September 16, 2007

Comments

I love to get comments. I won't publish them unless they are signed. Some anonymous ones are interesting, but I'm not too crazy about hiding behind anonymity.

Becca's point is well taken. "Having it our way" in culture can be both selfish and limiting. I remember the first De Sica film I saw. I was impatient with this legendary director's pace. But then I got into it and he totally captivated me. Would I mistakedly fast forward, were I first exposed to his work today?

Yesterday we went to one of my favorite museums in the world, the Nasher Collection in Dallas. Ray and Patsy Nasher may have had the best "eye" of their time. He died this year, and she died a few years ago. Together they put together the most exquisite collection of modern sculpture in the world. It is exhibited in their jewel box museum, designed by Renzo Piano.

Anyway...the place was filled with people of all ages and types yesterday and I watched as they each experienced the place in entirely different ways. And with sculpture, you can move around the art, so you really have so many more ways of seeing. There was this wonderful symphony of different ways people were individually experiencing the art and I must say it seemed to be an experience totally consistent with today's consumer environment.

Space Matters

Being in a Renzo Piano designed museum reminds you of how important the setting is...not only for experiencing art, but also for our every day lives. Yesterday's Financial Times includes a piece about the research that has been conducted to analyze how different kinds of spaces affect the brain. People are happier and more productive in spaces that are well lit, have lots of color, and a certain degree of messiness that promotes eye contact. High ceilings enhance creativity. And there's more. A good source of information is a book to which we've referred before: The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton.

The article includes a great quote from Frank Gehry. It could as well apply to our business of marketing and communications. At a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience last year, Gehry warned against being too prescriptive: "What enables you to find the cure for cancer is not to follow steps A, B, C. Some accidental thing in the lab will happen. You follow your intuition, it is an informed intuition and you have the 'eureka moment.'"