The DeVos Institute Offers Some Hope For Artists In the Age of Distraction

The most recent installment of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management's lecture and debate series titled "Generation Elsewhere: Art in the Age of Distraction" took stage in the Granoff Center this past Thurday. The debate focused on the future of "cultural architecture," or what our media and methods of art presentation need to look if they are to take into account our changing entertainment standardsAccording to DeVos Institute President Brett Egan, our generation (the "elsewhere" one), which is characterized by addictions to multitasking, an endless supply of spectacular, cheap, low-commitment stimuli, biases towards novelty, detachment from reality, and a compulsive fear of disconnection (FOMO), is threatening to kill art as we know it. These conditions deprive our artistic culture of the three necessary factors it needs to survive: presence, attention, and resources. The declining necessity or incentive of presence, as well as the widening gap between limitless media and limited attention, panics those involved in art media that relies heavily on the two.This almost apocalyptic perspective formed the critical atmosphere in which the subsequent lecture and discussion took place.  Thomas Forrest Kelly, Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music at Harvard, was the keynote speaker. Kelly's presentation provided some historical context for immersive art, pointing to dioramas in 1830's French opera. The debate which followed featured a strong balance of older contributors (Kelly and Pulitzer Prize winning Arts and Architecture critic Philip Kennicott) who seemed resistant to parting with traditional forms of artistic media, and individuals exploring the frontiers of the new age of expression.

Kelly dropping the mic after his presentation.

 Sydney Skybetter, professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at Brown, moderated the discussion, posing questions to the panel that dealt with the validity of new age art and methods of developing a successful plan for artists and art managers to cultivate viewership and attention. The other panelists included Brown alumna Liat Berdugo, a Silicon Valley programmer-turned=curator who strives to expand appreciation for digital culture through various meta-artistic collaborative projects (she tried to get a copyright for the "zoom" gesture on the iPhone); Elly Jessop Nattinger, an "experience engineer" for Google who has worked in research on the Opera of the Future; and Justin Bolognino, founder and CEO of META.is, a multi-sensory experience directing company that specializes in "the art of being there" (essentially they go to music festivals and give people who are rolling fun lights to play with).

The panel listens to Nattinger's introduction

This event scheduled by the DeVos Institute simply wasn't as publicized as it should have been. The questions  "what is happening to our culture?" and "what can we do about it?" are pertinent to anyone who values art and are vital for anyone trying to succeed as an artist. The event successfully put people who were well-educated and experienced in the fields of tradition and modern art in a room together to talk about these issues, receive questions from the less-formal observers, and offer a hopeful perspective for a doomed scenario. The work of the DeVos Institute is ongoing, but the audience of sixty people it received at Brown is not indicative of its import.Upcoming events in the DeVos Institute's series include lectures at the Ford Foundation in New York on November 15th as well as the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge on December 9th.  Attendance is free but registration is required. Events provide free food and alcohol. Images via and via