ANIMATIC MANIFESTO

A Global/Tribal Vision

“Animatism” is the creative philosophy of the Animatic Art Movement.

We believe that the universe is in a process of spiritual evolution, moving towards greater and greater states of sentient awareness and unified collective consciousness.

We call this evolutionary process the “creative spiritual force”. We believe that this force or “urge to consciousness” is an integral and impelling aspect of our cosmos and that we can access this force during our creative process.

• We see creative expression as a sacred task.
• We look to the understandings and wisdom of our ancestors for guidance.
• We create artworks and processes to help heal, bridge differences and inspire a more caring and compassionate global community.

Animatism, as an aesthetic and creative philosophy, has its origins in an ancient, shamanic process. We embrace this process as the way to initiate a powerful, multi-disciplinary art movement, capable of enlivening creative expression within all cultures and communities throughout our world.

In our collective tribal past there was a critically important position held by shaman/artists. Their function was to act as intermediaries, on behalf of the community, between the manifest reality and the spiritual reality.

When important events happened in the life of the tribe, such as death, hunger or natural disaster, or when issues affecting the emotional/spiritual well being of the community needed to be resolved, the shaman/artists would begin a journey to the spirit world to seek guidance, insight and inspiration.

They prepared for this journey through prayer, fasting, dancing, drumming, chanting, meditation and other ritualistic processes. When an altered state of conscious was achieved the shaman/artists would become one with the creative spiritual force and their spirit journey would begin.

While on this journey they would focus their attention on observing, recording and manifesting the images and insights they experienced. Shaped from clay, painted in vegetable dyes on hides or cave walls, carved from wood, stone and bone, danced and sung, these offerings then became the focal point for reflection, enlightenment and resolution of tribal issues and concerns.

Many of these images and insights are still with us today, eons after they were first received. They form the foundations of our modern cultural understandings.

• We are Animatic creators.
• We access the same creative spiritual force as our ancestors.
• We create to expand Collective Consciousness.
• We deactivate our ego-based control to access pre-intellectual primal visions.
• We manifest these visionary inspirations.
• We do this for the benefit of our global/tribal community.

We Are One.