DiscordArtE wanted to start this week by reflecting on something as simple and complex as the colour White.
In the digital world, every minute of every day, immense amounts of information and images are produced, which, in one way or another, affect us in our daily lives. In this explosion of messages, a moment of complete and utter whiteness is out of place. However, at the same time, it intrigues us. It strikes something in the depths of our being that makes us stop.
«The sound of white is like a silence whose meaning is suddenly understood. It is a youthful nothingness, or, more exactly, a nothingness prior to the beginning, to birth. So perhaps the earth resounded in the white periods of the ice age.»
Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910
Simple white, without frills and embroidery, encapsulates many meanings, some of them are contrasting, but it’s also a signifier of important concepts. Therefore, it seems to best represent the moment in which we find ourselves.
In everyone’s mind, white is now the colour of the dove of peace. That peace has never been fully achieved in the world and has now shattered even within Europe, upsetting us.
At this time, when we are all concerned about the news coming out of Ukraine, which continues to shake us to our core, white can also be identified as stasis. The inability to take concrete action in this disastrous situation that war defines. We are constantly receiving conflicting and incomplete information, which leads to a feeling of confusion and misunderstanding. This plunges us into a moment of prolonged white suspension from any possibility of action because we cannot understand and cannot act.
«White acts on our psyche as a great silence, which for us is absolute. It has an inner sound which is in reality an absence of sound and corresponds quite well to the pauses which in music only temporarily interrupt the development of a phrase or content and are not its definitive conclusion. It is a silence that is not dead, but rich in possibilities.»
Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910
For those who start something, no matter if it is a shopping list, a graffiti, a school essay, a card for a loved one, the next post to be published on social networks, a project, a book, a work of art or an article, the elusive moment when you are in front of the page, the canvas, the paper or the immaculate white support, is always suggestive. The moment when you are about to do something always stirs new energy in us.
The white instant, in which our willpower has not yet been fulfilled, identifies the phase in which we concentrate, to retrieve all the information we need to realise our idea, and in which we take the time to think, to be able to reflect on all the possibilities we can consider and which will lead us to make a choice.
These periods are not considered useful in this hectic world but a waste of time in which nothing is being produced, nothing is being communicated. Going into the current hectic world, it does not seem very wrong to think in the same way. Nevertheless, I can assure you that it is in those precious moments of calmness that great ideas come to create.
Going more down to earth?
If you don’t collect your ideas before making your shopping list, you risk running out of milk.
«White, of which it is often claimed that it is not a true colour (particularly because of the Impressionists, who see “no white in nature”‘), is like a symbol of a world in which all colours, as material properties and substances, have disappeared. This world is so far above us that we cannot perceive any sound of it. Beyond it comes a great silence which, materially represented, presents itself to us as a cold, insurmountable, indestructible wall, stretching on forever.»
Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910
White is the wall in front of my desk. In the post-covid world, with smart-working and the expansion of internet use to include everyday tasks such as shopping or buying clothes, the computer’s backlit screen is increasingly the centre around which our lives revolve. Information, the voices of colleagues, images from social networks, videos of presentations and, often, even the faces of people we love and want to be close to in some way but cannot physically approach, everything passes throw that device.
So, I find myself staring at this white wall at the beginning and end of the day. A concrete, physical, stable element, illuminated only by sunlight or a light bulb, always there, always the same.
And for a moment, it is silence and breathing.
Breathing is necessary to live and to stay conscious in your body.
Often, I find myself breathing in and out very deeply after a busy day. The ability to release tension through breathing helps to clear the mind when overloaded.
White breathing is that technique that brings the mind to purify itself from the chaos it is immersed in. Finding calmness in one’s mind is a way of clarifying and clearing, thus trying to shed a little more light on one’s world.
White is light. In fact, it is the colour of sunlight. Its characteristic is that it contains all colours. In physical terms, white light has a broad spectrum, extending from one end of the visible radiation range to the other. White, therefore, contains within itself all the possibilities of vision which, at a later stage, are identified in the colours we are able to perceive.
Therefore, the White Moments will be a way for us to describe our moments of breathing, of silence. The experiences and events that have impressed us most in our everyday lives are told differently and slightly looser than the ones we use for reviews.
We at DiscordArte want to start from now on with renewed energy without losing sight of the goals we have set for ourselves, but creating Moments of White in which all the potential of the possibility is contained.
Iniziando da ora, vorremo invitarti a condividere con noi i tuoi momenti bianchi perché chissà… più momenti bianchi in questo mondo, forse, aiuterebbero a fare un po’ di chiarezza…
Starting now, we would like to invite you to share your white moments with us because who knows … more white moments in this world, perhaps, would help to clarify …
What do you think?
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Who inspired us?
Discover them yourself!
Music
Bianco.Stasi – Abum by CinquiNA >> Listen to it on Spotify
Book
Bianco è l’istante (White is the moment) – book by Angelo Lumelli >> you will find it on Edizioni del Verri, Milano
Project
LEgGICI – La letteratura Cipriota parla Italiano (read us – Cypriot Literature Speaks Italian) – a project by Constantina Mavrou >> learn more at LEgGICI.com
Blog
DJED MEDU – Blog di Egittologia di Mattia Mancini >> leggi di più djedmedu.wordpress.com
Blog
DJED MEDU – Mattia Mancini’s Egyptology Blog >> read more djedmedu.wordpress.com
Sito
AYR – La forza del respiro primordiale di Cristian Kiran Drake >> soddisfa la tua curiosità ayrland.it
Website
AYR – La forza del respiro primordial (AYR – The power of primordial breath) by Cristian Kiran Drake >> satisfy your curiosity ayrland.co.uk
Follow your curiosity!
DiscordArtE 
Una risposta a "WHITE… so what?"