Look Beyond One Right Way

A review of a new book about the US artist, Alexander Calder, described how he employed physics in the service of art. Reading this, I was reminded that my sister, who has an art major degree. looked at a drawing of the coronavirus and saw a similarity with the look of the Times Square ball that drops on New Year's.

     Science, it seems, also could be employed in the service of art. Picture how the motion of constantly copying genes could be expressed the way Calder incorporated motion in his art.

     Every field can be expressed in art. If employees were encouraged to design and decorate their cubicles, the idea of dressing to express on casual Fridays might lead to occasional happy hour tours of minimal and exuberant art in employee spaces. Consider the variety of ways food can be arranged on a plate; how politicians around the world express their policies in the green, pink, yellow and red-white-and-blue graphics on their campaign posters; and how the pattern of interstate roads moves the eye across a country like the lines on a Mondrian painting.

     "(I)t is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self," said British psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott. Viewed this way, laughing at and ignoring an individual's creative spirit stifles growth and development. Hitler may not have been a great artist, but wouldn't humanity have been better off if he expressed himself in art rather than in creating the "final solution"?

     Family life could be much fuller and much more satisfying, if each member were encouraged to create. It is easy to laugh at a relative's out-of-the-box ideas and creations, but during the coronavirus lockdown, we have seen the joy of family members taking videos, dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, taking photos out of windows, painting, cooking, reciting original poems, sewing colorful protective masks, and tailoring outfits for pets. Some people have the confidence to never doubt themselves, but being laughed at is enough to discourage the creativity of most.

       Finally, observation helps nurture creative expression the way my sister connected seeing  a drawing of COVID-19 with the Times Square ball. When Calder awoke on the deck of a ship one day, he saw a red sunrise on one side and a silvery moon on the other. In the solar system, he realized two very different phenomena are related, just as the moving parts and shapes on his mobiles would   be connected later.

     Encouraging observation and nurturing creative expression beyond one already established right way of doing something can benefit self, family and maybe even humanity.

What North Korea Can Learn from the Oscars

Censorship destroys creativity.

      At the Academy Awards ceremony in the United States on February 9, 2020, South Korea's film, Parasite, won Best Picture of 2019. Filmed in black and white with sub-titles U.S. movie audiences had to read as they watched the movie. Yet Parasite bested eight English-speaking films in color. The film also won Best Original Screenplay. Bong Joon Ho, who was one of the screenplay's writers, also won Best Director. Although the wife of North Korea's Kim Jong Un is a singer, she was never considered as one of the possible voices chosen to sing, in her native tongue, the nominated song from Frozen at the Academy Awards.

     Nor can China brag about any international film accolades. In 2016 China's wealthy Danan Wanda Group constructed an $8 billion complex to attract international movie-makers to the coastal city of  Qingdao. Despite offering generous financial incentives, the project is not a success. Censorship by China's State Administration of Press Publications, Radio, Film and Television proved to be incompatible with the creative process.

     South Korea offers North Korea a way to escape the Chinese film censorship trap. Missiles and nuclear weapons attract international attention, but so does a blockbuster film. North Korea is lucky to have a prize-winning movie-making community of educators available next door. Those trouble-making North Koreans locked away in the country's concentration camps may be just the creative talent that could net Kim Jong Un and his wife tickets to an Academy Awards celebration and positive international attention for North Korea.       

What Can Unemployed People Do?

Concern about technological unemployment from AI, robots, sensors, and the like has led to dire observations. In the factory of the future, there only will be two non-machines, a person and a dog, and it will be the dog's task to keep the person away from the machines. In other words, let's prepare for the future by making a list of what unemployed people around the world can do.

1. Do nothing.

Although unemployed, most people still have their physical abilities.

2. Improve athletic abilities by practicing to become a professional athlete

3. Take whatever risky, possibly illegal, demeaning, poor paying job is available

4. Make and repair things from found objects

5. Sell or demand ransom for what they take by force from those who have something of value

Use brain power to study the economic environment and prepare to join it.

6. Learn to develop software

7. Learn how the stock market works and invest

8. Become a supplier to those who are making money: Manufacture robots, identify global exporters and become one of their suppliers, grow produce, operate a food truck, provide leisure entertainment by arranging tours, design websites, teach, invent, provide promotional/marketing expertise, write a story/song/play, provide spiritual guidance--------------------------------------------------------------------

Could Colors Calm Our World?

Some colors elicit a positive response by humans living in today's culture. The creative company, The Brave New Now, reached this conclusion, while working on the Ven complex housing convention space, a hotel, 50 apartments, stores, a fitness center and spa, juice bar, and rooftop restaurant at the Sloterdijk rail station in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

     When you visit the Ven Amsterdam site, you see the complex uses several colors together in the same space. Why?

     Orange: Found to boost creative performance, increase endurance, and maintain motivation and a positive attitude during tough moments.
   
     Blue: Found to enable a person to take control of a situation, focus on details, remain calm and combat stress.

     Purple: Found to inspire intellectual thoughts, stimulate imagination, and arouse responses to creative concepts.

     Hotel guests at the Ven complex will be able to choose rooms that are orange, blue, purple, or three other colors:

     Yellow: Found to promote a feeling of happiness and optimism, to boost memory, clarify thought, and improve decision making.

     Green: Found to help renew and restore depleted energy, improve efficiency, and calm.

     Pink: A very interesting finding. Females lifting weights in a room painted pink gained the strength to lift heavier weights. Pink power helped energy levels and confidence soar.

     Women negotiating in a sunny glen by the sea with glasses of orange juice or grape juice in their hands may be just what the world needs.

(You might also like to get colorful ideas from the earlier post, "Car Companies Match Colors to Country Moods" and from Harald Arnkil's book, Colours in the Visual World.)




     

Idea Transfer

French artist, Junior Fritz Jacquet, used Japanese origami-like folds to create expressive faces out of toilet paper rolls, according to a report in thisiscolossal.com. Despite criticism, globalization presents the opportunity to discover something, like a new art form, in one country that can be duplicated in another by an artist or

a school's art teachers. (See similar ideas in the earlier blog post, "It Takes A World to Raise a Child.")

Globalization fosters what Baptiste Barbot, a researcher at Yale's Child Study Center, calls the "synergistic interaction" of factors that permit a person to spot associations, take risks, and entertain alternative thoughts. In short, globalization might be considered a creative shortcut that enables people around the world to think outside the box.The German company, ThyssenKrupp, for example, adapted the Japanese idea of propelling trains over tracks by magnets to propel multiple elevators up and down in magnet propelled, cable-free shafts.

By signing up for free at trendwatching.com, subscribers, without leaving home, can scan the world for ideas that can be used where they live. The following examples from recent trendwatching reports provide an idea of the valuable information this site provides:

• Seeing how consumers respond to tender loving care, a French cafe began giving polite patrons a discount
• Ready made, microwavable food is as popular in Malaysia as in Manhattan
• Indonesian temporary tatoos are printed in eco-friendly ink and last three to four days
• Japan's solar lanterns in a variety of designs can light up the darkness where there is no electricity, such as on a camping trip
• Korea's Samsung NX Mini camera and a metal clamp that holds a mobile phone are innovations that facilitate group selfies, called "wefies" or "massfies"
• In Romania, people could submit a photo of racist graffiti on a building and Unilever would send a team that used its Cif brand of cleaning products to remove it
• By using an app to rate the temperature in a building or on a public vehicle, occupants and passengers can create an aggregate measure that enables CrowdComfort to adjust the thermostat to please the majority
• In Singapore, customers can set a smartphone app for a McDonald's Surprise Alarm that gives them a special deal every time their alarm goes off
•  A Brazilian publisher prints stories and poems in the pockets of jeans sold by FreeSurf
• No matter where someone is in Mexico, he or she can receive a government warning of an earthquake on a small Alerta Sismica Grillo, crowdfunded by the Fondeadora platform
• In India, The Good Road campaign developed a smart helmet with sensors that tell your motorcycle to start. Take off your helmet and your motorcycle's engine turns off.
• Plastic Coca-Cola bottles in Vietnam reduce pollution, because they come with 16 different caps that convert empties into new uses, such as squirt guns, pencil sharpeners, and soap dispensers.

Teachers also have an opportunity to go to the site, ePals.com, to find a classroom somewhere in the world that would like to participate in a group project that could create something neither classroom would have created working alone.