TeledyN

most of us in the arts have a completely wrong-headed idea of our true mission. Jim Collins argues that we mistakenly assume our mission is to present our particular and beloved artistic canon, the greatest artworks, old and new. He suggests our core values are exactly not that, that our favorite artworks are the means by which we have try to fulfill the core values of art, and according to his research, that is exactly where we must experiment. To rediscover our purpose, to live long and prosper, we must let go of our focus on programming favorite artworks, old and new, and instead boldly experiment with engaging people in artistic experiences. We must reconnect with the human art instinct.

The arts have been around since at least Day Two of human history (ornamental jewelry goes back 80,000 years, painting almost as far—and that’s not mentioning our impulses to create dance, music and to tell stories, which undoubtedly are even more ancient). Artistic expression is not just the province of artists; it appears spontaneously, irrepressibly, throughout each of our lives, mostly in forms and venues not identified with Art with a capital A. So, how have we let the identity of art get quarantined as an occasional pricey event in a special building?

Art appears in every endeavor raised to its highest level of expression, and more commonly in our conversations, hobbies, homes, as we dance at parties … anywhere people slip into the work and play of art. The core value for those of us in the arts professions—engaging people in the richness of the artistic experience—is to prompt that universal sense of meaning, richness, “specialness,” and satisfaction. It feels good—really good—the kind of good feeling that is hard to find in our overstimulated, materialistic, multitasking lives.

In order to unify our disparate arts, we need to find the quintessential elements of that human experience. We need to identify the fundamental particle or particles at the basis of the attraction, a Higgs boson for the human movement toward the artistic experience. And if we can agree around that unifying principle, I believe we can begin to answer the Jim Collins challenge in a powerful way, by experimenting boldly to bring people into the common, universal, highly-valued human experience of art. Not just those who already value the arts, but also those who aren’t in the club and don’t think about or care about the arts, yet yearn for fullness in their lives. We need to move the experience of art to the center of our intention, and reclaim Homo sapiens’ cultural birthright of artistic engagement.

Precisely. I refer to this all the time as the "Sacred duty" of the performance, be that as a theatre group, as musicians or as a painter, I ask if the performers were aware of their sacred duty to deliver the message.

And I don't mean the story line or the author's politics.

"No wonder the arts have sustained since the beginning of human history—this is the list of the best parts of being alive. They provide unity, attraction, and the reason there is something to being a human instead of being nothing.

"What can we do, as believers in the power of the fundamental act of creation, to align our actions, our creations, our organizations, our intentions and interactions with everyone inside and outside the arts to maximize that power? How can we create environments that effectively, irresistibly support and nurture that power? What events can we devise that are dedicated to that power, not merely to the presentation of artworks that we hope will contain it for those few who pay to attend?"

The answers, say Eric, are in the Unknown, in new collaborations, new artistic environments, new dialogs, in bold and brilliant new ways of retelling old stories. Which is to say, the answers, say Eric, are in the practice of Art.

Good to see I'm not the only one pondering incestuous feedback loops in blogspace: Rob Corr writes

"an analysis of weblogging in terms of the five propaganda filters demonstrates that in spite of its apparently democratic structure and the absence of opportunity for conspiratorial control, systemic bias towards powerful interests prevails in the blogosphere."

Of course, Rob does miss one small detail...

do tell! do tell all! do tell all about! do tell all about it!!

In a large enough Universe, just about all observations are true. While Rob's assessment may hold merit within the closed networks of blog-buddies locked into the DayPop/blogdex sphere, it says little about what might occur in the vastness of space outside the fold.

Outer Visions

I will grant Rob the observation that any change is not going to happen by accident or by any emergent property of blogspace; it is going to take the initiative from those of us who control the current space to open the doors, something the geek community is not renouned for doing. But given that access, while it may be true that the traditional blog-addicted readerships will neglect the infrequent posts of a Peruvian farmer, that won't stop Google from tallying that farmer's link-votes -- they may not gain any celebrity status of an Instapundit or Doc Searls, but they still have a valid voice in shaping the search-weights in a semantic web, and in the long-run scheme of things, which is more important?

Just as the mostly-academic gopherspace evolved to a web just as likely to contain pictures of someone's cat as United Nations development project summaries, so too in blogspace the compartmentalization (c18n) into interest groups is not a bad thing; at present, there are only a few groups, parallel to the few gopherspace servers circa 1990, but given time, and especially when granted access, these closed loops of common-interest blogs still provide identity, community, and, well, we're only intelligent in the space between us.

Blogs as Societal Scaffolding

As a case in point for where this is needed, collegues of mine reported on a project to outfit street youth in urban India with free-access internet terminals, only to then discover there was no compelling content for these kids to access! Blogspace, in my fringe and disenfranchised opinion, is a critical component to deploying a social infrastructure on which we can then build the technological and economic networks for development.

It's for this latter reason that I, as one of those white middle-class male geeks in possession of the keys, have submitted a proposal to the Ontario Native Literary Coalition and also to the Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth. It's also why I have approached the WCC/IFIP Youth Initiatives Program, and while, so far, all three are ignoring me (or more probably just don't understand) it's still worth our bother to persist.

Submitted by mrG on Wed, 2002-10-09 07:54