Glad to be back writing for BowTiedApollo. Last time, we prepared you to observe different worlds. Today we’ll pick a few examples to dissect, including Crypto Twitter and the Jungle.
Art in Culture
Art exists to please the mind and senses; it’s an act of creation. However, art is also a reflection of the culture it’s created in. Each culture has its own views on what is aesthetically pleasing. This applies to music, theatre and movies, art, and festivals.
Art portrays the symbolism used by the culture to categorize the world. There’s meaning behind art; reasons why it was created. Such symbols can be linked to higher concepts.
Art expresses the basic values of the people who created it.
Art also reveals what’s acceptable in the culture. Muslim cultures didn’t allow for human or divine figures in their art. Meanwhile in India, the Hindu deities and spirits and human figures are featured everywhere; the world of the maya (read – spirit) and the physical world blended into a complex whirl of natural and supernatural.
Islamic vs. Hindu Art
The Greeks considered perfect replication of the natural world to be the highest form of beauty. It is why their statues often seem to be photos of real people and not merely “statues.” This wasn’t emphasized in the West again until Michelangelo and Da Vinci.
Laocoön and His Sons is my favorite example of this, and one of the best preserved.
Michelangelo’s Statue of Moses captures the tiny detail of the muscle in your forearm when you raise your pinky.
I’m not here to relive your freshman art history class (Apollo will be doing this). But you can glimpse the change in thought and philosophy of the West by examining the evolution in art and art styles over the centuries.
Use and function
The function of art is best understood by examining its relationship to the culture.
In simpler cultures, art is linked to more daily tasks, decorated arrows and bows in hunter-gatherer tribes for example, or art is related to status within the community. Pottery is some of the earliest known art.
In more complex societies, art becomes a way to express emotions, ideas, or a reflection of the goals of the elite – those who can afford to commission works of art. Wealthy patrons, especially in the Renaissance, often hired artists to display certain messages.
Art can be used to store memories and communicate ideas. Memes, for example, or great epics of mighty warriors used to promote the ideal “hero” for a society. Art will demonstrate the behaviors that the society values, or that the artist wants the society to value. You can “push” values onto a society. It’s very slow, delicate, but a deliberate movement.
Example – BowTiedJungle
I reached out to BowTiedTurkey with the release of his upcoming animated series Catz Meow and asked him to explain why he began creating the series. This is his response:
“To familiarize people with conceit and see mainstream adoption, crypto must be introduced to a wider audience through entertainment. We need to build a culture beyond 4chan-tier memes and make something the crypto and crypto-curious communities can enjoy and share with their friends. As Bernays’ states in his seminal work, “Propaganda will never die out. Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos” (71). Under the guise of an Adult Swim style animated series, Catz Meow’s primary concept is that it’s best to keep one’s mouth shut about his or her crypto holdings. It’s a major leap for most people to consider being directly responsible for their assets/money/investments — even amongst those already in the space. And since non-custodial wallets are the only way to really possess and control crypto holdings, people need to internalize “not your keys, not your crypto,” and understand the responsibility inherent with such a proposition.
I can’t share too much about plot specifics of the first season, but generally it’s about a group of friends trying to stay below the radar as they manage their secret crypto fortunes. Whales are being killed, and the only way to escape the regime’s assassins is to hide in the past, before there was a digital footprint of everything we do. Catz Meow won’t work in a vacuum, and will require support from the community: whether spreading the word on socials or with the NFT collection (each NFT is an original character design and I’m using proceeds to develop and produce the show). It is a major time commitment, so if you want to see Catz Meow become a reality, please support the NFT collection. Owning the character NFTs, teasers, and episodes will directly impact the production of Web3 native entertainment.”
This is how you create culturally relevant art. We have plenty others in the jungle, Dgenfren, BowTiedBankers, the boardroom, who are creating art for the culture. As our own space gets more complex, our appetite for art expands. Now it’s not just memes and paintings, we’re getting TV shows.
And that does it. This should give you an idea as to how art represents the values of culture. As you head out into the world, observe what you see in art. From your local haunts to other nations, there’s a story to learn behind everything.
Follow BowTiedBernard and BowTiedApollo for more cultural content.