Art and Entertainment: an excerpt from an essay on Cinema as an Institution

Everyday-life tends to make us mechanical and out of touch with ourselves. Art provides a background for slowing down, stepping back, and seeing our situation, as well as our self, in a way that clarifies or stimulates a searching for clarity. Since we are often out of touch with why we are doing what we are doing, and what is important to us, art cuts away the noise, filth, and the functional nihilism of everyday life. It brings up that thing we were suppose to do but didn’t have time to do. The secret-simple-thing. That thing we forgot. The artist says: do you remember?

Art and its ‘reminder’ can be contrasted to entertainment, for while art and the artist seeks to turn on the bright light, turning it off marks entertainment. It is distraction from the matter at hand. It is an invitation to forget everything.