P1. Anatomy of a Scene Explicates Imagination vs Structure

Part One of a short series on Imagination and Structure

Who Are You?
There’s a scene in the Woody Allen film ‘Hannah and Her Sisters’ that is a spot-on characterization of the relationship as typically understood between Imagination and Structure
I’m using Imagination here as a kind of allegorical figure representing the Creative Consciousness, and Structure as an allegorical figure for the Rational Consciousness.
In this scene, we see a dynamic that has been instilled in our consciousness from the moment we are born, at least in the last 150 years since the birth of capitalism.
In this corner is Imagination is played by the brilliantly brooding Max von Sydow.
In the other corner is Structure, played with aplomb by a suitably wirey and characteristically goofy Daniel Stern.
Imagination 0 the creative consciousness — lives an isolated existence, surrounded by books and the stories and theories of the world outside, where Imagination rarely ventures. It is the essence of artistic endeavor, characterized by a remarkable ability to translate sensation, emotion, abstraction into tangible and even at times legible forms through metaphor, movement, story. Imagination is a characteristic of the Artist.
When we think of the Artist we think of introspection, inspiration, isolation, living in a world apart so as to better clarify and cleanse the creative consciousness to see the world clearly, unadultered by imposed pre-existing Structure.
Structure lives in a rational, ordered world, the anthesis of creative consciousness. Structure prioritizes utility and functionality. What can this object be for me, and what is its value and how can I trade upon its value.
Structure emphasizes a rational and ordered approach to life and decision-making. Structure wants analytics that convey order and predictability. The unexpected is not welcome in the world of Structure. The unanticipated is to be avoided at all costs, and when the unanticipated arrives, the ensuing disorder is panic, whereas the creative consciousness, prepared to appreciate disorder, might luxuriate in the beauty of chaos.
The conflict in this scene reveals to us a fundamental discordance between how the world is seen by Imagination/Creative Consciousness and Structure/Rational Consciousness. Now, these are cartoon-ish extremems but revealtory for appreciating the underlying architecture we’ve come to inhabit.

The scene begins as Structure is brought to Imagination because Structure has just bought a huge house in the Hamptons, and in the huge house is a Big Wall that could use some Big Art.

Look at the way Structure imposes itself with a clever handshake as if to assert its genuine hip status.

Now we find out that structure has begun collecting (that is buying) Art — one of the forms of value created by Imagination, including a Warhol and a Frank Stella, notably expensive works that one would easily imagine can be used as a proxy for appreciation of Art.
We quickly surmise that Structure has no particular appreciation for the meaning of these pieces. The Stella is ‘Big and Weird’.
And Structure wasn’t really into Art when it was a kid, and has a lot more to learn.
And look — now when introduced to these exquisitely simple, considered, and precious drawings Imagination has done of its lover, Structure dismisses them as ‘too small’ for the Big Wall in the Big New House in the Hamptons!
And now you can just sense how Imagination is boiling over with an inner rage. Imagination is ready to blow at the indignity the situation!
Imagination festers with rage: “Who is this kid? They know nothing of the suffering Imagination goes through to just get out of bed in the morning with this weight of anticipation that nothing, nothing will come into being today — again. And here’s this punk who has spent millions of dollars to trade on the creativity of art world geniuses — and they know nothing of Art. Philistine! This is an impossible situation!”
At this point, the insistent girlfriend in a fertive effort to help the artist sell a piece, insists they go to the basement to look at a series of oils, to which Structure inquires: ‘Well, are they big?’
And Imagination ruptures, barking: ‘I don’t sell my work by the yard!’
A moment of embarrassment for all parties.
A few minutes later Imagination and Structure reemerge in the midst of a proper argument, revealing the typical outcome of the conflict and the predicament of the Creative Consciousness in its effort to contend with Structure.
It seems Structure needs to find something that will go with an ottoman in the room with the Big Wall and it whatever Art will go on the wall needs to complement the color puce, and it will have to be evaluated by the hired interior decorator.
All of this Imagination finds positively degrading
Imagination would rather burn it all down, take all its toys and run away — as it does here — than succumb to the incomprehension of Structure to appreciate the true, non-fungible value of what it creates.
So let’s summarize briefly the architecture of this schema:
The core characteristics of the creative consciousness are to translate sensation into tangible forms. It believe in the intrisic value of art, beyond its utility or commodity value. It sees the unseeable, makes sense of the non-sensical, creates sensation and feeling through its various forms of expression that we broadly describe as ‘The Arts’.
Imagination is here to make sense of the non-sensical, not to trade its unique gifts for something as tragic and degrading as money.
Structure has as its core characteristic an appreciation of and need for the utility and functional value of things, including Art. We see this in the somewhat hysterical desire to utilize Art to fill space, match an ottoman, and presumably add financial value in a collection. (cf Art as a financial instrument that can leverage tax benefits, or be held as a commodity in these peculiar tax exempt zones called Freeports in between borders at airport holding facilities)
What we see here is a profound conflict, one that leads to no benefit to either party. There’s no collaboration. No willingness to meet half-way. To nurture a deeper sense of the value that each can offer the other.
Part of the reason for this deep conflict is that the Creative Consciousness struggles with Structure and its imposition.
And likewise, the Rational Consciousness struggles with the formelssness and lack of predictability of Imagination.
Another way to look at this is that the one desires what the other is able to do, but tends towards conflict and hate rather than love.
What we should reflect upon here is the possibility of Imagination and Structure in collaboration rather than conflict.
What can Imagination not only learn from Structure, but work with Structure to find its way in a material world of things that have value in all kinds of ways, not just for the extractive nature but for the things that we need in the world to help make the world more habitable?
And conversely, can Structure come to appreciate the mystery and magic of the Creative spirit that is able to see the previously unseen?
When Imagination and Structure are in conflict, we get scenes like the above, but on a huge scale with deliterious impacts that effect everyone.
But we might suppose that Imagination seeks recognition and the possibility of survival in a world that, today, is heavy on Structure, while Structure seeks the depth, meaning, vibrancy, and vivid sense of possibility that Imagination creates seemingly effortlessly.