Business and Art 5 Reasons Why the Arts is Not a Luxury

Business and Art 5 Reasons Why the Arts is Not a Luxury Business and Art: 5 Reasons Why the Arts is Not a Luxury Image Source: iStockART rock pioneer, producer and philosopher Brian Eno’s 2015  John Peel Lecture for the BBC [listen or read]  provided rich food for thought about art, how it must be reconsidered as the central thing that humanity does, and how it functions in an era of rapidly accelerating change. The content of Eno’s lecture also has  implications for the relationship between business and art, and why the arts is not and should be regarded as a luxury, or even an industry.If entrepreneurs, career professionals and leaders should think bigger than themselves, and about the people they serve, Eno’s propositions should not be ignored, for they say much about what makes human beings and their behaviour unique.Eno rejects the term “creative industries” as inadequate for understanding how art works. The term, he says, locates the arts in an economic framework, where activity is expressed as a single number, and in which “things that cant be evaluated in that way are actual ly not worth anything”.For Eno, this mindset is typified by the November 2014 remarks of British Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, who advised that arts and humanities did not offer as good job prospects as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects.Eno fears that from this standpoint, art becomes something “sort of nice”, and a “bit of a luxury”, and in his lecture works to move art into the heart of what makes human beings behave the way they do, either individually or collectively. Here are five of Eno’s compelling reasons why none of usâ€"citizens, businesses, or politiciansâ€"can afford to view the arts as a luxury add-on. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 1. “Art is Everything That You Don’t Have to Do.”BRIAN Eno’s  narrow definition of culture as “the creative arts” and broad definition of art as “everything you don’t have to do” is not flippant. He really means it, and the commercial dimensions of what he is saying cannot be ignored.Eno says that just some of the things that fit this broad definition of art include “symphonies, perfume, sports cars, graffiti, needlepoint, monuments, tattoos, slang, Ming vases, doodles, poodles, apple strudels. Still life, Second Life, bed knobs and boob jobs”.There is basic activity that all animals do to survive, such as eating; but humans, uniquely, invent “Baked Alaska or sausage rolls”. All animals move; but humans uniquely move in a way that they don’t have toâ€"they dance “the rumba, the tango, the Charleston, and the twerk”.The human animal stylizes, embellishes and ornaments. And Eno observes that almost every human group, not just the relatively wealthy, spends “almost all of their surplus time and energyâ€"in the act of stylising things and enjoying other peoples stylizations of things”.2. Art Experience: “Adults Play Through Art.”ENO argues that with this unique tendency to stylize, adults are doing what children do in play. They’re playing “lets pretend…  the central human trick that distinguishes us from all other creatures”.Using the example of communication [“animals communicate, but…  we write epic poems and pop songs and symphonies and advertising and so on…”], Eno suggest how novels and movies enable people to experience worlds that are both unfamiliar and also entirely imagined.Dickens’s novels opened the eyes of 19th century English society to the poorest people in London, leading to greater  empathy for a class of people that had been relatively invisible, but who felt the same feelings, triumphs and disappointments as everyone else.Another function of the “play” experience of art is Enos idea of the “safe room”; a place where we can have feelings that, in real life, might be too sensitive or dangerous. It enables open and intense discussions about social taboosâ€"perhaps the  subject matter of  a popular  TV seriesâ€"that might not take place if the situation w as unfolding in real life. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 3. Scenius and Genius: Art Reflects Communal as much as Individual TalentENO is a believer in  genius as reflecting  the talent of an entire community, instead of one person.  To explain why some artists are celebrated while others remains obscure, he  adapts the word “genius” into the term “scenius”.“New ideas are articulated by individuals, but generated by communities. What we tend to do is… celebrate the individuals… what we dont do is look at the whole community that theyre drawing on.Viewed in this way, culture is not a hierarchy, but an  ecosystem, “richly interconnected and co-dependent”; a “constantly rebalancing” set of relationships.4. Art “Synchronises” PeopleIN THE  ecosystem of culture, art fulfils an important “synchronising” function at a time of accelerating changeâ€"an era in which, as Eno observes, there is the same amount of change in one month as there wa s in “the whole of the 14th century”.“None of us are all experts on everything that is happening,” Eno says. “We have to somehow come to terms with all of that… we need ways of keeping in synch; of remaining coherent. And I think that this is what culture is doing for us.” (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 5. The Arts  in an Era of AbundanceENO’S view of the future is optimistic,  as we move from the economics  of scarcity and competition “into an era of abundance and cooperation”. But it’s a world of “ultrafast change”, where people, less connected to production due to automation, will more than ever need to  remain coherent.Examples of trends  in the new era  that  would have been unimaginable under the old economics, include the Open Source movement, particularly the cases of Linux and Wikipedia; experiments with Basic Income to see if poverty can be eliminated through State  provision of a living wage; and an increasingly rational altr uism that stems from the idea that  it is “unsustainable that this tiny sliver of the world that we live in is so rich compared to the rest of the world… it can’t work that we are so much richer than the rest of the world and not expect them to come and want to take some of it”.In all of these instances, Eno foresees culture and art playing a core and beneficial role, given the tendency of humans not to build philosophies from the ground up but to collectively “get a sense of what everybody else is thinking…  and sort of work out our attitudes in relation to everybody else”.He envisages people, not just professionals, being  â€œeven more full time artists than we are now”. Everyone will be  engaged in a process of how to “resynchronise with each other, to connect things together, to be able to make adventurous mind games about different futures, to be able to understand things”.“This why, I think, we need to be thinking about art and culture, not as a little ad d-on, a bit of luxury, but as the central thing that we do,” he concludes.See in this way, art and culture makes the challenge of how humans behave  amid such trends and changes much less of a challenge.THE artist provides a ‘potted history’ of his early life storyâ€"scholarship to a Catholic Grammar School; free attendance at art school; a period on the ‘dole’ to enable him pursue his desire to be an artist; meeting members of his first band, Roxy Music; getting airplay on public service BBC Radio from the DJ John Peelâ€"demonstrates how his artistry was incubated in institutions that were established “by people who had some sort of idealistic notion of social engineering”:They represent a sort of “altruism”, or a “generosity towards the future”, which is just starting to find its time now, in the new era of abundance, he maintains.If entrepreneurs and business leaders are to become truly successfulâ€"in an era where the general public are placing greater trus t in them to improve social conditionsâ€"their products and services must increasingly be rooted in the needs of the people they serve.And  if Eno is only approximately correct, an empirical valuation of art and culture is a huge mistake, and overlooks the very thing that makes people what they are. Business and Art 5 Reasons Why the Arts is Not a Luxury Business and Art: 5 Reasons Why the Arts is Not a Luxury Image Source: iStockART rock pioneer, producer and philosopher Brian Eno’s 2015  John Peel Lecture for the BBC [listen or read]  provided rich food for thought about art, how it must be reconsidered as the central thing that humanity does, and how it functions in an era of rapidly accelerating change. The content of Eno’s lecture also has  implications for the relationship between business and art, and why the arts is not and should be regarded as a luxury, or even an industry.If entrepreneurs, career professionals and leaders should think bigger than themselves, and about the people they serve, Eno’s propositions should not be ignored, for they say much about what makes human beings and their behaviour unique.Eno rejects the term “creative industries” as inadequate for understanding how art works. The term, he says, locates the arts in an economic framework, where activity is expressed as a single number, and in which “things that cant be evaluated in that way are actual ly not worth anything”.For Eno, this mindset is typified by the November 2014 remarks of British Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, who advised that arts and humanities did not offer as good job prospects as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects.Eno fears that from this standpoint, art becomes something “sort of nice”, and a “bit of a luxury”, and in his lecture works to move art into the heart of what makes human beings behave the way they do, either individually or collectively. Here are five of Eno’s compelling reasons why none of usâ€"citizens, businesses, or politiciansâ€"can afford to view the arts as a luxury add-on. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 1. “Art is Everything That You Don’t Have to Do.”BRIAN Eno’s  narrow definition of culture as “the creative arts” and broad definition of art as “everything you don’t have to do” is not flippant. He really means it, and the commercial dimensions of what he is saying cannot be ignored.Eno says that just some of the things that fit this broad definition of art include “symphonies, perfume, sports cars, graffiti, needlepoint, monuments, tattoos, slang, Ming vases, doodles, poodles, apple strudels. Still life, Second Life, bed knobs and boob jobs”.There is basic activity that all animals do to survive, such as eating; but humans, uniquely, invent “Baked Alaska or sausage rolls”. All animals move; but humans uniquely move in a way that they don’t have toâ€"they dance “the rumba, the tango, the Charleston, and the twerk”.The human animal stylizes, embellishes and ornaments. And Eno observes that almost every human group, not just the relatively wealthy, spends “almost all of their surplus time and energyâ€"in the act of stylising things and enjoying other peoples stylizations of things”.2. Art Experience: “Adults Play Through Art.”ENO argues that with this unique tendency to stylize, adults are doing what children do in play. They’re playing “lets pretend…  the central human trick that distinguishes us from all other creatures”.Using the example of communication [“animals communicate, but…  we write epic poems and pop songs and symphonies and advertising and so on…”], Eno suggest how novels and movies enable people to experience worlds that are both unfamiliar and also entirely imagined.Dickens’s novels opened the eyes of 19th century English society to the poorest people in London, leading to greater  empathy for a class of people that had been relatively invisible, but who felt the same feelings, triumphs and disappointments as everyone else.Another function of the “play” experience of art is Enos idea of the “safe room”; a place where we can have feelings that, in real life, might be too sensitive or dangerous. It enables open and intense discussions about social taboosâ€"perhaps the  subject matter of  a popular  TV seriesâ€"that might not take place if the situation w as unfolding in real life. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 3. Scenius and Genius: Art Reflects Communal as much as Individual TalentENO is a believer in  genius as reflecting  the talent of an entire community, instead of one person.  To explain why some artists are celebrated while others remains obscure, he  adapts the word “genius” into the term “scenius”.“New ideas are articulated by individuals, but generated by communities. What we tend to do is… celebrate the individuals… what we dont do is look at the whole community that theyre drawing on.Viewed in this way, culture is not a hierarchy, but an  ecosystem, “richly interconnected and co-dependent”; a “constantly rebalancing” set of relationships.4. Art “Synchronises” PeopleIN THE  ecosystem of culture, art fulfils an important “synchronising” function at a time of accelerating changeâ€"an era in which, as Eno observes, there is the same amount of change in one month as there wa s in “the whole of the 14th century”.“None of us are all experts on everything that is happening,” Eno says. “We have to somehow come to terms with all of that… we need ways of keeping in synch; of remaining coherent. And I think that this is what culture is doing for us.” (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 5. The Arts  in an Era of AbundanceENO’S view of the future is optimistic,  as we move from the economics  of scarcity and competition “into an era of abundance and cooperation”. But it’s a world of “ultrafast change”, where people, less connected to production due to automation, will more than ever need to  remain coherent.Examples of trends  in the new era  that  would have been unimaginable under the old economics, include the Open Source movement, particularly the cases of Linux and Wikipedia; experiments with Basic Income to see if poverty can be eliminated through State  provision of a living wage; and an increasingly rational altr uism that stems from the idea that  it is “unsustainable that this tiny sliver of the world that we live in is so rich compared to the rest of the world… it can’t work that we are so much richer than the rest of the world and not expect them to come and want to take some of it”.In all of these instances, Eno foresees culture and art playing a core and beneficial role, given the tendency of humans not to build philosophies from the ground up but to collectively “get a sense of what everybody else is thinking…  and sort of work out our attitudes in relation to everybody else”.He envisages people, not just professionals, being  â€œeven more full time artists than we are now”. Everyone will be  engaged in a process of how to “resynchronise with each other, to connect things together, to be able to make adventurous mind games about different futures, to be able to understand things”.“This why, I think, we need to be thinking about art and culture, not as a little ad d-on, a bit of luxury, but as the central thing that we do,” he concludes.See in this way, art and culture makes the challenge of how humans behave  amid such trends and changes much less of a challenge.THE artist provides a ‘potted history’ of his early life storyâ€"scholarship to a Catholic Grammar School; free attendance at art school; a period on the ‘dole’ to enable him pursue his desire to be an artist; meeting members of his first band, Roxy Music; getting airplay on public service BBC Radio from the DJ John Peelâ€"demonstrates how his artistry was incubated in institutions that were established “by people who had some sort of idealistic notion of social engineering”:They represent a sort of “altruism”, or a “generosity towards the future”, which is just starting to find its time now, in the new era of abundance, he maintains.If entrepreneurs and business leaders are to become truly successfulâ€"in an era where the general public are placing greater trus t in them to improve social conditionsâ€"their products and services must increasingly be rooted in the needs of the people they serve.And  if Eno is only approximately correct, an empirical valuation of art and culture is a huge mistake, and overlooks the very thing that makes people what they are.