An Eternal Thinker

There must be hundreds of reasons why people collect art. It can be as investment or as inspiration. It can be as a way to see a reflection of yourself or society. It can be a way to remind you of human potential, or of human folly. It can be to surround yourself with beauty, or contrast with nature’s beauty in order to appreciate the space in which the art rests. One thing that I think this wide dispersion of reasons has in common is speculation. That is speculation on the monetary value of a work of art or on its influence on you. Both of these are ways of peering into the future. There is also something unique about bronze sculptures. Bronze is as close to eternal as humans know. Bronze will outlive not only us, but outlive canvas, outlive paint and could be one of the few archeological treasures of future alien visitors who will find only this art as a reminder of humanity.

My family bought a sculpture from my friend, the artist Mark Pilato, which is titled “The Modern Day Thinker”. Though you have no doubt seen the photo of it here on this blog, if you had not, your first thought would be to notice the reference to the famous work of Rodin called simply the “Thinker”. Rodin’s “Thinker” needs no description as it is one of the most famous sculptures of any period. Rodin must have created this work in a moment where time stood still long enough for it to neither exist in modernity or antiquity, but rather in universality. The “Thinker” is a strong man. He is a worker, hardened by labor, but confounded by self reflection not by action. I can think of nothing more meaningful to the struggles of humans, who more than any other animal are lost in their own silent ideas after the labors of days that fail to fill the empty space which surrounds consciousness.  “The Modern Day Thinker” is equally as timeless, but seems to push beyond physical constraints in ways that Rodin did not intend with his own work. In this work the Thinker is feminine, but not a woman or a man. The Modern Day Thinker is sexually provocative, but without sex. I refer to the piece as she because I do not want to reduce her form to an “it” merely because we cannot readily acknowledge gender. Her thinking differs from the Rodin "Thinker". It  is not the thinking of someone filling the void left after physical effort as in Rodin’s sculpture, but is thinking to fill the entirety of existence.  This may very well come from Mark’s admiration for Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. This Modern Day Thinker is like Virgil trapped in Limbo, eternally gazing upward to paradise, while forever unable to make that journey. This gaze is not so much a gaze since “The Modern Day Thinker” has no eyes, but instead only an ethereal gesture of anticipation through inward reflection.

 If it is true that collecting art is about speculation, and that bronze is near eternal, how can we imagine our finite lives and the infinity of the art? “The Modern Day Thinker” embraces the paradox inherent in this question. Her geometry is both a minimalist reduction, and mathematically complex. Unlike sharp edges which can easily be solved, “The Modern Day Thinker” wraps, warps and curves its way through space. Maybe this is why she is so beautiful to me. She makes me contemplate and speculate on the future, but leaves enough mystery to make that future ambiguous and exciting.

Is the Margin the Whole Page?

In 2008 I wrote a blog about the feeling of being marginalized by the things I do, such as polymer physics, free-jazz and experimental theatre and poetry. I wasn’t so much feeling sorry for myself, but rather just confused by how humans can be so alike, yet have such a broad dispersion of interests. Since I wrote this I am starting to see that marginalization is being moved from its long history of being outside of the box of societal norms, into a new type of box, where the most bizarre, funny, brilliant and creative people go. This box is not full of financial rewards. It is instead a place of self esteem, minor recognition and community.  It is easiest to see this when looking at the connectivity made possible through social networks. Clay Shirky in his new book “Cognitive Surplus” provides dozens of examples of groups who have found homes on Facebook, Nings, and fan sites. Through this he says that whether you are interested in macramé or sci-fi comic books, you will have a group of likeminded friends to virtually share with. Even Jaron Lanier, who is critical of Web 2.0 style mob mentality networking, is a part of a rare instruments forum, where he can share his own music and collections with others who respect this music like he does. Shirky and Lanier, like bloggers and traditional journalists, differ about how far this should and does go. Shirky feels strongly, and quotes academic studies, that show that people are perfectly willing to do things they care about without financial reward. If we replace the time we spend watching TV, with time spent on our hobbies, there is no financial loss, just self esteem gain. Lanier is not convinced that taking professionalism out of all media and creation in general is a good idea, as it lowers the overall quality, and gives wealth to those who are not doing the creating, such as large corporations and advertisers. Both make strong points, and this is an internal argument I will continue to have.

What interests me even more, is the underlying psychology with finding deeper meaning in things that society has generally considered fringe behavior. This may very well be internet enabled but it is not strictly an internet phenomena. My wife and I saw and intriguing Argentinean film yesterday called “Puzzle”.  The premise of the movie is extremely simple. A 50 year old woman, who has taken care of her husband and late teenage sons, receives a jigsaw puzzle for her birthday. Not being able to sleep she tries the puzzle, and realizes how fulfilling it is to do puzzles. She then searches for puzzles, and finds a wealthy puzzle master who teaches her how to be a competitive jig saw puzzle player. I won’t give away the rest, but there really isn’t much more to it, yet this film is strangely moving, and speaks to the contemporary sentiment of self realization through formally marginalized activities.

A margin on a page in general a small portion of a page. Maybe though margins in society are not margins at all. Maybe they actually are the whole page. Perhaps I am not so odd in the activities I like, or maybe I am common because everyone has odd activities that appeal to them?  I hope that this continues to lead to self empowerment for everyone, and if I am lucky others will be join me in my passion for polymer physics, and free-jazz!

Does Creativity Require a Day Job

About ten years ago I had a conversation over a beer (or a few) with the poet John Greiner, who is also a very close friend of mine. Actually some of the thought provoking conversations on art, philosophy, food and drink have been with John on a Friday afternoon in a bar in Manhattan.  This particular lament was over the fate of the poet as an occupation. I had assumed that John was unhappy by the fact that it is impossible to make a living as a poet. This seems unfair from a values perspective to me. Poetry has always been one of humanities purest ways of communicating the personal, the natural, the political and the spiritual. If you were to judge a culture; its sculptures, paintings and poetry are of fairly equal importance. Doesn’t Homer tell us more about the ancient Greek imagination, and Dante of late medieval Italy than any business of that time? In 20^th century life cinema has also made a lasting impression in the artistic landscape.  All of these other art forms though have the potential of making the artist a lot of money. The artist Jeff Koon’s is a muti millionaire from his contemporary sculptures. Even playwrights like David Mamet are very wealthy due to royalties from plays. Steven Spielberg is a billionaire. There is an obvious difference with poetry, which is that the sales of poetry don’t fit into the capitalist incentive structure of these other arts. It is hard to build reputation with a poem, even with sufficient hype, that can be monetized. Sotheby’s doesn’t auction off the latest book of poetry. Poetry readings aren’t shown on prime time television. So, the inability of poets to make a living writing poetry is fair in a market system, but such economic theory rarely gets in the way of John and my utopian dreams of the purpose of art. What he said surprised me. He said that it is better that the poet can’t earn a living with poetry. TS Elliot worked as a banker and editor. Many poets work as teachers. John said that even though he is a poet, he didn’t resent not being paid much for his poetry. From what I remember, (sorry John if I get this wrong) he said that by not having a financial motivation, the writing was uncompromised by money. Also, working other jobs keeps you an active part of society, which feeds the expression in the poems. This conversation, which we have had more times throughout the years, has not only stuck with me, but in some ways inspired me to publish my own poems.

Since that time ten years ago, much has changed due to technology, which puts other more traditional types of writing in much the same boat as poetry has been. Journalism is no longer what it used to be, as newspaper revenues suffer, and staff is being eliminated. Writers are turning to new media, like blogs, where they are not paid. There is original thought, and a very democratic freedom to this expression, but for millions of people writing essays, commentary and criticism, it is for the pure love of doing it, not to make a living. Photography is another example. A high art, where photographers were rewarded well, has become a vehicle for amateurs. Or perhaps the amateurs are becoming professionals, but just aren’t getting paid for it. The open source movement in software design is even like this. All of this concerns me in some ways, as I have always said that the ability to sell art is important in validating art. This is not to say that the amount attached to the acquisition is equal to the quality, just that it is one way to show that the artist is dedicated to an audience. This is one of the biggest questions of our time. How do incentives affect quality, and how do they reflect our values as a society? I don’t know the answer to this. Perhaps John and I will solve this over a few pints when I return from Paris.

Inventing a Better World

I find that most of us delude ourselves by thinking that what we do is important. I know countless actors, artists, social workers and of course preachers who see their job as no less than a cosmic duty to fulfill a purpose. In general when divine consultation comes into the discussion I dismiss it as either completely delusional, or utterly arrogant. Rather than judge people who have the audacity to claim a calling for a profession, I should be more humble myself and think about why I do the things I do, and whether it is not the same human drive of self importance that is calling me to business, teaching, music and most obviously writing all of these blogs. I am aware that part of anything we do, other than roll out of bed, and watch football all day, has some sort of pointless, yet intuitive feeling of purpose attached to it. Sometimes there is an obvious benefit to what I do, like some small philanthropy, but most of the time I feel as if my contribution is myself, which if I contemplate this further doesn't hold much weight. There are very few if any people that the world could simply not do without, and a professor with a specialty in rheology, who starts tiny tech companies, and plays experimental free jazz music is certainly not one of them (yes that is me!). The accepted evolutionary evidence for this type of mild narcissism was described in the famous Richard Dawkins book "The Selfish Gene" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene ) , and in many more recent genetics studies, which find ancestral evidence of a time when knowledge of our own mortality may actually have been a useful survival tool. This is not impossible to imagine, even as it now, in the age of western wealth, can seem paralyzing. Imagine that in some stage of our evolution we no longer needed the fur that protected our primate cousins, as we could build shelter and prepare clothing. At the same time those technologies were rather basic, making life less enjoyable than we might want. We had hunting tools, while other primates had none (or at least only very basic ones). We eventually had language and music. Which of these two came first is a long debate that I am greatly interested in, but since I have no reason to know the answer to it, will not even take a guess. It must have been that survival was not the efficient sort that many animals experience. We were not trying to survive momentary harm only, but the entire season, and then multiple generations. Death then could be pondered, and purpose became an abstraction, which was different from the rest of the animals. This is so basic and obvious that I don't know why I mention it here, except that I believe this unique survival instant is very relevant not only to the things I am doing with my life, but with the larger moral decisions that we are faced with as humans collectively.
After reading Jeffrey Sachs' wonderful book "The Common Wealth", (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Sachs) I was again moved by his optimism, and saw my place in his global vision from environmental solutions, to ending world poverty. Dr. Sachs taps into that part of me, and likely others, who are self confident (or self delusional depending on your perspective) to think that we can participate in fixing the world. His statement that we must look at what is needed, not what others say is "politically impossible", is so attractive and inspiring. As a technologist and small time entrepreneur, I am attracted to the often criticized sentiment that we can invent our way out of all of our problems. Though Sachs is much more nuanced than this, as he addresses political, economical and geographical issues, I do think that in all of this there is a sentiment that technology created and dispersed with the right intentions, and with appropriate resources could indeed solve most problems. Whenever I speak about this, I am reminded that it is more complicated. When I wrote a blog about the importance of thinking about GM foods and human genetics research in the same way, I was criticized by friends who are very much trying to find other, non-technical solutions to poverty and climate change. Still everything I read I think of as a technical challenge that can be solved.
As inspiration I often go to the classic sources. Last week however I was surprised when a universally praised genius actually discouraged me some. I was looking at the scientific notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, because as with generations of others, he has let me see that human potential for creating art, technology and business are all possible. I may have some arrogance, but not the type of arrogance that would think that comparing me to Da Vinci is even a worthwhile thought. Still, looking at a master is what keeps museums going, and biographies selling, and for me it often works. This time though it had a rather sobering effect on me. I looked through the pages of his detailed drawings and explanations of inventions, none of which were to be realized. These were stunning, and brilliant, but because of the lack of supporting technology available in renaissance Europe, they were impossible. We can look at this and say that they were still brilliant and important because they inspired engineers of the future. This is likely true in an abstract way, as many of us looking at them are motivated to find our own creative vision. Still the times were so wrong for them that by the time the inventions could be created which were in some ways similar to Da Vinci's, his designs seemed simplistic and wrong. There is no question that he was right to do them, because they were every bit as imaginative as his other creative endeavors. The more practical, and at the same time existential question though is; did he invent solutions that helped the world? In a purely practical sense he did not, which is shocking. He had designs for water relocation systems that would end wars without violence, but violence continued. He had designs for machinery that would not destroy peasant workers, but they didn't yet work. The list goes on. So, they were indeed ingenious efforts, but if really pressed on whether he invented the world out of any problems, I would have to answer no.
A counter argument to this has to do with the exponential rate of technology growth that we are experiencing now. For Da Vinci, a concept for a flying machine just couldn't happen in a few generations. Now the distance between imagination and integration is so small that we all can experiment and experience it. What I mean by this can be seen in some profound examples, and some less important but still telling ones. On the latter point, I recently heard an interview with James Cameron about the technology that he used for "Avatar". He said that he had written "Avatar" in the early 1990's before Titanic, but because the technology wasn't available to make the movie as he wanted, he made Titanic first, and waited (helped a bit too) and eventually cameras, computer graphics, and optics caught up with his vision. This is a shame for Da Vinci that things couldn't move as fast in his time. The other example really did save lives, and very quickly. 10 years ago it was discovered that the HPV virus was responsible for 95% of all cases of cervical cancer. This is an incredibly high figure. There had not been an HPV vaccine in the past, but because of this new knowledge a vaccine was developed very quickly and it saves thousands of lives. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have recently donated huge quantities of the vaccine to the world's poorest countries.
So this leaves an important question: Are we diluting ourselves that what we do is important? I would say that we might be doing just the opposite. We might be thinking too small. It is possible that I am telling myself that it is important that I play jazz on a Friday at a bar. This is underselling real important contributions I could be making, either as a composer of an important work, a producer of a film that changes the way people think, or more likely by inventing a solution to a technical problem that could save lives or save the planet. We should all be inventing everyday in notebooks (computer or otherwise) like Da Vinci did, because it is now possible for the wildest of ideas to become reality.

Unfinished Business?

There is a wonderful scene in the film “Six Degrees of Separation”, which as a parent I think about nearly every day. The Kittredge family, who provide the bourgeois Upper East side backdrop of the film, also provide a number of insights into excesses and ambition in contrast to natural instincts. As modern art dealers, they academically understand that the textural and prospective flattening of images represents not merely a shift in aesthetics. It also characterizes a reduction of experience, emotion and philosophy to a two dimension painting. In this particular scene Flan Kittredge, as played by Donald Sutherland, reminisces about his daughter’s second grade class. He remembers how when visiting the classroom, he was stunned, as if entering a gallery at MoMa. All of the paintings of the children struck him as spectacular. He asked the teacher how she managed to get such profound art from every student. Each piece was like a Matisse, a Cezanne, a Kandinsky or a Picasso. The teacher replied that she did nothing. Only that she knew when to take them away. In other words all children are modern masters, but by leaving them to continue work on a painting, that masterpiece may be disguised and colored over.


Children are experimenting with paints and drawings, as we continue to with blogs, with lovers, with restaurants, with financial instruments, and with scientific experimentation. What we often lack however is the equivalent of the teacher who tells us when the experiment is over. For anyone who has played free jazz with a group of musicians for the first time, they will know that it is nearly impossible to bring a piece to its conclusion. This is one of the things that I love about improvisational music, but also one thing that separates those initial experiments from a band that is fully connected. At the heart of free jazz is an assumption that there is nothing a musician can play that is inherently wrong. If a dissonant interval from one instrument is played against a consonant interval from another, it may not be planned, but becomes an idea that requires exploration. During those first meetings of a group, every second of playing is packed with these micro experiments, all of which are of interest to the musicians. Resolving those tonal and rhythmic variations without discussion or pause is an infinite process, which leads to long sessions. For me this is often where jazz starts and ends, as I often don’t have time to rehearse or perform regularly with one particular group. I am often the sit-in pianist who comes into a session with a group who understands each other in such a metaphysically intense way that they instinctually know the movements of the others. It is still a process of experiment for these musicians, but one where a hypothesis has already been stated, and the theory is being tested. I then become a dependant variable in this equation. When it works, the process becomes a calculus, or more metaphorically accurate, a quantum wave function. When listening to the recording the results can be heard, but only as an approximation. Like a subatomic particle whose position and velocity cannot both be measured with complete certainty, neither can any one moment in the cacophony of the sound scape be isolated and understood. It is an evolving process, which as a whole can be experienced. Like the second graders, it takes discipline or a leader to know when to remove your hands from the keyboard.

A science lab can be much the same as this, and like the examples of the children’s art and the free jazz session, it is not completely clear to me that a solution to an experiment ever truly represents a completion. Perhaps it is merely a disciplined end point, chosen aesthetically, artistically or randomly somewhere in the middle for any number of reasons. A corporate research project must have a point at which a conclusion is made, or a product would never be released. We know that the results are rarely perfect, as all products have some degree of uncertainty built into them. A drug is effective in a percentage, hopefully high, of the users, but not 100%. A Ph.d dissertation also must have a completion date, or the student would never get the diploma. American innovation is actually tied to this ability to wrap up an experiment. The first personal computers, IPODS, cell phones and MRI machines weren’t perfect when released, and the scientists who worked on them knew it. But an entrepreneur or manager knew that the product needed to be released.

There is a dilemma for me in this question of creation and completion, which I also think about when watching my daughter paint. It is not whether a painting will look better if it is taken away from her at a certain time. It will certainly be more understandable if it is. We could all be like the second grade teacher in “Six Degrees of Separation”. The big question is rather by taking it away I am stopping a process which for psychological and even artistic reasons should continue to play itself out as long as she wants it too. For my daughter I would want her to continue, as the goal is not for her be a Matisse (at least not yet), but rather to have fun, and express herself. Who I am I to say that she is finished? As we consider ourselves more mature when playing in a band or on nuclear physics experiments, we start to want to be master something rather than just express it. Is that mastering or compromising? Of course it is necessary, and in the cases I mentioned it is important. I wouldn’t want a cure for HIV or cancer to be in a lab somewhere with a scientist saying, “I am not satisfied yet. It only works on 99% of test patients”. I also wouldn’t want every recording to be like most pop albums, where every moment is produced, and planned. This may all seem very trivial and obvious, but it is a question I face every day, as a professor, as a musician, as a scientist, and as a father.

Evolving Music

Last night for the opening Gala of the World Science Festival, I was manic with ideas, dreams, and general excitement. Here was a room of some of the world’s greatest scientists, artists and musicians, all successfully blurring the lines of creativity and rigor, elegance and structure, and all the time being extremely entertaining. The second act was a new composition by Philip Glass with projections of stunning nature photographs by Frans Lanting. It would be difficult to imagine a better night for me, who spends so much time on the fringes of these worlds. It was a chance to be inside, and really experience ideas and art that relate to science. For some reason though there must be a devil on my shoulder, which acts as a grumpy cynic telling me to be overly critical. While in the taxi going home I told my wife Marine that I was disappointed by the Glass score. I felt it derivative of Copland, and essentially reactionary in style. Marine, rightly so, rather than rolling her eyes in the dark, put a stop to this musical elitist talk, by saying something like “isn’t beauty and symmetry through harmony a way of representing nature, whether it is “Appalachian Spring” years ago, or Philip Glass today?”

This was impossible to argue rationally. As James Watson said during his speech at the Gala, all we have is evolution. Brian Greene, in his presentation with Josh Bell gave a cosmological time line of the universe, and put the seconds of existence of humanity in prospective. Even evolution of organisms is so incredibly slow; that the time between 1944 when Copland composed “Appalachian Spring”, and Philip Glass composed his piece which was premiered last night is irrelevant in evolutionary terms. Certainly species have not changed so quickly. Why then do I make this analogy of evolution in nature to evolution in art? I expect progress. In my mind this means something unique which is representative of our present time. If the representation is nature, then isn’t our time basically the same as any other time that humans have been around? Of course it is, but for some reason I am brought back to the question of what makes humanity, this often destructive force in nature, unique and full of potential. Last night’s Gala actually gives me an answer I am content with. We are always working hard at understanding something about ourselves, and our universe. We are searching for something that we didn’t know before we read an important book, or before we took a class, or before we saw a dance concert. While evolution happens slowly, comprehension happens quickly. We experiment to understand, and are continually left with questions, and more experiments to do.

Coming back then to whether art, music in this case, needs to evolve rapidly, even when it is representing something that is evolving slowly. I think we are driven towards asking artistic questions the way we do scientific ones. That is we experiment, and find an answer, only to have another question and then do an experiment again. Like Newton, Darwin or Einstein who discovered amazing truths in their lives, it would not be enough to rediscover them now. In the same way, we need to push ourselves musically and artistically in general to see and hear something unique and new.