Brian Eno calls for rethink about meaning and value of culture
Delivering BBC’s John Peel lecture, musician says role of culture goes beyond economic value, keeping us ‘in sync’ with a fast-changing world
The musician and producer Brian Eno has called for a rethink of culture due to “complete confusion” around the subject.
The former Roxy Music star said arts and culture were worth pursuing for reasons that were not just economic and should play a central role in people’s lives in a world of rapid change.
Delivering the annual BBC Music John Peel lecture, Eno said art and culture offered “a safe place for you to have quite extreme and rather dangerous feelings”. He said the reason people embraced it was because they knew they could “switch if off”, so art had a role as a “simulator” in people’s lives.
Eno said: “I think we need to rethink how we talk about culture, rethink what we think it does for us, and what it actually is. We have a complete confusion about that. It’s very interesting.”
He said that if 20 scientists were asked what they thought science did, they would mostly agree, but if 20 artists were asked what they believed art did, there would be about 15 different answers. Giving one definition, he said: “Art is everything that you don’t have to do.”
Eno said it fell outside the activities people had to do to stay alive, such as eating, and he referred to people choosing specific hairstyles as an example.
Best known as a pioneer of ambient music, he said: “We live in a culture that is changing so incredibly quickly.” He said a month in the present day saw about the same amount of change as the whole of the 14th century.
Due to nobody being an expert on everything, Eno said, we needed ways of “keeping in sync, of remaining coherent”, adding: “And I think that this is what culture is doing for us.” He said he saw culture as a “set of collective rituals” that everyone was engaged with.
