Moments in art, life, and chaos | İdil Yankı Kürten | TEDxUniversityCollegeRoosevelt

Key Concepts:

• Consciousness and Awareness: Personalized filters through which individuals experience the world.
• Internal Consciousness: The mind experiencing itself, often associated with creativity and introspection.
• External Consciousness: The mind experiencing the outside world, often perceived as chaotic and overwhelming.
• Personalized Filters: The unique way each individual processes and interprets experiences.
• Focus: A concentrated state of mind, represented as a focal point in the artwork.

Internal Consciousness Artwork

• Representation: Depicts the dynamic internal process of the brain realizing itself, akin to the brain seeing its reflection.
• Creation Process: Created without external references to eliminate interference and allow for a subconscious unfolding of the painting.
• Background Tiles: Colorful, stacked tiles symbolize accumulated knowledge and information.
• Swirly Lines: Represent emotions, thoughts, and ideas interacting within the mind.
• Blue Circular Lines: Resemble nerve cells, connecting to the theme of consciousness.
• Focal Point: A condensed and fertile area representing focus, the ability to direct attention when deeply engaged in an activity.

External Consciousness Artwork

• Representation: Depicts the speaker in the middle, surrounded by a chaotic environment, representing the overwhelming nature of the outside world.
• Color Palette: Uses serene colors like blue for the speaker and contrasting, sharp colors for the environment.
• Sharp Edges and Wire-like Figures: Symbolize the feeling of restlessness and being torn by the external world.
• Crown-like Figure: Represents the senses as primary sources of interaction with the outside world, highlighted with shiny material to emphasize their importance.
• Muddy Colors: Illustrate the unclear and often interrupted interaction between the individual and the external environment.
• Suppressed Focus: The focal point from the internal consciousness painting is present but encapsulated and suppressed by the environment, showing the difficulty of maintaining focus in the external world.
• Collision Sites: Represent chaotic interactions with the outside world, surprisingly resulting in harmonious color interactions, symbolizing the raw state of being alive.

Consciousness and Awareness as Bendable and Resilient

• Realization: The speaker realized that consciousness and awareness are bendable and can withstand external stimuli.
• Nature of Consciousness: The project allowed the speaker to understand the actual nature of consciousness and awareness.
• Pain of Interaction: Interacting with the outside world can be painful, but it allows for experiencing serenity when alone and creating.
• Internal vs. External: Internal consciousness brings peace, while external consciousness allows for bringing that peace forward.

Notable Quotes:

• "I like to think of them as a sort of built in filter that is personalized to everyone." (Referring to consciousness and awareness)
• "It’s very it’s like a subconscious act, and sometimes it feels like I'm watching the painting unfold in front of me." (Describing the creative process of painting the internal consciousness)
• "...the interaction between me and the external environment is never really clear. There’s always an interruption, always something, interfering with what I want to perceive." (Explaining the muddy colors in the external consciousness painting)
• "...this pain of interacting with the outside world. At the end of the day, is what allows me to feel this serenity, when I am alone and drawing so that internal consciousness brings me the peace and the external allows me to bring it forward." (Concluding thought on the relationship between internal and external consciousness)

Synthesis/Conclusion:

The speaker uses art to explore the concepts of internal and external consciousness. The internal consciousness is depicted as a dynamic, self-aware process, while the external consciousness is portrayed as a chaotic and overwhelming interaction with the outside world. The speaker concludes that understanding these two aspects of consciousness allows for a deeper appreciation of both the peace found in introspection and the ability to bring that peace into the world. The artwork serves as a visual representation of these complex mental processes and the speaker's personal experience of navigating them.