Arts and visual culture in the contemporary era, as well as in the annals of history, have been constantly evolving with its practitioners striving to stimulate and seduce the world they inhabit in new and meaningful ways. Being entrenched in an increasingly pluralist environment, the challenge of perceiving and responding to the flux of information and technology calls for global citizens, at large, and artists, designers and educators, in particular, to find new ways of experiencing and imparting knowledge and information. The shift from traditional aesthetics demands for innovative pedagogical practices for the teaching and understanding of art and design.
The School Of Visual Arts and Design (SVAD) at Beaconhouse National University has led the way for artists and designers in Pakistan to realize their creative potential, cutting across national and cultural boundaries, fostering a vision unique that enables significant contribution to the visual world.
Being at the forefront of finding innovative ways of imparting quality education, SVAD has come up with an exclusive week-long program of exploring the notion of “Nothing”.
Nothing as a concept can yield to various possibilities: looking at the mundane, hackneyed and banal concepts of “everyday” in a new aesthetically realm. A whole different world of meaning exists inside the human mind and its processing systems; a system that can be selective of the sensory perceptions, where the human mind can be in control of the on/off switch. Practicing “nothing” could help become aware of these processes of mind. This could also be related to the conscious development of low latent inhibition, whereby one treats familiar stimuli the same as new stimuli, harnessing a creative and imaginative outlook on the mundane.
Larry David, the man behind the most popular sitcom of the 90’s, Seinfeld is said to have based the entire show on finding material for comedy from the everyday/nothing.
Shahrukh Khan, referring to his father’s life often quotes him: “Jo kuch nahi kartey, wo kamaal kartey hain” (Those who do nothing, do wonders). With such brilliance in the mundane also, Benedict Cumberbatch, in the iconic role of Alan Turing says:
“Sometimes it is the very people who no one imagines anything of, who do the things no one can imagine.”
How does this happen? How does observation of mental traffic lead to meditation and catharsis?
This week of experience and interaction at SVAD, Beaconhouse National University will open up a discussion on this idea. Looking at the world and the vast montage that it is, the acknowledgment of the fact that the road to wisdom begins from a wandering and wondering mind. As Socrates said: “I know one thing; that I know nothing.”
Rohma Khan
Director
NothingFest 2017 | BNU-SVAD
