Art Theory
The famous art guide authored by Art Trip
Neo-Post-Tripism
Neo-Post-Tripism is a visual art theory that places present and past life regression as the center of understanding in the use of latent memory to facilitate the creation of art. Postulated and championed by Art Trip, the premise and methods of Neo-Post-Tripism are applicable across a wide variety of the arts. The discipline begins with an understanding of the methods of obscure tantric traditions in their historical context to art in the pre-written historical form with a deep connection to transcendental freedom, out of body experiences and the liberation from cultural constants in global civilization and contemporary cultures. Neo-Post-Tripism requires knowledge of chakra theory, body emulation as well as the techniques and perspective of certain modern day yuppie bobo art sensibilities.
Neo-Post-Tripism is inclusive as well as divisive and combines an interest in ancient visual history, including the documented anthropomorphic archaeology of chimpanzees and certain gorilla cultures hinted at by studies in tropical zones of the Equatorial basins as well as the body-language of falafel makers in Cairo. Neo-Post-Tripism proceeds on the premise that plastic linguistics (as a means to contact and connect with a viewer of art) and the critical theory of interspecies (ie chest thumping, plumage display, etc.) and extraterrestrial communications (ie crop circles, alien abductions, etc) signifies profound religious aspirations and preverbal forays into the fine arts (and to a lesser degree to body shape-shifting).
Neo-Post-Tripism acknowledges a dialectic between its essential reference point of art that is popular (or elitist) and spiritual (or the ‘One True Art’). Neo-Post-Tripism speaks in a post-vernacular, non-verbal visual jargon of contemporary non-hipster languages that value authenticity, experience, and the vocabulary of cultural practitioners. Furthermore, Neo-Post-Tripism theory cannot be displaced by the casual viewing of art in venues such as museums, galleries but must be connected to practice as direct experience.
With that said, an essential quality of Neo-Post-Tripism is that it cannot be transmitted in academic, popular art magazines or commercial art enterprises but must be consumed through immersion in art and the sometimes seemingly anti-social (and lonely) pursuit in artist’s studios (or the kitchen table which sometime doubles as religious altars and shrines). This implies that the artist’s attainment of a level of socialization is not necessarily required by popular (and current) concepts artist self-branding but demands a understanding of the ‘clownization’ of the contempary artist milieu. Neo-Post-Tripism tend to be centered (and the art pieces conceived) around a deep ‘listening state’ inseparable from the associated art experience sometime accomplished by drishti gazing. A working knowledge of a visual art form is not anabsolutely necessary, but highly useful in Neo-PostTripist theory but a dynamic of transpersonal experience combined with real-world artistic practice allows for a hyper reach into direct experience of art as well as a parody for graceful living.
Lastly, Neo-Post-Tripism is activist, in that it seeks not merely to describe the world but to improve it, by applying the corporeal, communicative, and spiritual power of art to contemporary thought and action. Given the historical role of art as elitist discourse, Neo-Post-Tripism also reserves the right to deploy satire and mockery, or more broadly, to celebrate in carnival fashion it’s infinitely varying forms.
NOTE: Neo-Post-Tripism grew out of informal conversations that Art Trip had among advanced ‘swamis” and yoga practitioners in India and Tibet coupled with the life-art didactic that Trip experienced in his art explorations in Paris and New York. Though recently having been associated with a term, Neo-Post-Tripism has nonetheless been practiced by artists in a wide variety of fields throughout history as a central avenue or focus of art investigation.