Hot Links | Looking Toward 2018 | CEOs in Art School | Hoping for a Chartreuse World

“Knowledge consists in the search for the truth...it is not the search for certainty.”

— Karl Popper

Some are new, some are not.  Nonetheless, all of the articles linked to below are currently fueling our ideas for/discussions on arts-led innovation.

We think it’s time to disrupt the coming wave of digital disruption – in meaningful, people and planet centered ways.  As Strategy + Business says: This wave of digital disruption will have far-reaching effects. Already, digital technology has shown its ability to outpace or outmaneuver efforts to control it.

YES!  Business leaders are going to art school, to develop creative skills.  We are hopeful that increased empathy will be part of the enrichment.

What will work look like in the 2030?  We’re doing everything we can, to facilitate the development of something like a chartreuse world (a mixture of green and yellow).

Co.Design hypothesizes the big design trends of the coming new year.  We really hope that Inclusivity for All takes off and transcends trend to become standard practice.

This is progress: investment funds that benefit communities in addition to shareholders.  We like to imagine a future in which there are large investment funds that benefit communities instead of shareholders.

Less of this and this, more human-centered protections from autonomous AI.

We are very interested in the discussion around the outsized influence of Big Tech and the search for the “Davids” that can bring equilibrium to the sector.

Artists Will Hold The Most Important Design Jobs of the Future

Earlier this week, Fast Company published predictions for The Most Important Design Jobs of the Future.  Designers from iconic organizations identified 18 jobs that will develop in the years to come.  Among them, there are at least four that require the presence of artistic perspectives and skills: Conductor, Cybernetic Director, Fusionist and Interventionist.  All of these roles require the ability to cultivate cross-disciplinary understanding, bridge seemingly disparate forces, communicate the complex with simplicity and perceive all that is essential – in the culture, not just in the marketplace.

Artists* retain a wholeness of perspective that eludes those in most other disciplines.  Designers and architects work in similarly holistic ways, but there is a remove at which much of their work holds humanity.  Though function is always a priority, feeling is not necessarily so. 

Artists’ exploration of emotion, of universal, fundamental feelings will protect us – by asserting the primacy of humanity and the world around us – as technological advancement hurtles forward.  Without nature there is nothing.

Many emergent creative people, especially those who identify as artists, limit themselves by crafting professional identities that are tethered exclusively to their crafts.  But it’s through embracing their full selves that the spectrum of their talents can be revealed.  This will have not only positive implications for the creation of art, but the business community as well.

The future is always unknown, but we can work toward ensuring one that is beautiful and sustainable.  Conductors, Cybernetic Directors, Fusionists and Interventionists, who are also artists, will help us to get there.

*Our definition of "artist" is liberal and includes visual artists, filmmakers, performing artists, literary artists, multimedia artists, digital artists, artisans, craftspeople and many more.