Changing the world!

what art can do, climate change, entertwinment, David Suzuki and hunkering down and island entirely filled with birds

I just figured something out.

This is something I believe and don’t believe.

I create art because I believe that there’s some work that I could create which will finally unlock a part of my self and make myself whole, which will answer all the inner questions—mostly to do with doubt and worry and my place in the world. Then I can get on with continuing to be curious, surprised, intrigued and moved by life and the world.

I also believe that there is some work that I could create which, by bringing a particular kind of understanding, experience, insight, beauty, emotion or self-knowledge, would change the world.

I said that I also don’t believe this, but this idea still haunts a part of me. Why don’t I believe it is because of a series of post-modern, post-structalist critiques and insights. And because of course, art can do much, but it requires the reader/audience/recipient to do the work of engaging with the art and what is possible to get out of it the experience of engaging with the work depends on them. And the current society. And do I really think that a poem or a piece of music can, on its own, unlock an insight so powerful that it will reorganize society?

I recently read an interview with David Suzuki in iPolitics.

‘It’s too late’: David Suzuki says the fight against climate change is lost

“We have failed to shift the narrative and we are still caught up in the same legal, economic and political systems,” said David Suzuki in an exclusive interview with iPolitics. “For me, what we’ve got to do now is hunker down.” —iPolitics

Can artwork “shift the narrative”? Of course it can be part of a larger effort to do so. A groundswell of political, social, artistic, and culture action changes things. All these things interact to change and support each other, to share ideas and experiences. One work alone doesn’t do it. Marx’s Das Kapital is a conception-altering work but for actual change in social, economic or work conditions, that takes the involvement of all the other things as well. Similarly, Darwin’s ideas.

I don’t think this is implicitly a bad thing. I’m glad that there are speedbumps on the uptake of certain ideas. Resistance. Unpacking. Questioning. Metabolizing through the culture. For example, Hitler and Mein Kampf or Mao and his writing created untold horrors enough as it is. Sure, they were the articulation of a set of ideas that galvanized a movement, but they were only part of the larger social change.

So, I know my feelings that art can change both me and the world are naive and simplistic, overally hopeful—I’m a writer not a prophet. (I love the story that the Holy Spirit came to Pope Gregorian in the form of a white bird and simply dictated the chants that became known as Gregorian Chant into his ear. I love the story, but I’d rather struggle imperfectly to reckon with my own imperfect and flawed understanding and insight.) However, knowing I’m just some guy trying to make things this isn’t enough to dispell the belief that somehow, against all odds, the work can be transformational. Really, I’m happy that the work can be part of a larger social and cultural work and I’m contributing my small part. I’m helping us change but also—back to Suzuki—to hunker down. To make that hunkering down a bit better, but also to help us keep going and to not give up. The hunkering down is a respite and a survival strategy but at some point, we’ll want to do more than that.

Art has functions beyond direct change. It can comfort, console, explore, empower. It can reinforce, embody and echo ideas and emotions. It can attend to, witness, remember, record and memorialize. It can build community, help us connect to ourselves, others, and the world. It can entertain and energize.

These don’t tranform the world in a flash of sky-splitting light, but there’s the possibility—the possibility—that like a slow drop of water, they can make change even in stone. Or, at the very least, slow or hold back other forces that seek to make things worse.

*
Another kayak on the waters of Hamilton. This one, to Hickory Island in the middle of Cootes Paradise marsh. The island, as you can see is filled with birds. Mostly black cormorants (see them everywhere but also nesting in the trees) and ring-billed gulls. Around the island are Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons.

I took a video of the island, and then came home and made two very different videos. I added instruments. Percussion, piano and bass clarinet. This is part of my Imaginary Wilderness series where I’m exploring the connection between human music and non-human music, the connection human-centred and non-human-centred awareness. These environments are fascinating to me. Those places where the human and non-human are so visibily intertwined. You can hear cars on the nearby highway as part of the audio. The first one is more about blending in with the sounds of the island. The second one, both visually and in terms of music transforms everything. I added a much more present free-jazzy bass clarinet solo over top of loops of the birds sounds. Is this more dystopian? Just asking the questions more assertively? Dunno, but:

That’s entertwinement!