What art means to us

 

Here is a question haunting Brian Eno to this day. In a conversation with Vikas Shah uploaded in January, the British artist and musician recounts the story of how Joan Harvey - the mother of his ex-girlfriend - asked him: “Why would someone with a brain like yours waste it being an artist?” This precise question drove Eno to explore the reasons why humans make art and why we are creative. 

In this text I will quote the interview referenced above to help structure my summary of the past year through the lens of art. The banner picture of this article shows a snapshot by Mike Wall of a live concert. Musical performances are one form of artistic expression. Photography is another and so is dance, film, etc. Please feel free to apply what is discussed below to any artistic discipline of your choosing.

Imagination takes practice

“Playing is where children learn,” argues Eno at the beginning of his interview. When we were young, we developed both physical and mental skills through playing. The games we played as kids were all ways of saying: “Let’s pretend ...”. Now that we are adults, play continues to assist us in imagining things into being, and it takes practice.

As the pandemic confined us, many forms of play were scrapped or postponed. Some have been able to carry on, with the support of an organization I became co-founder of. Artists Unlimited created a platform enabling artists to organize paid live streams for fans to enjoy online. From the moment the virus hit until June of this year, Artists Unlimited hosted about 30 events ranging from rock, hip-hop and stand-up comedy to poetry, classical music and workshops.

According to Eno, play turns into becoming an artist as soon as you grow older. At some point in our lives we are told to get serious however, instead of doing things for the pleasure of doing them. Yes, art can be serious business, but most of the time it's actually not. I genuinely believe that even if the practice of art doesn’t generate a profit, it should never stop us from cherishing and pursuing it.

Before we could speak 

“We’re all a little lost and it’s alright.” Few phrases have managed to comfort me in the way that those lyrics did from Nightbirde’s song ‘It’s Okay’. It wasn’t just her lines to the song that made Simon Cowell hit the Golden Buzzer at America’s Got Talent. It was her gripping story, her kind delivery and - perhaps most importantly - the way she sang that song.

“There is a theory that we sang before we could speak,” posits Eno. If we assume that the act of singing predates everything, then it’s important that we arrive at a clear understanding about its value, what it does to us and how it makes us feel.

Vocabulary of feelings

“Art and culture give us a way to retrieve our lost ideals, actively connect to others, travel in time, communicate beyond words, and practice the hard work of participatory reality creation.” These are not Brian Eno’s words, but those of media theorist and podcast host Douglas Rushkoff. His 2020 book Team Human transformed into an online community and podcast series bearing the same name, still going strong after 196 episodes. In July I began paying a monthly donation to the show after being captivated by guests like graphic novelist Grant Morrison, comedian Duncan Trussell, musician Ella Minus and performance artist Kenya (Robinson).

Rushkoff’s quest over the years has been to recover and nurture our shared sense of humanity amidst the onslaught of extractive capitalism, techno-utopianism, reductionist scientism and climate catastrophe. What makes us human? Do we escape to outer space, surrender our agency to artificially intelligent robots, turn nihilist and regress to Us vs. Them? No, we remain open and meet each other halfway in that squishy centre where mystery and feelings reside. Experiencing art may allow us to do exactly that.

Works of art to draw upon and collectively engage with are essential to a well-functioning society. Why? Because often we are making our decisions on the basis of feelings. “Art exists to make us feel differently,” says Eno. “Art is cultivating a vocabulary of feelings and giving us a repertoire of experiences that we have feelings about.” By allowing art to affect us, we learn to respond more consciously to the world - as individuals or as a community.

The village well

How do we interpret people who dress a certain way? If a villager chooses to be dressed in an extravagant fashion, the village attempts to achieve consensus on it. A shared opinion about the matter helps to establish and reinforce group cohesion. Such social dynamics can be symbolized by the village well, a place where people would gather and discuss issues of the town.

As I started taking a language course this year, my evenings got filled with French movies and documentaries. One I came across was 'Christo & Jeanne-Claude - L’art de cacher, l’art de dévoiler' (available until December 13th via arte.tv). The documentary includes a magnificent sequence in which artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude speak up at a town hall meeting. Jeanne-Claude in particular makes her case for wrapping the Arkansas River in large textile materials - the couple’s signature style of outdoor intervention - thereby crossing the land of many farmers and landowners who have assembled in protest, preventing the artwork to be installed. “I believe that the majority wish to share an absolutely beautiful experience!” shouts Jeanne-Claude. Her plea is met with silence across the room. The project was eventually abandoned. Not all dreams come true, but some do. In September this year, the city of Paris featured the duo’s posthumous work ‘The Arc de Triomphe Wrapped’.

Visionary art

On some level, art remains a case of personal taste. Eno: “Maybe something could be art for somebody for a couple of minutes on one Sunday in January and never again for anybody else. Maybe something could be a piece of art for millions of people for a couple of months, like a hit single. Maybe something can be art for a few thousand people, but for a very long time.”

For a while now I have been fascinated with the work of a number of painters belonging to the category of visionary artists. A landmark series of exhibitions is currently being held at Mesa Arts Center in the state of Arizona featuring the works of Alex & Allyson Grey and Amanda Sage.

'The Great Wave of Trainsformation' by Amanda Sage & Joe Bob Merritt

Nearby in Las Vegas, digital renderings of the paintings by Sage and the Greys are part of Meow Wolf’s immersive installation Omega Mart at Area15. Visitors to the space are invited to walk through the Projected Desert, surrounded by animated imagery based on the painters’ work. Who provides the soundtrack to this artful desert trip? You guessed it: Brian Eno.

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What’s the takeaway here? Put effort and attention towards creative expression. Continue creating that more desirable reality. It’s never too late to discover what really matters to you. 

Merry festivities, happy new year and I wish you the best in times to come.

Thanks to the performance

 

At this year’s Oscars, the movie Sound of Metal - a Belgian co-production - was awarded with two statues for Best Sound and Best Editing. Actor Riz Ahmed propels the film’s story forward with an impressive performance as Ruben Stone, a formerly addicted metal drummer who loses his sense of hearing and joins a community of deaf people. 

In this short piece, I want to pay tribute to the work of actors, musicians and other performing artists alike. Ahmed’s contribution to Sound of Metal is an example of such work. Through his portrayal of the main character in the film, Ahmed shows us what it means to surrender to a subject and bring emotions to life. Those abilities are qualities that we generally attribute to accomplished performers.

A new language

Of course, performance isn’t simply a matter of losing yourself in the moment and doing whatever comes up. Without attracting too much attention to the fact, Ahmed’s performance actually displays a whole set of hard skills that few people possess. He learned how to play the drums for the part. The role required the British native to speak an American accent. On top of that, the actor needed to familiarize himself with a new language altogether, namely sign language.

Performing artists willingly dive into areas that many of us would never consider exploring. In doing so, artists are able to portray a side of life that can be very valuable for us to experience as an audience. In an interview with talk show host Stephen Colbert, Ahmed says:

“You start off watching a character that you feel like you can’t relate to and is so different to you. At the end of it you realize that there’s a kind of core of emotion and humanity that we all share.”

While preparing for the movie, Ahmed was initiated in the deaf community. It’s amazing to learn what the actor took away from that experience of being in contact with deaf people: “There’s a saying in the deaf community that hearing people are emotionally repressed because we hide behind words. We use words to mask our true feelings.” Later, he goes on to state: “I learned sign language but I also learned what real communication is, what real listening is, from the deaf community. And I’m so grateful for that.”

Gratitude

I find it unfortunate how we seem to lack the proper instruments to express our gratitude towards artists that move us. I was blown away after watching Sound of Metal, but I felt quite unable to offer a form of appreciation. Sure, we can buy a copy of the work, purchase the t-shirt or join the fan club. Still, it feels as though our selective praise for some chosen few can hardly amount to the abundance of powerful artistic expressions we encounter. This text should be seen as a very humble compensation in that regard.

Promoting the film, Riz Ahmed did a video call with actor Joaquin Phoenix. At the end of their conversation, I was surprised how clearly Phoenix spoke of his admiration for Ahmed’s performance. In a way, this is something we can all do nowadays over social media - to communicate a sincere thanks to a performer, in whatever form. It may carry another weight coming from a famous Hollywood actor, but that shouldn’t stop us all from taking the time.

Sound of Metal will be shown at Festival International du Film de Mons on July 10 & 11. Have fun at the movies!