What good is technology without humanism?
Updated: 2 days ago
The Arts Mall of the Americas— opening soon
Life is a discovery zone.
Let’s make art.
I have a vision, a vision of love…
Where people make art all the time.
Discovering... the Power of One.
By T.A. Terga
My vision for the Arts Mall for humanity grows out of The Power of One, the belief that each of us carries a spark of God within. Peace education gives us a place to start. It teaches us to recognize fear and anger and to choose how we respond before those feelings turn into hatred or harm.
That kind of emotional intelligence can be nurtured in our homes, schools, and churches, and practiced throughout our lives. We may be unaware of just how prejudiced we are. Art unites. Love thy neighbor. Create and appreciate art as a community.
I want to take that practice one step further by giving people of all ages a place to make art together. Imagine spending a morning learning an instrument from someone you just met, or an afternoon writing a song with people from three generations. In a world where governments can use fear to justify ever more powerful weapons, and where war can be enormously profitable, what could we build if we put that energy into helping people create? The Arts Mall is one place to begin.
Imagine the marketplace of the future, the Arts Mall for humnaity, where people go not to consume, but to create. A therapeutic place in more ways than I'll need to list here. You get it. The Mall of the Arts is where it's at: the joy, the connection, the bliss of creating.
Guess what that does to stress? Don't take a pill. Dissolve your stress by making art. Make art a profession without a startup. Do away with the starving artist trope and stigma. Artists don't want to starve. Art is a business. Being an artist isn't enough.
You need an agent, a publicist, a publisher, an attorney, an accountant, and the list goes on and on. Being an artist is like being an inventor. You need investment, a budget, and a business plan.
Your funds for renting a piece of studio wall, create hype, send out invitations, put on events of choice to reach your audience and give them community.
Your inventory. Create a few samples of your artistry and enter them into a competition. Experts need to evaluate the art as Artists compete. The audience likes variety. The audience likes to know the full details of who gets the prize and who their favorite is.
Production costs: color palettes of the season may change with independent artists; music, theatre, and film variety shows grow in audience and variety. Artists are part of the community.
Offer a story within your art, a hook, where the audience pays attention and learns something that makes their heart-brain coherence jump-start. Ghostwriting services.
The Arts Mall for humanity is not just for artists to create their first works; it can also serve as studios for independent artists.
The business model must provide rent-free premises for artists to teach their art and charge a modest rate for coaching services, starting in the do-it-yourself category and moving up to partnerships with industry distributors.
The art business must be demystified. We must create more art, and sell more art. Not less, and not more expensive, but at a fair market price based on skillful artistry, not just fame.
Instead of buying something manufactured by someone else, the mall-of-the-arts visitor can leave with their own creation —something made from their conscience: a song, a painting, a poem, a film, a sculpture, or a story.
And they leave with something even more valuable: the satisfaction of creating their own mind-heart coherence.
What's particularly interesting is the distinction between consumption and ownership.
An Arts Mall of the americas for humanity would let people"
pursue their interests,
acquire creative skills,
produce original work, and potentially
own intellectual property
which
generate personal, cultural, and economic value.
It also has an important educational dimension. People of different ages, backgrounds, abilities, and beliefs could learn alongside one another.
A grandmother might record a family story. A child might create an animated film. A teenager might compose a song. Two strangers might collaborate on a mural.
Technology would serve human creativity rather than replace it.
What good is Art?
Making art activates multiple brain networks at once—especially the default mode network, executive control network, and salience network—boosting neural connectivity, emotional regulation, and brain plasticity.
We live in an extraordinary age of technological development. We can communicate instantly across oceans, create images with machines, explore distant planets, and access more information than previous generations could have imagined.
Yet I wonder whether our human development is keeping pace with our technological achievements.
Are we becoming more compassionate? More understanding? More conscious of our responsibility toward one another? Or are we more alienated from each other?
Are we using technology to bring humanity closer together, or are we allowing it to create new forms of isolation, dependence, and division?
I dream of a world in which technology serves human creativity, education, and peace.
I think our fears and aspirations for a humanistic society came through in the midterm elections, opening our eyes to who "the people" are and what the majority wants. Hopefully, one day everyone will understand that taking care of people does not handicap them and that taking care of handicapped people is our humanistic duty.
What handicaps people is the inability to feel like they have control over their own destiny.
I imagine Art Malls
Not shopping malls filled primarily with merchandise, but creative centers where people gather to learn, experiment, collaborate, and make art.
Imagine going out for an afternoon and returning home with a song you composed and recorded yourself.
Imagine a child walking into an animation studio and discovering how to bring an original character to life.
Imagine families spending a Saturday creating impressionist paintings, writing stories, making films, learning photography, designing fashion, or recording the memories of their grandparents.
Imagine a place where people of different generations, cultures, religions, and languages come together not simply to purchase things, but to create something meaningful.
The Art Malls for humanity are places of learning, discovery, and human connection
Professional artists, educators, musicians, filmmakers, writers, and craftspeople would share their knowledge with people who might never otherwise have the opportunity to explore their creative abilities and earn a living teaching and creating orchestras, bands, theatre groups, film houses, sculpture, etc. Imagination is endless.
Technology would be available as a tool, but human imagination would remain at the center of the experience.
And instead of leaving with another object to consume, visitors could leave with something they created—something that belongs to them.
A painting. A story. A song. A film. A design.
Perhaps even the beginning of a new profession.
Creative work can become intellectual property, an expression of identity, and a legacy for future generations. Not to mention psychotherapeutic.
More importantly, the experience of creating can change how we see ourselves.
We begin to recognize that we are not merely consumers of the world around us. We are participants in shaping it.
I believe that art can help us develop awareness, patience, cooperation, empathy, and understanding.
When we create together, we learn to listen, to share ideas, to respect differences, and to appreciate the contributions of others.
These are also the principles of peace.
An Art Mall could become a living classroom where the Keywords for Peace are practiced through creative experiences.
This is the future I imagine for Conscious Arts Media Productions: a world in which the arts and technology work together to serve humanity, and where creative opportunities are accessible to people from every walk of life.
A world where human beings are encouraged not only to acquire possessions, but to discover their abilities, express their ideas, and leave behind something meaningful.
Our technological achievements may change the world around us.
But our humanity will determine what kind of world we create.
The future of technology should not be measured by what machines can do, but by what human beings can become.
And perhaps the greatest achievement of all will be a world in which every person has the opportunity to create.
When you click this image to purchase the book in Spanish or English, imagine crossing that bridge to Cuba with keywords for peace in your heart: Justice. Kindness. Solidarity. Humility. Understanding. Dialogue. Love. Practice faith-based peace. We all
speak the same language of peace.
Stay tuned: we are writing a new book. Coming soon....
Interfaith Keywords for Peace.
No matter what religion you practice, you are already practicing peace. Be aware of your words and your intentions, as they are the fruit of your thoughts and your feelings.
CAMP is a charity offering literary and film arts services. Adaptations. Translation. Screenwriting, Formatting, Story coaching, Publishing, and Film production. By donation only.
We have the power within to change the course of history. Turn the Peace Wheel; get your peace groove on.
Interfaith Keywords For Peace is a unifying practice of peace for any and all practitioners of religious creeds. We understand God is One and the power of God within us unites us all as One.
Practice peace daily. Spin a keyword or choose your own. Become aware of how the peace work you received became relevant throughout your day, in your feelings and thoughts.
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