interests into a daily "lived inquiry" practice. These research interests include exploring transformative approaches to art and media, the experience of inner guidance and the nature of consciousness itself.
My experiment was so successful for me that I kept doing a work of art every day long after the 45 day period (until my tablet died in October 2017), for a total of 188 days. During the process I found that doing a creative work every day fed my soul, gave me boundless joy and energy, and became a form of therapy and healing for me. The work evolved into a deep integrally-informed, psycho-spiritual-political creative practice that did indeed deepen my self-identity as an artist. My video journaling appeared to expand my process and helped me feel more comfortable and natural using my verbal "voice" both on- and off-camera. The integration of these practices with my research interests created a vibrant daily existence that filled my being with purpose and joy.
As part of my new creative lived-inquiry practice I would start by meditating and trying to connect with the evolutionary impulse or what Jean Gebser referred to as the inner commission that guides our individual and collective evolution. I would then attempt to follow that guidance through my daily explorations of art making and lived inquiry. Through this work I have come to deeply feel and believe that every problem in our lives and the world is a problem of consciousness and our individual and collective development. Because of this my deep intention for my creative and lived inquiry work has become the healing and elevation of my own consciousness and that of the world.
During my experiment, I viscerally discovered three distinct creative guided-inquiry states where I became immersed in what seemed to be either a stream-, field- or arc-of-consciousness and these appeared to be connected to my experience of being, belonging and becoming…
- BEING or beingness is our Self in the moment; it is who we are when we are being fully present, fully aware and fully who we are in the NOW, in the fluid NOW, for the NOW is any given moment within the STREAM of individual and collective consciousness.
- BELONGING is our beingness in relation to the beingness of others and the world. It is our awareness of our interconnectedness with that which appears to be outside of ourselves in various relational and spatial FIELDs of consciousness.
- BECOMING is our evolutionary journey; it is our awareness of the whole stream and its place within the ocean of streams. It is where we have been, where we are, and where we are going along our own individual arc of consciousness and within the greater collective evolutionary ARC of humanity.
If you are interested in delving deeper into my 45 day experiment you can check out my Lived Inquiry Video Journal on my YouTube Channel...
If you check out the intro and day 45 journals you can get a pretty good idea of the intentions and the results.
I also created a video of all 45 works of art during the 45 day experiment, which can be found on my YouTube Channel...
And for those who want to check out all 188 works of art you can find them on my Tumblr blog or Instagram feed.
If you are touched by my work and would like a print of one of my pieces check out my Artpal page for print options. If you cannot find the piece you want on Artpal, you can contact me directly at arcofconsciousness@gmail.com and I will make it available for purchase on Artpal for you.
And finally I would like to express my deep gratitude for Mr. Lietso, my 7th grade science teacher, who threatened to haunt me after he died if I did not live my life as an artist; to Jill Mellick, who taught me how to use art for personal and collective transformation; to James Fadiman for teaching me about transpersonal and transformative storytelling; to Ken Wilber and Michael Schwartz for inspiring me to explore an integral approach to art and media; to fellow integral artist Jimmy Lusero for re-awakening the artist in me after years of creative slumber; to dear friend Jonathan Steigman and my amazing sister Mardi who gave me shelter while I did this experiment; and to all my friends, family members, colleagues and strangers who bore witness to my journey and gave me their wondrous words, likes and emoji’s of affirmation along the way.
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