Transforming our ways of seeing the world

[Michael Grove]

"As our new century unfolds, IT IS becoming increasingly apparent that the major problems of our time - whether economic, social, environmental, technological or political - are systemic problems that cannot be solved within the current fragmented and reductionist framework of our academic disciplines and social institutions. We need a radical shift in our perceptions, thinking, and values."

                                                                                                                         Fritjof Capra

IMAGINATION alone can give us a VISION of the FUTURE

Global Vision Foundation is an international public interest non-profit

tax-exempt organisation founded by the Irish information-artist 

Michael O'Callaghan in Geneva, Switzerland. We aim to catalyse the

emergent global civil society consensus for system change, for as

Confucius said... "when people share a common goal, their natural

tendency is to co-operate in realising it." 

We think this requires a trans-disciplinary, cognitive, artistic approach

to the global crisis. We are interested in the psycho-social process of

world-view transformation, the politics of perception, and the creation

of contexts of information or situations that focus attention on the

pattern that connects global problems and solutions to each other and

to our own ways of seeing them and discussing them.

This "outside the box" strategy is informed by 43 years' engagement

with a trans-disciplinary network of Nobel laureates, United Nations

agencies, NGOs, universities, institutes, scientists, leading thinkers and

artists around the world. 

The Global Vision Foundation released this for New Year's Day 2015.

They shot it with the IVth Dalai Lama in late 1999, just before the

dawn of the new millennium. Topics include war, military budgets,

non-violence, mutual trust, the environment, personal responsibility,

corporate social responsibility, religious pluralism, and secular ethics.

context • information-arts • philosophy • 

resources • inspiration • about the artist 

.

[Michael Grove]

"The myth of power, is of course, a very powerful myth; and probably most people in this world more or less believe in it... But it is still epistemological lunacy and leads inevitably to all sorts of disaster... To want control is the pathology! Not that a person can get control, because of course you never do... Man is only a part of larger systems, and the part can never control the whole"

The Global Vision project was greatly inspired by Gregory Bateson, the late anthropologist, biological philosopher, and author of Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, and Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. Bateson developed Systems Theory and Cybernetics to investigate the self-organising aspects of biological and social systems, and he showed how most of the threats to our survival and well-being are the direct result of misguided attempts to apply linear control to biological and social systems whose mode of organisation is essentially non-linear.

He may yet be regarded as the most important thinker of the 20th century.

[Michael Grove]

The Global Simulation Workshop is a dynamic and innovative learning tool for academic, community, and professional organizations. A direct descendant of Buckminster Fuller’s famous World Game™, the Global Simulation Workshop is an interactive game that builds critical skills, social bonds, and global awareness.

[Michael Grove]

Global Vision: FEATURE FILM

"This film is an artistic attempt to focus the viewer's attention on the process of his own perception, and evoke the pattern that connects the world situation to one's own way of seeing it."

Michael O'Callaghan

The Global Vision movie is an impressionistic musical feature film conceived as a collective self-portrait of Humankind and the biosphere – a concept without precedent in art or motion picture history. It will also be the first feature film to be collectively designed by its own audience on the web.

The content will form a mythopoeic sales pitch for a sustainable civilisation, and an artistic attempt to express our human identity at the dawn of the global age, in an inspiring way that is meaningful for the global public. Looking at the pattern that connects humankind, the biosphere, technology, and the collective unconscious, the film is also a metaphor about the connection between the world situation and one's own way of seeing.

Now in development for theatrical release. 

[Michael Grove]

AS the Dalai Lama has himself proposed in the section of his millennium broadcast entitled ... Religious Pluralism - "unfortunately one cause of conflict, in the past as well as even today, is different religious traditions. In spite of our involvement with material development we still need spirituality and regardless of the differences between religious beliefs [at the source of conflict], the common  theme IS the PRACTICE of love, compassion and forgiveness. These different philosophies and presentations of decent human values       are very necessary, because we need a variety of religious traditions,  [to coalesce] an awareness of the message of these common values, which will provide the basis for establishing the harmony of mutual respect and understanding. The idea of pluralism is coming to enable a more compassionate humanity."

[Michael Grove]

Equally the Dalai Lama concludes in the section of his millennium broadcast entitled ...

Secular Ethics - "We also need another kind of spirituality, without a particular religious belief, which simply calls on the human values of, [a] sense of being with one another, [a] sense of sharing with one another and [a] sense of responsibility of BEING part of HUMANITY; [BEING] on our shoulders. Pray, praying and meditation have some some effect but very limited; so that much depends on our ACT / ACTION/S, so therefore the [fact that the] future of humanity completely relies on [a] sense of responsibility and [a] sense of commitment; IS VERY IMPORTANT and that which [provides] another form of spirituality ... Secular Ethics, which is very necessary because we can't survive without basic human value.

   

[Michael Grove]

I well remember having a conversation some years ago, with my soul-mate Linnie's brother in Switzerland, about the action which the Swiss Government were engaged in to track the "stickability" of ICE & SNOW on the mountainsides around the family retreat in La Forclaz, in view of the fact that [IT] had already been calculated that the amount of ICE-WATER FLOW into the Rhone, would eventually make its way to Lake Geneva and result in the very extensive flooding Geneva [IT]self; {SO] as you can well imagine this event in Italy does not come as a surprise.

[Michael Grove]

Invertebrates living in the cool meltwater rivers of the European Alps could lose most of their habitat and disappear, as the mountain range’s glaciers melt at an unprecedented rate due to climate change, according to a study.

Although they are often overlooked, these animals are crucial for alpine ecosystems. Researchers focused on the mountain range of the Alps and collated data from 30 years of studies on the rate at which its glaciers are melting, and how that affects the area’s river flows over time. They homed in on how past changes affected the populations of 15 species of invertebrates such as midges and stoneflies that are specialised at living in those waters.

Sofia Quaglia - The Guardian