Art Appreciation

I believe that I am a reasonably good photographer. I am on my way to learning the techniques for identifying interesting subjects, capturing the nuances of natural light, creating pleasing compositions, and then taking pictures that at least passes the muster of my friends and family. They provide very positive comments when I post my pictures on Facebook. Even some of the amateur photographers, who are not my friends, say good things when they see them on Flickr.

However, any ego that I may have developed as a result gets punctured when I go to my photography club. The professional photographers, and there are a few who attend, yawn when it is my turn to do a show and tell. But, that is not the surprising part.

What is surprising is their pictures. I am amazed at how awful they look from the basic standards of photography that I have learned. The subject is out of focus, there is too much clutter, the composition is bad, and the lighting is atrocious. Sometimes they look as if children took them. And yet, the professionals praise each other’s work.

The clue to why they like those pictures instead of mine came when our host asked me why is my picture different from what thousands of people may have taken. I suddenly realized that people use two criteria when appreciating art: aesthetics (or inherent beauty) and how different it is from what has existed.

I further suspect that as you get deep into appreciating any art your personal formula for art appreciation moves from beauty of what you are looking at to its uniqueness. The jaded photographers can only take so many pictures of flowers, no matter how aesthetically it is presented, before yearning for something different, no matter how ugly it is in the eyes of amateurs. I get that part.

But then what makes in their eyes one “different” picture better than the other? To me they all look the same---“different” and hard to appreciate. I do not get that part.

This of course does not apply just to photography. Only a few can appreciate the artwork of Picasso (although many will pretend that they do) or the music of Arnold Schoenberg. What may look like a painting of silly rectangular blocks stacked for no purpose, or music that best can be described as two alley cats in serious fight, gives goose bumps to a few, while the rest of us look on with utter disbelief. Here to, there may exist hard-to- explain rules that make one cat fight better than the others, but I have not been told.

I do not believe that the engineer in me will ever allow taking pictures that are completely “different.” However, just for the fun of it, I should take some pictures that are out of focus, cluttered with all types of objects, have atrocious lighting, and violate every rule of composition. I am sure I will get showered with praise at my photography cub. 

Free Will

For those of us who are non-believers, the concept of free will poses a special challenge.

We think of the universe, and the citizens living in it, following laws of science and not spirituality. These laws can already explain a lot of what we see and experience, and, we believe that what cannot be yet explained will be in the future.

In this picture, there is no place for the concept of soul as a separate entity from the body. Soul is not molecules and atoms, and the laws of physics do not dictate what it does. According to the non-believers, soul cannot exist. However, if soul does not exist, how does one explain that I have the freedom to identify choices and make decision on which one to select? What law of science explains that fuzzy, non-deterministic aspect of our experience?

A recent book by Sam Harris provides one theory of how to reconcile this quandary. http://www.samharris.org/free-will

He, of course, is a very vocal non-believer and I like his rational thinking, so I am inclined to believe in what he says.

Basically, his explanation is based on two points:

1. Our brain is under the illusion that it is freely identifying options and making choices, when it is not. One needs to dig deeper to find out what is going on. For example, you cannot decide what you will decide to do. Nor can you choose to choose what to choose. In other words, it is your physical being that decides what you will decide to do or choose what you will choose to choose. Sam cites scientific studies in which the body had made a decision before the person thought he made the decision based on free will.
2. To make the matter more complicated, as yet we do not know what this human “system” exactly is or how it will behave given a certain input. It is as yet an unexplained black box. However, it is a system formed through nature and nurture guided by laws of science. Genetics, environmental factors, neuron connections formed through experience---all are involved in making the system what it is.

Now this my sound like a play on words surrounded by uncertainties. However, it does provide a framework to explain free will without resorting to the concept of soul.

Just as science has cracked (or making good progress in cracking) tough nuts like creation of universe, evolution of life, or prediction of weather, it will make in roads in explaining the very essence of our existence like free will.

I feel confident.

Facebooking

8:30 am

Good morning Facebook. Let us see what comments I received for my photo album of fifty types of grasses.

What? No comments? Not a single “Like”? I tell you. These “friends” have no interest in photography or interesting subjects like grass.

Talking about interesting subjects, I bet folks will be really interested in this article on the decline of Inner Mongolia in today’s edition of New York Times. What a timely well-written piece! It is only 50 pages long. Let me post it on Facebook.

11:30 am

Here you go. Dan has posted an album of pigeons. Why does he think anyone gives a damn about pigeons? Who is going to look at them? Waste of electrons.

Also, I see an article about the fine art of Zen Buddhism posted by Alex. How long is it? Twenty pages? Where does he think I will get time to read a twenty-page article?

2:30 pm

It is already mid afternoon and not a single person has commented on the article on Inner Mongolia. I tell you no one cares what is going on in the world.

Oh, I see. Subhash is now in Bogota. Why does he think I give a crap regarding where he is? Besides, what is he doing in Bogota? May be he is involved with drug smuggling!

While we are on the subject of travel, let me post my daughter’s pictures---yes the ones where she is giving a lecture in the elementary school in Sudan. People will be so impressed with how well we have brought up our children.

5:30 pm

Not again. More pictures of Sam’s son singing in the school? Ok, I get it, he is talented, but how many pictures do I have to see?

No comments on my daughter’s pictures. No one cares. I bet no one has yet read the article I posted either. I give up.

But before I do that, I bet people will be interested in this album of my fifty pictures of icicles.

The joy of being a non-connoisseur

Recently, I went so see an Indian classical performance by wife of a friend of ours in an auditorium in a neighboring town. Well trained in music, she sang a variety of classical pieces for almost two hours to an audience comprised of friends and family.

I thought it was a good performance, but some of us in the group, who are connoisseurs of Indian classical music, thought she was OK. Now, I am not a neophyte in this type of music. I took courses when I was young and have enjoyed listening to performances over the years. However, I am not an expert or a discriminating listener. That fact actually played in my favor---while I enjoyed the music, some others did not.

The same thing happens when I go to good restaurants. I enjoy all types of foods and am quite adventurous when it comes to eating. But I am not a foodie, say, like a friend of mine who is able to detect the level of oregano in a dish and complain when it is not to his liking. I would not know an oregano if I met one nor detect the presence or absence of it in food. So, a joyful meal for me is not so for him.

I have started to think that being a non-connoisseur brings more joy in participating in an activity than being one.

To take it further, one should learn to enjoy lots of things in life but stop short of becoming an expert in any. The level of joy is like a bell-shaped curve, the peak being somewhere in the middle. After which it goes downhill.

Unfortunately, in some activities, I have managed to go beyond that happy middle and started to miss the joy that comes with not being discriminating.

Take photography for instance. I have started disliking most pictures I see, as my level of appreciation for that art increases. I cannot stand those Facebook pictures that are dark, out of focus, and taken with utter disregard of composition. In doing so, I completely miss the warmth that should some out of seeing party pictures of some friend or relative. The same thing with movies. I do not have patience for most Bollywood or Hollywood movies. I need an exquisitely crafted independent or foreign film before I feel satisfied with the movie watching experience.

So, my resolution for the New Year is to dumb down on activities where I have started knowing too much, and keep being ignorant where I currently am.

That is the only way to joy ;-)

Traditional Rituals

Karva Chauth is an important traditional festival for Indians living in the Northwestern part of the country. This is when women fast for the day and perform rituals meant to keep their husbands in good health and prevent harm from coming to them.

Earlier this year, one of my relatives posted on Facebook a Youtube video of women celebrating this festival. The video showed the rituals and interviews with women who expressed their belief that they were doing it to protect their husbands. My relative presented this video with comments that indicated his thorough disgust with such ancient rituals in the modern world. Needless to say the response was overwhelming with some angry folks (his friends) telling him that this was a tradition and how dare he attack it. “Such rituals are important to bind the society together,” they said.

This exchange made me think of the role of such traditional rituals.

Yes, I agree that we are tribal creatures who need to identify themselves with a tribe and hang out with other members. Traditional rituals such as Karve Chauth provide occasions to do that on a regular basis. Also, when you get together, it is important to do something --eat, sing, dance, pray, whatever. This creates a shared experience and cements the group together. This is all very good.

My problem comes when the participants in the rituals start believing that what they are doing will affect the future. It is fair for a rational person to ask how could that be. How can fasting for a day and performing rituals have any effect on the health and wellbeing of your husband---unless he is fasting with you and taking some weight off will do him some good? Where is the link?

The answer lies in our inability to accept the fact that we have very little or no control over what happens in the future. The need for having control is so strong that we would go to any length and perform any act to create an illusion that we are affecting our future. To prove that we are right, we pull out examples of situations where something good happened because we performed a specific ritual, forgetting to mention countless situations when nothing happened or something bad happened to a person following that very same ritual.

An alternative explanation is that the participant in the ritual agrees with the above answer but has to express his belief as a price of admission to the group. Until all of the members of the group agree that they are performing the ritual just for the fun of it, any belief associated with its effect on future will continue, however irrational it may be.

In Praise of Paper Books

The world seems to be moving towards eBooks.

At this point, Amazon sells more eBooks than paper books. There are now multiple devices available at all different price points for purchasing, storing, reading, and sharing these books. In my own unscientific sampling, people who take the early morning train with me seem to be gradually converting to reading from little tablets in their hands rather than the old-fashioned paper books

An eBook is a great innovation. One can store a whole library of books in the memory of a little device. They can be downloaded on a whim and discarded without leaving a trace. One cannot think of an environmentally sounder way to exercise one’s mind. Add to that all the benefits of having built in dictionaries and such, what is not to like in an eBook?

Hmmm.

Why is it then I keep buying paper books? Once again, as I mentioned in my previous post, I am not a Luddite and I do use my iPad, and sometimes iPhone, to read magazines and newspapers. It is with books that I seem to have drawn a line.

Yes, I like the feel of holding a paper book. However, this nostalgic, and often cited, reason feels like an excuse that does not fully answer why I like books.

I think the explanation lies in what I do with a paper book when I am done reading it. It ends up on one of my bookshelves. I like gazing at the bookshelves and think about the contents of individual books as I notice them individually. I like to randomly pick up and leaf through books. Some of these are coffee table books with beautiful large pictures (generally of mountains or some barren land, in my case) that continue to fascinate me.

Try to do all that with a Kindle.

Even more important is the fact that visitors to my house look at my books and sometimes even show interest in what I am reading. I let people judge me by what I am reading. I jealously guard my books, making sure that the borrowed ones are returned. This is even though I may not read most of them again. Why would I do that were it not for the fact that these books on my shelves contribute to my personal branding!

Until they come out with innovations that satisfy these other reasons, it is going to be paper books for me.