Art Not Hate

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noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:37:00 +0000

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Infinite Creative Games: Why simply playing is winning

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:24:00 +0000

What is an infinite game?

And why should you, as a creative professional, care?

Let’s begin with “finite games,” because that is what our commercial culture is all about.

There are a few exalted winners and vast hordes of losers/strivers. Here are just a few obvious examples of our national finite games:

The Super Bowl, World Series, the NBA playoffs, flipping condos, stock speculation, consumer marketing, the Oscars, Tonys, Emmys, Obies, Golden Globes, Nobel Prizes, Indie 500 and Nascar, Pulitzer Prizes, Wimbledon, MacArthur Genius Grants, Sundance Indie Film Awards and Hollywood deals, Olympic gold medalists, Project Runway, American Idol, Congressional filabusters, offshore drilling, and strip development…

Conversely Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired Magazine and digital guru, defines Infinite Games this way:

“The game is to keep changing the nature of change. And that infinite game is my view of holiness. You play the game not to win, but to continue to play to make room for all expressions of truth, good, and the beautiful. You are opening up the world to possibility.”

This was slammed home to me just a few weeks ago. My longtime music guru, Dan Kleiman, unexpectedly died of a massive stroke from out of the blue. He was just 55. Dan seemed in good health and in reasonably good spirits when I saw him last October in Philly.

He composed, performed, and handled the post-production of twelve of my award-winning experimental videos over a period of a dozen years:

http://artnothate.com/friends/dan-kleiman.php
http://creativeledge.com/video/index.php

One of the things we talked about (perhaps the one thing that we always talked about) was the apparent unfairness and arbitrary harshness of life in the creative economy. As middle-aged working creative professionals, we were both experiencing the frustration of always being on the edge of big things. As the saying goes, always a bridesmaid and never a bride. With the collapse of both the stock and housing markets, we saw a lot of our savings and net worth evaporate and the prospect of easy money disappear.

Dan was vexed by the possibility of many more years of creative struggle and the uncertainty of any financial reward. I was less worried about things and more sanguine about the future (at least at that moment) and tried to cheer him up with my usual philosophizing. In my circle of friends and colleagues, I am often the resident skeptical optimist. I adopted this cast of mind when dealing both with a serious chronic illness for nearly twenty years and a life-threatening colon lesion. For the most part, my health situation was not talked about, but was always the 800-pound gorilla in the studio. Consequently, I am genuinely grateful for the good days when there is energy and creative flow.

Recently, Dan and his longtime creative partner and singer, Phyllis Chapell, finished a magnificent CD titled “Vision of the Dry Bones.” It combined their virtuosity with Jewish, Latin, and world culture into a delicious and fully realized whole.

http://artnothate.com/friends/phyllis-chapell.php

It had a genuine artistic integrity that can only be achieved by decades of practice, experimentation, and committed creative collaboration. Here is a link to some clips from the album:

http://artnothate.com/friends/projects/dry-bones.php

One of the things that I mentioned to Dan last fall was that the web might provide artists (particularly musicians and performers) a modicum of immortality. One might yet be discovered posthumously on the Internet and find an enthusiastic audience that could span generations.

This did not give my gifted friend much succor or solace. He was still playing the finite games of the mercurial creative marketplace at our last meeting, trying to figure out how to get fame, fortune, security, and unconditional love through one’s art.

Now he is part of eternity…as we all shall be…sooner or later.

But let me leave you with images from a favorite infinite game—Nantucket Sailboats!

It was one of the very first videos that Dan and I worked on together.

http://creativeledge.com/video/mainely-creative/nantucket-sailboats.php

Anger as Agent of Creativity: A report from the “Art Not Hate” project by Bob Barancik

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:29:00 +0000

Some Buddhist sages have equated anger with insanity. I agree with that sentiment in many aspects of life…but not all.

Anger can be an agent of positive creative change and an impetus to the creation of profoundly unsettling but life-affirming art forms.

As part of my forthcoming “Art Not Hate: Creative Responses to Conflict” exhibit at the Florida Holocaust Museum, opening in March, I worked with young people from Community Tampa Bay and various other organizations in the metro area. In the workshops, students came to understand the anger they experienced in various situations, and then used that anger as a creative energy.

Here is a short video that conveys the flavor of the workshops: http://artnothate.com/workshops/

I enjoyed working with the teenagers, but as a person on the brink of his 60th birthday, I have a compelling need to collaborate with both emerging and mature artists and performers. Together we can create art that might speak across generations.

I was especially interested in collaborating with Gen Y (under 30 adults) and fellow Boomers in projects that incorporate both traditional art forms and new electronic media.

As I see it, Tampa Bay’s future economic growth will be driven more by the silicon in computer chips than by our broad sandy beaches. Here is a link to a prescient column that I wrote for the Creative Tampa Bay Buzz a few years ago:

New Media vs. The Movies

The “Art Not Hate” project weaves together various strands of the creative economy ethos—the cultivation of diverse people and ideas, the humanization and monetization of digital technology, and the desire to foster genuine community (with all its conflicts, contradictions, and promises of creative human connectedness).

This short “Anatomy of Anger” video clip was written and performed by Aleshea Harris, accompanied on congas by Nery Arevalo, produced by Mark Maynor, and managed by Sarah Gerard.

The piece was inspired by a series of mixed media collages that are part of the “Art Not Hate” exhibit.

Please visit the exhibit website at www.artnothate.com and read the informative online press release.

The free public reception at the Florida Holocaust Museum is Sunday March 14th from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Piano jazz great Stan Hunter and classical piano virtuoso Judith Alstadter will be performing. RSVP required.

Email Amy Blake at floret55638@mypacks.net to be put on the guest list. Spaces are limited.

The “Art Not Hate” exhibit runs from March 6th to March 30th.

Studies show compassion is a human instinct

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:54:00 +0000

Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, says that contrary to long-standing assertions that humans are inherently self-serving, new evidence suggests that we’re actually wired to be compassionate. Studies conducted by a number of preeminent specialists and universities demonstrate measurable responses in the human anatomy including changes in brainwaves, oxytocin levels, and non-verbal communication, suggesting that, “Compassion is deeply rooted in human nature; it has a biological basis in the brain and body.” Certain parenting styles help the behavior along, particularly what the psychological community calls, “inductive parenting,” in which parents encourage children to consider the reasons why they have done harm and the kinds of effects their behavior has on others. “Parents can teach compassion by example,” Keltner says, explaining, “Human communities are only as healthy as our conceptions of human nature.”

Read “The Compassionate Instinct” at Greater Good Magazine

The Vision of the Dry Bones brings SIORA world jazz sound to Hebrew classics

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:56:00 +0000

World-acclaimed SIORA founders Phyllis Chapell and Dan Kleiman are all over the map with their international flavor and percussive instrumentation and Phyllis’ full-bodied vocals in eleven languages. Their latest release, "The Vision of the Dry Bones," a transnational representation of the Hebrew canon, departs from any classic interpretation into hip-shaking, body-swaying, soulful swings and jazz-centric beats. SIORA isn’t afraid to use a Samba style to spice up an Israeli ballad in MaNavu, or give a plaintive Yiddish song a heartbeat with rhythms from across the Jewish Diaspora in Papirossen. Inspired by a vision of the prophet Ezekiel of a vast expanse of dry bones gradually forming flesh and coming back to life, the message of "Dry Bones" seems to be that of tradition reinvented, breathing new and delicious breath, moving into the future with renewed vigor. Says Kleiman, “First the Jew in us asks why, then the jazz musician asks why not?”

Listen to Dry Bones here

Florida Holocaust Museum curator wins FAM’s Innovator Award

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:18:00 +0000

Florida Holocaust Museum curator Erin Blankenship won 2009’s Florida Association of Museums (FAM) Innovator Award for her work curating the museum’s Courage and Compassion exhibit about the Bielski family, who saved over 1,200 Jews from certain execution during the Holocaust. The exhibit opened at the same time as the movie “Defiance”, telling the story of the Bielski brothers, premiered in theaters. Brendon Rennert, grandson of Tuvia Bielski, approached the museum about compiling the exhibit after hearing that the movie was in production.

The exhibition includes survivor testimonies, intricate models, and original artifacts, requiring extensive research by Blankenship to locate and build partnerships with family members, institutions, and survivors in order to acquire the right pieces. She even went as far as to coordinate an archeological dig of the Bielski family campsite in the Naliboki forest of Belarus.

“It is very rewarding being recognized by your peers,” Blankenship says, “so while it was a huge effort that really required a small team of people, I was very happy with the outcome and I feel very honored to have been given the opportunity to tell the story (on behalf of the FHM) of these extraordinary men and to have met the survivors and family.”

Read the press release about the award

Read Erin's bio

Philadelphia choreographer gives Rwandan youth a reason to dance

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:59:00 +0000

Rebecca Davis is the founder and Artistic Director of Philadephia’s non-profit Rebecca Davis Dance Company. In 2008, she traveled to Rwanda to teach dance to child survivors of the 1994 genocide that annihilated over 10% of the country’s population in less than three months. When she returned last year, she found that the project’s sponsoring group was closed, the safe house where the boys were living was gone, and many of the children she taught were once again living on the streets. Together with a volunteer friend, Rebecca vowed to raise the mere $2.50 per day that it takes to send at least one of her students to boarding school, asking, “Why can’t we, as an international community, prevent mass murder, or at least protect its survivors?”

Rebecca has choreographed and taught in Canada, Russia, Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and the United States. More than your average dance company, Rebecca founded her namesake four years ago with the mission of deepening the public’s knowledge of classic literature, significant historical events and social issues, and to provide a pre-professional dance-theater training program for young dancers. In the summer of 2009, Rebecca lived in Brcko, Bosnia-Herzegovina, developing a creative movement program for youth, which focused on the theme of reconciliation in a post-conflict country. The Rebecca Davis Dance Company is soon to offer a dance-exchange program with students from that country.

Read her story in Broad Street Review

Watch kids of the Unity Hip-Hop Group of Rwanda perform

Visit the Rebecca Davis Dance Company website

Read Rebecca's bio

FYI: Thought Provoking, Useful, and Inspiring Items on the Web

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:10:00 +0000

Bard Prison Initiative helps prisoners choose better futures

Knowing that education is the best way to build peace, Bard College began Bard Prison Initiative in response to Congress’ 1994 elimination of Pell grants. The program encourages student prisoners, some of them serving life sentences for murder, to think objectively about the choices they make, and the ones they see others making, while enabling them to work their way toward college degrees. Prisoners take the same classes as other Bard students and earn the same degrees, reminding us that at any point in our lives, despite choices we’ve made in the past, we can choose an upright path.

Read the Jewish Daily Forward article

Chief investment strategist says Think Twice about the choices we make

Despite what our mothers tell us, following our gut is not always the best idea says Michael J. Mauboussin, chief investment strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management and author of Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition. Called “an insightful, well-researched discussion of our all-too-familiar cognitive failures,” the book springboards from America’s current financial crisis to discuss what Mauboussin pinpoints as our nation’s eight most common mistakes. Mis-skills include looking for answers in the wrong places and misunderstanding cause and effect. "To make good decisions,” Mauboussin writes, “you frequently must think twice—and that's something our minds would rather not do."

Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition
By Michael J. Mauboussin
Harvard Business Press; 208 pp.; $29.95

Read the BusinessWeek review

Former Navy lieutenant smuggles Iraqi art out of Green Zone

Of all the hundreds of stories we read each week while carrying out the Art Not Hate mission, there are some that just really make our hearts pound. At a time when their nation is being ripped apart by war, Christopher Brownfield, a former Navy lieutenant, smuggled paintings by Iraqi artists out of the Green Zone, risking life and career for the betterment of these artists’ livelihood. After auctioning the paintings at New York’s Pomegranate Gallery and sending all of his proceeds back to the artists, he launched an online gallery (below) to sell the artwork. Not just a story about helping one’s fellow man, Brownfield’s actions are evidence of the persistence of the human spirit in the face of impossible odds.

Read the Forbes article
Visit Christopher’s online gallery

Scientists say human kindness is nature, not nurture

Human kindness: nurture or nature? These days, scientists across a spectrum of schools are saying nature. New evidence suggests that infants display helpful behavior even before their parents begin teaching them social norms. Furthermore, humans’ innate helpfulness may have stemmed from ancient humans’ need to cooperate in finding food and shelter, and protecting the safety of the group. “Humans putting their heads together in shared cooperative activities are thus the originators of human culture,” Dr. Tomasello, a developmental psychiatrist, writes.

Read the New York Times article

‘Hebrew Mamita’ spreads spoken-word against Jewish stereotypes

Spoken word artist Vanessa Hidary is inspiring beaming shmaykhels on the faces of audiences all over Manhattan and the Web. Calling herself The Hebrew Mamita, Hidary aims to shatter stereotypes about the daughters of Abraham, “Bigging up all people who are a little miffed, cause someone tells you don’t look like, or act like your people. Impossible. ‘Cause you are your people. You just tell them they don’t look…PERIOD!” Hidary’s solo show, “Culture Bandit”, garnered attention at festivals and playhouses from New York to Los Angeles, including The Roar Theatre Festival at Nuyorican Poets Café and The Los Angeles Women's Theater Festival.

Watch Vanessa perform
Visit her site

What A Wonderful World it is that brought us Louis Armstrong

Nothing speaks to the beauty of imperfection and inspires hope in the human heart like Louis Armstrong singing “What A Wonderful World.” The gravel of his voice set aloft over airy strings, singing, “I hear babies cry/I watch them grow/They’ll learn much more/than I’ll ever know,” restores a certain sense faith in humanity’s ability to mend the wounds of hatred. Not all is lost, it says, Don’t lose hope. These are only growing pains.

Listen to “What a Wonderful World”

US futurologist says innovation is the economic way forward

The relationship between the human brain and the technology it creates is symbiotic, dynamic, and tied inextricably into world economy. US futurologist Jamais Cascio says in a culture like America’s, where innovation is the driving force of our economy, not only is failure inevitable—it’s necessary. In an interview with Viennese newspaper Die Presse, Cascio discusses America’s new wave of personalized technology, the necessity of trial and error, the future of the human brain, and the death of industrial Capitalism.

Read the interview

Six Mistakes Mankind Keeps Making Century After Century

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:25:00 +0000

Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others;
Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected;
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it;
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences;
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind;
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

– Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, lawyer, philosopher, 106 BC to 43 BC

These clear-eyed and crystalline words were written over 2,000 years ago by one of ancient Rome’s most revered and influential legislators. I often muse on these six points and try to embellish his simple litany of human blindness and stupidity…to no avail. The “Art Not Hate” project is a response to point five— it attempts to refine and develop our perception of both others and ourselves in the mix and mayhem of life. But, ironically, creative people can be as prejudiced and spiteful as those who do the world’s more mundane work (think Michael Richards [aka Kramer] on African Americans, and Mel Gibson on Jews). Nonetheless, when we create with others who are different from ourselves, there are inexplicable moments of empathy when we know that the person next to us shares our feelings and fate…and we are changed for the better.

Art Not Hate: Creative Responses to Conflict

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:30:00 +0000

Our times and our selves are defined by conflict.

We are highly evolved mammals with big brains that can do the most ethereal abstract mathematical reasoning, produce masterpieces of music and art, envision astounding future possibilities — including our own mortality.

Still, we are sensate and aggressive creatures who crave the tactile intimacy of our clan and fear outsiders — and will not hesitate to violently attack perceived strangers.

This issue of Views From CreativeLedge explores the tension between our conflicting human tendencies to create and collaborate or to kill each other and destroy the hard won achievements of human culture.

In a world that has witnessed between 119,000,000 and 265,000,000 state-sponsored homicides (depending on who is doing the counting) between World War I and the present, this is not an academic question.

Perhaps the most compelling quote on the subject of overcoming our conflicted nature is from Charles Darwin:

“In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have always prevailed.”

Leopold Engleitner's Story of Optimism

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:06:00 +0000

Leopold Engleitner is the world's oldest known male Nazi concentration camp survivor whose experiences have been documented in the award winning book and film Unbroken Will.

For refusing to join Hitler's Army, Leopold Engleitner, an Austrian born in 1905, was interned in three of the most infamous Nazi Concentration Camps in Germany. His refusal to sign a simple declaration denouncing his religion and swearing his allegiance to the Reich put him in a collision course with Nazi Germany that nearly cost him his life. His iron will and his determination to stand up for just principles have become a role model for all. An old tattered suitcase became a symbol of hope for a long and impossible journey back home. At his release, he weighed less than 62 pounds, but today at the age of 103, he still lives to share his story of optimism.

Fresh from his lectures at Harvard University and in Florida, Leopold Engleitner will be visiting Los Angeles and appearing at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (May 14 and 24) the Moorpark College (May 22 and 23), UCLA (May 20) and the Lammle's Sunset 5 Theatre in West Hollywood, where his prize-winning documentary Unbroken Will and his 2006 USA Lecture Tour film will be screened from May 15 to 21, 2009 at 1:00 PM, 4:30 PM, 7:30 PM, 10:00 PM.

These excellent articles covered his first event on May 4, 2009 at Harvard University:

Holocaust survivor, 103, tells students of resisting Nazis
The Boston Globe

Oldest living Holocaust survivor speaks at Harvard
The Harvard Gazette

For further information please visit www.unbrokenwill.com.

6 Views of an Apple

noreply@blogger.com (CreativeLedge) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:07:00 +0000

I photographed this apple about six years ago just outside of rural Bethel, Maine. It was a real visual cliché but I still like the image.

But even a simple piece of fruit can provoke some creative musings on the nature of human perception.

Consider these six views of an apple:

The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tse saw an apple hanging from a branch and was reported to have said — “Let it ripen and let it fall.” He would perceive the essence of all human existence with an unflinching eye.
A hungry hiker gazing upon the apple would see a free snack. Maybe it was planted by Johnny Appleseed for famished wayfarers.
A local journalist might scribble some snappy free associations for an autumn “local color” piece for the Sunday paper or a blog entry: Apple of my eye, An apple a day keeps the doctor away, etc.
An 18^th century Eastern European rabbi might see the fruit and coin a catchy proverb for his congregation: “To a worm in an apple, the whole world is an apple.” The same insight also apparently applies to horseradishes.
A natural scientist wandering by would probably want to know the Latin name of this particular tree, how old it is, and if the roots are shallow or go deep.
An economist or business person might survey the unblemished apple and start posing these hard-headed questions:
Can the tree pay for itself? Is it worth investing in fertilizer, pruning, insecticide? Is it worth the effort and money to grow certified “organic” fruit? Does it make more sense to cut it down and mill it into boards for high-priced apple wood tables, chairs, and cupboards?

With oil at well over a $130.00 per barrel, is firewood a better bet than fruit? Can the digital photo of the apple be sold to a stock photo company and then marketed to art directors worldwide?

Can it be pressed into cider or made into apple sauce and put into glass bottles or cute plastic cups with eye-catching graphic labels that proclaims to the world that this is “Bob’s Best Old Tymie Natural Apple Sauce: Good for the Stomach & Spirit & Planet.”

Who we are and what we do in life determines so much of how we see an apple…or the world.

It is inherently difficult to believe that what we see is not what others see. And, of course, we are entitled to the first and biggest bite!