Finding the Nuance

Let's get theoretical for a moment.

In this week's writers roost, I wanted to talk about the purpose of art.

For this, you'll have to bare with me and read some longer paragraphs than you're used to seeing on our LinkedIn feeds. I mean, we all gotta eat our vegetables and read paragraphs sometimes. So let's get to it.

We all know that art can help us see the world in a new light. Whether a film’s camera angle of autumn leaves blowing on a sidewalk helps us notice that moment the next time we experience it in our life, or how that song that's hitting just right can help us feel so many things. We can better understand this power of art by turning to some ideas from a literary theorist named Viktor Shklovsky.

Shklovsky’s argument about the power of art stems from the idea of automatization, which is the process by which our minds automatically filter out the routine actions we make every day. We've all had those times when we drive into work, put our car in park, and realize we have no memory of the actual drive. We're so used to it our brains tuned it out. Shklovsky claims that this is “how life becomes nothing and disappears. Automatization eats things, clothes, furniture, your wife, and the fear of war."

Sit with that thought for a moment.

Scary right? But how do we fight this tendency? According to Shklovsky, it is the enstranging power of art that jolts us out of our automatization and allows us to experience whatever idea is being represented precisely through the way it is presented:

“The goal of art is to create the sensation of seeing, and not merely recognizing, things." To Shklovsky, enstrangement is the core function of art. By “not calling a thing or event by its name but describing it as if seen for the first time, as if happening for the first time," art breaks us out of this numbness from the routine and gives us life again. Helps us see again.

There's even promising research showing measurably how this happens in our brains.

This is where we come to a quote, from the movie Stranger than Fiction:

“As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be ok. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true.”

Now that you want a sugar cookie and a hug, remember that so many things can break us out of our automatization, not just art. Schklovsy believes that’s the sole purpose of art - to break us out of that automatization. But I believe that both participating in art, and creating it, are some of the most powerful ways we can break out of it as well.

So that's the post and my point. No, my dumb stories and the art you make are likely not going to literally save a life. But I know that working on my art sure felt like it did for me. Keep working on your art, keep watching movies, find time for nuance. And be excellent to each other.