Blog 3
The TED talk I chose to write about was Koolhaas and Urhahn’s story about how art can change the perspective of favelas and rough cities. Their journey started when Jeroen Koolhaas won a competition to make a documentary for MTV. The documentary was originally on Brazilian hip-hop music in the favelas of Rio but during their time in Brazil, the word image was always lingering around the slums. Koolhaas and Urhahn saw this and wanted a change to happen so they put a plan in place. The plan that was put in place was to create a massive mural that would cover many buildings and would be able to be seen from far distances. This experience brought together the whole community in a way like no other. Koolhaas and Urhahn completely changed the perspective of favelas and basically forced people to think of favelas differently by the actions of two people. Now that is truly unbelievable. Koolhaas and Urhahn quickly got famous and started getting requests from all over the world. They then took a gig in North Philly which is one of the poorest neighborhoods in the United States. They worked with the whole community to get this project done. It took about two full years to transform this neighborhood. Koolhaas and Urhahn even went a step further this time and trained kids from the streets to paint and hired them so they could help out with this amazing project while getting paid for it. Even now after the project has been over with, Koolhaas and Urhahn still stay in contact with some of the people from Philly. They couldn’t believe how much of an impact they could possibly have on one neighborhood.
In the short essay, Is Art a Waste of Time, by Rhy Southan talks about many different views and opinions of being an artist. He starts off by introducing himself as a movie script writer whose focus is on very dark comedies. He then introduces the Effective Altruism, or EA for short. The EA believe that there is no room for art in the world and that artists could be doing other things that could actually benefit society. They believe that artists are in a whole other world just “paint[ing] beautiful landscapes in front of them while the rest of the world burns”. The EA wants artists to give up their dream of being an artist for a job with higher expected returns so that the person can donate more money to kids who are in need. The EA really tries to guilt trip the audience into agreeing with their beliefs by comparing not donating to charity to not saving a kid’s life drowning in a pond right in front of you. Southan on the other hand, believes that “the world would be unlivable without art” and that art does indeed have a positive impact in society. In the middle of the essay, Southan does seem to feel a little guilty for not doing his part in society to his fullest potential because he is doing art instead of higher paying jobs. He eventually comes to the conclusion though that he is not willing to give up on art which he loves and holds dear to his heart for something that will ultimately make him unhappy.
I was able to make a few connections between Southan’s essay and the TED talk. The main connection was that both believe that art has a positive influence in society and that art makes a difference in people lives all over the world to the point where art is unlivable without. Another connection that I made between the two is that both like to help the poor. Southan will mainly help the poor by donating money to charity and from the pleasure that his scripts give to people. The TED talk likes to build something so spectacular that it gives the community and everyone around the community hope and joy.
