W I N TER 2018 P ROCESS PERSPECTIVES PAGE 1 ISSN 0360-618x VOLUME 40 NUMBER 1 PROCESS WINTER 2018 ...A RELATIONAL WORLDVIEW FOR THE PERSPECTIVES COMMON GOOD NEWS MAGAZINE OF THE CENTER FOR PROCESS STUDIES PPrroocceessss AArrtt ((44)) "PREHENSION" POSTER (10) THE SPIRITUAL ALPHABET (12) CONFERENCES (14) SEMINARS (21) INTERCONNECTIONS (24) PAGE 2 P ROCESS PERSPECTIVES W I N TER 2018 Process Perspectives CONTENTS The Newsmagazine of the Center for Feature Articles Process Studies ...a relational worldview for the common good. CPS and EcoCiv at the Parliament of World Religions 3 Volume 40.1 Art as Process: Process as Art 4 Winter 2018 "Prehension" Poster 10 Editor The Spiritual Alphabet: "B" is for Beauty 12 Katie Cloward Smith Published by the Center for Process Studies Events,Conferences & Seminars 1325 North College Avenue Claremont, CA 91711-3154 Nature in Process: Novel Approaches to Science and Metaphysics 14 Real Spirituality for Your Church Online Conference 16 Print Subscription Rates Green Transition Toward Ecological Civilization: 17 USA: $25 A Korea-US Dialogue Elsewhere: $30 US Funds Only AAR Review 19 For information on membership call: Whitehead Revealed: Examining Whitehead’s First Year of 20 (909) 447-2533 Harvard Lectures Or visit our website: ctr4process.org Counter-imperial Churching for a Planetary Gospel 21 Email: [email protected] Cobb, Neville and the Riddle of God 21 An Informal Lecture and Conversation with John B. Cobb, Jr. 22 Co-Directors: Philip Clayton John B. Cobb, Jr. Monica A. Coleman Interconnections Roland Faber David Ray Griffin Greater Arkansas Interfaith Network 24 Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki John Cobb in China 2017 24 Executive Director: Wm. Andrew Schwartz Affiliations: CPS is a faculty center of Featured Works in Process Thought Claremont School of Theology Featured Works 28 in association with Claremont Graduate University From the Center Announcements 30 Calendar 30 W I N TER 2018 P ROCESS PERSPECTIVES PAGE 3 EcoCiv for Eco-Justice at the Parliament of the World’s Religions By Kenzie Simpson coCiv will be helping to organize the Justice Track at the EcoCiv plans to show the intimate connection between Parliament of World Religions in Toronto, November 1–7, ecological civilization and eco-justice, as global catastrophe will E2018. The Parliament is the largest interfaith gathering in the world, have the greatest impact on those who are least responsible for it. with over 10,000 people expected to attend. It is imperative that marginalized groups be included, as they will Through the Justice Track, EcoCiv will bring together be most impacted by ecological collapse. Without their voices, a interreligious organizations that are working at both the grassroots full vision of an ecological, just civilization cannot be formed. and policy levels. EcoCiv sees both groups as vital to large-scale EcoCiv is working to create scholarships for groups and individuals change: Grassroots efforts (EcoCiv calls them ecological laboratories, who would otherwise never be able to attend to tell their story, i.e. “EcoLabs”) are making tremendous contributions to our connect with others, and generate action. To support the scholarship understanding of what is possible, but they need support on a program, contact Kenzie Simpson, Director of Development and broader level. Policy makers have the potential to enact broader Partner Relations, at [email protected]. change but need both concrete experience and vision to steer The Justice Track at the Parliament of the World’s Religions policy toward long-term impact. EcoCiv plans to partner with is one of many international events EcoCiv is helping to organize. both of these groups, as well as visionary religious leaders, in order To learn more or to sign up for the EcoCiv newsletter, visit the to create civilizational change. website at www.ecociv.org. ♦ EcoCiv will be responsible for organizing the Justice Assembly as well as sessions and workshops. EcoCiv’s goal is to create concrete, sustained action worldwide on issues related to eco- justice. In order to meet this goal, EcoCiv will organize sessions along a five-day continuum, from grounding the issue on days one and two, to interconnecting justice issues on day three, to a hopeful imagining of the future on day four, to a clear action plan for change on day five. Already, EcoCiv is hosting small consultations with experts to develop a cross-sector, secular and religious understanding of justice issues, with food justice being the first. These consultations are geared toward arriving at actions that can be shared at the Parliament. *Information and registration for EcoCiv is currently seeking session proposals for the Justice the Parliament of World Reli- Track that are interreligious or multi-religious, stray from the gions in Toronto can be found at academic paper model, and have an obvious commitment to justice parliamentofreligions.org. Early and the creation of a sustainable society. EcoCiv hopes to offer Bird registration fees are avail- sessions that inspire participants to act on what they learn, that able until February 28, 2018. foster engagement with the world and its guiding institutions, and that give participants tools and skills for developing specific initiatives that will continue beyond the Parliament. Questions about proposals can be directed to Megan Anderson, Director of Programming, at [email protected]. PAGE 4 P ROCESS PERSPECTIVES W I N TER 2018 Art as Process:Process as Art "PO"—An interactive art installation using painting and sensor technology to exhibit a process rather than a result. The art project I present here evolved from a discussion about By Sinan von Stietencron the nature of an artwork back in late 2009 with my friend and fellow art student Robert Weissenbacher , who is now an aspiring The series "PO"—short for Process Ontology—is the title of an ongoing series painter in the German art scene. We both studied at the Munich of concept works by the German artist and philosopher Sinan von Stietencron. Academy of Fine Arts in a class dedicated to interdisciplinary The interactive works mix traditional artistic techniques and modern technology research. While most other classes focused on mainly one artistic in order to create processual artworks which question traditional means of technique, our class included performance, photography, sculpture, producing and presenting art. painting, installation, conceptual and media art. Around the same time I began to immerse myself deeper into process philosophy As a freelance artist doing my doctorate thesis in philosophy and about a year later started writing my first book on a Whiteheadian on the subject of process metaphysics, many of my works are theory of education and philosophical practice. inspired or even direct consequences of philosophical reflection. The question "What is an artwork?" can be understood on Art allows us to reflect upon ideas in a mode void of the often two fundamentally different levels. The common understanding hindering verbal expression. By transposing an idea into an artwork refers to a theoretical understanding of art. It inquires the difference we gain access to a more playful, subtle, and intuitive form of between art and its underlying craft—such as carving or drawing—as inquiry, which nonetheless demands logic and coherence. Philosophy well as the mystical qualities of its creator, the artist. It discusses and art are two complementary forms of human expression which criteria which can turn something—a urinal, a carved stone, an presuppose, but often also exclude, each other. It seems Whitehead apparently random act—into a unique and auratic piece of art. had a similar polar understanding of both when he used them to Even though this article is not the place to elaborate this characterize the term culture: understanding much further, for the readers familiar with the "Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty problem I would like to mention that the following project takes and humane feeling. [...] What we should aim at producing is a stance in this discussion somewhere between Arthur C. Danto's men who possess both culture and expert knowledge in some remarks on the viewers role, Friedrich Schiller‘s anthropological special direction. Their expert knowledge will give them the idea of aesthetic play and, most visibly perhaps, Walter Benjamin’s ground to start from, and their culture will lead them as deep problem of the technical reproducibility of art. as philosophy and as high as art." Unfortunately our studies featured little reflection upon the theoretical concepts behind the term art. Instead the variety of artistic techniques used in our class eventually revealed a more subtle understanding of the question "What is an artwork?" In a rather ontological approach it questions the adequacy of technique when contrasted with the subject. How to, or even why, paint a painting of a flowing stream when a dance performance would probably do more justice to the lively nature of the subject. Or shoot a video about restrictive bureaucracy when an extensive room installation might evoke a more authentic feeling of it? When W I N TER 2018 P ROCESS PERSPECTIVES PAGE 5 Exhibit visitors interact with a distance-sensor to move through hundreds of frames recreating the original creation process. The first exhibition was a projection in a dark room, later versions experi- mented with alternate approaches in new settings. Every visitor created a new, unique series of pictures, which often had little to do with the finished painting. looked at from a more general perspective, most of fine art is a trace of a process of perception, conceptualization, and creation. The exhibited result shows the final status of a series of changes on an object. It remains obscured to the viewer why the artist chose to stop here, which elements where excluded, cut off or covered up. Classical artwork, therefore, is generally a moment, embalmed and at best conserved for eternity.