Connection Through Expression
(~4 Minute Read) | If a world built on thoughts and ideas is weakening our bonds, could expression be the true remedy for social connection?
Trailer for “Hand Off” by Collective InsideOut - link to full piece below.
In seeking to find the "answer" to social disconnection - to the seemingly ever-worsening tide of distraction, and the trend away from simple, genuine, "un-enhanced" social interaction - I can't help but feel the essence of the issue is the same as much of our modern dialemmas: that we have become so absorbed by our ideas about the world, that we have wandered too far from our raw, messy, often uncomfortable, "irrational" experience of it.
As a result, we find our most basic joys and needs warped—bent out of shape by our idealistic exaggerations of what we really need or want. In our pursuit of comfort, we have ended up locked away in sterile, lifeless cubes, and have convinced ourselves of a system that, instead of simply catering to our needs, intentionally instils more and different needs in us, so that we want to consume over and over again; from our many intellectually-exacerbated fears, we have cultivated media and social norms of prejudice and anxiety, that rely on doubts as incentives to buy or live timidly.
For our social selves, this world we've constructed is a cold and alien place. Both the need for, and act of, socialising are messy, emotional endeavours—we throw ourselves into the world of another - potentially challenging and unfriendly - human being, with nothing but the intention to connect and to find ourselves reassured, to be strengthened by their company. This world of instant gratification, of instant communication from the safety of our own little worlds, and of closed-loops - from work routines to country borders to social circles - is very much at odds with the messy and explosive act of baring your inner self to a strange new creature.
So, while our modern worlds seem to be veering ever towards more comfort, more convenience, and more physical dissociation, what we need is to strengthen the opposition: to inject this life with as much messy, dirty, raw, expressive, unpredictable emotion and action as we can. In other words, we need to fight sterility with creativity.
One rocketeer, in response to this week's discussion on "How do we bring people together?", hit the nail on the head with his answer: "Find ways to trigger empathy..." And that is precisely it—as I see it, the ever-comforting, ever-rationalising world we find ourselves living in offers more and more answers, more and more solutions to all our mental needs and desires, yet it always fails to promote empathy. The world of words and ideas is only surface-deep; we have fought for thousands of years to convince each other over this-right and that-wrong, of how the world is and should be—and yet it is only ever action that stirs the soul to true connection.
Or rather, it is art.
Art is the antidote to the ossification of reason; in a world wrapping itself in straight lines, carefully packaging itself into boxes with polystyrene padding, our biggest hope for bringing us together as a species across borders in cultures and ideals, is through the messy, inexplicable language of creation.
You don't make friends by saying the right things at the right time, you make them by expressing yourself and seeing if it lands on fertile soil. You don't bridge the infinite gap between totally alien worlds by sending awkwardly-written text messages or through shoddy social media marketing campaigns—you express your experience however you know best, you reach out, you take a risk both as an artist and as a stranger, and show the world how exciting it is dancing in the void.
In short and less whimsical terms, "what the world needs now" is more art. To nurture its creativity and genuine expression, whatever the medium that may be. Whether it's capitalism or simply the inevitable route of technological growth, art is not a conventionally profitable pursuit, so unless we take it upon ourselves to stick it to the man and express ourselves just for the damn sake of it, we're going to continue to get brainwashed, and pushed further and further apart.
As a shining example of how art can bring folks together, and back into the here-and-now, the amazingly talented Collective InsideOut have allowed me to share their most recent piece: an exploration of the loss of physical contact from the pandemic, that they intend to perform in public spaces (as a remedy to the major difficulties all performance arts have had throughout the pandemic).
It is a truly beautiful, quirky and heart-warming piece—check them out on Instagram at @collective.insideout, and support some local artists by grabbing them a coffee on Ko-Fi if you enjoyed it!
(The password is “Hand Off” .)
Do you have any art project ideas you’re toying with? Do you agree that art is the remedy we need? Or perhaps you have other ideas? The Rocket Surgery needs your perspective, and would love to know your thoughts in the comments below…