Art Reboot

12 creative urge that brings them into being. Try to imagine any culture without music, architecture, the visual arts, literature, dance or theatre. You will quickly conclude that without any of these means of arriving at ideas and understanding – and, criti- cally, conveying them from generation to generation – there would be no civilisation as we know it. The theory I propose will explore this issue, and many others. It will identify the underlying nature of the recent western revolution in the arts, and place it sensibly and transculturally in the historical and modern context of world art. In the process, it will expand the definition of art to include any creative response to experience , be it an idea, a song or an immortalised (if unques- tionably dead) shark. Above all, it will seek to elevate art from its role as mere decoration or entertainment to a much higher one: an enabler of civilisation, a vital contributor to human evolution, and ultimately a powerful means by which we access the full spectrum of our consciousness. But to facilitate this, we need a theory that links art to its role in evolving consciousness. When I started this book it was envisaged as a rewrite of my 2015 volume, The Art of Understanding Art: A New Perspective . The first edition sold out, and rather than reprint I decided to rewrite and update the ideas presented. But as I worked on it, I realised that the basis of the theory I propose for understanding art could be applied to all aspects of human endeavour. I was, in effect, dealing with a potential Theory of Everything, or a Theory for Everything. That may sound like a grandiose claim, but I ask you to bear with me as I explain. In particular, I invite you to consider one of our most powerful tools for understanding: the intellect.