On a 1998 visit to the White House, Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel described how jazz helped him imagine freedom in the darkest days of communist oppression. “Music,” the poet-president said, “is the enemy of totalitarianism.”
What would society look like without art? What if there were no movies or television shows, no music or dancing, no plays or museums? What if you never read a novel or a poem, because there were none to read? What if your walls in your home were bare? What if our clothes, our furnishings, our homes were without any trace of art? What would this mean for our society? And what would this mean for the global society in which the influence of American artists can be felt far and wide?
In a challenging economy, art for art’s sake may seem like a luxury that society can ill-afford. But creativity and innovation will continue to be vital engines driving the future of the U.S. economy, and cultural diplomacy is much less costly than war. Today it is more important than ever to explore the public decisions being made about the arts. In this project we will think broadly about what “the arts” might be. We’ll explore a broad range of factors that might impact the arts and the role they play in society, from concerns about education to concerns about technology and its impact on the arts, from concerns about intellectual property to concerns about global and local economies. We’ll explore different concepts or different visions of what the arts might be. We’ll unfold the various dimensions of the arts in society. We’ll look ahead to various emerging concerns that people might have about the way the arts might be created and how they might be taught, consumed, financed, and distributed. Eventually we’ll develop different conceptual possibilities for our public policy to address these emerging concerns.
How It Works
I am currently recruiting two panels of 10 citizens each from the general Washington DC metropolitan area, where monthly meetings will take place for up to a year or more. One panel of “specialists” will consist of experts in the field, liberally defined, from poets, musicians and visual artists, to grant administrators and intellectual property lawyers. The other “generalist” panel will be members of the general public chosen without any reference to any particular familiarity with or specialized knowledge of the arts. Above all, panelists need to be interested in participating in a thinking group that will explore contrasting possibilities, including ones that the participants may find objectionable or wrong-headed, rather than participating in an opinion group, where panelists would simply present and argue for their own fixed or favored positions.
If you would like more information about participating in this project, please email Natalie Hopkinson. email hidden; JavaScript is required
The Future of the Arts & Society
Project Manager – Natalie Hopkinson
On a 1998 visit to the White House, Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel described how jazz helped him imagine freedom in the darkest days of communist oppression. “Music,” the poet-president said, “is the enemy of totalitarianism.”
What would society look like without art? What if there were no movies or television shows, no music or dancing, no plays or museums? What if you never read a novel or a poem, because there were none to read? What if your walls in your home were bare? What if our clothes, our furnishings, our homes were without any trace of art? What would this mean for our society? And what would this mean for the global society in which the influence of American artists can be felt far and wide?
In a challenging economy, art for art’s sake may seem like a luxury that society can ill-afford. But creativity and innovation will continue to be vital engines driving the future of the U.S. economy, and cultural diplomacy is much less costly than war. Today it is more important than ever to explore the public decisions being made about the arts. In this project we will think broadly about what “the arts” might be. We’ll explore a broad range of factors that might impact the arts and the role they play in society, from concerns about education to concerns about technology and its impact on the arts, from concerns about intellectual property to concerns about global and local economies. We’ll explore different concepts or different visions of what the arts might be. We’ll unfold the various dimensions of the arts in society. We’ll look ahead to various emerging concerns that people might have about the way the arts might be created and how they might be taught, consumed, financed, and distributed. Eventually we’ll develop different conceptual possibilities for our public policy to address these emerging concerns.
How It Works
I am currently recruiting two panels of 10 citizens each from the general Washington DC metropolitan area, where monthly meetings will take place for up to a year or more. One panel of “specialists” will consist of experts in the field, liberally defined, from poets, musicians and visual artists, to grant administrators and intellectual property lawyers. The other “generalist” panel will be members of the general public chosen without any reference to any particular familiarity with or specialized knowledge of the arts. Above all, panelists need to be interested in participating in a thinking group that will explore contrasting possibilities, including ones that the participants may find objectionable or wrong-headed, rather than participating in an opinion group, where panelists would simply present and argue for their own fixed or favored positions.
If you would like more information about participating in this project, please email Natalie Hopkinson.
email hidden; JavaScript is required