Synthesis Lecture #2: Synthesis

The six "Synthesis" lectures are designed to provide guidance and inspiration for the "Synthesis Project" a series of 3 ambitious works to be completed by the end of the course (see the assignment description page).  The themes for these lectures are: Ground, Synthesis, Process, Concept, Product, and Dialogue.  Each lecture expands one theme, demonstrates the diversity of meanings and concepts related to that theme, explains how that theme relates directly to the process of the art student developing a coherent and intelligent voice in their work, and exhibits a number of contemporary artists related to that theme.

You can read each lecture in essay form; there is a separate page for each lecture.  At the bottom of each lecture page will be a link to download the power point version of the lecture and to view a video version of the lecture.

Synthesis 
Synthesis is the combining of two or more things together to create something wholly new. Synthesis can mean production or manufacturing.  Synthetic can mean "combined" but it can also mean artificial or plastic.  Oddly enough, in the world of pigments, the word "synthetic" and the word "organic" are synonyms even though in normal contexts they are opposites.  In a way, all of life is dependent on synthesis- if you consider the molecular functions of all animal cells or if you consider photo-synthesis.

As soon as we start talking about the synthesis of ideas and concepts (including aesthetic ideas) we find ourselves in the shadow of the Hegelian Dialectic (a very influential idea despite the fact that Hegel may or may not have ever created it).  In a cartoon nut shell, the idea is the growth of ideas and interaction of ideas follows a pattern of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.  In the simplest of terms, this means that one group follows one idea (like capitalism or wearing dark socks), then other people start promoting a counter idea (like communism or wearing white socks), and then there is a contest between these competing ideas until they combine leading to a new synthetic idea (like a social democrat state- like Sweden, or like wearing flip-flops).  

Consequently, the notion of "synthesis", that the struggle and combination of competing ideas can lead to a wholly new idea has been a very compelling thesis for the last two hundred years. 

In art, we see the importance of synthesis in three important ways:
Part 1: Cultural Synthesis- how new artistic ideas can spring out of the mixing of cultures.
Part 2: Synthesis of Influences- each artist's body of work can be described as a synthetic combination of the important artistic influences on that artist.
Part 3: In-Studio Synthesis- for many artists continued creativity has depended on the combining of different bodies of work.  Some artists employ this as an ongoing strategy: constantly making various related bodies of work that diverge from each other until at certain points they recombine.  For other artists, the synthesis of different studio works is a rare and unplanned act but one that leads to important developments.