OUGD402 - The John Peel Lecture

Brian Eno talks about how in our modern day, schools are teaching children to look away from art subjects as they are more of a nice added luxury. They are teaching children that if you want a successful career you should go down the path of Science, Maths, English or Engineering. He explains that art is not essential to live or function like many other areas of work, but people still spend a lot of their time, effort and money trying to style their selves or dress their selves. I believe that it is not what us humans as mammals need to do, but we do it because it is part of what makes us human. He talks about the ability to create imaginary worlds and it is this ability to do this that we can create fictional books and films on imaginary people and destinations. This ability is available to us at a very young age but it is the building blocks of becoming a creative thinker. He contradicts today's teaching that art in unimportant by stating that, as the world gets more wealthier and even more connected globally, there will be more need for creating the unnecessary, nice art and less need for the necessary subjects. He develops this idea that in the future, most of the jobs we have today will be controlled by automated beings or machines, this will then free up space for people to create art, write books or be creative in general.

He talks about his appreciation of the history of different cultures and the art which they produced. Brian mentions this word which has stuck in my mind, it is the word 'senious', it is quite a clever word which relates to a group or culture of genius's. The Renaissance is one example used where Da Vinchi, Raphael and Micheal Angelo all lived in the same lifetime in the same city. I think that in the modern age of the internet, we are more and more likely to come across periods of 'seniouses' due to being connected and sharing culture, art and knowledge on a worldwide scale. An example of how much we are expanding is the vast amount of music and cultures which now revolve around different particular genres. He explains that 50 years ago everyone knew the same bands and listened to the same music due to the limited amount of music being released each year, and the limited amount of radio stations there was. Now there are thousands of radio stations which are available using the internet and whole webpages dedicated to specific branches of a music genre. One thing which i found quite peculiar, was his approach on drugs and how in some parts of history, hallucinogenic drugs have been influential in artists work to open their mind to their child like state of imagination. It was quite strange to hear something illegal being talked about in a lecture, and in no way did he condone the use of drugs in art but he still appreciated what they have done and how they have developed some artists way of working. After all, art is being the unusual and thinking outside the box and he respected the way that some artists have used this, much like a paintbrush, as a tool to work.