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Clayton Lord on new art and new audiences

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How Do We Make People Care (Again)?

April 19, 2011 by Clayton Lord

In March, arts advocate Arlene Goldbard spoke at the Association of Performing Arts Service Organizations conference in Austin. Goldbard believes we need to start using a more empowered (and less-numbers-based) vocabulary for arguing for the value of the arts. At one point she noted: “The best argument for arts education is that children today practice endlessly interacting with machines, developing a certain type of cognitive facility. But without the opportunity that arts education affords to … [Read more...]

We Need New Beans to Count

April 12, 2011 by Clayton Lord

As an industry, the arts suffers from a value problem. This was thrown into sharp relief for me in an interview I had with an artistic leader from rural Wisconsin, who pointed out, “We’re all bean counters because the people we deal with, what they count is beans.” In almost everything we do to advocate for the arts, we place financial worth front and center, and in so doing we allow, even encourage, the people we’re trying to convince of art’s value to forget that that value is much more than … [Read more...]

mirror neurons/mirroring

June 1, 2010 by Clayton Lord

Mirror neurons are a type of neuron primarily found in the ventral premotor area and intraparietal area of the primate brain, with possible existence in other areas.  They fire both when a specific action is performed and when a person observes the same action performed by another -- a process called mirroring.  It is unclear whether the link demonstrated between action and perception and production and comprehension (as in a stage show and the audience watching it) is completely true, but some … [Read more...]

interactive linguistic alignment theory

June 1, 2010 by Clayton Lord

According to this theory, "production and comprehension become tightly aligned on many different levels during verbal communication, including the phonetic, phonological, lexical, syntactic and semantic representations." - from "Speaker-listener neural coupling underlies successful communcation" by Greg J. Stephens, Lauren J. Silbert and Uri Hasson, originally published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, August 2010 … [Read more...]

experiencing self

May 7, 2010 by Clayton Lord

A phrase coined by Nobel laureate and behavioral researcher Daniel Kahneman, in contrast to Remembering Self.  The experiencing self lives in the present and knows the present.  It knows the past, but basically has only the present.  The experiencing self is who the doctor approaches when he asks, "Does it hurt now when I touch you here?" … [Read more...]

remembering self

May 7, 2010 by Clayton Lord

A phrase coined by Nobel laureate and behavioral researcher Daniel Kahneman, in contrast to Experiencing Self.  The remembering self is the one that keeps score and maintains the story of our life, and it's the one that the doctor approaches in asking the question, "How have you been feeling lately?"  The remembering self is a storyteller. … [Read more...]

mindsight

May 2, 2010 by Clayton Lord

"The ability to enter into other people’s minds and learn what they have to offer.”  From the book The Social Animal by David Brooks (quote from TED Talk by Brooks). … [Read more...]

limerence

May 2, 2010 by Clayton Lord

A drive and a motivation to find those “moments of transcendence when the skull line disappears and we are lost in a challenge or a task.” From the book The Social Animal by David Brooks (quote from TED Talk by Brooks). "Limerence is a term coined c. 1977 by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov, a neologism used to describe an involuntary state of mind which seems to result from a romantic attraction for another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one's feelings … [Read more...]

blending

May 2, 2010 by Clayton Lord

the ability to integrate disparate concepts. From the book The Social Animal by David Brooks (quote from TED Talk by Brooks).  … [Read more...]

sympathy

May 2, 2010 by Clayton Lord

"the ability to work within groups." From the book The Social Animal by David Brooks (quote from TED Talk by Brooks). "a social affinity in which one person stands with another person, closely understanding his or her feelings. Also known as empathic concern, it is the feeling of compassion or concern for another, the wish to see them better off or happier...having a positive regard or a non-fleeting concern for the other person." From Wikipedia.org. … [Read more...]

metis

May 2, 2010 by Clayton Lord

"street smarts...a sensitivity to the physical environment."  From the book The Social Animal by David Brooks (quote from TED Talk by Brooks). … [Read more...]

equipoise

May 2, 2010 by Clayton Lord

“the ability to have the serenity to read the biases and failures in your own mind.”  “Epistemological modesty.” From the book The Social Animal by David Brooks (quote from TED Talk by Brooks). … [Read more...]

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About Clayton Lord

Clayton Lord is the Vice President of Local Arts Advancement for Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts and arts education. He holds a B.A. from Georgetown University in English and Psychology. Read More…

About New Beans

I believe that art makes better humans, but that that can only happen when the line from art to audience is as taut, clean and consistent as possible.  The interplay between artmakers and audience members is central to what we do and vital to the success of the enterprise.  That crackle across the wire, that static in the air at a live event, is good.  It makes your ears hum, your hair stand on end--it's what connects people in a room behind and in front of the fourth wall.  As Tom … [Read More...]

Disclaimer

The views on New Beans are Clay Lord's own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of his employer, Americans for the Arts, or any clients or affiliates.  Please email Clay at claytonlord@gmail.com with any questions.

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