Art: More of it Please!

What is art? Is it important?If not, why not? If so, why is it so?

I started thinking about art and realized that it may be one of the most effective means of achieving progress. As I considered, I came to the belief that increasing the expression and appreciation of art can improve a person, a business, a government, or a society. The neglect of art has been the kiss of death in every instance. Art is the secret ingredient to life.

These are philosophical questions that have been raised and pondered thousands of times over thousands of years. I think every culture should ask these questions. Every organization and grouping of people should ask these questions. Every individual should question the nature, quality, and value of art for themselves. The old answers and methods are useful guides, but they are not useful answers. Only your own answer is useful to you.

In some ways, it is impossible to avoid these questions. If you accept the fact that movies, books, and music are art (if not, what are they?), then you must know what you like. You can answer whether you appreciate rap music, romantic comedies, reality TV, and mystery fiction. You can look at a painting and tell me if you would hang it in your house, and if so, which room it would go in. Your answers to preferences are based on your own pnderings, even if they are shallow or subconscious.

A deeper, conscious, and perhaps even documented approach to your own answers about the philosophy of art will allow you to appreciate it on new levels. You will begin to learn more about yourself, you will refine your approach to life, and you will develop or expand your own artistic expression.

I think one of the biggest things that is lacking in our society is a deliberate attempt at expecting, appreciating, and expressing art in every facet of our life. To seek artistic expression in business would improve our society on many levels. To seek more ways to combine art with science would make science more beautiful and art more relevant. Religion was once the primary source of inspiration for artists; if more religious people sought to express themselves through high-quality and deeply-considered artistic expressions we would have more beautiful and relevant forms of art and religion.

I think art is characterized by creation. When you really aim for artistic expression and give it all of your thought, emotion, and effort, you create something new. New is not always good and it is not always bad, but it is always required in order to improve anything. To put it another way, you will never achieve any goal you set without some level of creativity. Individuals, groups, and societies are all dependent on some level of creativity to achieve, grow, or progress. That creativity is enabled and enhanced by art.

Humans are slow in comparison to other living things. In fact, there are few animals that couldn't catch us if we were limited to our own feet and muscles. We have very limited senses; most animals, bugs, birds, and fish have senses that we can only dream about. We are weak when it comes to most animals, especially if you compare our strength to our body size. Elephants are stronger than us in every way, ants are stronger based on a ratio of body size to carrying capacity.

Even so, we have one advantage over every living thing: we are creative. Even though we cannot see as well naturally, we have developed ways of seeing our world that no other living thing can see. Despite our limited mobility and lack of swimming or flying capacity, we have created vehicles that exceed the limits of every other living thing. Our creativity has allowed us to travel to places that cannot support life without our creativity. In many ways, our creativity has exceeded the capabilities of natural life. Our creativity has the potential to allow us to create life on our terms and perhaps achieve immortality or timelessness.

The creativity that allows us to rise to the top of the living world despite our shortcomings is based on scientific technology. However, science alone is simply a matter of explanation and experimentation. Science allows us to discover and explain the details of our world, but science does not create anything new without art.

In order for Einstein to create the equations that explain the speed of light and predict the effects of energy consumption in impossible-to-achieve conditions, he needed to think artistically. By attempting to think in ways that no one else had previously done, and expressing new ideas in a meaningful way, Einstein required qualities that are true of artists rather than scientists. A scientist understands fundamental theories and mathematical methods, but artists see the unseen and venture into the unknown.

Music and paintings were once devoted to religion. Huge Buddhas, ornate Mosques, and paintings of biblical scenes are studied thousands of years after they were created by atheists, skeptics, or adherents of other religions. Even though I am not a Muslim, I can appreciate the mosaics of the Arab world. On the other hand, the ugliest religious men ever--the Taliban--banned art in every form and destroyed one of the most important and awe-inspiring works of art in the world.

Art can make religion inspiring and beautiful. I think our current state of religion (in almost every form) is focused more on theology, armumentation, competition, and defense. The religious art that exists is rarely as inspired and fresh as it once was. I see many artists imitating or copying other artists and produciing art that is vanilla and predictable. Perhaps I am missing it, but I am not seeing religious art that breaks new ground and sees new perspectives like Michaelangelo and Bach.

In the history of western civilization, there are two key periods to understand: the dark ages and the renaissance. Both of those periods are defined by the value they placed on art. In both instances, the quality of the average person's life was relative to the value placed on artistic expression. Art is a key factor in raising or threatening the quality of a person's life. For example, compare the standard of living in Turkey and Afghanistan. There are so many similarities between their history, culture, religion, and geography. Even so, the standard of living and level of artistic expression are both high in Turkey while they are extremely low in Afghanistan. That is not a coincidence, nor is it an isolated example. It is a constant throughout history in every region and culture: Art is required for life to have substance, quality, and meaning.

Art can be an expression of beauty. In your house, if you have a wall, floor, or object that is boring, shabby, or even ugly, you can immediate change the feeling of the entire room with a simple and beautiful piece of art. Take a windowless, gray basement and add a woven rug and a mural--now it is a comfortable place to spend time. Take a plain, white refrigerator and add a 1st-grader's work of art, you immediately brighten the whole kitchen. Studies have shown that adding art to the workplace can measurably boost creativity and morale (if other factors are in place such as management, market, and salary.)

Sometimes art is required to express an emotion, and the result is not beautiful. Art can be used to inspire guilt, fear, outrage, patriotism, shame, motivation, focus, or humility/awe. The key is expression and communication. Our words can be spoken or written in any volume or size and still find themselves ineffective at communicating a message fully. However, art is always an effective method to communicate a message or emphasize our words. The next time you drive down a road, compare your own reaction to signs of only text (Street signs, etc...) to signs that include pictures (Cautionary road signs or advertisements.) McDonalds has found that a picture of a Big Mac has a greater effect on their sales than any slogan or logo.

In that same vein of communication, it is sometimes necessary to use art to provide perspective. I can explain the solar system's structure a million times to you, but you may never understand it until I show you a picture of it. The perspective of a bird's-eye view can be all it takes to understand complex concepts. Perhaps such a picture would have been useful to Galileo as he argued against the church in favor of heliocentrism.

As previously mentioned in one example, art improves business. Art is not automatically profitable, but neither are other business concentrations. Businesses have failed that were based on creating new art, such as record companies and graphic design firms. However, businesses have also failed because they were so focused on the bottom line or financial gimmicks that they forgot to be creative and attractive. In my mind, the best way to illustrate the value of art in business is to look at the auto industry: beautiful and creative cars will make money of they are also marketed and manufactured intelligently. Ugly cars without creative features, like the "Yugo", will have a rough time in the market no matter how carefully they are managed.

With the word "art" many people immediately think of paintings, music, or poetry. I think that definition is too narrow to define art, and it is counterproductive. In fact, any attempt to define art threatens to limit its impact on our world. The looser we allow art to be defined, the broader we are able to consider our artistic expression and make it relevant and beneficial.

The point I want to make here is that art should always be bigger than our imagination, which allows our imagination to grow. Art is a product of our imagination. It is also a source of fuel and fertilizer for imagination. Without art and imagination, we would not have cars, computers, or even peace and prosperity.

It takes an artistic and imaginative mind to find a way to end war or to expect a life that is devoid of violence. I expect to spend every day of my life without hearing a gun-shot, without having to kill another person, or having to bury a person I love who was killed by violence. It is easy for me to think in such a way because it is a life I have always known. It will require imagination for people in Darfur, Iraq, or Afghanistan to envision a life without violence; artistic expression will enable people to expect peace and seek its implementation.

A look at recent history will demonstrate the power of art for good or evil. In Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and China's Cultural Revolution, all expressions of art were hijacked by the government and used to control the populace. Expressions of art were used by the baby-boomer generation to change our perspectives of war, race, and gender. Art is heavily used in marketing to increase sales; some people watch the Super Bowl just to see how artistic the commercials will be.

The term "craftsman" is used less frequently today than it was in the past, and is often misused. A craftsman was once a person who no only performed a task but did so artfully. They didn't just make a table, they made an object that was as beautiful as it was useful. We tend not to buy tables from craftsman anymore; we expect our tables to be cheaper and settle for simple or common tables that are mass produced on machines. An artist may be used to design the table, but after the 10,000th copy rolls off the line is it really a work of art?

I like having affordable products available to me, but I do not like the fact that mass production is more valuable than craftsmanship. It is a real loss that in place of craftsman today, we have machines that are incapable of creation, or low-wage employees that are neither empowered nor inspired to be creative. We are beginning to imitate the futuristic visions of artists such as George Orwell, Alduous Huxley, and Roger Waters. Even though we can find items that are pleasing to the eye and fulfill the functions they were intended for, it is rare to find consumer goods that contain craftsmanship, creativity. originality, or true beauty. Mediocrity seems to be the expected and accepted standard.

We need to think more about art. The same old ways of looking at business, science, religion, and life should be refreshed, enhanced, or replaced by new perspectives and ideas. By infusing artistic expression into our daily lives, in everything we do from cooking to dressing to working, we add to our pleasure. Art can be fun. It can be healing and refreshing. It can wake us up from mediocrity and monotony.

Art allows us to experience more of life. If you watch a movie and only understand half of the jokes, then you only enjoyed half of the potential that the movie offered. How much more would you enjoy that same movie if you understood all the jokes, assuming all the jokes were funny? As Shrek might say, life is like an onion; it has layers. As you peel each layer back, you find another layer that was once concealed to you. Through art, we discover perspectives and sensations that were once concealed to us.

If you have read this blog for any length of time, you should expect a mention of my favorite subject, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). I think that it takes the same area of our brain that creates and appreciates art to appreciate and implement CSR. Like art, CSR can open up the perspective of a business and its people, increase morale, expose and enhance beauty, and stimulate creativity. By looking for ways to be profitable while acting responsibly with everyone affected by your operation, you consider more solutions to business problems, some of which may be better than the solutions you would have considered without CSR.

By using art to create beauty, inspire emotions, and provide perspective, an artist makes his and her world a better place to live. Like karma, by sending out their art they receive a better world to live in. If a business uses CSR and attempts to express the qualities and attributes of art, they too will improve their world. They will find that their market responds to them in new ways, that their competitors become more civil, that their vendors and communities partner with them and root for their success, and that their employees are more effective and less destructive. CSR is not just a method of limiting liability and negative press; CSR can be a method of artistic expression that increases profitability and effectiveness for a business. Moreover, it can make business enjoyable at every level.

Unknown White Male

I just watched a fascinating documentary that I have to share. It is called "Unknown White Male". The story goes like this:

Early in the morning on July 2, 2003 some guy opened his eyes in a subway car and did not recognize the landscape passing him by. He had never seen this terrain before. That can be disturbing in any situation, but he had more to be disturbed about. He could not remember where he was going. Then he tried to think of where he was coming from, but couldn't retrieve that data either. Finally, he tried to figure out who he was, where he lived, and what he could do next. To his fear and bewilderment, he had no memory of his name, his life, his past, or anyone who could help him. All he had was his body, the clothes he was wearing, and a backpack.

If this was Hollywood, the contents of his backpack would have been a 9mm Beretta, a 3 carat diamond, and a stuffed animal. If it were my backpack, there would have been at least a wallet with IDs and a cell phone. His backpack had a set of keys, a vile of medicine, and a "Lonely Planet Latin America Spanish Phrasebook". This guy was a blank slate, and he had no idea how to proceed. He played it safe by finding a police station.

The police took him to a hospital. There was no explanation for his memory loss, and only one lead on his identity. Inside the book in his backpack was a name on a slip of paper. He called the person, but they weren't sure who he was and they could not come see him at the hospital because they were caring for an elderly parent.

At some point, he was asked by a nurse to sign a document. Without thinking, he scrawled out his signature. It was almost completely illegible, but it proved that there was still some piece of him left. It also told him that his first name started with a "D".

The person whom he called has a daughter. She told her daughter to check this out and see if it was someone she knew. The daughter called the hospital and after speaking with him for a minute told him his name was Doug, he lived a great life, and she would come get him in 30 minutes. And that is where Doug Bruce began a fascinating journey.

As it turns out, Doug lived in New York, in The Village in a large, nice apartment. He was in his thirties, apparently came from money, and had retired after making his own money as a stockbroker for several years in New York. Doug began to videotape his experience as he rediscovered his life all over again. As fortune would have it, he had a friend who made movies and wanted to make a project out of Doug's experience. The two of them together made a fantastic documentary.

The movie explores some basic existentialist, philosophical problems. When Sartre or Camus discuss Existentialism, they are speaking in theoretical or fictional terms. Doug Bruce examined existentialism, epistemology, and every other category of philosophy firsthand as he examined life itself and who the historical Doug Bruce was with a blank-slate mind. In the movie, they compare him to a newborn baby with a mature brain.

Doug re-experiences snow, fireworks, and the London "Changing of the Guard", all of which he had no recollection of. Early in his experience, as he began to question who he was and where he came from, he wondered about his family. He discovered he had a Father and two sisters who were very loving. Unfortunately, he also discovers that his mother passed on some time ago. He had already mourned his mother at the time, but with his memory loss he was forced to mourn his mother's passing again. Of course, now he was mourning someone he had not known. I guess he was mourning that inherent desire in all of us to have a loving mother.

He meets all of his old friends, a network that is large and spread across the globe. He sees old movies of himself. He examines his keepsakes and reads letters he wrote. Nothing jogs his memory, but it helps him develop a fascinating perspective on life.

Everyone who Doug meets expects him to act like the old Doug. Most of the people I know guide their lives by other people's expectations. Almost everyone I know has made major life decisions such as where they live, their occupation, their spouse, their religion, and their political affiliation based on the expectations of their parents, firends, co-workers, employers, and the prevailing zeitgeist.

However, he is approaching life with a blank state and treating it as an opportunity to discover the axiomatic truths of life. Over a year after his memory loss, Doug tells an old friend that he does not feel pressured to recover his old memories. It is apparent that he is comfortable knowing that the old Doug was successful and loved by many people; therefore, the new Doug can be successful and loved too. If anything, it seems that memory loss has propelled Doug closer to the pinnacle of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Without the burdens and pressures built up over thirty years of life, he is free to take his possessions, wealth, friends, and inherent skills to a point of self-actualization.

Doug was lucky in some ways. He did not have to worry about a spouse and offspring, which freed him to take an adventure rather than desperately recover and fit back into the old mold. He also had wealth, so he did not need to worry about how he would eat and pay for electricity and retire--that was all taken care of. He also did not have to come to terms with being an asshole in his former life, as Hollywood loves to portray in Amnesiac movies. He simply had to take life in, let life happen, and draw his own conclusions.

Was he still Doug Bruce? Could he be held responsible for the bad things he had done (if any)? Was he obligated to like the people whom he had been close with in the past? Would he still have the same interests and preferences?

To boil it all down, Doug is an experiment in how much of our character is chemical/genetic and how much is shaped by environment. His friends and family did not get to hold a funeral for the old Doug, but since his molecules were still walking the earth with his voice and features, they never had to experience total loss. Two of his friends mentioned how they were quickly forgetting the old Doug and getting used to the new one.

One interesting thing that bridged his two lives: He had left Wall Street to learn photography. He had two years of school under his belt prior to the memory loss. Now after the loss, he wished to continue his studies. Legally, he was the same person and therefore was entitled to claim his transcripts. However, even though he paid for, attended, and completed the courses in his transcript, he no longer retained most of that knowledge. Therefore, his school required him to either prove he had the skills of a third-year photography student or begin his studies again. Within two months, he was able to re-learn two years of skills and enter the third year of photography studies.

One of his professors discussed how Doug demonstrated that much of his knowledge is contained under the surface, somewhere. He also talked about how Doug was now a more serious student and a more profound artist behind the camera. I suspect that they could have filled 90 interesting minutes just with Doug's re-introduction to photography and his transcendence of his former abilities and passions.

I can't say that this movie will change my life. I am not sure any movie has. However, this movie did something that is rare among movies: It excited by brain and made me consider new thoughts. For me, that is often the best way to spend a couple of hours. Just the process of thought can be invigorating. If that process leads to a new conclusion or idea, then all the better. Sometimes, it is nice to belly-laugh and suspend rationality. However, a movie that makes you think can make you feel like you accomplished something while being entertained.

Here is a trailer to the film: