I’ve just re listened to the brilliant Brian Eno’s John Peel Lecture from 2015 on BBC6 Music…Inspiring and Hopeful!
Me in the foreground with my older brother…I love this picture because I look like I am jumping for joy which captures how I remember being and still am a lot of the time…I’ve included it because it visually describes how I feel about being part of a collaborative creative community…
So much in this lecture, packed into about 45 minutes…the first big question ‘What is Art?’ and as the title of my blog suggests, that’s what he brilliantly came up with! He then explains this with examples such as - we have to move, but we don’t have to do a tango or a waltz or a twerk…and we have to wear clothes, but we don’t have to wear a style of clothes. So art is all the stuff we do that is beyond our basic requirements to survive.
He goes on to describe what art can do - imagine new worlds, create empathy, give people opportunities to experience extreme feelings in a safe place and so on…these are just a snippet of the examples he gave and the depth he alluded to in a short time scale.
As well as providing a means for people to be exposed to some of the dangers and situations in the real world through the false worlds that art creates, it can expose us to some of the joys and freedoms through a false world in order that we might be made aware of the joys and freedoms of the real world. Both are necessary if we are to have a balanced view of reality so that we can be active in improving the lives of ourselves and others as well as celebrating the wonders of the world and each other.
He talks about the possibility that we are moving towards a time of abundance and generosity in the arts rather than economic scarcity and I think for many of us we have seen this happening through schemes like the Artist Support Pledge, created by Matthew Burrows this year. But I have seen it personally too in the way artists are working more in community and sharing ideas. There is a move away from the idea that the individual should be celebrated for their genius and rather the community around the idea is celebrated for the development of ideas as a cooperative act. Ideas are not seen as a secret to be kept for the glory and wealth of an individual but something to be shared so that we can use our collective creativity and intelligence to expand it to it’s full potential.
He leaves us with the hope of a great collaborative artistic future and I’m definitely going to celebrate and join in with that! What we’re going through at the moment is hugely challenging in so many ways and at so many different levels. But we do know that pandemics do end and we will come through this - not necessarily in a positive way for everyone that’s for sure, but we have to hope that as a collective community around the world, there is much to look forward to beyond the pain, heartache and trauma and I believe creativity is going to play a huge part in our recovery and re building.