The nature of art – the virtual human
Palavras-chave: arte virtualidade criação pessoas natureza
Art has such an organic role in people’s daily lives and in the history of humanity, and has been so questioned and debated by great philosophers, without ever reaching a definitive conclusion, that the question has become almost empty:
What is Art?
In this article I do not intend to resolve such an important issue, but to point out an alternative view, that art is a possible consequence of an evolutionary process and, therefore, intrinsic to the nature of the human species.
To the philosopher Viviane Mosé, human beings are essentially virtual beings. Virtuality is the ability to live a life outside the concrete world through accessing memory and creating ideas within the mind in an uninterrupted process. In that very moment as you read, your mind is not restricted to the words being read in the present moment. There may be an instantaneous comparison with other texts and ideas that you have already had contact with, there may be an expectation or intuition of where the ideas are going. You can remember a person who would have (dis)pleasure reading this text. We can always consider distractions, the memory of an unpaid ticket, the expectation of watching a game next week, or anything else that comes to mind. The mind designs the world. This is a unique and exclusive feature of the species homo sapiens sapiens. It is first necessary to understand the need for the double use of the term ‘sapiens’ in the designation of the species, each one representing a cognitive revolution.
The cognitive revolutions
The first cognitive revolution, according to historian Yuval Harari, was the development of a complex symbolic language that allowed archaic homo sapiens to accumulate information and form larger flocks. Before, human hunter-gatherers formed bands of up to thirty people. Now, through communication, especially gossip, it was possible to form social bonds with up to 150 people in a hierarchical social structure.
This increase in collective size strengthened the species, but it would not be able to produce cities or empires, as “most people can neither know intimately nor gossip about more than 150 human beings” (Harari). The transposition of this limit, which allowed the creation of complex civilizations, occurred through the emergence of fiction, the ability to create myths and to cooperate around them.
“All large-scale cooperation—whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city, or an archaic tribe—is based on shared myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.”
HARARI, 2015, page 36.
This capacity for fiction or virtuality is what Viviane Mosé calls the second cognitive revolution, which justifies the duplicity of the term ‘sapiens’.
The historian Dulce América de Souza states that the human initiated rudimentary forms of art, whether through graphic representation, whistling or disguise, to understand and dominate the reality around them, and this statement finds support in the two aforementioned authors. For Harari, it is the shared myth that organizes society. But before sharing a myth, it is necessary to develop the ability to collectively create and believe in that myth. In this sense, Mosé’s approach to virtuality is much more complete. By virtualizing the world, that is, building and manipulating a world within the mind itself (outside the concrete universe), homo sapiens develops the ability to carry out experiments and test alternatives. It is from virtuality that the human begins to subvert and control nature.
It is good to remember that even the creation of simple tools is rare among animals. Some apes are able to use stick to reach insects, or rocks to break a coconut, but joining stick and stone to make a spear demands the ability to see an as yet unseen utility. Only the experiment of virtuality, also called imagination, is capable of overcoming pure instinct. And it seems that the origin of the arts is closely related to the second cognitive revolution, the one that gave the species the ability to virtualize life and create fictions.
An attempt to unify theories
Regarding the theories behind the research involving the origins of the arts, Souza tells us that we basically have the following:
- Theory of innate need: man has the instinct for beauty, provoking its externalization in the aestheticization of things, in a higher way, in the form of art.
- Theory of utilitarian art: art as a result of improvement, in search of functionality and order. A kind of doing better, adjusting or adapting the object to its perfect purpose.
- Magical or religious theory: the arts would have their origin in the invocation of supernatural forces.
- Theory of expressive function: seeking to express its interior, the most appropriate means is symbolization, as symbols reveal the intuitions of human sensitivity. Art is the symbolic expression of a culture.
- Mimetic theory: man has a natural tendency to imitate. Art becomes a second nature, before which man recognizes himself.
- Ludic theory: a way for man to disperse the energies accumulated after he stopped fighting in a nomadic way for survival, to install himself in a system of prediction and leisure.
One can dare to unify the theories of the origin of the arts proposed by the author in a theory of virtuality. Art is innate not because there is an instinct for beauty, but because it is virtuality, innate today, but acquired through an evolutionary process, and this is the main characteristic that differentiates humans from other animals; art is utilitarian because virtuality is the tool that allows the resignification of the world; art is magical or religious because it is virtuality that allows the creation of unifying myths; art has an expressive function because virtualization stimulates and dominates intuition; art is mimetic because the representation of nature stimulates virtualization; and finally, art is playful because virtuality allows the channeling of survival energies.
The nature of art – the virtual human
Art is political
Even when we look at ancient Greece, where beauty is based on proportion, functionality or form, all these appreciations find support in the utilitarian and controlling virtualization of the world. Now it is no longer a question of representing nature and understanding it, but of developing language mechanisms that allow its manipulation. Notably, Greek art has a strong relationship with mathematics and what would become the basis of engineering in the future.
Terms such as ‘infinity’, ‘essence’, ‘truth’, among others, common in the reflections on art of several authors, seem to highlight the innate characteristic of virtuality, here considered the fundamental tool of artistic creation. But it is only in recent periods that aspects related to the context of the work gain relevance. The philosopher Schelling, despite also resorting to generalizing terms, such as ‘the absolute act of will’, recognizes the historical construction for the development of intuition and aesthetic experience. Without failing to recognize the importance of other contemporary authors, the Brazilian Augusto Boal is emphatic in stating that theater is essentially political, and this reflection expands his vision for art in general.
To Boal, in many artistic expressions the works produced exist and are real regardless of having a consumer of this art. A musician may compose a song and keep it to himself, and may or may not reproduce it solely and exclusively for his own enjoyment. This music, unknown to all but the author himself, exists and must be recognized as an artistic work. The same can be said of a painting that has never been seen except by its creator. In theater, the same cannot be said. Theatrical performance, when not shared by spectators, could not be classified beyond a mere rehearsal. Theater only happens with the presence of the audience.
With this simple argument, the author questions the theatrical creation that does not take into account the relationship that the show develops with the audience. As a human relationship, developed through a language loaded with symbols and with historical and social values, it cannot be seen as anything other than a political act, a social force that can lead to stagnation or transformation, as proposed in the Aristotelian concept of catharsis. . It is not the intention of this work to bring the author’s acting history, but it is worth mentioning that Boal is recognized as a theater author as important as Stanislavski and Brecht.
If the relationship with the spectators of a show makes the theater a political agent, this same argument can be expanded to all forms of artistic expression. A piece of music can be considered a real work even without publicity, but it is when it finds an audience that its symbolism takes shape. Ultimately, art is nothing but a form of relationship between the artist and the audience, and as such it carries all the typical human characteristics, including power and influence relationships, in addition to the emotions it arouses. Although almost all the authors studied attribute metaphysical characteristics to art, they also recognize, in one way or another, the impact of art on people. Illustratively, Plato even proposes banishing poetic mimesis for causing damage to the rational impulse. Ironically, for some authors this is the virtue of art.
Art is a consequence of virtuality. Both artistic creation and its appreciation are inexorable results of the innate human characteristic of making sense of the invisible. From this angle, drawing, music, interpretation, all techniques, including technology applied to art, are only means to an end. Art happens at the level of meaning, and the chosen language only acts as a support for this relationship to be established between the artist and the audience.
Considerations on Art Technology
It can even be said that, taking into account the contemporary socio-cultural context, technology has become the more present language than any other.
The world lives in what is now conventionally called the information age. The presence of computers and cell phones in people’s lives, especially younger ones, goes far beyond leisure, being an essential element in work, studies and social interactions, according to Jaime Araujo de Oliveira. Technology, especially digital, permeates every aspect of contemporary life almost to the point of no longer being noticed. If Boal is right to say that the relationship with the public must be thought of at the moment of creation, technology must always be considered as a support, language or theme.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES
MOSÉ, Viviane. O homem que sabe: do homo sapiens a crise da razão. 5ª ed. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2012.
HARARI, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: Uma breve história da humanidade . Porto Alegre: L&PM Editores S. A., 2018.
SOUZA, Dulce América de; BATISTA, Valdoni Moro. História da arte. Porto Alegre: SAGAH, 2019.
CELKYTE, Aiste. Ancient Aesthetics. 2018. Disponível em: www.iep.utm.edu. Acesso em: 21 out. 2021.
FERRAGUTO, Federico. Filosofia da arte e arte de filosofar. arte, linguagem e religião em fichte e schelling (1807-1812). Kriterion: Revista de Filosofia [online]. 2015, v. 56, n. 132 [Acessado 21 Outubro 2021] , pp. 473-494. Disponível em: <https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-512X2015n13209ff>. ISSN 1981-5336. https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-512X2015n13209ff.
BOAL, Augusto. O teatro como arte marcial. Rio de Janeiro: Garamond, 2003.
OLIVEIRA, Jaiane Araujo de. Juventude e novas tecnologias da informação e comunicação: tecendo redes de significados. Disponível em: pepsic.bvsalud.org/scielo.php?script=sci_ar ttext&pid=S2175-25912014000200006. Acesso em: 21 out. 2021.
