“Chess Continuum” and “Uncommon Ground”: survival hypotheses; thoughts on cultural synergy or on unity as diversity.

“Uncommon Ground” what a provocative and thought provoking title!
As if Ground –as in Earth- is not common to all!
What is the” uncommon ground” after all that differentiates us?
Perhaps only the top soil underneath our feet…because everything else attests to our similarities! From DNA structure ( through dinosaurs via chimpanzees to humans -which by the way all end up being just earth and dust-) to the meaning and the need of cultures irrespective of the different syntax and consequently the different flavour they may acquire.
After all isn’t it culture (i.e. innovation) that has maintained us on this earth? Thinking and acting differently has produced all that we value as civilization/culture; from our cultivating the ground and eating its produce , to consequently ‘cultivating our spirit’, meaning introducing and producing the realm of the symbolic upon which we based our further survival and expansion . From agriculture to culture, to cultural wars.
When talking about uncommon ground therefore are we not referring to the ‘ground’ outside the territory known which we call our own? Be it the next door, or not so next door, neighbour’s house, or …the moon The ‘new’ territory which is to be explored, ‘conquered’, appropriated, to be, in due time , so common to all that it is not so new anymore but feels ‘our own’ or rather called our own. Or genetic engineering to that matter. 
Most appropriately however “uncommon ground” may be acknowledged as the cultural infrastructure that characterizes and differentiates one’s identity but at the same time unifies individualities into smaller or larger groups , of common -to them and uncommon to the outsiders- ‘ground’. 
If the role of culture is to unify into a cohesive social body, is the social nexus one of the main cultural forces beneath survival?
Here one tends to remember that when we think about different approaches, different point of views (within a cultural system) we tend to talk about fragmentation or minorities, ‘balkanization’ and not about pluralism. Different point views run the risk of being marginalized if not ostracized and the deviation from the main /unified /public/popular/common ground or mainstream frame is often treated as a ‘scapegoat’ with the known consequences for the goat-which gets sacrificed- so as to create the feeling of unity (which possibly is based on guilt)for the remaining individuals. 
So how closely connected is survival to the formation of synergies? 
Perhaps what lies beneath the survival of the “fittest” has to be reintroduced and acknowledged as the survival of the one able to adapt by reinventing and recreating one’s self based on new information which is borrowed , learned from another or/and the environment. By reinventing /recreating/changing one’s self one influences the environment around as well. After all the ability to create isn’t the ability to connect information in such a way so as to create new viable systems, to create new realities and by doing so change the syntax of the existing structures.
However synergy (because that’s what we are talking about) requires the reinvention of the identity. The Ego needs to redefine its boundaries and acknowledge the fact that an Ego+ should not be comprehended as an Ego-. Meaning that when in Synergy the feeling of control over one’s limits needs to be reinstituted. And this is extremely difficult. The safety and false control that the established orders/stereotypes offer is difficult to escape. An elasticity principle has to be introduced. 
After all different points of view invariably will create a new bifurcation of evolution and that we may want to control…And yet creativity is life and vise versa!
With these thoughts and the conceptual tool of the Chess Continuum ideogram I come to Harlech biennale in Wales.

 Chess Continuum

describes in one continuous line, chess as a battle map as well as a unity of the opposite and yet complementary forces. Forces acting the drama of creation, facilitating the flow of life.
Black and white define each other reciprocally and this interchange from diversity to unity promotes the everlasting transient: the Ephemeron, the Game.
A game which lasts for a long time now, where one fleeting moment follows the next; transforming all, always remaining the same.
The game of Time, where perhaps even time itself may be just another game and energy in-forms matter and vice versa.
All is in flux and solid at the same time, nothing is final and all coexist in conflict; they differ and yet find themselves in covenant, disputing and defining each other and we are being endlessly enchanted, captivated by this game of flux, where one is simultaneously being the game and the game's game in the constant flow of Being in Time, of Being in its Becoming.
In every way, in our era of globalization, cross-cultural interdependence and ecology, the game of Chess Continuum, of Unity as Diversity, is in full progress.

Aemilia Papaphilippou ©