Please note:
This is a draft paper used to organize and manage planning for this project
and needs to be edited further before formal publication other than on this website. -HGL
Author's note: And the following is written to congeal my thoughts on art as I move forward on my next "science as art"—a la da Vinci—program.Let's define art as the "doing" of art, and artwork as the product of art. Art, then, is a function of our mind as an integrated and inseparable brain/body experienced activity. We not only "do" it, but we are aware of doing it and focused on doing it. Artwork is the result.
Artwork can be ephemeral like music
and dance, residing only in the moment of performance even though the score is
permanent. It can be temporary like The Gates in Central Park. Or it can be
permanent relative to human existence like the Acropolis of Athens or Guernica.
The cycle of art is
done/performed/executed in the present with our consciousness focused on our
personal engagement in the creation of the artwork out of our own mind. Copying
is not art, though it can be the "training/education" of the mind to
engage in art.
Art comes out of our sense of
possibility that arose from our exploration of our world that was motivated by
our curiosity. Art is our attempt to create the objective embodiment of discovered possibility, a work of art, or artwork. Our artwork becomes an
extension of our self, and draws attention to our self, which when positive—our goal as social creatures is positive attention, heightening our status—does, indeed, raise our status, an objective built into our DNA.
The approach is to foster the exploration of our world around us based on our personal curiosity.
We–human beings–are naturally curious creatures. Curiosity is in our DNA. We
can observe the cycle of curiosity leading to discovery leading to display or
distribution which, when positive, leads to status enhancing recognition.
We
experience a sense of satisfying accomplishment from whatever we have done to
earn status enhancing recognition.
The
artist is the individual who creates something that comes out of his or her own
sense of what is [important] to him or her, something he or she feels good
about in itself, something that produces a sense of personal satisfaction–joy, the release of endorphins–from having done it. This may or may not be
motivated by seeking status enhancing recognition.
The
fact of the matter is that the individual cannot create something of paradigm
shifting import without first being an artist.
Assisting
the individual pursue the role of artist vis a vis the good of the society is
the purpose of education. One of the most important aspects in this is to teach
the child the nature of the artist state of mind: integrated and inseparable brain/body experienced activity
with conscious awareness of and focus on doing/performing it.
Remember,
more than any other sport, basketball is a form of dance and can be used to
teach the principal nature of art, especially the need for learning (the
techniques) and practice.
Boredom is a signal that our mind
needs a deeper challenge. One of the important aspects of art is that we need
never be bored unless we are not being allowed to explore a world rich enough
to excite our curiosity, to take it to the next level.
What might surprise many fans is
that psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has actually studied this experience
scientifically. He first became intrigued by such work observing supremely
talented painters. He noticed that on some occasions, these painters would
become so absorbed in the their work that they would lose track of basically
everything happening around them. They were seemingly oblivious to any sort of
pain, fatigue and even time. They became totally absorbed in the work they were
doing. I have personally experienced this throughout my life, and particularly as a systems analyst and progammer when creating and coding integrated data collection and analysis systems would keep working.
This experience Csikszentmihalyi
observed would later be called “flow,” and this is what is occurring when
professional athletes describe being in the zone.
Here is an account of Ben Gordon,
then with the Chicago Bulls, pulled from a 2005 issue of Sports Illustrated,
which is a clear description of a flow experience:
“You lose track of time, what quarter it is. You don’t hear the crowd. You don’t know how many points you have. You don’t think. You’re just playing. Offensively everything is instinct. When the feeling starts going away, it’s terrible. I talk to myself and say, ‘C’mon, you gotta be more aggressive.’ That’s when you know it’s gone. It’s not instinctive anymore.”
During flow, a person is totally immersed in what he or she is doing while simultaneously having a feeling of being energized, intense focus, full involvement, all while experiencing success in the activity. Another way to think of this is what Csikszentmihalyi described as “working at full capacity.”During a flow experience a person has a very clear goal he or she is trying to achieve and the focus is narrowed exclusively towards meeting that goal. In addition, the person loses self-consciousness and is totally absorbed in the activity. Another way to think of this is that the sense of self as a social actor is lost. As Gordon noted above, “You don’t hear the crowd.” It’s almost as if one is in a world by himself and isn’t aware of evaluations or judgments from the outside world. One loses oneself in the activity to the point that other needs are ignored or feel as if they are not even present. Hours pass by as if they were minutes.Reading these initial characteristics of the flow experience, many people are tempted to believe they experience flow while watching a sporting event or doing something more passive. Such events would not be characterized as flow because in order to achieve flow one must have some kind of control over the outcome. Despite what some fans think while being enveloped by watching their favorite sporting event, they have no control over the outcome.In addition, for one to experience flow the activity must meet a delicate balance between ability level and challenge. If we do not experience enough of a challenge, we will not achieve flow. However, if the challenge is too daunting and we don’t have the resources to achieve it, we will also fail to experience flow.Reflect back to Jordan’s famous flow experience. While he was one of the best basketball players on the planet, he didn’t experience flow every night. It took the right mix of circumstances for him to find the crucial balance between ability level and challenge. The NBA Finals provided that balance. The experience also must offer immediate feedback, which is something sport most certainly provides.Finally, the activity must be intrinsically rewarding. That is, we must love engaging in the activity for the activity’s sake. In other words, professional athletes who are playing simply for the money are not likely to experience flow since the activity is extrinsically, as opposed to intrinsically motivated.It is important to note that flow can be experienced in myriad of activities and is not limited simply to sports. For example, in my own life I experience flow while teaching, engaging in therapy or communication training and writing. However, much like Jordan didn’t experience flow in every basketball game, I do not experience flow every time I engage in the aforementioned activities.Research has indicated that people who experience flow very much enjoy it and want to experience it more frequently. However, it has also indicated that people engage rather infrequently in the activities that are likely to induce flow. Perhaps our quick fix society is to blame as it can be so much easier to engage in superficial activities that provide us with an initial increase in positive affect but do not promote true flow experiences.Flow concepts are being implemented in business, education and a number of other areas of society. The question being asked now is what kind of environment best fosters flow? This must also be combined with the question of what skills do we each possess that can be actualized in such a way as to promote flow.Obviously, not every NBA player has the skill-level of a Michael Jordan, but that doesn’t mean that every player cannot experience his own flow experience. The challenge for NBA organizations is to create the unique environment for each player to maximize his opportunity for flow.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29
Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, this positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.[1]
According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate experience in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task[2] although flow is also described (below) as a deep focus on nothing but the activity – not even oneself or one's emotions.
Buzz terms for this or similar mental states include: to be in the moment, present, in the zone, on a roll, wired in, in the groove, on fire, in tune, centered, or singularly focused.
History/background
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his fellow researchers began researching flow after Csikszentmihalyi became fascinated by artists who would essentially get lost in their work. Artists, especially painters, got so immersed in their work that they would disregard their need for food, water and even sleep. Thus, the origin of research on the theory of flow came about when Csikszentmihalyi tried to understand this phenomenon experienced by these artists. Flow research became prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s, still with Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues in Italy at the forefront. Researchers interested in optimal experiences and emphasizing positive experiences, especially in places such as schools and the business world, also began studying the theory of flow at this time. The theory of flow was greatly used in the theories of Maslow and Rogers in their development of the humanistic tradition of psychology.[5]Flow has been
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