Artistic Manifesto
Fed up
Aren't you tired of art without soul or any meaning at all? of drab art that repeats the last successful recipe until it drains all life out of it? of art as an algorithm to persuade us to buy more or stay longer on any social media platform?
Of course, art is a research branch that serves beauty and enriches the walls of our home with beautiful images or the walls of our mind with beautiful songs. Beauty is meant to make us feel better, to be in awe of a great master skill, to remember some beautiful memories or to help us remind ourselves of the things we like such as tennis or kayaking. But it’s only one part of it and this invasive wide-spread use and making of art, for me, feels really, really commercial. Just another trinket to buy until we find another one better or until we get tired of looking at the one we’ve got and try to find a replacement. It’s only pleasure, pleasure and pleasure like a short effect drug that needs to be replenished over and over again.
But what does art mean in spite of the merchandise part of it? Has it only become a means for transaction? Does it only serve as decoration or as a collector’s checkbox to be proud of? Is this really all that superficial and status related?
Why do we buy art? Why do we consume it?
My personal answer seems to be quite alien from the majority. I don’t care about art which is just a balm for the eyes or a means to forget our reality, to escape it, to deny it. I don’t care about art that is meant to be called beautiful, be bought and be done with it just as any bed cover or mug. It’s like this old perpetual tradition of “be pretty and shut up”. Art should engrave itself in our mind and become part of us for a while, if not for life. It should move us and spark a process of thought and feeling inside of us.
I believe art is more. I believe art is essential for human life, development and connection. I believe art, at its roots, is supposed to bring something of value in human life, something intangible and yet forever woven into our mind and soul. It serves as inspiration world wide, as motivation, as a testing space for prototype ideas of the future and of many hypotheses about human mysteries. It's a soul searching archeological ground, a forever research about qualia, its purpose, meaning and function. I believe art triggers growth and fundamental change in our psychology and even in our biology. Art is a gateway to experience uncomfortableness in a secure way, to challenge ourselves, our belief system, our perspectives and it is also a hug, a home for those who feel disturbed, strange and alien from their fellow humans.
What is art?
Art, in all its forms, is first and foremost communication, and the language used by each form addresses different parts of our brain, activating different stimulus systems: sight, hearing, touch, movement, intellect, smell, taste, emotion, and so on. Thus, each language plays differently on our neural pathways, like different strumming patterns on a guitar strings, provoking a multitude of possible reactions depending on our sensitivity, but also on our past experiences. These languages have their own rules, their own range of possibilities, and their own point of human connection, serving to transmit both intelligible and physiological information, appealing to purely experiential senses.
The defining characteristic of artistic communication is its inherent subjectivity. Art allows us to see, perceive, or experience a worldview different from our own, a vision transformed by the experience, feelings, and thoughts of an artist. This is perhaps the closest thing to experiencing another person's perspective. Conversely, this subjectivity of the artist is received and filtered by the subjectivity of the observer/spectator/consumer, resulting in as many different interpretations and experiences as there are viewers, since each interprets and distorts the information received according to their unique system of reception and analysis. The very act of viewing or consuming a work of art is thus a direct dialogue with the artist, or what remains of them in the work, allowing us to connect, exchange, or compare two testimonies and two understandings of the world.
Art is a life long statement of existence. It shouldn’t be restrained to only what is positive or beautiful, it should explore all of what life has to offer, be free to show every aspect of the human experience, as eclectic as it can be. Only when art embraces all aspects of life (good and bad, beautiful and ugly, humor and sorrow, struggle and peace, love and wound, clarity and confusion, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and grannyhood, etc.) does it portray a universal and profound view of the world and the human condition. We should honor them all. Art should vouch to always state the uncomfortable truth of our experience and don’t help us look away from it. It should try to help us understand and confront it, cope with it, acknowledge it. As light can be studied and separated in many curves known as colors, human experience is a rainbow of different states of mind and body, creepingly deteriorating, fluctuating through time, always transforming until the end time of its entire system as we know it.
I like to think of art itself as a grand conversation, on a multitude of subjects, originating from all corners of the world, but also from different eras. It's an ongoing conversation, unfolding between many people whether they are meeting in person or not, in the same space-time or not, or even alive or dead. It's a relay race where each generation takes up the conversation, builds upon previous ideas, reacts to new ones, to older ones, re-examines everything, and seeks meaning. The works that mark history are either guarantors of their era, of a revolution or some kind of evolution that becomes a reference point in our timeline, or they are so universal that they contribute again and again to the grand conversation without ever tiring anyone, keeping on inspiring and provoking reactions in new generations.
There has been a grand conversation about the world for millennia concerning who we are, why we exist, how we should act/react/interact, and what the world around us is. Throughout history, we collectively progressed in our understanding of existence itself and of who we are in countless ways: through science, through stories (religions), through experiences. We try to answer different questions: What? How? Why? and sometimes Who? It's a grand, endlessly relayed conversation. The way to fully engage with your cultural heritage and knowledge is by creating your own works which may become a new step for someone to rise upon in the future.
The question we should ask ourselves then becomes: how do I want to contribute to this conversation? What do I have to add to what's already been said? Or, what do I think of everything that's been said? One can participate in a very logical way, but art is experimental, experiential communication. It speaks to emotions and primal parts of our brain that are hard to express in words. It's qualitative and not quantifiable. The challenge is not to add something static to this conversation, but something that renews it, then nourishes it, expands it, or reactivates it by involving the consumer so he/she can take it even further.
A conversation is incomplete without its interlocutor, which is why I seek a communicative art that makes the spectator a partner in the game. I’ll choose dialogue over soliloquy a hundred times over. It’s the only way an idea can live on. Each of us holds a piece of a truth puzzle, sometimes it’s hard to see it or scary to even try to make it fit. But if we approach it with curiosity instead, we might have a better sense of the big picture we’re trying to pull off or of the one we’re stuck into. As in any good dialogue, it’s the artist’s job to let space for his/her partner into his/her artwork, a space to express themselves whether it is only in their mind, in their heart, in comments or in the experience itself of the work just like any good interactive artwork does. Like any good deep conversation between two people, an art piece can transform a human and so can a human transform an art piece.
Imperfection and Authenticity
With the overwhelming amount of information we have access to these days, we are always confronted and reminded of the exceptional journey or achievements of some people, which has translated into a race where most desire to be the special one, to be a person of greatness that no one questions their means of existence, that everybody appreciates, respects. These values of perfectionism (meaning no pain, no mistakes), of star system, and of, supposedly universally accessible, overwhelming success drive so many of us to strive to be the tip of the iceberg in history, the most original person, the one who makes it into the books, the one who revolutionizes, the one who gets massive success and views. In truth, there is nothing purely original because we are an organic machine (the brain and the body) that stores a multitude of stimuli, sensations, emotions, and ideas, and reflects on what it stores. Therefore, we are always reacting to something from the past or the recent present. Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed. We absorb, transform, and regurgitate. It's the same for art, thoughts, and ideas. Of course, it does resemble AI functions because AI was based on our brain functions. It’s an imitation of us.
The thing is : being respected and recognized by many actually starts by owning where we come from and all of our flaws in total honesty. We connect as humans over our imperfections, our pain, our clumsiness, our humiliations, our mistakes. We don’t recognize ourselves in a perfect and glamorous achievement or being, we may actually envy it, be inspired by it or be in awe but we do not relate. In reality, we connect on our struggles, failures, pain, on everything that reminds us profoundly that we are human with a set path to an end. We are profoundly imperfect beings who deteriorate with time until we disappear, destined to eventually perish, and yet it is our experience, our journey through imperfection and decay, that allows us to better appreciate who we are and the fleeting nature of the time allotted to us.
True beauty lies in this experience of life where life and death coexist at the same time, where life and death are inseparable like happiness and suffering, where the quest for perfection can only exist in an imperfect world. Opposites do not exist without their partner. They are not rivals, they are two words in the same sentence, the outcome of the other, the meaning behind the other’s existence. Accepting both sides of the same coin is to finally confront the true beauty of the world and of humanity — the complete experience. Therefore, showing off only our best days, our best traits is like denying more than half of who we truly are.
In art, a visually imperfect work (for example, incomplete instead of an exact reproduction of reality) is more interesting for it engages the observer/viewer, allowing a part of the artist to live within the work. It is through imperfection that we maintain interest, through suggestion that we invite others to collaborate and complete the work with their own imagination. Imperfection attracts, cultivates attachment, curiosity, and attention. We admire perfection and move on, but imperfection opens communication and gives rise to encounters, conversations, and connections. For me, human connection is much more important than to impress others, to show off, which demands of the artist true vulnerability, to embrace all of his/her flaws instead of hiding them and cultivating shame around them.
Instead of aiming for excellence all the time, we have to welcome who we are and open our eyes to what is there instead of what it should have been, this idealized mental picture we hold on to in our mind. Only then, may we discover what our artwork and ourselves could be outside of any previous expectations, what it needs and what are its possible outcomes. Once we see, we finally arrive at the creation point : the act of choosing which way we want to go, what we are keeping, what to let go, what we will be transforming and how.
Don’t be shy of your mistakes or flaws, be human, make beauty and meaningful outcomes out of them. The act of creation is the act of living. If you make a mistake in life, can you go back in time and erase it? No ! You have to live with it and work through it. That’s the same with art.
You have a physical limitation ? Does that mean that in life you can’t accomplish anything? No ! So do the same in art. Work with your limitations. What can you accomplish despite them? What can you accomplish because of them? Let yourself discover it. I always remind myself of my life partner who is colorblind, who is also my best judge for lightning effect and contrast. Unlike me, he isn’t distracted by colors. This is a strength, not a handicap.
“What it should be”, the rules we learn and make in our mind
There’s always a tension between the prediction or imagined outcome we have on something we are currently doing or wish to be doing and what reality serves us. “The worst thing that can happen to a dream is to become a reality.” I don’t remember where this saying came from but it is so on point. Our ideas are much more glorious in our minds than in their materialized form and the worst of all is that as soon as they have become a reality, they are also heading to an end, just like we are. They are not immortal, untouchable, unbreakable. They are no longer protected by the walls of our mind. Thus, when reality gets in conflict with the imagined and does not meet the standards of the mind, great pain can emerge.
The creative challenge is to meet reality where it stands. Just like birthing a human being, birthing anything new into existence demands great effort, energy and pain. It demands vulnerability. The more we listen and see what is really in front of us, the more we can guide it into being the best version it can be, and the one it actually needs to be. Staying stuck and attached to the mind or any rules we have chosen to follow can paralyze any artist and prevent him/her from actually creating. The rule book we have come up with from all the artworks we have consumed, all the teachings we have learned and all the dreams we have nurtured are just guidelines for the real creative endeavor, guard rails on a pathway, loose house rules for a game we are playing. At any point, we can change the rules, make up some of our own, break down a fence to explore the wild and unknown and to plow a new trail for others. The creative act is the power to choose what you do whether it is inside or outside the box you have been making up yourself until now. It’s to transform what you’ve been consuming into something new, not to be confined in it. It’s the courage and perseverance to see through something that only you have imagined or felt, to see it through all the way to the end.
