Friday 19 November 2010

The He(Art) of Society

At uni the other day, I looked up from cram reading in the library for the last four hours and reflected on how lucky I am.  The reams of notes in front of me looked hieroglyphic to my tired eyes and I knew I had another two hours at least to go.

But to be immersed in ideas, thoughts, creativity and abstraction is such a luxury. Especially when I have spent year upon year looking at spreadsheets, production schedules, budgets, funding reports and other crap I had no real investment in.

It takes awhile for the brain to gain legs once you have set it free to roam again. Mine's screaming Bloody Murder as it's un-used to all this space to think and dream and create.

Conservative political and economic thought (such as the policies that are running rife through this country right now) believe that arts and the humanities are novel pre-occupations and not in the same category as medicine or engineering or science or accountancy.

So if you agree, do this. Turn off your tv and smash it. Break all your DVDs. Never go the cinema or theater again. Burn all your books and magazines. Take down any paintings from your wall and chuck them. Same goes for any sculpture, figurines or textiles. Destroy all your music. Have someone else choose all your clothes and decorations and furnishings in your house as aesthetics won't matter to you.

Stop thinking. We don't need you anymore. Bad Rodin. Bad artist.


Humans can no more exist without the arts as we can without food and water. We need it to nourish our idea of ourselves as well as to understand one another. We need it to develop as a society.

Otherwise what is there?