The Intersection of Art and Technology as Tools
So as of recent I have been engulfed with reading this new book I discvered in my personal library. Quite surprised that I even had it but grateful nonetheless. Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong has really caught my attention and expanded my thinking lately, so much to the point of feeling compelled to share. This won’t be a quick read. I started reading honestly because I was becoming exhausted. Mentally drained from the excessive doomscrolling, physically tuckered out due to the constant rigamarole of my day to day adventures and obligations ( having fun but damn I am only one human) , and emotionally over feeling literally everything to an excess. I recently had a very creative sprint last month and now that it has past I feel slightly empty again. Waiting for my next artistic motivation and allowing myself the opportunity to find it or let it find me. Plus its been 2 months of not gardening and I am sure that if I don’t find another outlet soon I may go mad. But anyway… We grow. In this book the author sets the stage with dealings of the methodology of what art is for, how we engage with art, and how it functions. Art has the powers to guide, persuade, and comfort those who create it, engage with it, or view it, enabling them the opportunity to become better versions of themselves. This is why I so genuinely love naturally creative people. Because in the midst of creation (artistic expression specifically - because creators are not exclusively artist and I will literally die on that hill) you are forced to face yourself and release what you may often internalize. What extends out of you can force you to truly see yourself and that may be something you do or do not like. Nevertheless, it opens your mind to the possibility of change or remaining the same. And knowing, if we remained the same, would that lead us to joyful life, would we continue towards happiness? Are we happy? The author also mentions that Art quite plainly is a tool. As described by de Botton, a
An extension of the body that allows a wish to be carried out, and that is required because of a drawback in our physical makeup.
Botton highlights that we need art because of our own psychological fragilities. Which made a lot of sense to me. Something that extends out from our physical bodies that allows us to handle the things that cross our minds, the words we have trouble saying, our shortcomings that span beyond what is on us but truly what is in us. It leads me to question why did we begin making art at all? Who was the first to create art and name it so? Also breaking down what a tool is, the definition held pretty true. We need the ability to have smaller versions of our food so that it may fit into our mouths . We may not be strong enough to cut a food item into smaller pieces or break it up with our hands or teeth, so knives exist. We need the ability to see so that we may know what we are doing, where we are going, and do so clearly if our vision is impaired. Glasses make this possible. Tools really exist all around us so it caught my attention in this read to see that the author viewed art as such. He proceed to break art down as a methodology and claimed that it functions in 7 ways.
1. Remembering: Art edits down the complexity and helps us focus on the meaningful aspects of life that we want to hold in our memory.
2. Hope: Todays problems are many times created because the troubles of the world are so present in our attention that we need tools to preserve a hopeful disposition. We need to maintain the ability to know that change and a brighter future does exist.
3. Sorrow: There is a sacred space for grief and art encourages a profound engagement with sadness. We deserve to be able to see our circumstances clearly and have space to acknowledge them and truly feel the depths of them. That is what allows healing.
4. Rebalancing: Art can put us back in touch with our missing dispositions and restore us to our inner selves and child. Highlight and guide us to what is missing within us and around us. We often take offense to others mentioning our need for rebalance. A quote really stood out to me…
“ We don’t tend to respond well to reccomendations of how we should behave in order to be good…When we are calm and not under fire, most of us long to be good, and wouldn’t mind the reminder to be so”
5. Self Understanding: Art helps us so that we might come to know ourselves better and give us tools to which make ourselves better known to others. I know people who couldn’t tell you much about how they were feeling… because honestly they didn’t have the words, but they could create a melody that explains it so clearly. I personally have a hard time translating myself to others, and sometimes I wish that my art could just speak for me so that I was fully understood. I believe it will one day.
6. Growth: Art gives us the opportunity to overcome our defensiveness and become more open to change, again seeing yourself fully and being open to what comes up for you, analyzing whether it suits the perception you have of yourself or contradicts it.
7. And finally Appreciation: Art can lead us back to a more accurate assessment of what is valuable by inviting recalibration of what we admire and love. I feel like we become so jaded so quicky these days. We have seen and heard it all. And people truly disappoint us. Our allegiance to the mundane sometimes takes away the excitement in life or even the gratitude that mundane exist… that consistency and stability can be warm and comforting… even if not so exciting. And we can still love and appreciate those things.
So as I processed all of this, being the Creative and the Technologist I am, I immediately thought of Technology through the same psychological lens. This is a working theory but I hope to expand upon it and continue to talk through it if I can. Tumblr has always been my notebook abyss, speaking into the night absolute nonsense, conspiracy, theories, and poems about love and becoming.
I believe that we can view technology through a very similar lens very practically. If Art is a tool for psychological fragility, maybe technology can function as an extension of our minds and bodies of our human limitations
1. Remembering: But literally from a cognitive offloading type of way. If art allows us to remember essence, mood, and emotions (not wanting to forget how something made us feel or what was), technology literally acts as as more of an absolute, a record, a digital archive, saving us of the fear of forgetting our most precious moments or our life’s data. ex. ( the cloud, CDs, thumbdrives, floppy disk)
2. Hope: While art keeps us going, technology can serve as the execution of possibility, instead of seeing how things should be, we can actually problem solve on how these things can be built. We have agency, we may endure problems and that comes with life but we can also solve them. ex( Open source , new technological inventions, medical discovery engineering)
3. Sorrow: While art allows space for grief which we typically experience alone, Technology offers the ability to bridge connection and co-presence with others. You do not technically have to suffer alone. We find connection through technology from miles away. Does that replace the internal self work absolutely not… does it replace real IRL community hell no. But I know that through some of my hardest times I ran to this app for an outlet. And connected with people and created a safe space for myself that lives here acorss communities that I met when I got here. ex. (social media, email, phones)
4. Rebalancing: As art allows us to restore emotional equilibrium, we can think of technology as a way of overcoming chaos especially in matters of copious data. With everything we deal technology organizes complex flows of energy, people, and resources to prevent systemic collapse. ex. (Your fucking google drive apps, traffic control systems, logistics software, and yes even these AI models out here)
5. Self Understanding: While Art may help us decode out internal feelings, technology can serve as a more objective form of data driven and objective self knowledge. ex. ( screen time-trackers, fitness wearables, Your search history bitch)
6. Growth: Art pushes us past where we are comfortable and challenges our views where technology literally can expand our intelligence and knowledge base. Growth in art is mental, where growth in tech is functional. It helps us expand our limitations beyond what we physically can’t do and frees us up to do, say, know, or be more. ex. ( real-time language translation, XR for immersion learning)
7. And last but not least Appreciation: Technology expands what we are able to engage with , with our senses. We get the opportunity to appreciate things as they are in detail, in scale, in the beauty of it all beyond what our natural eyes could ever reach. ( telescope, google maps of another country street, slow motion video of a insect taking flight)
I guess I say all that to say.. I find the beauty in both, separately and together. Art and Technology are reflective of the spirit of the times and I can truly appreciate them with better understanding as I read this book… although it has nothing to do with technology I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t. If we look at the technology we interface with as tools of psychological and physical extension then maybe our relationship with them changes beyond addictive distractions. More to think about, more to come… but I wanted to bring you into my (She.LL) a bit.
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