From Pixels Don't Breathe.

[randomness]

From the Epicurean Dealmaker:

One fine, convenient day, close your laptop, shut down your monitor, mute your smartphone and slip it into a pocket, and go visit an art museum. Once inside, skip the bookstore, shun the gift shop, and eschew any special exhibitions of Blockbuster Anything or Super Duper Famous Artist retrospectives. Instead, find the painting galleries in the permanent collection and wander around until you find a nice piece that particularly interests you—preferably one with a bench commodiously arranged before it—and sit down. Just exactly what kind, vintage, or style of painting is entirely up to you.

The point is to experience an object in real time—in the flesh, as it were—unmediated by the lacquered page of a book or the reflections on a computer screen. An object which has been created out of canvas, and wood, and paint, and whatever else the artist chose to incorporate for the express purpose of being looked at in itself, as an object: here and now.

Given how much of my personal and professional life is conducted or mediated through the sterile arrangement and rearrangement of glowing pixels on a screen, I find an occasional such exercise to be a refreshing and even reinvigorating way to reconnect with the physical world. You could accomplish the same thing by contemplating a tangerine, or your belly button, I suppose, but I personally tend to find fine art more intrinsically interesting. Plus, there's the advantage that staring for 20 minutes at a painting in a museum will garner you fewer incredulous stares (although not none) than doing the same thing with a piece of fruit in a farmer's market.

I am sure I could draw parallels between my little exercise and others you could perform to pierce the electronic veil before your eyes and reconnect with the world-as-it-is, but I will leave that project for you to contemplate.

Comments

[muffyjo]

I absolutely support this. And then, of course, come home and blog all about it. ;)

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Speaking from privilege a bit, isn't he?

Hell yes

[drwex]

TED is unashamed about his privileged position. He's not quite a Lewis Lapham, but he's in that tradition. He's also great reading, if you have any interest in the world of finance or M&A.

Re: Hell yes

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

OTOH, one of the odder aspects of the world is that as you get a bit of privilege, you do get more insulated and separated from the world. "I mean the rich are always lied to, it's one of our perks." Someone without a well-paying "professional" job is likely to have to handle enough of the real world (e.g., babysitting, as a reply below says) to not be separated from reality by glowing pixels. Though I suppose if you're really rich, you're separated by a phalanx of servants -- but staring at a real object won't cure that.

Re: Hell yes

[drwex]

It's also worth mentioning that TED takes himself as blogging specifically to and for his peers. He's aware that he's read by non M&A professionals, of course, but his majority readership and intended audience are indeed that overweening privileged class. Part of what makes him so much fun to read, if you ask me.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Yep, and assumption.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! :)

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

This is a lovely idea stated with such overweening obnoxiousness. It both makes me nostalgic for the times in college I'd spend an afternoon hour in a campus museum between classes, and makes me want to slap the author or at least ask how many people he volunteered to babysit for so they can do this.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I think it's funny that he mentioned contemplating a tangerine, because stopping to mindfully and slowly eat a tangerine and really notice all the sensory input of peeling it, handling it, and eating it, is a classic mindfulness exercise.

You don't have to go to a farmer's market and stare at fruit. Take a five minute break, or use part of your lunchtime, to mindfully eat something you like, and stop and think about your senses. It doesn't require an art museum or a whole afternoon or whatever. 20 minutes or an afternoon stopping and contemplating art is great. But if you can sit outside for 2 minutes and contemplate a tree, that's a worthwhile effort too with a whole lot less pretension and "this is the _right_ way to be contemplative."

[spinrabbit.livejournal.com]

"the lacquered page of a book"

I have never encountered a book with lacquered pages. Bindings, yes; they're not *common*, but both the medieval Persian and modern Japanese bookbinding traditions include lacquered boards. (http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5358790 ; http://www.pbagalleries.com/search/item_img.php?acq_no=129524 ) Some sort of art book could be done with rigid pages (say, wood or sheet metal) coated with lacquer, but I haven't seen it.

[I know, I know, he's talking about glossy paper. :P ]

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

I know, he's talking about glossy paper.

But I didn't -- thanks for clarifying this.

[flit.livejournal.com]

That turn of phrase made my brain stop, too.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

"Explore the big blue room. Marvel at its resolution and rendering speed. -- from alt.sysadmin.recovery"

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Hah!

At one point I was driving down to DC with madbodger through some very disturbingly dense fog. As we drove through Maryland we started riffing off the idea that the car simulator game we were playing was really having rendering issues.

"Man, these graphics really suck."
"Yeah, all I'm seeing is gray soup."
"Oh, hey look: it's giving us a couple more pixels. Red ones, up ahead."
"There must be some serious network issues."
"Yeah."

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

One thing that always amazes me about these kinds of articles is the assumption that people don't do this (or things like it, if art museums aren't available or are too expensive or aren't their preference) already. I mean, I realize that if the author is personally lost in an electronic haze it must feel revelatory to break out of it, but that doesn't automatically mean that everybody shares the former state but just doesn't know it.

[flit.livejournal.com]

I would rather contemplate that tangerine. Nom!