Brand's Blog

african art to the universe

A couple weeks ago my daughter mentioned that she was taking an african art class.

I said that african art left me cold.

She said that that was because I had no concept of african culture or society. If I did, I would see how great the art really is.

Which I am sure is true.

What we see, how we see it, and what effect it has on us depends strongly on what we know.

I remember as a kid being dragged to art museums, which did nothing for me. However, nowdays, art museums are some of my favorite places, because the best art resonates with what I have already learned about life, or are learning: I see emotions, or beauty in the art, and it resonates with my emotions, my experiences of beauty, in a way that a child just cannot know.

Now I am untrained in art, so art to me is a purely emotional experience. But a trained artist, going to an art museum, that person experiences something else, an intellectual thrill that I cannot have, a thrill that comes from knowing the artist and the art from their studies.

So returning to the african art that started this entry: african art leaves me cold now. If I knew more about africa, would I react emotionally, as I currently do to western art, or intellectually, as trained artists do to art works?

Probably, a little of both. But note that some exposure to africa is needed even for the emotional reaction.

Think of music. If I hear unfamilar music, such as say tibetian chants, to me it seems like noise. But to tibetians, Im sure it sounds beautiful.  To get that emotional experience, one needs some exposure, some knowledge.

But now lets talk about a great piece of music, say beethovens 9th symphony, 4th movement. Arguably the greatest 20 something minutes of sound our planet has produced. I feel strong emotions listening to it.  What about the trained musician? Does his or her intellectual enjoyment enhance or mute his or her emotional enjoyment of the piece?

I dont know the answer.  But let me tell you why this topic interests me.

This topic interests me because I believe that it would be beneficial to the planet if everyone could fully grasp our place in the universe. If they could grasp the true awe of the universe, they could perhaps understand what is important and what is not important in terms of how we construct our modern civilization. They would be able to grasp that survival of our civilivization, our infosphere, and our search for knowledge of the universe is more important than the trivial details of our lives, such as religion, war, death, life.  That our civilization should be structured around long term survival, for the universe, as opposed to short term benefit.

It seems like the paragraph above has nothing to do with african art. So bear with me a little longer.

When I was a young kid, 6 years old and up, looking at the stars did nothing for me. I remember borrrowing telescopes, and wondering what the big deal was, just dim points of light.

Which is true, with no knowledge, stars are just dim points of light, very boring.

I am much older know. When I look at those same boring stars, I am filled with total awe at the majesty of the universe, with the total knowedge of how insignificant our planet is compared even to our own galaxy, let alone the whole universe.

That total awe helps me focus on what is truly important on this planet.

But to give everyone on the planet that total awe and mystic experience, one needs knowledge.  Knowledge that doesnt come easily. Knowledge that goes contrary to relgious fundamentalists of all stripes, who I view as the true evil ones of our civilizations, fundamentalists of all religions.

So back to the topic.  We need to save humanity by generating awe of the universe. We can only do that by knowledge, since just looking at stars doesnt do it. People need knowledge first.

Cheerio,

Brand

Why should I watch a movie?

There was a documentary a couple years ago called cinemafile, about a group of new yorkers who live for movies. literally. All they do, day in and day out, is watch movies. For them its like a drug.

I understand that,. Drugs give you an emotional change, make you happy, alert, mellow, whatever. Movies can do the same thing.  I guess Music can do that do, but listening to music all day isnt as debilitating as watching movies all day, as you can do other things while listening to music.

There have been a few moments in my real life where I have felt very powerful emotions, as you know, but for me, most of my strong emotions relate to film, to incidents in films that really resonate with me. And Im clearly not alone.  Do having strong emotions in a fictional setting make us better or worse people?  Well, for the most part we were taught that it was good to read lots of novels, that reading fiction was a broadening experience. I submit that movies are also a broadening experience. I can experience, though the movie, places, people, situations, that I could never do in real life. And I can and do learn from those fictional experiences.

The trick, of course, is to choose what one learns from the experience. For example, reading 'the brothers karamazov" to get life lessons is very different that getting life lessons from romance novels.  Same with movies.  To my mind, the greatest movies are the most, well, enobling, in terms of shared experience, shared emotion.  Like any great art.