A little hot pink hardbound piece of book candy, Eno and A.’s book “What Art Does” came home with me from Nevada City’s Harmony Books after these lines hit me in a quick flip through: “We need to be able to visualize the sensations of our possible futures to imagine how we can live and thrive and feel competent in the new realities we face. And we each need new models of human interaction that teach us how to cooperate better” (110). The visualization of possible futures and a sense of competence when faced with the unknown seemed to me two of the best possible responses to the title’s claim: What Art Does. But how?
Eno and A. build an argument that I understood basically in the following way. Art is a simulation, a way to experience things you haven’t experienced in a way you can take as seriously as you want, or don’t want. The “simulation” consists of fragments of different possible worlds, offering us differences, possible perspectives by which we can benefit. Looking at art means looking at these differences, giving an opportunity to investigate things one’s life hasn’t previously offered, and in a way that is safe. This is a pathway to know things about the world that a person doesn’t have to personally endure in order to actually know, a vicarious experience and empathy one can gain value from without risking too much.
Interestingly, that empathy moves in a number of directions. A viewer can experience empathy for others as a result of what they learn from the content of the art, but in Eno and A.’s book, a line reads that Art is also “proof of care.” A beautiful thought! The art piece can reach out and show empathy for the viewer. If a person relates to the piece, they can enjoy the awareness of that message being meaningful to the artist to such a degree, that the artist invested their time and energy into putting this understanding out in the world with their own special spin.
To describe this shared experience, Eno and A. use the word dream, that art is a shared dream (to be fair, they also add nightmare), but I think the connotations of the word dream throw me off because I think of dreams as unintended, unintentional. I do not set out to dream in my sleep, but I do intentionally day dream, and that of course is a deliberate act of my imagination. So, I changed the word in my mind to the “collective imagination” we share, often using it as shorthand. We also use the content of this collective imagination as map, noting intersections we share safely with others. For example, together we discuss spicy dramas we’ve watched on TV, viewing cheating or near death experiences without any personal skin in the game. The authors mention a number of soap operas across the world, but my mind goes to the 90s when people would gather in dorm rooms to watch Friends on TV every Thursday, and there would invariably be some indignation about the different coupling of characters and what not. A generation later, memes cite “PIVOT” from the episode the Friends characters hopelessly tried to move a sofa up a halfback staircase, or “We were on a break!” when Ross and Rachael have one of countless mishaps with other romantic interests. Eno and A. state, We use these expressions to simplify, to share, to convey a mutually understood 3rd party experience and decades later, Friends memes prove that to be true.
Of course we often like to think of ourselves so separately, little independent lives, rugged individualists, and so forth. But it is not hard to argue that our strengths come from our ability to adjust and cooperate, and art is undeniably an incredibly powerful tool for these important things, giving us a special type of shared language and despite our differences and individualism. Eno and A. explain “In art, we try out new possible worlds and other ways of being, by paying attention to our feelings about them. Art allows us to share complicated concepts and feelings with each other. This cultural conversation opens doors to shifts– in ourselves and in society. Art Shepards change” (108). We can take comfort in being part of and tapping into this collective imagination of the artistic world.
Furthermore, we surpass simply using art and the content of our collective imaginings for points of reference, and go so far as to yield to it. As the author’s state, we “surrender voluntarily” to experience beyond our own, for example in sex, education, and religion. We pass what is in our own control over our own tiny corner of the universe in this one infinitesimal moment of time to submit to something other, something that to us is new, and makes us vulnerable. Undoubtedly, that submission brings us difficulty of feelings: uncertainty, anxiety, vulnerability. But if we do not submit, do not learn to be alright in the paradox and grey shades of life, then we live in constant deficiency, and it will eventually corrode the things we imagine we do control. Eno and A explain, “A single flower is the product of a whole landscape. Just as there is no such thing as a self-made flower, there’s no such thing as a self-made man” (110). That flower needed soil made by the breakdown of rocks from winds produced by the sun, and the decomposition of worms and bacteria and fungi, and countless other variables. We too are of course interdependent beings, and Eno and A. give the reader space to come to understandings of important realities of how the art existing in these interdependencies support the best possible outcomes for humanity.
The book underscores that new challenges don’t come with instruction manuals, so if we equip ourselves with the knowledge and experience and feelings we get from the arts, from these simulations of other experiences and other worlds, we can move into the unknown with some tools. Ideally, we safely experience the simulations of life that art offers us so we can improve ourselves and our community.
