I did this art adaptation some years ago in my attempt to bring in a new 'more feminine' aesthetic to the quadrant diagram of Wilber's (although, there are many other version adaptations of his)--there is something way too over-masculinized (if you will) about the clean-cut quadrant representations I see all over the place-- at least in Durwin's posted quadrant for his way of helping his clients with anxiety-- he put in the arrows showing the dynamic "pulls" of the four directions of the Kosmos--as it attempts to know itself (at least, that's how Wilber describes this epistemological map)--so, the Phallic aesthetic here in this marketing brochure for the Integral program at JFKU is particularly disturbing... we are in a postmodern era and issues of Representation have to be challenged in all ways... including my own, and how I utilized the quadrants, which I do in my work... the Matrixial aesthetic here is a "spin" from the artist, psychoanalyst, dare I say "feminist", Bracha L. Ettinger, which Barbara I and some other (Medwyn on this ning) have been studying off and on for a few years... I guess you can see the quadrants are imbued with the Real (Lacanian) as much as that can be represented at all, and it is a much more anxiety-provoking diagram--but then, so what, there is trauma in the quadrants too--once you get out of the Phallic clinical-abstraction (as if it is 'neutral' and not touched by life)... so, there's a few thoughts... look forward to discussion, as always.. .
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I disagree that "phallic" goes together with "clinical-abstract", necessarily. I don't have the aesthetic background so i really appreciate how you are bringing that piece. so is it the squares that make it phallic? i.e. the jfku one? One simple way to soften the conventional quadrant diagram would be to use dotted lines between the quadrants....rather than the hard boundaries of the conventional diagram, which aren't so helpful.
Glad you are exploring this possibility of aesthetic-valuing and bias. I have been researching on Phallic-based aesthetics for near 30 yrs (my A-D/ness survey)--my claim is that there is a healthy Phallic and pathological one--and the issue at hand is the Phallic direction to pry out a nice 'box' for itself to then control and insert anything it damn well pleases into that box--category--binary-- on and on... now, in and by itself that is not a problem necessarily yet so much of the clinical paradigm is all about "boxes" and "disorders" and "charts" and "categories" to make sure the insurance companies will pay for it and the accountants can control it all, and statistics can be gathered-- but the question is what kind of aesthetic-relation does that set up in terms of representing the Real (or something close to it)--mental health and wellness if anything (as Wilber has always said) has to do with how well aligned one is to reality (Reality)... Phallic tendency is fine, clinical and abstraction tendency is fine--as long as they integrate (don't dominate) the total aesthetic-field (so to speak)--you may want to check out matrixial theory as a 'corrective' to what dominates aesthetically in Integral Theory (a la Wilberian). Hope that helps a little. Yes, the JFKU image is so "flat" and "cut off" even if there is a soft spiral in the background, and sure, dotted lines is more realistic and that's fine-- but if you really look at what I mean about a matrixial aesthetic and sensibility then you have to see a lot more in the quadrant representation than JFKU's version or 99.99% of the quadrant versions I have seen--they are exclusive of matrixial sensibility--and in that is inclusiveness of the woundedness of the kosmos (macro to micro)--an arguable case. This isn't easy to articulate so I trust you'll see there's no attempt to stereotype unfairly any of the masculine to feminine spectrum of qualities (just another binary that would be an abstraction itself and not all that helpful to therapia).
thanks for this additional nuance....appreciated!