Although we have the capacity to communicate with others on a wide variety of ways we still struggle to properly express ourselves.  We can generate an idea in our head within a fraction of a second and spend hours trying to explain it, or be part of an eternal debate using sentences such as “That is not what I meant to say”.

Art allows to express a feeling in a more visceral way than other forms of communication may. The painter seems to be trying to explain something, why not use words? The poet seems to paint with words and create images, why not use paint? Even when combined it is does not seem possible to make a point come across in such way that the audience would receive 100% of the message every time and everywhere. This means that every time we speak, every time we write something, we send an email or write a blog we cannot do nothing more than a mere communication attempt, we aim to transfer a thought from our brain into another person’s and can only hope that at least a big part of it will be clear enough.

Often we go around in circles trying to cover every single angle of an idea, saying every little detail that we have to say about this subject. The receiver of this message often captures the concept quite early yet must keep on listening, reading… to whatever the emitter is transmitting. e.g. this blog post. How different would things be if we were able to transfer ideas in the same way a computer does, a file from one computer can be transferred onto another quickly and contain the exact same information, that is not to say that it is always quickly but it is a much more realistic possibility than that one between humans. Is there irony in this since humans made those computers?

If this communication experience were possible, we would deny our own humanity. Our conversations would last seconds, perhaps we would be much more advanced, perhaps our debates would take one minute and lastly art, art would become irrelevant, why would anybody feel the struggle to communicate what is feeling when such struggle does not exist? Why would anybody feel the urge to write thousands of poems about the same topic when the first one covered it very clearly? Well, I accept that the fact that the feeling remains may urge a new poem but I believe the point is just as valid.

We evolve in struggle, we are humans out of the difficulty our predecessors encountered in their environment, we created tools, we developed a language with thousands of words out of the struggle to communicate our thoughts and initiated our eternal struggle with our attempts to communicate.