Awareness

On David Sibley's blog, David posted a link to an "Awareness Test" on Youtube. It's fascinating. You should probably watch it before reading on... I'd hate to spoil it for you. It only takes a minute.

I'll wait.

So, how'd you do? I felt so proud of myself for counting the 13 passes, but of course, the bear....

David in his blog post discusses how the test makes it clear that we so often miss things that we're not looking for. Specifically, rare birds in the field. It's a point well made, and I think he makes a clear case for the immense number of rare birds that are out there, but that we just plain don't see... Birds that are out of our radar, sometimes even when we are looking for them.

I was personally intrigued by a very specific part of the Awareness Test.... The narration. Taking the test, we miss the dancing bear, until the voice-over clues us in to look again. It makes me think about the forces in our lives that direct our attention towards things that we might otherwise miss... the figurative and literal voices that say to us " Did you see the moonwalking bear?". Art is one of those important voices, as it invites us to look again at things that we thought we perfectly understood, and reveals the unexpected. Art and creativity is... in this way especially, not at all simply a luxury, as it is so often treated... It's a key player in our ongoing development of awareness. There are delightful mysteries hidden everywhere, and art is one way that we bring them to light.

Create on, 

Ben