Art and culture
The 12 basic needs
Introduction
The essence of art is translating the world of ideas into reality. In all kinds of expression: in cooking, education, architecture, industrial design, but also in social art: shaping social structures, organizations, social contracts. Art is the world of the metamorphosis from pictures into sculptures. Art is part of our daily life! In everything we think about, talk about and decide about there is a process which is art in itself. How can we switch from one thought to another, one argument to another, one phase in our life towards the next? We call it the art of philosophy, the art of debate, and the Art of Living! But we also know the art of cooking, the art of designing a building, car or every other possible industrial product. Arts as painting and sculpting are called “free” expressions. But they are very interrelated because when sculpting the clay we can experience how it is to sculpt an industrial product or a social management structure between people working together, or a new consumerlaw. “Everybody is an Artist” was the famous slogan of Joseph Beuys (1921-1986). His book – see below – about the essence of art is a must for thinking about art in all 360 degrees of our horizon!
Art as a process
From mathematics – especially projective geometry – we can learn how all forms of art are connectors of two worlds. All the ideas come from the world of thinking, planning, making blueprints. Art is the bridge between idea and reality, between spiritual world and material world. And the better we manage to express those ideas in reality, in products, designs, compositions, social structures or in pieces of free expression, the more we talk about “beauty” when it is succesfull. But we also know that the process itself can be very difficult building those bridges from mind to matter. Creative processes are always between all kinds of polarities: light and dark, future vs the past (innovation vs old structures), male / female, east-west and north-south globalization, open social structures vs old hierarchy, etc etc.
In mathematics polarity is the fifth dimension after the three dimensions of space and the fourth called time. In simplified words: when we move for instance a threedimensional (3) cube in time (4) from here to infinity and back we can experience what polarity (5) is. And then we recognise directly that the sixth dimension is individuality (6) because somewhere on that bridge we can make our individual choises in full freedom! Making free choises after seeing all possible options! That’s art! Projective geometry as counterpart of the old geometry gives us the opportunity to draw these polarities of infinite line and point – and all curves in between. For instance where we were accustomed to draw a circle from inside out, one can also construct the circle from outside (infinity) inwards with the help of tangents. We can see these tangents as “figure-games” between television progarms or in modern organic architecture.
Art and education
In fact every smallest piece of the cosmos is a piece of art in itself! Every molecule, cristal, plant, building landscape or organizationscheme of a company has been designed one way or another. Hairstyle, cooking, or the interior of a house. And as we can see the shape of a cristal, we can feel the sphere of an interior, and experience the efficiency of an organizationscheme. Meeting the art around us through head heart and hands! To be creative ourself we have to learn all kinds of art during education first. From the very basics of drawing straight and curved lines, or from the seven basic colours, then only then we can develop our creativeness allround. Then everything we undertake in life is not only a craft but an Art as well! For the best possible solutions in every situation or design.