Opening

Just as in Art as Gestation of the Public Sphera, this new edition of the SPHERA project, Spherical Journeys: On the Earth as within the Light, opens with a musical allegory: The Conference of the Birds. This is the title of a cult album — on vinyl, of course — recorded by the David Holland Quartet and released by ECM in 1973. Featuring Anthony Braxton and Sam Rivers on woodwinds, the quartet was completed by Barry Altschul on percussion and its leader, David Holland, on double bass. 

You can listen to its homonym track here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYTIXJuxvgY 

The Conference of the Birds which inspired the theme composed by David Holland, is a reference to a Persian text written by Farid-ud-Din Attar, a Sufi master of the twelfth century, which is now adopted as a kind of "conceptual metaphor" for the present edition.

A conceptual metaphor, because, like the birds then, humans realize now that they live divided and lost, and the spherical journey formed by the encounter of artistic and theoretical essays we now present, is a contribution to open a path of light and silence, in harmony with the whole, which is capable of federating us, instead of fracturing us.

That was then the purpose of Attar's initiatory tale, as we now describe.

The Conference of the Birds

Written in the twelfth century by the great Sufi master Farid ud-Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds is one of the masterpieces of spiritual literature. Beneath the appearance of a tale in which all the birds of the world gather to choose a sovereign, the poem unfolds as an allegory of the human soul's journey towards self-knowledge and union with the Absolute.

One day, the birds become aware that they live scattered and divided, without a true centre or guiding purpose. They assemble in search of a king who might give meaning to their existence. It is the Hoopoe, the wise bird and herald of hidden mysteries, who reveals that their rightful sovereign is the Simurgh, a radiant being dwelling beyond the mountains of Qaf, in a realm that can only be reached by those willing to undergo a profound inner transformation.

Each bird answers the summons according to the nature of its own attachments. The Nightingale cannot forsake the Rose, held captive by the fleeting beauty of earthly love. The Parrot longs only for immortality. The Peacock mourns the loss of Paradise and dreams of recovering its former splendour without enduring the trials of purification. The Falcon prefers the company of earthly kings to the invisible King. The Duck, the Partridge, the Owl and many others reveal, each in its own way, a fear, a desire or an illusion that prevents them from setting out. Patiently, the Hoopoe answers every objection, showing that every obstacle is, in truth, a veil woven by the ego itself.

Despite their doubts, a company of birds resolves to undertake the journey. To reach the Simurgh they must cross the Seven Valleys, each representing a stage in the soul's ascent. The first is the Valley of the Quest, where the longing for a truth greater than all certainties is awakened. It is followed by the Valley of Love, where reason yields to the consuming fire of the heart. Then comes the Valley of Knowledge, in which each traveller discovers that true understanding grows only in proportion to one's own inner transformation.

The path continues through the Valley of Detachment, where ambition, possession and worldly distinction gradually fall away. Beyond lies the Valley of Unity, where all multiplicity begins to dissolve into a single reality. The pilgrims then enter the Valley of Bewilderment, where the mystery becomes so vast that thought itself falls silent before the ineffable. Finally, they arrive at the Valley of Poverty and Annihilation, where nothing remains of pride or individual identity, only a transparent stillness capable of receiving the presence of the Absolute.

Along the way, most of the birds succumb to exhaustion, fear or temptation. Some turn back, while others were forever lost. In the end, only thirty reach the final destination, stripped of everything they once believed themselves to be, as Attar describes:

Now the Sun celestial began to shine forth in front of them, and lo! how great was their surprise! In the reflection of their faces these thirty birds of the earth behold the face of the Celestial Simurgh. When they cast furtive glances towards the Simurgh, they perceived that the Simurgh was no other than those self-same thirty birds. In utter bewilderment they lost their wits and wondered whether they were their own selves or whether they had been transformed into the Simurgh. Then, to themselves they turned their eyes, and wonder of wonders, those self-same birds seemed to be one Simurgh! (Attar, 1924, p. 117)

So, the King they were after, had always dwelt in the depths of themselves. In Persian, si morgh means precisely "thirty birds". The one they sought from the beginning revealed Himself as the spiritual unity of those who had gone through all the trials and let their separate selves die.

It is in this revelation that Attar's work culminates. The outer journey becomes an inner journey; the search for God becomes the discovery of the profound identity between the lover and the Beloved, between the seeker and the Sought. The Simurgh is not just a mythical being. It is the symbol of the unique reality that remains hidden beneath the multiplicity of beings.

So, at the very end of the tale, Attar concludes:

Thereupon the birds lost themselves for ever in the Simurgh. The shade thus vanished in the Sun. Neither the traveller remained, nor the guide, nor the path. Finding the Simurgh they found themselves and the riddle of I and You was solved. (Attar, 1924, p. 118)

Presentation

Conceived as a continuation of the previous phase of the SPHERA project – now revealed as the acronym for SPiritual HEritage Research Area – this new cycle of original works brings together artworks and theoretical essays, each created independently yet inspired by a common theme. Its purpose is to extend the gaze, apprehend the vision, and gather both sensory and intelligible impressions of the sphere of the natural world.

Developed under the title Theatre of Apparitions within the framework of academic and scientific research, this process gave rise to the founding metaphor that enabled a deeper understanding of contemporary aesthetic and creative experience. As a purely intuitive and sensitive, yet consciously guided, process of gestation, this second phase of SPHERA emerged almost inevitably as a natural development of the first: a ripple spreading from the original stone cast into the pond.

Problematics

Whenever we speak of nature, the body or matter, we are necessarily also speaking of culture. For nature, the body and matter, even before they become objects of reflection, already belong to the realm of culture. They are not merely things to be thought about; they are, from the very outset, conceptual realities and, at the same time, ways of seeing – perspectives through which the world is disclosed. Every understanding of them arises from a particular angle of vision, one point of view among many others that remain equally possible.

If the body is animate and matter inert, then nature encompasses them both within the unity of life. Or rather, within Life itself – or, to express it substantively, within the living. Minerals nourish plants, and plants sustain animals. Just as flowers blossom and fruit ripens in the vegetal kingdom, so, in the animal kingdom, the psyche unfolds and consciousness flowers within it: the awakening through which the world first comes to be understood as a world. It is the emergence of an awareness that bears witness to spatial extension and temporal succession, both intrinsic to the shared condition of being and existing.

There is, therefore, no world without such a gaze. The grey, barren and seemingly inert Moon, even after its hidden face has been revealed, even after it has been visited by human beings, and even after it has become a repository of technology and a symbol of power, has lost none of its poetry or enchantment. And this is so because there is a gaze. An enchanted gaze, and therefore one that enchants. For wherever there is a gaze, there is also feeling and meaning – a mode of being in which the horizons of experience always exceed the objects experienced. They transcend them because they establish them as more than mere things. Indeed, things can never be only things. If there are things at all, it is because there is a gaze that constitutes them as things, conferring upon them identity and significance. That gaze is already something more than their mere existence.

Yet there is more than the gaze that recognises presence. There is also a second gaze – an ontological one – that turns upon the first, observing both its presence and its function. The first gaze is formative because it gives shape, and shape is the primary condition of meaning. Beyond it stands the ontological gaze, directed not immediately towards the world but towards this primordial act of formation itself. It is this second gaze that apprehends and distils the great enigma: the miracle of being, the wonder that there is something rather than nothing. The miracle of being is the prodigy of creation – a gift of the spirit, an act of pure emanation, or, if one prefers, of pure spiritual self-giving. It is an inexhaustible generosity, endlessly enriching, paradoxically timeless, even as it reveals itself in the fleeting instant.

Portuguese is one of the few languages that distinguishes between ser and estar. If ser expresses a mode of being that endures, unfolds and transforms itself despite the erosions of time, while estar denotes a temporary state, exposed to decline and dissolution, then Portuguese liberates being from every fixed condition. It understands life as the continual emanation of ser and the perpetual overcoming of estar – that is, as a process of spiritually inspired creation. In a single word, as genesis. And gestation.

It is our conviction that this ontological gaze upon the natural sphera must be recovered – or rather, renewed. It is, as far as possible, a redemptive gaze. How do we perceive the natural sphera? As the place where things simply exist? As an extension of ourselves? As the frame within which events unfold? As a backdrop for human intervention? Or, ultimately, as a partner in a shared enterprise? Do we perceive it as a Voice? And if it is indeed a voice that calls to us, are we still capable of hearing it?

We must also ask whether the natural sphera can continue to assert this ontological perspective in an age increasingly governed by scientific explanation. Can science itself accommodate the kind of knowledge that belongs to being as such? A profoundly telluric, animal, mystical and cosmic intuition seems to whisper that to be a tree, a leaf, a river, a stream or a breeze is infinitely more than merely existing. Seen through the ontological gaze, these are not simply identifiable objects; they become manifestations of being itself. Can the formative gaze – conditioned by the very forms it has produced—come to dominate the ontological gaze, even though the latter both deepens and completes the former? And if it cannot extinguish it altogether, can it nevertheless distort it by dismissing it as merely subjective, dreamlike or fictitious, reducing it to an awkward metaphysical aberration? By associating the ontological gaze with the intangible, the arbitrary or the irrational, does not the formative gaze ultimately usurp its place and function, banishing it to the deepest recesses of the unconscious, exiling it to the Hades of instinct and drive?

The formative gaze, when it remains confined to things themselves, may gradually become a repressive and punitive gaze, particularly towards the ontological gaze that scrutinises and questions it. It is precisely because the latter unsettles its certainties that it provokes resistance. The formative gaze seeks to occupy the whole field of vision, reducing reality to what is merely visible, to whatever falls within the limits of the perceptible spectrum.

Yet its consequences extend beyond the suppression of the ontological gaze, which perceives things as more than mere things. By objectifying the natural sphera, the formative gaze simultaneously impoverishes it. If the dreamlike imagination anthropomorphises nature, projecting onto it human—or even divine—qualities, at times to the point of delirium, the objectifying gaze moves in the opposite direction: it diminishes nature, reducing it to a collection of measurable data, to quantifiable information, to what Rudolf Steiner would have called the Ahrimanic reign of number.

The ontological gaze, however, is neither isolated nor defenceless. It possesses an intrinsic sovereignty, for the vision that animates and illuminates it is none other than the vision proper to art itself. It is the genetic gaze: the gaze open to creation, and available only through the creative act.

It is with this gaze that we propose to journey through the Sphera—the sphera of creation. We have often said that what matters is to open the eyes that lie closed within our open eyes. For eyes are truly open only when they open themselves to creation. Within time, nothing is definitive; nothing is ever repeated. The only repetition conceivable is that of the creative impulse which, by its very nature, abolishes repetition. We ourselves are that movement: the undulation, the serpent, the spiral, the cornucopia, the shell.

It is precisely this irreducible absence of repetition that enables us to restate, now as an affirmation, the question with which we concluded the presentation of the previous project:

The idea of a spiritual Sphera, governed by the Abellian principle of universal interdependence and inspired by the imperative to live artistically, points towards a utopian yet tangible horizon: the highest of all arts—the art of imagining society itself as a work of art, spiritually brought into being in common!

In this world, trees think, mountains sing, and rivers whisper. Only art can hear them, and only art can truly see them.

Through the Theatre of Apparitions (!)

José Guilherme Abreu (CITAR)

Mário Caeiro (LIDA)

Theatre of Apparitions

THE PRACTICES OF ASTONISHMENT IN THE SPATIAL CONFIGURATION OF THE COMMON

Looking at the present time implies recognising a disturbing symptom: a society driven by techno-scientific utopianism seeks to obliterate and forget forms of vulnerability and finitude. Dealing with this condition, which is denied and relegated to the margins, calls us to open up new dimensions of inclusivity, if we listen to the call to integrate the new and the different. Art has always known how to open up space for this to be seen – our common exposure to the fragility of existence.

The Theatre of Apparitions is a research project informed by contemporary artistic creation. Its aim is to reveal some configurations of this shared space opened up by the creation of the place of the totally other as an apparition, i.e., as a destabilising event and insurrection – a term to which Georges Didi-Huberman gave renewed meaning – creating the human (being). The aim will be to create and recreate the conditions for welcoming manifestations of wonder – recovering the broad meaning of the Greek thaumazein – and their relational intensities, shedding light on the emerging cartographies of the common, in a series of multidisciplinary cultural initiatives capable of revealing this shifting horizon where uncertainty and confidence, discovery and recognition are mixed.

The aim will be to reveal the constellation of the encounter between the now and the past, which brought out the critical energy of the dialectical images that Walter Benjamin spoke of. By summoning the being and knowledge of the different agents of the imagination, we will seek to undertake innovative readings of the multiple bridges and connections that can be established between the arts, sciences and humanities. For we must make wonder the first – and most original – relational technology.

Spherical Journeys 

On the earth, as within the light