Posts Tagged ‘Positive psychology’

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Points of reference

January 14, 2011

For artists and/or fans of Borges and Calvino:
Cynthia Ozick reading “In the Reign of Harad IV,” a wonderful short story by Steven Millhauser, about making, visibility, and recognition. On the New Yorker‘s fiction podcast.

For fellow cognitive science and psychology dabblers:
“Social Animal: How the new sciences of human nature can help make sense of a life,” by David Brooks (yup, that David Brooks, the NYT columnist), a summation of loads of psychological and cognitive science research, including thoughts about flow and happiness.

For those who need an optimism booster shot:
Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, by Dasher Keltner (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009).
The UC Berkeley psychology professor’s theories on how to live a balanced life of “completing the good in others.” Interesting discussion of the intellectual lineage from Darwin to Ekman (a facial expression researcher profiled by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker). The author’s long hair + references to Eastern philosophy = high hippie dippy quotient, but Keltner is an informed and lively writer. Those seeking cynical, burdensome academic texts ought look elsewhere.

For those seeking art that touches on psychoanalysis:
Jonathan Solo: Shadow
Catherine Clark Gallery
January 8 – February 19, 2011
see also: Carl Jung, Shadow

For those obsessed with happiness and/or mapping:
Mappiness, an iPhone app that asks users to rate their level of happiness at random moments throughout the day. Developed by London School of Economics PhD candidates, it’s a fully realized, popular version of what I had hoped to do with Hedonimeter.net, a project I started in grad school and hadn’t yet returned to. My enthusiasm for visual and symbolic systems has not evolved into the motivation to learn more about statistics and programming… yet.

For art-seekers in San Francisco:
Works by friends and supporters:
Three solo exhibitions: Jaime Cortez, Kenneth Lo, and Ginger Wolfe-Suarez
Southern Exposure, 3030 20th St., San Francisco, CA
January 7, 2011 – February 19, 2011

For art-seekers in LA:
Collective Show
January 21-23 and January 27-30, 2011
995, 997 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA

For art-seekers in Liverpool:
Nam June Paik
Tate Liverpool
17 December 2010 – 13 March 2011

For typography nerds:
The flyer for the symposium at the Nam June Paik Art Center. Nothing wrong with type-based solutions, no.

For design-seekers in San Francisco:
A show curated by the super-talented, super-humble Jon Sueda
The Way Beyond Art: Wide White Space
January 20–February 5
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art

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Schjeldahl on Rist

September 24, 2010

In “Feeling Good” (New Yorker, September 27, 2010; abstract here ), Peter Schjeldahl reviews Pipolotti Rist’s show at Luhring Augustine in NYC, and in the process, extols the singular artist and her commitment to pleasure.

I savored the subject and the conveyance. I admire Rist’s work for it fearless optimism and exuberance. She manages to make massive installations that are friendly and participatory. Schjeldahl’s words brim with enthusiasm, and he also contextualizes Rist’s work with a preternaturally long view.

A few of my favorite passages are:

The first two lines:

The Swiss video- and installation-maker Pipilotti Rist is an evangelist for happiness like no other first-rate artist that I can think of, except, perhaps, Alexander Calder. Like Calder, she is immune to solemnity, and her work appeals to more or less everybody.

This gem:

Color is more than the keynote of Rist’s art—it’s practially the theology.

Her pop cultural affinities don’t unite high and low so much as make them seem like interchangeable engines of pleasure. Rist resolves no critical problems of contemporary art. She just makes you forget there are any.

(I wondered about this same dialectic—this addiction to criticality as radical opposition—in my show Irrational Exuberance, and it was discussed in the closing dialogue, As Is: Pop and Complicity.)

…not that thought is allowed much traction. There’s a steady state of wonderment at having a body right here, right now…. Imagine, as Rist makes easy in the show’s main room, being a sheep in a lush meadow entirely surrounded, as far as you can see, by what you like to eat. Life surely vitiates such sublime contentment most of the time, but numbness to it seems an optional tragedy.

Just as positive psychologists want you to know: Optimism is a choice.

Schjeldahl takes a strong position in the course of explaining Rist’s significance:

Pleasure is a serious matter in and for art, which must justify itself continually in a global culture of mass entertainments. Glumness is an understandable but self-defeating reaction of people determined to somehow make a difference. Rist is remarkable for having insisted on bliss in an era, which peaked in the nineteen-nineties, when a parade of artists ambitiously expanded art’s physical scale and social address only to burden it, self-importantly, with theoretical arcana and political sanctimony.

As a critical writer, I aspire to this level of expertise and confidence.

Proof that writing about art need not be burdened by art-speak, pretension, or obfuscation:

Responsible as well as responsive to contemporary art’s enlarged public sphere, she maintains standards of craft and sincerity—outward discipline, inward necessity—that speak for themselves, without critical gloss or winking irony.

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Positive Psychology and Positive Thinking

September 12, 2010

In developing my exhibition, “Irrational Exuberance (Asst. Colors),” last spring, I studied positive psychology. During the closing dialogue, “As Is: Pop and Complicity” (read the transcript), I realized that the term positive psychology is easily confused with popular psychology—understandably, since the distinction is not entirely clear, when my readings of positive psychology take form in trade paperbacks—and positive thinking. Certainly, positive psychology is optimistic; through research-based cognitive behavior modification, it aims to increase happiness, and to engage in that kind of self-awareness and change is to embrace to possibility that one can positively change one’s attitudes. However, to mistake positive psychology for mere positive thinking is a mistake.

In “Power Lines: What’s behind Rhonda Byrne’s spiritual empire?” (New Yorker, September 13, 2010), Kelefa Sanneh reviews two recent books on positive thinking. He takes a critical look at Rhonda Byrne, the positive thinking guru and author of “The Secret” (2007) and “The Power” (2010), starting off with Byrne’s appearance on Oprah. Maybe I’m an elitist, sheltered in a ‘Bay Area Bubble’ unconcerned with such mass culture, but the phenomenon of “The Secret” remained a secret to me until now. Is this what people think I mean when I say positive psychology?

Sanneh contrasts Byrne’s quasi-but-un-religious, ultra-simplistic mysticism with Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America” (2009; also released with the more specific, less ‘sticky’ subtitle, “How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking is Undermining America”). When the leftist activist fired this shot, it alarmed me, but as Sanneh points out,

For Ehrenreich, the alternative to the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of justice—except you don’t have to choose…. She promises that we can find a deeper, richer form of happiness by ‘shaking off self-absorption and taking action in the world.’

This, of course, brings to mind the three components, according to Paul Martin, author of “Sex, Drugs and Chocolate” (2008) of happiness: pleasure, the absence of displeasure, and satisfaction—becoming an agent, enacting one’s will in the world. Striving and accomplishing goals through acting in the world—not mere positive thinking—leads to deeper happiness? Yes, I’d agree with that. I am now more inclined to believe that Ehrenreich—whose undercover reports on working class struggle instantiated institutional privilege in America in “Nickel and Dimed” (2001) I enjoyed—is explicit in her aim at unthinking positive thinking, rather than all psychology concerned with happiness.

So while the terminology may overlap, along with the general optimistic outlook and “woo woo” self-improvement vibe, positive psychology and positive thinking are very different. For the latter, read Byrne and watch Oprah. For the former, read psychologists and researchers like Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalvi.

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hug it out!

February 23, 2010

Making exhibitions requires a lot of teamwork, so I’ve been practicing sharing epic high-fives. Just the other day, K, R and I shared a spinning jump triple. That momentary gesture turned a feeling of mild accomplishment into floaty elation.

In “Evidence That Little Touches Do Mean So Much,” (NYTimes.com, February 22, 2010) Benedict Carey examines the psychology and neuroscience of meaningful touches.

Momentary touches, [researchers] say — whether an exuberant high five, a warm hand on the shoulder, or a creepy touch to the arm — can communicate an even wider range of emotion than gestures or expressions, and sometimes do so more quickly and accurately than words….

“We used to think that touch only served to intensify communicated emotions,” Dr. [Matthew] Hertenstein [a psychologist at DePauw University in Indiana] said. Now it turns out to be “a much more differentiated signaling system than we had imagined.

As an artist working with installation and phenomenology, I’m really interested in embodied experiences. As Lakoff & Johnson explain in “Metaphors We Live By,” metaphors are not merely linguistic devices, but cognitive tools; we think using metaphors grounded in our physical experience.

High-fives express shared excitement or accomplishment (“Nice one!”). It conveys that this experience is good, and yay for sharing it with me. It is harmless hedonism, of taking pleasure in the present. It’s dorky, hip, sweet, and maybe a little ironic, but maybe also infused with feel-good, unabashed enthusiasm (like Ugo Rodinone’s “Hell Yes!”). I hope I never feel too old to share a high-five.

As usual, I’d like to participate in an art world characterized by community and reciprocity. Supportive touches express mutuality; maybe more curators, artists, critics and collectors should be hugging it out.

…In the brain, prefrontal areas, which help regulate emotion, can relax, freeing them for another of their primary purposes: problem solving. In effect, the body interprets a supportive touch as “I’ll share the load.”

“We think that humans build relationships precisely for this reason, to distribute problem solving across brains,” said James A. Coan, a a psychologist at the University of Virginia. “We are wired to literally share the processing load, and this is the signal we’re getting when we receive support through touch.”

Carey also quotes Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life.” Incidentally, Keltner’s mentor was San Francisco psychologist Paul Ekman, who was profiled by Malcolm Gladwell in an eye-opening article about emotions and facial expressions (“The Naked Face,” New Yorker, 2002). If you’ve heard of the wide, genuine, impossible-to-fake Duchenne smile, then you’ve been touched by Ekman’s influence.

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perfectionism, happiness, time perspectives

January 31, 2010

Cultivate: setting goals, taking risks, being organized, self-actualizing
De-emphasize: worrying about regrets and how you are perceived
Takeaway: Build self-regard and internal measures of achievement

[Psychologist Robert W. Hill of Appalachian State University] argues that perfectionistic traits can be either adaptive or maladaptive. It depends upon whether they are forward- or backward-looking, emotionally positive or negative, and motivated from an inner urge or an outside push.

In a paper just published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, Hill and two colleagues describe an experiment that illustrates the importance of distinguishing between types of perfectionism. They surveyed 216 psychology students to assess their perfectionistic tendencies, as well as their psychological well-being and satisfaction with life.

Adaptive perfectionism was determined by combining the students’ self-reported scores in four areas: striving for excellence, organizational skills, tendency to plan ahead and holding others to high standards. Maladaptive perfectionism was measured by the sum of four other scores: concern over mistakes, need for approval, tendency to ruminate over past performances and perceived parental pressure.

“We found that adaptive perfectionism was associated with indicators of positive psychological outcomes,” Hill reports. “The more an individual was prone to striving for excellence, planning ahead, being organized, they typically had a high level of psychological well-being, life satisfaction and positive mood. The inverse was true for maladaptive perfectionism.”

Hill found a “wide distribution” of these traits in the test subjects, suggesting that most people have some combination of adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism….

“Adaptive perfectionism is an internal standard for achievement,” he notes. “Maladaptive perfectionism is an external concern – wondering what other people are going to think. It’s kind of a thinking habit: ‘I made a mistake there.’ ‘Someone will notice I didn’t do that right.’ We know from a number of studies that cognitive behavioral therapy can change or reduce those kinds of thoughts.”

—Tom Jacobs, “The Two Faces of Perfectionism,” Miller-McCune, January 28, 2010

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Things are grim, but I can’t stop thinking about happiness.

June 3, 2009

Where my mind’s been at:

Positive psychology — a relatively new field of evidence-based self-help for being happier. Think of it like the shift in medicine from treating illness to increasing wellness. As Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD, writes in Happier, pretty much everything we want in life ultimately leads back to happiness.

The idea is to increase happiness in daily life, rather than dealing with unhappiness only during moments of crisis.

[See also Dr. Martin Seligman, Prof. Philip Zimbardo and Dr. Walter Mischel (whose research was the subject of a great article by Jonah Lehrer recently in the New Yorker Magazine).]

Practicing gratitude is one of the oft-cited methods of increasing happiness.

I’m tremendously grateful for friends helping friends. I know, I know, everyone’s hurting now financially. But a lot of artists are freelancers, and while freelancing is typically like riding a roller coaster, it seems like a lot of my peers are feeling lost in a free fall. These are bright, hardworking people doing everything from graphic design, to interactive art direction, to preparator/installation to cooking.

The financial safety nets are being strained, but it seems like social bonds are staying strong… Artists helping artists. Freelancers helping freelancers. I’m so grateful to be in an art community, in which, even in lean times, can exhibit generosity instead of competition.

If you can support the arts in these times, for goodness’ sake, here’s how (and where and when!):

travis meinholf art
Formerly San Francisco-based, now Berlin-based artist Travis Meinolf is in the unenviable position of raising funds for a matching grant (good luck!) for his kind of hilarious but also strangely innovative practice of action-weaving. Like his healthy ‘stache, Travis’ participatory weaving seems impossibly sincere (his last project resulted in 12 volunteer-made blankets being donated to a women’s shelter). He’s a good guy and a hard worker and I wish him the best of luck in sowing his weaving projects ’round the world… Contact Jennifer McCabe, director of the Museum of Craft and Folk Art at jmccabe@mocfa.org to make a contribution towards Meinolf’s exhibition. (Image source: actionweaver.com)

(In case you missed it, I mentioned Scott Oliver’s totally fund-able project about my beloved Lake Merritt in a previous post.)

This Saturday night is Pop Noir, an auction to benefit Southern Exposure, an alternative art space that’s consistently invested in local artists, community engagement, and excellence in contemporary art. This female-led organization has always pushed the envelope, and I’m very proud to donate a pair of text-based drawings to support their work. Over a hundred and fifty other local artists have donated work too. Countless volunteers are contributing time. But it’s all for naught without buyers. So come on down—with auction prices starting at a fraction of the retail price, the price is right. Look for some really nice pieces by Weston Teruya, The Thing Quarterly by Allora and Callzadia, Michael Hall, Laurie Reid, Jeff Canham, Jamie Vasta, Edgar Arcenaux, Dustin Fosnot, and yours truly (pictured as follows).
weston teruya artThe Thing Quarterlymichael hall artlaurie reid artjeff canham artjamie vasta artedgar arcenaux artdustin fosnot artchristine wong yap art
(Image sources: Southern Exposure’s Pop Noir Auction Artists

Pop Noir will be held at the gorgeous galleries at Electric Works at 8th and Mission Streets in San Francisco. Tix, more info, pics of the auction lots, and absentee bidding details here. Hope to see you there.

Stephani Martinez, Daily Cakes - Extra Fancy, 2009, Variable, Doilies, Plaster, Gold Leaf
(Image: Stephani Martinez, Daily Cakes – Extra Fancy, 2009, Variable, Doilies, Plaster, Gold Leaf. Image source: Intersection for the Arts’ 2009 Benefit Art Auction.)
Of course the other amazing alternative art space in San Francisco is Intersection for the Arts, who is well-respected for the rigor of their programming, and renown for making miracles on a shoestring. Like many non-profits, the downturn is hitting their typically lean infrastructure hard. Intersection’s auction comes up next weekend, on the following Saturday, June 13.

Daniel Tierny, Double Jump, 2009, Tape on lambda print, 23 x 33 in., Courtesy of the Artist and Steven Wolf Fine Arts, San Francisco.
(Image: Daniel Tierny, Double Jump, 2009, Tape on lambda print, 23 x 33 in., Courtesy of the Artist and Steven Wolf Fine Arts, San Francisco. Image source: Headlands 2009 Benefit Auction, Artists, Daniel Tierney.)
Wednesday, June 10, the Headlands Center for the Arts holds their auction at the Herbst International Exhibition Hall in the Presidio. I’ve been an Affiliate Artist at the Headlands for a year and a half. The Headlands is an amazing locus for an international and local art community. When I think about relocating, few places compare with the quality of the Bay Area arts scene, partly because of the Headlands’ role in drawing international artists in residence to the area.

So there you go. Support an artist directly, or support the organizations who support the artists. And take home some artwork!

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