Note: Any attempt to describe any work of art is always incomplete - otherwise, the art work would not be necessary. Therefore, the description that follows should serve - only and only - as a guide. Carlos Aliaga Uria.

An Approximate and Brief Memory of the Historical Setting

"Homage to the Universe" is a collahge I made at the end of 1985. I was almost 29.5 years old. "Homage to the Universe," represented the synthesis of my world view and hope for the world at that time. It was being expressed pictorially not only because my mind is a pictorial one (something that I was not aware of then), but also because I had decided to "hide" my world view and feelings about the world in art form, especially from knowing about the "Operation Rex 84," which was a proposal made by Oliver North (from the Iran-Contra scandal), that aimed to put in concentration camps to Latinos in the USA opposing Reagan-Bush. It was made in Laramie, Wyoming, USA - setting of the University of Wyoming (UW - where I did obtain my Masters in Agricultural Engineering at the end of 1980, and where I worked as a research associate in the engineering department during 1981). It was made after I had organized, in the early 1980´s, a symbolic and crazily courageous arrest of CIA officers that were trying to recruit UW students (everyone knows that CIA participated in the overthrown of Allende and in the training of too many infamous Latin American torturers...)... "Homage to the Universe" thus was made following 1982 when, charged with moral courage and a great doses of craziness (thus zero stupidity), I decided to "abandon" my engineering profession to concentrate on, to professionally work on, what now I describe as, "The Continuation of the Permanent Resistance for the Tolerance of the Individual's Totality and the Possibility for the Existence of this Being on an Earth in which its Biospheric Systems Urgently Need to be Regenerated within the next - at most - Ten years".... This implied at the moment to actively participate in 1980´s Solidarity Movement with the peoples, los pueblos, of Central America... "Homage to the Universe" was created after I had decided that in those days in the USA there was a very "gentle," very "clean" repression against those who stood for justice in the world (with Baby George Bputsch this is worse now of course)... since I used to write lots and quite well on geopolitical issues, knowing and feeling that this world was becoming more and more repressive against true scientists, free thinkers and the like, I did "hide" myself and my expression in a media that I discovered in 1974 when I was 18 years old: the collage (incidentally, I refer to my artwork as "collahge" adding the little "h," to remind myself that the main thing in this life for me is to attempt to be humane, thus trying to avoid the antithesis of the humane: the nazi, who has in as his or her essence, the denial that breeds the big lie, whereas the humane, is the one that continuously reflects upon his or her life and has the courage to not only accept his or her mistakes but is diligent in trying to - never revise his or her history - but rectify those errors instead, and do so while not taking him or herself too seriously in an Einstein's manner knowing that reality and life are always greater than a single individual - something like that...). The collage, being more abstract than the written word, was a good place to hide - perhaps I intuitively had discovered Samuel Beckett's thing of, "Don't wait to be hunted to hide".... So I decided to put my world view and hopes for the world in a collage form... And several works were born then (five of them I think)... I used to refer to this period as my "cosmic blue period from trash to beauty" (why this is another long story)....

Hence "Homage to the Universe" was born.

Description - an Attempt

"Homage to the Universe" is the most visionary work I have made and, it seems that, I will ever make... I do not know how I was able to make it. It consists in 5 "Mountains" of human liberation... it is a pictorial description of the process, the motion, of human liberation, beginning with the acceptance of the totality of the social individual, followed by, once the Holocaust has been genuinely admitted, a contribution to the "pacification of the struggle for existence" (in Herbert Marcuse's terms), which can only be achieved when we keep in mind both, the necessity to accelerate in a humane manner global climate stabilization, and the need to have the courage to withstand ridicule or total misunderstanding if necessary while we join something like Marcuse's "great refusal," or Sabato´s Resistencia - both of which for me have implied the continuation of the stand of a Jean Moulin and a Che Guevara (if Che used the gun I replaced the gun by the collahge, that for so many long years has been my weapon of resistance and liberation)....

At that moment when "Homage to the Universe" emerged, I saw five movements within that motion, five types of liberation struggles that humanity was and still is  performing. From right to left, the 1st. Mountain was a celebration of the Nicaraguan Sandinista Revolution of 1979, which was a miracle (even though it didn't last).

The 2nd. Mountain represents how poor peasantry of Mexico, representing the poor of the world, somehow will achieve their emancipation - despite everything. The idea here is that the poor are totally ignored, neglected, thus unperceived, as the poor of the world practically does not exist in a world which exercises a poorcidal practice,  where the poor of the world are totally ignored by the Military, Industrial, Financial and "Scientific" Complex of the world that keeps a war economy, or a world economy under the big lie of a constant treat of war, thus spending trillions upon trillions of dollars of world resources, of the world's energy and information, for the "National Security" doctrine, and, in that way, destroys the world economy, which produces more conflict, which accelerates the biospheric destruction of the earth, and which serves to perpetuate a status quo of grandly obscene military expenditure in the world. This Mountain deals with the fact that after WWII, the allies, that in the battlefields defeated the nazis, since about 1943, were little by little dominated by the Western Christian Right that joined forces with the nazi underground. This coalition, defending the interests of those in the world and USA that profit from war, participated in the assassination of J. F. Kennedy, who, after the Bay of Pigs fiasco and - especially - after Cuban Missile Crisis, was ready to decrease military spending as he did figured out that what Eisenhower warned about (that there was a government within the government in the USA since WWII) was true indeed. The killing of Kennedy, contributed to the rise of power of the Christian Right and the nazi underground coalition through Nixon, and even though he had renounce during the Watergate scandal, that coalition never lost its power. The Carter period was a short break from this, but Reagan Bush were too powerful in the USA intelligence community to allow Carter to be re-elected, and thus, before the elections they did boycott Carter's, "October Surprise" to free the USA Hostages in Iran. The coming to power of Reagan and Bush meant that the big lie in the world had won, that the nazi underground had won WWII in the end. And the big lie, the big farce since then was able to defeat any opposition against the western world military, financial, "scientific" and industrial complex. Soon the USSR and the "Socialist" block were to be destroyed (not that the "Socialist block " was socialist at all, as it mainly was a repressive party-crazy of the left)... Gorbachev couldn't hold on, etc. In a world like this the supranational corporations, especially those linked to war and destruction, took lots of the control of the States and of societies (i.e., fascism) in the world... But, despite this, the peoples of the world somehow, especially in the "third world," have made attempts to resist the economic, emotional, social and political violence of that establishment... and this 2nd. mountain correctly predicted the emerge of the Zapatista movement (the one with Subcomandante Marcos from Mexico). And this was an amazing prediction as the Zapatista movement only emerged in 1994! Of course the world view described in the 2nd Mountain is one that I synthesized from studying H. Marcuse, Mae Brussell, Dave Emory, Wilhelm Reich, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Loftus and Aaron, Laurence Langer and many others like them. The point in the 2nd Mountain is that no matter how powerful becomes the military industrial power of the world, the peoples of the world somehow will emancipate themselves, somehow will keep alive the resistance and someday will break their chains....

The 3rd. Mountain is the option I hope that will prevail. It uses the Chinese statue of peace - the woman with the dove. This mountain represent a human movement on earth that - based in the love, understanding, respect, or at least the tolerance of the totality of each individual in this world - emerges among all peoples of the earth, transcending all racisms, sexisms, xenophobias, compulsory systems of any kind (monogamic, poligamic, "spiritual," etc), and creates such a motion, such a movement on earth that reaches peace as it regenerates the biospheric systems of earth... And as this happens, that movement interpenetrates the unbounded motion of the universe (represented by the wings of freedom, this huge bird, that is coming from the cosmos), regardless the stupidity of this violent, mediocre and frustrated world.... Latter on I found out that to understand the soul of a movement like that one must first genuinely admitt the Holocaust - for this the paradigm expressed in the work of Laurence Langer is crucial....

The 4th. Mountain represents Bolivia... Bolivia that is so beheaded... so incomprehensible, "where the possible is impossible and the impossible is possible." But Bolivia, to the surprise of the world, Bolivia of which no ones expects any good things that can have human global implications, Bolivia to which no one even pays attention, impredictably, will achieve unprecedented universality... Perhaps this Mountain predicted the fact that the cosmic collahge from the unbounded universe did choose for its residence, not the USA, Germany, Japan or other "high developed" nations, but did choose backward Bolivia - the explanation for this is perhaps given by the "law of unequal and combined" development discovered by Lev Davidovich Bronstein in about 1905, which is very similar to the systems sciences paradigm that states that "evolution arises from ignorance," or the paradigm formulated by the Jewish Christ, "the last will be the first"....

The 5th. Mountain transcends the metaphore of the other 4 ones, as well as it is one that describes the process in my life. The first motion in my life was one that took place until the fall of 1987, and in which myself and mind expanded and expanded... but such an expansion, as awesome and brilliant as it was, was inhumane and almost killed me in 1987. And it was thanks to the Aymaras of Bolivia, the love I did received from the people of Bolivia (I was born in Bolivia), especially from Maricusi, the Aymara woman from the Sun Island of Lake Titicaca (that took care of me as a child while my mother was always working with my amazingly humane father), that did save me from being destroyed from so heroically having continued with the permanent resistance against the contemporary big lie or big farse in the world. And so from the fall of 1987 on, I begun the return to myself, thus entering in the motion - and emotion - not from atom to universe but from universe to human, towards the human humane archetype; as such, I started to shrink instead of expanding, and I started to become little and little... and then I was a human being again, a little diablo (devil but not in the sense of Gogol´s evil - i.e., the mediocre - but instead in the great and profound, in the courageous and intelligently rebellious manner of the Bolivian tin miners' Diablo... for Bolivian tin miners god was not good enough as in the mines god wouldn't save you; so you had to be in good terms with the devil, the tío (uncle) who ruled the hellish mines from which everyday you went in you didn´t know if you were coming out alive or not)... yes, I became a little diablo full of the "aesthetic ethos" (in H. Marcuse's terms) whose, aim, became, the one of my father's and Gandhi's: Beauty... And nothing but beauty is represented in the left lower corner of the collahge, and that is the earth, totally regenerated, the idea  that the paradise for the earth exists as a potentially for this fracto-dialectical earth, and that it is achievable, only if we dare, dare to with love for the earth care, which includes intelligently rebelliously dare to care for the totality of the individual and its tolerance by the State, religious, social, economic, familiar and other human systems....

So that is the movement within the images and colors of "Homage to the Universe," to which my beloved friend and colleague, Dr. Alexander (Sasha) Tarko, has recently added, with the finest taste, the "lake effect" (to the picture of it that I did put in the internet), giving to it much more movement yet, which is so sublimely free that, finally does put me to rest when I see it, a great feat in itself since I am always in motion perhaps because I am always full of emotion....

 Two Afterthoughts

Why mountains? Simple: I am from the Andes, born in the City of La Paz, (10,800 feet a.m.s.l.), thus born July the 5th, 1956, 10:50 A.M., in front of the majestic Illimani mountain....

How is "Homage to the Universe" connected with "My Flying Hair" collahge?  As I was describing "Homage to the Universe" at this moment, I did figure out a possible connection: Since the history in the "Homage to the Universe" moves from right to left (interestingly enough this is the way you read in Hebrew, which I don't speak, yet), I guess, in my life now I am into consolidating the return to myself, thus in concentrating, in giving value to the continuation of the above describe process of permanent resistance which it seems that I am somehow leading in the world. It is very hard to accept that one perhaps is at the edge, at the cutting edge of a movement like that; however, a characteristic of a healthy human being, and with this the grand late psychiatrist and biophysicist Wilhelm Reich would agree, consists in not only be on the constant watch for one's errors and mistakes, but also at least at some point, it becomes necessary to stop for a while and see where one is in terms of positive things accomplished... And as I was forced by life to do so, especially this year, I found out that: I am way faraway, so faraway, that I even need to catch up with myself... So I will do so, I will grab a hold of my flying hair of the picture, and allow that self to give me a ride, as that self is a wonderful self... thus in a profound sense, I am here once more with grand Herbert Marcuse because I can say that I am proud not to be myself but of the self I made of myself.... And - more importantly - anything I have made of myself is, until my death, to contribute for a more humane and vibrant in vitality world for the children of the present and the future, as in the beginning and the end, I am nothing but a child, a mature and sensitive one in human terms; therefore, I am not and I will never be a "grown up," especially an immature one, as this world, in which practically all relationships have been mercantilized, has too many immature grown ups converted in Reich's "little men" (and women), that repressively sublimated by a plethora of false needs, support those merchants of life, that for profits do kill or make the prophets (i.e., those who dare to be ridiculed or even humiliated when they jump out of rage anywhere in the world resisting against the big farce on earth) and the like: the wretched of the earth... And yet, for me the utopia that this status quo in the future will be no more, is a dream that - despite making many years of my life a nightmare - keeps on inspiring me, while I perspire as I am involved in the praxis that has given and gives so much meaning to my life: the making of collahges like "My Flying Hair" or "Homage to the Universe," that, with over 2000 of my works, as of July the 5th. 2001, can be seen and felt in my Collahge Museums of Bolivia, heart of Latin America, that, in spite of all its faults, is the best factory on earth in the production of not of cars and the like but, as the writers of "Latino America Go Home" correctly suggest, of hombres in the humane sense, thus full of moral courage, the best example of which in our times is still the Companero, Comandante verdadero de los hombres libres, Che Guevara, in whose honor, I oftentimes refer to my work as ColaChe (or the tail of Che), because without Che's example, my collages never would have transcendingly synthesized humane philosophy, history, memory, great art, systems sciences and arch-cybernetic engineering, to become the weapons of humane love that at their core - in their never to be sold soul have: the humane transformation of beauty's motion.