The Intrinsic is Enough

Contrary to popular belief, the intrinsic is essential. 

It forms our individual and collective compositions, yet in political and economic discussions on the arts and culture, we diminish that which makes us whole. 

As we explored in last week’s post, we are overly reliant on the quantifiable.  We revere that which is separate from ourselves simply because it generates visible results.    Since it is not seen but felt, the intrinsic is considered less significant, or even meaningless, by market forces (and therefore the political sphere).  These beliefs lead many artists and culture bearers to, in their fundraising efforts, clumsily yoke their work to extrinsic benchmarks that can never convey their power and influence. 

What do we search for most ardently in life, if not meaning and feeling?  It is the arts and culture’s rooting in sensation that makes them meaning full. The intrinsic holds the ultimate significance.

After the recent passing of artists David Bowie and Natalie Cole, the discussions that bubbled up had little to do with “the numbers”.  Their art weighted trillions of moments for people across the globe, across generations and across sensibilities.  Bowie and Cole’s lives’ work formed the foundation of billions of stories that, when shared, healed, buoyed and connected their mourning fans – and created new ones posthumously.  The music business may promote extrinsic benefits, but the greatest value of its products is intrinsic. Its current crises may be resolved by an industry-wide deference to this reality.

Management guru Dr. Nancy J. Adler has written often on the arts and leadership in the 21st Century.  In her work, she implores business leaders to uncover beauty, to seek direction from artists if they desire to succeed in ways that benefit the world broadly. Acknowledgment of the intrinsic’s primacy to our fundamental selves and our collective sense of community, will facilitate the development of an economy that is accountable.

The Truth About Datastan

We are in a state in which data reigns supreme. In “Datastan” (to use a term coined by the brilliant Arlene Goldbard) data is king and queen, though the kingdom is propped up by falsehoods.   This misinformation prevents the widespread development of generative, empathetic commerce, inhibits culture and strains community cohesion. 

So, what’s the antidote?  Many of us believe it’s the arts.

The inclusion of artistic perspectives in public and private sector discourse could help us to solve our most pressing issues, on both individual and societal levels, and create the future our children and grandchildren deserve.  But first, we need to drop the following delusions about Datastan:

Data is Objective / Reveals the Truth

Human intervention, even if passive, is required to make sense of data.  Therefore ambiguity is diffused throughout the processes of data quantification, because it is shaped by each interpreter’s experiences.  The “data as objectivity as truth” perspective is rife with flaws, but it illustrates that there is validity in subjectivity.  Acknowledgement of imperfection leads the way toward authenticity, and it is the inclusion of the artist’s intuitive perspective that wholly illuminates human truths.

Numbers Provide the Purest Evidence

Numbers are a form of evidence, but not the only form.  Evidence in its most potent form cannot be quantified.  It’s the provenance of memory, sensation, emotion.  It’s the provenance of the artist. The storyteller has just as much skill, if not more, than the scientist when it comes to deciphering human realities and laying them at our feet for inspection.

Data is Hard (and Therefore Reliable). The Arts are Soft (and Therefore Unreliable).

The idea that because something is "hard", that because it is scientific or technical it epitomizes truth is short-sighted and incorrect.  That which is hard may be strong, but it also acts as a barrier, may be brittle, and is inflexible, rigid and stiff.  That which is soft can also be very strong, and is permeable, adaptable, enjoyable and pliable.  There is truth in ambiguity.  Artists' work veraciously acknowledges the universal ambiguity of our individual human experiences. So you see, when important decisions are being made, there are considerable advantages to going soft. 

The reality is that everything humans touch is open to human interpretation.  It only makes sense that human information, or information that affects humans and the world we inhabit, should be viewed through human-focused lenses.  It is the artistic perspective that courageously retains clarity of vision, it’s the artist who hones intuitiveness, it’s the artist who is able to jump levels to see many truths at once, it’s the artist’s perspective that adds significance to fact.

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.

Think Like a Poet

If we all begin to think more like poets, contemporary communication will be transformed.

I don’t mean to say that texts should rhyme, nor that Instagram captions should be written in meter.  What I mean is that before writing anything, we should pause briefly to reflect on the moment and choose the right words to convey what we really mean.

The poet is a shape-shifter whose work can be approached as imagery, song, story, performance or even a sort of science (scansion analysis).  Above all, though, the poet’s work is personal – to the poet him or herself and to the reader.  This multiplicity lends itself naturally to the complexities of the modern identity

Poetry is, like say, Facebook, a social media. It records an instant, can spur people to action, bridges vast geographic areas.  Unlike say, Facebook, poetry – even bad poetry – is viscerally evocative. Its power is in the poet’s pause, in the poet’s vocabulary – things that we can cultivate easily.

Perhaps if we thought more like the poet, even our mundane conversations would mean more.

Perhaps if we thought more like the poet, even ugly moments would be infused with a little beauty. Perhaps if we thought more like the poet, if we expanded our sensibilities in similar ways, we would find more reasons to create and edit in our daily lives. 

Perhaps if we thought more like the poet, the weight of our carefully chosen words would bring us light.

Perhaps if we considered our words more carefully before putting them out in the world, we would stop taking for granted that we are not listening to one another.  That we are not listening to ourselves.

Design Thinking: On the Importance of Unity (STEAM)

The concept of the gestalt should be at the forefront of all design thinking.   The gestalt principles acknowledge the importance of a “unified whole” to successful innovation.   Adherence to these principles encourages cohesion and connection, and ultimately the creation of products and services that are, in their usefulness and beauty, designed to elevate the human experience. 

It is often said that we inhabit a connected era, but I believe that these (hyper) links are largely superficial.  Neither our society nor our workforce is unified and, in spite of the myriad methods of communication available, we are fundamentally disconnected.   This disconnect is exacerbated by the artificial threads woven by technologies that exclude the perspectives of the arts and the humanities – fundamentally people-centric perspectives – from business innovation.  

The prioritization of one perspective (STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) has led us into an unhealthy system. Businesses do not operate in a vacuum, and the shortsighted prioritization of STEM skills over others has created an imbalance that, if it is not mediated, may lead to disastrous results.  These skewed ideals have led to a proliferation of content without content: like so many artisanal donuts, its appearance belies its lack of substance.  While the perspectives of the arts and humanities are suppressed, their fruits are emptily replicated to achieve questionable ends.  We require a unified approach to best solve the problems of the present and establish a thriving future.

The elevation of the arts and broad humanities into the contemporary, STEM-dominated dialogue will not only empower us to connect meaningfully, it will help us to solve many of the issues that perplex us.  At last, the arts and humanities are finding allies in STEM culture and businesses, who recognize that systems must be complete to function well.

The triple bottom line is dependent on the health and safety of people and planet, and a unified economy will help us to innovate and advance sustainably.  A workforce which equally incorporates perspectives from the sciences, the arts and the humanities will encourage balance and reciprocity, which can deepen comprehension and propel innovation and creativity in ways that are best for culture, commerce and community.

Adapting the gestalt to our commercial sector will facilitate the plurality of skills and perspectives that will advance the triple bottom line of sustainability.  It will help us to repair the fractures and fortify our futures that, though inevitably imperfect, can be continually improved upon.

WÆRK is rooted in the gestalt, and brings people, ideas and products together in ways that encourage a thriving triple bottom line.  We provide the missing pieces to organizations who understand that the processes of business as usual are incomplete.  We encourage our clients to adopt a new way of working, of building and of thinking, so that they may provide the people who buy their products and services with the experiences they want and need.

A lopsided economy will ultimately collapse.  An economy that is a unified whole of many modes of thought and practices will flourish, by developing understanding in the present to advance sustainably in the future.

Photo by Ingram Publishing/Ingram Publishing / Getty Images

Six Things We're Thankful For in 2015

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches in the U.S., we celebrate the many people we are thankful for: our friends and family members, our advisers and clients, and everyone who has joined us on our journey. 

There are also a lot of things we’re grateful for this year, and we’d like to share our top six with you:

1. We’re thankful for the New York City MTA’s Poetry in Motion, for providing inspiration during our daily commutes.
2. We’re thankful for the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art’s Louisiana Channel. It provides us with introductions to new perspectives from our favorite artists, and introduces us to artists we would’ve been unfamiliar with otherwise.
3. We’re thankful for Sarah Stodola’s “Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors”, for drawing attention to the routines, rituals and practices that resulted in the creation of cherished literary works (and for reminding the world that the muse is one hardworking mother!).
4. We’re thankful for Elsie’s Parlor, for providing us with delicious, caffeinated fuel for early morning brainstorms.
5. We’re thankful for Bevy Smith’s Instagram page, for its continual reminders that a "gratitude attitude" will get you everywhere.
6. We’re thankful for Americans for the Arts’ Art and Business Council, for facilitating creative partnerships that unite culture, commerce and communities.

What are the things you're thankful for? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Photo by Comstock/Stockbyte / Getty Images

Design Thinking: Bauhaus Philosophy and an Inclusive Future

Although Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus nearly a century ago, the movement’s influence on design is ubiquitous. Its emphasis on clean lines and form/function unity is everywhere – from street signs to home furnishings, to the smartphone you may be reading this on.    As the Bauhaus philosophy approaches its centenary, we believe that its less visible tenets are similarly relevant to contemporary life and, if adopted, have sweeping implications for progressive future.

In addition to advocating for beauty in everyday life, the Bauhaus believed in:

• The elimination of creative hierarchies (something we feel strongly about)
• A focus on collective benefits and widespread access
• Art as a means of problem solving in modern society
• The artist’s role in society as an active participant
• That good designs should produce no waste

Digital technologies provide ideal environments in which to expand these tenets.   “Good design creates great experiences” by making connections between ideas, objects and events that may not be immediately apparent.  These connections create affinities between diverse individuals and disparate communities, and provide opportunities to remove barriers – physical, emotional, psychological. It’s true: collective creative effort generates dynamic results.

At WÆRK, we adopt a Bauhaus philosophy and employ it in each project and within all of our operations.  We bring beauty to everyday life by equally including perspectives from the arts, sciences and humanities in all of our projects.   We take our clients on journeys through the grey areas that color the spectrum of life, and help them to build things, experiences and ideas that matter, through a focus on revealing understanding.

Widespread adoption, of the Bauhaus philosophy's inclusive tenets, can point us toward a future that is both connected and kind.  One in which creativity is propelled by empathy and intuition, and technology isn’t beholden to the cult of efficiency über alles.

Photo by Jelena_Z/iStock / Getty Images

The Effects of Cultural Hierarchy on Diversity in the Arts

As many U.S. cities transition into majority minority metropolises and Baby Boomers age, the homogeneity of America’s so-called "Cultural Omnivores" will have dire consequences for the arts and culture sector in its current incarnation. Increasing diversity — of programming, of audiences, of the workforce — is not simply desired, it’s required and many cultural institutions are investigating the best ways to do so.

Yet, the discussions around increasing diversity in the arts and culture sector often ignore the linchpin — the false hierarchies that govern the arts; the divide between “high” and “low” culture. Even the National Endowment for the Arts, with its mission to provide “all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation” utilizes the term “benchmark arts” to refer to a limited number of genres (jazz, classical music, opera, musical or non-musical plays, ballet and art museums/galleries). It is telling that the national organization entrusted with safeguarding access to the arts utilizes a term that connotes exclusion.

The arts and culture are historically powerful drivers of progress, yet many of the institutions created to buoy them are stagnant. The past is privileged and the benchmark arts are often frozen in time, in spite of the culture sector’s recent attempts to advance participation. Only when art forms that are not anointed by the cultural establishment are legitimized in public perception, when innovation is permitted to truly thrive, from stage to studio, administrative office to boardroom, when Big Culture values listening as much as instruction, will holistic diversity in the arts and culture sector be possible.

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Our stale contemporary concepts of cultural hierarchy are derived from long since debunked Victorian pseudo-scientific ideas and pervasive ethnocentrism. There is a deeply ingrained cultural mythology that privileges Western European art and culture and ancient Near Eastern artifacts as sophisticated, and positions the ethnic, unorthodox and, especially, that which appeals to the masses as fickle trend or guilty pleasure. This is reinforced by many government funded arts and cultural organizations.

As American culture developed in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries, art and culture were infused with a spirit similar to that witnessed on social media today: one that was open. Open to participation by professionals and amateurs, to unorthodox interpretations, and to a confluence of styles, languages, and eras.

Eventually, new world elites sought to elevate their status by designating certain elements of culture as “high” or “fine” and insisting that they are sacred, perfect and godly, and should be revered as such. Other forms of creative expression were disregarded by this benchmarking group, as base and pagan.

Many of our most beloved cultural institutions were built by Industrialist philanthropists, who used their cultural contributions to cement their social standing and posthumous legacies. They created a world after their own (desired) image. It is a beautiful world, but we must remind ourselves that it’s not only within these parameters that beauty lives. High culture is not the authority on beauty and doesn’t have the right to dictate what defines it.

What all cultural institutions should provide is access to a variety of perspectives for the public to peruse. Suggestions for how to dismantle the dubious cultural hierarchy to advance sustainable diversity follow.

1. Hit the Streets

Popular exhibits set attendance records consistently at major cultural institutions. Why not continue to break down barriers, through the exploration of pop culture in the houses of high culture, by going beyond fashion, alternative music and art house films? What if symphonic electronica was presented alongside the symphony, in hits hallowed halls? If opera incorporated rhythm and blues or punk? If literary readings and rap battles shared the stage?

Arts and cultural institutions need to plant roots where the people are. It may be possible to combat the dearth of arts education in middle, working class and poor neighborhoods by bringing the arts to cities’ best traveled thoroughfares. What if, for example, there was a subway series of performances that brought Carnegie Hall underground, and encouraged spontaneous riffing with street performers and commuters?

2. Cultivate Mass Appreciation and Mass Communication

When it comes to art and culture, Good Taste is often associated with an affinity for the obscure, the arcane and the out-of-reach to most. Even in popular culture, the most coveted experiences today are “boutique”, “small batch”, “limited edition”. Mass appeal is frowned upon, to our collective detriment. The natural push and pull between communal and individual needs provides fodder for exploration. Art can tap into these desires, while simultaneously being shared widely. Instead of telegraphing “this is not for you”, imagine the possibilities that could be realized by encouraging people to experience culture “as interpreted by you”.

3. Art is Everywhere. Art is Everything.

In a recent prank, an Ikea print was displayed in a Danish house of fine art. The subsequent, self-congratulatory commentary on the trick fell into two camps: those who scoffed at the ridiculousness of the art world and those who lauded their certain abilities to discern authentic art. Both groups laughed at those who praised the print. But, why is this funny? Why can’t the print be art? Why is it okay to laugh at another’s interpretation of an artwork, if not to elevate one’s self-perception as an arbiter of high culture?

The focus should not be on how art and culture make us look, but how they help us to feel. Imagine if accessibility to scientific innovation was based on hierarchy. Now imagine what the world will be like, when access to the arts and culture is more egalitarian.

4. Explore “Enemy” Territory

We need to go beyond the idea of participatory, to transform cultural sites into places to experience and examine wholesale, not places to exalt a particular point of view or group of people.

Complaints about the depths of low culture (Kardashians, etc.) can be combated by encouraging the creation of artistic output, without the constraint of antiquated expectations. What is it about tabloid culture, reality television and social media that is so addictive? How can the arts and culture capture interest in ways that are similarly broad?

The cultural sector may have shortsightedly missed out on the rise of the internet, but the accessibility of digital technology should be an inspiration. We are all witness to the way innovation builds on itself in that space, and artists and culture bearers have a vantage point from which to critique our technology-dominant times and use its tools to chart new creative territory.

5. Listen Up

Access in under-served communities is one issue, but it is also important to acknowledge the varied interests of the constituents served by arts and cultural organizations, and the fact that what’s offered and what’s desired may not be aligned. Education is part of it, but you must pique curiosity first. Bring people in by acknowledging the validity of their experiences and interests, and challenge them to view the world anew.

6. Re-evaluate Restrictive Financial Models

The non-profit, philanthropy-dominated financial model favored by the arts and cultural sector actively discourages diversity: it is too dependent on the directives of the gatekeepers of high culture and too insular. If arts and cultural organizations are not able to offer competitive salaries and do not post their job openings via highly visible channels, they won’t attract the best talent from the broadest pool of candidates. If arts and cultural organizations do not have the complete freedom to implement programming (and important hiring decisions), how will diverse perspectives ever be acknowledged? If “by invitation only” grant application processes remain in place, how can not benchmarked, obscure arts and culture practitioners be expected to thrive in the non-profit structure. If changes aren’t made to the financial structure of the industry organizations, the arts and culture sector will be pushed into further irrelevance from the daily lives of most Americans.

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While the American cultural hierarchy was being established, Walt Whitman warned against culture “restricted by conditions ineligible to the masses”. In that spirit, it’s not enough to democratize access. We must democratize perception. Today, even popular culture is suffused with the same high/low divide and barriers to entry and cultural gatekeepers are anointed. We are witnessing the repercussions of tearing these incredibly valuable resources apart. It’s only by once again fusing bonds between expressive genres that the arts and culture will achieve thriving, sustainable diversity of audiences and experiences.

Culture is constant change and flow, and this must be acknowledged, accepted and embraced. As we have seen, naming is a source of power. The arts and culture sector tends to be afraid of challenging the historic or revered categories, and have become stuck. We need to defy the status quo and change the way we talk about, and define, art and culture and permit perceptions to evolve along with them.

Photo by maroznc/iStock / Getty Images

Searching for Authenticity

Now that business has concerned itself with “authenticity”, the term may become as meaningless as “natural” is (in the context of commerce).  The discussion about authenticity has transcended the start-up sphere and entered the conference rooms of established conglomerates.  Many of these organizations – comprised of layer upon layer of people with similar backgrounds, credentials and points-of-view – don’t know how to “get real. It’s difficult to transparently engage the purchasing public in such insular, isolated conditions.  

Today’s sophisticated consumer seeks truth and transparency, because the relationship between brand and consumer is like never before. Increasingly, what we do and what we buy is connected to the individual identities we cultivate and ultimately transmit to the world.

WÆRK’s business is built upon the belief that the keys to truthful connections between corporations and their customers are held by artists.  It is artists who possess the tools that connect heart and mind, who can reveal the chimerical facts of human existence in practical form, and who can encourage the conscious exchange of goods and services.

Please visit our What and How pages to learn more about what we do.

After a Night with Patti Smith

Yesterday, Patti Smith’s “M Train” was released.  On Saturday night, I had the awesome pleasure of observing her conversation with David Remnick as part of the New Yorker Festival.  Days later, the thoughts and themes she articulated remain at the forefront of my mind.

Ms. Smith invoked a downtown (Manhattan) that wasn’t a glossy caricature of the artist life, but instead fecund soil for creativity.   She did so in a tone of voice that was suffused with fatigue rather than nostalgia.  Perhaps she was tired of reminding people that there were times when emerging art and outsider artists were vital sources of energy in the city, when the substance of art - not its sheen - was prioritized. 

She warned the audience against the pull of disposable culture, and reminded us that it’s good work and good deeds that endure.  In a world focused on immediacy, how often do we allow ourselves the time to do truly good work?  Do we allot ourselves enough time to contemplate before we render something complete (or comment, or send)?  How focused are we, honestly, on good deeds?  When did we decide that simply looking good was enough?

Technology isn’t the enemy, but it’s not the answer either.  We humans, individuals, communities, are the most powerful forces of advancement, and the arts are the vessel through which this power is best communicated. 

It is the root that holds the magic that makes the flower bloom and bloom again, while petals inevitably shrivel.

I believe that widespread collaborations between the art and technology sectors will lead us to a future we are proud to inhabit.

Sacha Wynne, WӔRK Founder

Book cover image via Amazon