Analogies
I’ve been watching an interesting television series about art in the 21st century called Art:21. It is a series of segments on individual artists. Each discuses their works, their interests and processes. They were on 3 DVDs. We got them all on NetFlix and watched them back to back to back. About 40 different artists were highlighted.
What I found so interesting was the different ways they perceived the world. Some were more visual than others and their art was all about imagery. Some were more verbal. Some were interested in space and used objects to shape or define space. Some were not interested in objects but in the relationships between them. Some were into ideas and used art to express them. Some were interested in time or change or contrast and tended to produce work in a series of related pieces. Each was exploring their own unique way of perceiving reality and each was compelled to express what they saw.
Normally all you get to see it the art itself, the end product. But on this show we got to see the creators of the work and hear their ideas and see their point of view. It occurred to me that being exposed to a variety of approaches to the perception of reality was of great value.
I began to think about how I perceive reality. It seems to me that I understand the world through the use of analogies. When I encounter something new, if I can relate it to something I already know about in the form of an analogy, then I feel I know something about the new thing too. It is my main mental tool.
But my favorite thing to do is to think up new analogies, discover some new similarity between disparate things, thereby gaining a better understanding of them both. When this happens my mind tingles. It is very exciting. I guess this is why I’m always on the search for new and interesting ideas and points of views.
