ON THE ART OF ABSTRACTION

As we prepare to take off for the summer break, we reflect on what we have learned and what we might need to cultivate further as we prepare for la rentrée in September. Access to a wealth of knowledge from anywhere does not seem a challenge anymore – if we have functioning internet and are fine with consumption via screens. However, it is exactly due to this seemingly unlimited and instant availability that the human mind has reached its limits of extracting the very essence of something. The ability of abstraction is increasingly underdeveloped as consumption on the “surface” of information outlets rules. Voltaire asked us to “cultivate our garden” and I believe in our times it is equally important to cultivate competencies that will be essential to tackle the challenges that we face today. Again, I take recourse to the arts as a striking example to learn from and build upon.

Many of us are heading to the sea this summer, so a famous sealion comes to mind: Constantin Brancusi’s abstract sculpture “Le Phoque II” (1943) is clearly a seal. One glimpse, one thought and we know it is a seal although it has no eyes, mouth, flaps, whiskers. It is a masterpiece of abstraction. lnitially entitled “Miracle”, it translates the very essence of the animal, corpulent and awkward on land, but lively and graceful in the water. Brancusi translated the life force that emanates from the massive body of the animal perfectly. As part of the sculpture the circular stone pedestal accentuates the feeling of balance and dynamism. A system of ball bearings formerly enabled the whole presentation to turn freely. It, thus, represents a perfect example not only of abstract but also kinetic art.

Why is abstraction important and how is it actually accomplished?

Abstraction is essential for action. Because – if mastered perfectly - it triggers cognitive and/or affective realization immediately. And realization is a necessary (not sufficient though) precondition for something to happen: a feeling, a subsequent thought process or even immediate action.

It is, however, frequently misunderstood that abstraction requires a certain distance from the subject matter and is done “from the outside”. Taking Brancusi’s work as an example and referring to Dorothy Dudley’s observations dating back to 1927 it becomes clear that the opposite is true: “People who call (these sculptures) abstract have not seen how (…) they have the look of having been made by a friend, not an outsider, by one on the inside, who stands on the ground as equal among rocks, trees, people, beasts, and plants, never above or apart from them.”

Getting to the very essence of something requires not only an in-depth knowledge from within the subject matter but also being (and exposing yourself) “on the ground” – sometimes on the shopfloor or in nature in the wilderness. It requires active observation and eye-to-eye encounters to understand and distill something to its essence.

The knowledge society of the 21st century has promoted the idea of “standing on the shoulders of giants” as a metaphor for using the understanding gained by major thinkers in order to make intellectual progress. This approach has helped to create a vision, general direction and scientific progress which has been instrumental in tackling many challenges intellectually. However, it has primarily led to elaborate analyses and statements of problems and to a lower extent to practical solutions (responding to the “how-to-question”). This is primarily due to its distance to the basis which risks reducing the ability to distill the essence.

During my tenure as a professor at Columbia University we were offered a course to improve the writing of lay abstracts. It meant not standing on the shoulders of giants but on the ground as equal with the general public to make the intellectual exercise understandable and relevant for practice. It also meant to extract the essence and think about the “form” that ideally follows function if a challenge is supposed to be addressed directly. It does not have to be for a lay audience but the shortness of an abstract or executive summary forces the author to distill and define what something is really about and how it fits its purpose. It is relatively easy to say something on ten pages, but my favorite exercise is the (personal) one-pager that forces focus and abstraction.

“When you see a fish you don’t contemplate its scales, do you?” asked Brancusi. Probably not. Abstraction is an art. And its cultivation amerces one into the essence of things. This is urgently needed to tackle the challenges we face in our time. For your intellectual delight I have a few summer reads mentioned below. For all other and more socially engaging entertainment I suggest referring to the nature and animals around us and contemplating their very essence as a joyful exercise.

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Sincerely,

Prof. Dr. Katharina Janus

President & CEO, ENJOY STRATEGY, Paris

Founder, Center for Healthcare Management, Paris

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SUMMER READS (no order implied – just out of the top of my head)

Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz: The good life – Lessons from the world’s longest study on happiness

Charles Duhigg: Supercommunicators – How to unlock the secret language of connection

Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha

Elspeth Kirkman: Decisionscape – How thinking like an artist can improve our decision-making

Richard Mabey: The accidental garden - gardens, wilderness, and the space in between

Fr?nzi Kühne: Was M?nner nie gefragt werden - Ich frage trotzdem mal

Salman Rushdie: Knife

Sylvie Chokron: Dans le cerveau de…

William Ury: How we survive (and thrive) in an age of conflict

Lewis Hyde: The gift – How the creative spirit transforms the world