In the 1920s and 1930s, the Bauhaus art school taught a radically new way to conceive of art. Artists were no longer to conceive of their role as primarily to interpret an existing reality, but rather to invent new ones according to their own visions. Art became a creative force in itself.
The Bauhaus movement was short-lived and controversial, but its ideas remain active today. A group of artists have recently begun developing a contemporary version of the Bauhaus approach to art. This blog is the work of one member of that group, who has chosen to use the name “Bauhaus” for his own purposes. His blog is about living artfully in today’s world, in all its complexity and uncertainty. He hopes it will help others do so too, but acknowledges that many will not agree with his views and will be offended by them.”
The traditional definition of art is creation, and the traditional definition of creation is making something out of nothing. This blog is about how we can make artful things in a world where everything has already been made.
The blog will be mostly focused on technology, and how we can use it to create art and express ourselves. But it also covers other aspects of life, such as work, relationships, money and culture.
I hope to cover a broad range of topics. If you have suggestions for things you’d like to read about, please send me an email or leave a comment on one of the posts.’
For a few years, I’ve been writing (and trying to live) a sort of manifesto for artfulness in the digital age. I’m not an artist myself (unless you count writing as art, which I do), and this is not a manifesto by artists for artists. It’s meant for everyday people like me—people who make art without ever planning to exhibit it or sell it, people who don’t even think of themselves as artists.
The manifesto is called “Ten Principles of Artfulness.” The whole thing is here, but here is the first principle:
Art is knowing when to stop polishing.
Art is a human necessity. It is a way for humans to understand the world around them, through the metaphor of the individual creating something. Art is an expression of emotion and understanding, it allows others to enjoy and engage with works in meaningful ways. It can be used to express complex ideas that are hard to explain in words.
Todays digital age has allowed us unprecedented abilities to create art. We can make music on our phones or edit photos on our laptops. We can share our creations with anyone we would like with a simple upload. These tools allow us to have instant access to an audience anywhere any time. The problem is that most of these creations are made by people who are not trained in the traditional arts and often times lack the understanding of what makes a work of art great.
These skills are being lost as people think that they can make art because they have digital equipment, or that they can write because they have a word processor, or that they can compose music because they have a computer program. This is not how art works, and it is doing damage to the quality of peoples lives by forcing them into living without art in their lives while at the same time depriving them of vital expressive avenues..
Art is a way of seeing the world.
Art is not so much an object or a process as an outlook, a way of interacting with the world. It is a perspective, not something to be used up and put away in a box when we’re done with it. Art is made by artists, but art is for everyone.
The purpose of art is not just to look at, but to use. Art isn’t about pleasing people: it’s about changing the way they see things. Art causes us to see differently, to perceive our surroundings in new ways. In this sense, it is subversive and revolutionary: art changes our relationship with the world around us.
And that’s why we need art now more than ever. We are living in an age in which everything has been seen before, and every answer has been given. Everything that can be done has been done.
We’ve learned how to live without being fully present in our lives: how to get through the day on autopilot, how to do all of this without really thinking about it too hard. We have more choices than ever before; but those choices have been made for us by people who know better than we do what’s good for us – marketers and advertisers, politicians and lobbyists –
Recently, I have been thinking quite a bit about how art relates to technology. I have some thoughts on this topic which I would like to share here.
Art and Technology are often seen as two opposing entities. To many people, technology is something that has the tendency to dehumanize us, whereas art has the ability to humanize us. This distinction is not new by any means, but what is interesting about it is that it has become very hard for either of these concepts to survive without the other.
The digital revolution has made it impossible for art to exist without being influenced by technology. The same goes for technology, as well as most areas of our economy and culture. Even though this fact may seem obvious, I think that we need some time to really let the implications of this sink in. Let me explain why:
Art and technology are not opposites; they are part of a continuum. As such, they are not competing concepts, but rather need each other in order to exist at all. Technology without art is just engineering, and art without technology is just craft. And while engineering and craft have their importance, they can never be more than means to an end – in this case the end being art. On the other hand, if you remove all
The original Bauhaus was an art school in Germany that existed from 1919 to 1933. It was a place for artists and designers to teach and learn together.
The founder of the school, Walter Gropius, said that he didn’t want to design buildings, but rather a “total environment.” He wanted to integrate art into all aspects of society.
He thought the future world would be made up of many different cultures, each with its own unique style. The goal of the Bauhaus was to create a new kind of architecture–a new style–that could be used by everyone.
Toward this end, they designed furniture and other household objects, as well as book covers and posters. They favored simple shapes and bright colors. They wanted all people, regardless of what language they spoke or what country they came from, to feel at home in an environment created in this style.