The Art Of Nerdity
Recently, I took a trip to an art exhibit that was both in Silicon Valley and for Silicon Valley. It was called the Zero1 Biennal , part of the Zero1 art/technology group. Imagine an exhibit about Silicon Valley, art, and technology, in Silicon Valley.
Yeah, pretty much it was a giant nerdgasm. I mean you want to see found items cobbled together to represent all the functions an iPhone has, or a graph of the stock market photomaniped as a mountain range, you got it. It was one of the most mind-blowing experienced I’d had in awhile, even if one of my takeaways was how I could better visualize project data.
Now outside of Silicon Valley and a few similar areas, we may not think about what is essentially nerd/geek art. We may not even think about art that involves, well, the stuff we nerds are into. I’d say we need to – because a lot of nerddom is art.
We’re surrounded by wonder.
Art itself is really a kind of mind-hacking. It takes materials and things (paint, graphics, computers, clay) and puts them in forms that make us think and feel. Art can be inspiring or comforting, it can be transgressive and disturbing, but art at its best gets the mind and emotions going.
We nerds, geeks, otaku, and fans are people who are deeply into things. We know subjects intimately. We explore them in all sorts of ways, from long discussions to detailed RPG campaigns.
We also make art.
Look at any gallery at a convention, where you can see amazing art, with subjects we love interpreted in ways we’d never imagine. For that matter just go visit deviant art.
Look at cosoplay, which is truly an art involving cloth, plastic, makeup, and the human body. Cosplay is an art as surely as anything, and taking a moment at a big convention will remind you how you’re surrounded with wonder.
Look at fan fiction. Stories and concepts are reporused and re-imgined in ways you’d never see done elsewhere. There are jokes about it’s quality, or the strange corners of fan fiction, but like an art it got a reaction didn’t it?
Look at role-playing games. They’re art, a mixture of mathematics and memory and acting and writing all at once. They’re unwritten plays with rules.
Look at computer games. Forget the debate if they’re art – they involve people and get emotional reactions, that’s art.
Art is everywhere in our metaculture, culture, and subculture. It’s all over. I think in the future, I’ll pause a bit more online and at conventions and so on to look around and realize how much art we have.
Besides the more we appreciate it, the more we can do . . .
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
