November 2003
Xerox PARC: Collaboration at the Intersection of Art and Science
An interview with John Seely Brown
By Linda Naiman
(Page 3 of 3) Return to page 1
LN: Can you tell me more about this metaphor of “Rich Gold” even though he’s a real person? This is how I describe my own work when I’m working with people in organizations. I personally find that when I take them through a painting experience, it creates a crucible for conversation, out of which group gold is derived. It’s the richness of the experience of art that takes them into a different dimension, and out of that it’s easier to extract the inherent genius that resides in the group, so amazing conversations take place. I do believe that there is an alchemical response to art when you put people together and you combine the art experience with the business talent.
JSB: Right. There are three ways I look at [the impact of an art experience]. One is the notion that engaging in these types of activities evoke deeper responses, deeper emotions. It brings forth many of the tacitly held beliefs and assumptions that you have. So think of it as evocative of the tacit knowledge.
The second is that focused conversations are built and fused together around evocative objects that concern problems that the researcher has on his or her mind. I have said very often, it was the researcher that had the real problem, but the interaction with the artist actually made a big difference. Now that’s a complex interplay, ‘cause it takes over; it’s like a conversation that unfolds over many months.
The third concerns the power of simplicity. Simplicity prior to complexity doesn’t mean much. But simplicity, after you pass through the wall of complexity, after you have marinated in a fully nuanced reading of the situation and then rendering it in very simple ways is extraordinarily powerful.
LN: That’s where genius comes from.
JSB: Absolutely. And so, my favourite saying is that "Picasso can say more with five lines than most of us can say writing an entire book.” Picasso does not traffic in commas, and parentheses. When you’re doing a painting or sketch, you do not have qualifiers. You have to be crystal clear about matters, and that’s one of the beauties of art as a primary language, primary in that you can’t make caveats and qualifiers around everything. Also note that the image you construct is meant to be an evocative object for both you and others. You’re conversing with yourself as well with others.
LN: I find also that art is a way to tell the truth, about issues in society or in organizations, in a way that is palatable, and safe.
JSB: Yes. The power of multimedia lies in its ability to use rich media to construct narratives. Narratives comprising text, images, sound and context that can play off each other can provide powerful ways to help scaffold meaning. In today’s increasingly complex world, this is becoming a big topic.
LN: Earlier you were talking about an approach to creating a knowledge ecology…
JSB: Well, helping to nurture a knowledge ecology. I think of PARC itself as being a knowledge ecology, where the cross-pollination and creative abrasion of diverse points of view, diverse disciplines, etc. creates the vibrancy of the place. And in that sense, a role for somebody like me as the “executive director” is not a role of management, but rather a role of husbandry. I believe this applies to all the corporations of the 21st century. We could call this leadership, but I think a better term is husbandry — how you nurture a garden or a complex ecology. If done right it can take on a life of its own and it can grow in directions you never thought of. Given that, you begin to see how throwing artists into this rich bed of diverse interaction of people or projects makes intuitive sense.
LN: And you would have to have a capacity for chaos too, and that’s the problem I think in most corporations. There’s a fear, well, first of all, a fear of art, a fear of chaos, and a fear of losing control, yet you were orchestrating all of this.
JSB: But out of that mixture, as long as you can provide the right -- what I call gradient -- the right field forces that cause things to grow in certain directions, like the Sun ‘pulling’ plants in a certain direction - if you can honour the context -- then you can produce great things collaboratively.
John Seely Brown is the former director of PARC and chief scientist of Xerox Corporation. He retired from Xerox in April 2002.
Related Books:
PAIR is examined in detail in Art and Innovation:The Xerox PARC Artist in Residence Program edited by Craig Harris and published by MIT Press 1999.
PAIR was in operation from 1993-1999.
Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age
by Michael A. Hiltzik
Related Links:
Creative Alliances — The interplay between arts and business
Artful Creation by Lotte Darsø
Smithsonian: Invention at Play by Christine Broda-Bahm
To find out more about the role of the arts in business, read an excerpt from Orchestrating Collaboration at Work.
The Intersection of Art and Business:
A context for arts-based training and development
Teaching for Creativity in Science
Lee Gass PhD
Pages |1| 2 | 3|
