Beyond Bohm 2025

Beyond Bohm 2025: Wholeness and Fragmentation

With Aja Bulla Zamastil , Richard Burg, Maria Hvidbak, Chris Marks, Melissa K. Nelson, Lee Nichol, Hester Reeve.
Curated and Chaired by Lee Nichol.

July 12-27, 2025
9am PDT / 12pm EDT / 5pm BST / 6pm CEST

6 two-hour sessions every Saturday and Sunday 

If one were to select one concept to describe the arc of David Bohm’s lifework, it would surely be wholeness. Having said that, the road splits off into many forks. Questions regarding wholeness apply in so many domains – in physics, in the social world, in the artistic domain, in the world of nature, in one’s daily life. The list could go on at great length.

In Beyond Bohm 2025, we will extend feelers to the world of nature, and into certain aspects of human creativity. We will be looking to see if we can have a concrete, rather than conceptual sense of wholeness. In the first instance – the natural world – we will explore in some detail the phenomenological engagement with nature taken by Scot author Nan Shepherd. In the second instance – the domain of human creativity – we will take up the manner in which architect- philosopher Christopher Alexander approached wholeness, as a concrete living process.

The flip side of the “wholeness coin” is, of course, fragmentation. Indeed, much of Bohm’s life was taken up with the interplay of wholeness and fragmentation. His work in physics, in philosophy, in dialogue, in aesthetics, in the nature of thought – in all these areas the wholeness/fragmentation nexus was central. In service to that, our final weekend will examine the still-evolving interplay of digital media and human consciousness, and the manner in which these media are currently amplifying certain factors that Bohm felt to be at the root of human fragmentation.

Needless to say, engaging this wholeness/fragmentation nexus is the work of lifetime, for any of us. From a “Bohmian” perspective, there is literally no end to the inquiry, for wholeness, being a living thing, is never finished. It is ever-evolving, recursive, generative. Always on the move, always in flux.

In Beyond Bohm 2025, then, we will not be attempting to come to finished conclusions or final answers. Rather, we will be aiming for a “flavor,” a “taste” of both wholeness and of fragmentation. To this end, our format will be notably different from in the past. In our first and third weekends, the entire second day will be given over to audience participation, in order to get the fullest possible feeling for the pulse of the Pari community. The second weekend will offer specific activities that can be done between the first day and the second day. We hope you will join us as we expand the Beyond Bohm format and aim to open new participatory terrain.

Program of Event

THE LIVING MOUNTAIN
With Hester Reeve, Maria Hvidbak, Chris Marks and Lee Nichol
July 12 and 13, 2025

THE QUALITY WITHOUT A NAME
With Aja Bulla Zamastil and Lee Nichol
July 19 and 20, 2025

BOHM’S HARD PROBLEM & DEVICE CULTURE
With Hester Reeve, Richard Burg, Melissa K. Nelson, Aja Bulla Zamastil and Lee Nichol
July 26 and 27, 2025