The Groove 141 - How To Create The Future
HOW TO CREATE THE FUTURE
While we look at the lives of artists from the past who have left legacies for posterity, there’s always something in what they did that was ahead of their time. Artists often have a unique ability to offer glimpses into possible futures through their work. And so do successful entrepreneurs.
When we generate new ideas, concepts, or solutions that are original and valuable and approach problems from different angles, we are inventing the future.
People who are adept at envisioning the future can identify emerging patterns, anticipate changes, and understand the potential impact of these shifts. That was what Kiki Kogelnik did.
Born in Graz, Austria in 1935, she moved to New York in 1962 and transitioned from being an abstract painter to an artist who defies categorization: she embraced elements of pop, space exploration, technology, the artificial body, gender equality and ecological concerns all before today's omnipresent discourses on these topics.
Be A Sharp Observant of Your World
Kiki Kogelnik in New York, 1969. Photographed by Michael Horowitz.
One thing is clear: if you want to professionally succeed in the future, you must pay a lot of attention to cultural, technological, and societal shifts. By observing and analyzing changes and emerging patterns, you can extrapolate potential upcoming directions and incorporate them into your work in whatever ways suit you best.
When Kogelnik arrived in New York, she became friends with Andy Warhol, Marisol Escobar, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Tom Wesselmann. And while this was her circle, Kogelnik was not interested in consumer goods like Heinz tomato soup or celebrity culture. She became obsessed with more complex things. “Coca-Cola means nothing to me. I'm interested in the technical beauty of rockets, people who fly into space and people who become robots. Coming from Europe, it's all so fascinating as a dream of our time. The new ideas are here, the material is here, why not use it?”
Some of Kogelnik’s “Hangings” at her retrospective at the Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien in 2023.
And so she explored these ideas in her series of breakthrough paintings and sculptures that set her apart from her contemporaries. Depicting astronauts and futuristic spacesuits in her artworks, reflecting the growing fascination with space and the advancement of technology in that domain, and staging a performance in Vienna during the Moon landing, where the audience watched the event live on TV while she produced prints of the first words uttered by the astronauts while they walked on the moon. I mean, that’s genius.
This combination of social commentary and personal expression contributed to her distinctive voice. She was unafraid to wear outfits made of vinyl, which was a new material at that time, and also used it in one of her most famous series, the "Hangings," where she took the outline of a person, cut out several in vinyl and hung them on coat hangers. In this she refers to the body as a shaped and shapeable thing that can also be transformed and discarded. Much in the same way that plastic surgery, prosthetics, injectables and other treatments have allowed people today to morph their faces and bodies into whatever they desire.
Develop a Forward-Thinking Mindset
Kogelnik’s works at the Venice Biennale in 2022.
Three weeks ago, I went to a business meeting with someone who works at a big tech company. He asked me: “If you could move in time, would you go back or forward?” Without thinking I said: “forward.” He replied: “that demonstrates you are an optimist and have a forward-thinking mindset.”
I felt relieved, even as someone who keeps exploring the past through these entries, because ultimately what I want to give you is information that helps make sense of where we are and at times, give you tools to anticipate what’s coming.
A futuristic mindset is rooted in the thought that no matter what, there will be radical changes to what we know, coupled with hope and an optimistic outlook for the days to come.
“What's the matter with people? Why [are] we not happy to live today?” Kogelnik wrote. “There are airplanes and chewing gum, there is plastic and movies. There are computer darlings and rockets. There soon will be the joy for all of us floating in space.” That was four decades before Elon Musk founded SpaceX and Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos poured billions of dollars into similar pursuits.
It is true that technological advances are proliferating at a speed that most of us can’t handle, but it’s also true that being oblivious to them won’t keep them from happening.
In Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” Miss Havisham, the eccentric and wealthy spinster, has stopped all the clocks in her house, symbolizing her arrested life and her inability to move forward. But then she says: "The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is."
Communicate So Everyone Understands You
L: Dynamite Darling, 1972. R: Express, 1972. Both acrylic and oil on canvas. The flatness of the images and the lack of expression in their faces is meant to convey the one-dimensional role given to women in the 1970s.
To be able to sell your ideas about goods or services that will be needed in the future, you have to communicate them with a certain level of simplicity. Keep the tiny details, technicalities and complexities for when you meet with the experts.
With the depth of her ideas about the future, technology, and gender roles, Kogelnik could have been super conceptual and impenetrable, but instead she often featured bold shapes, colorful imagery, relied on her sense of humor and sought to break down barriers between high art and popular culture.
Challenging the notion that art should be elitist or exclusive, her incorporation of everyday objects and imagery from consumer culture made her art relatable to a broader audience. There’s clear storytelling and clear visual communication tied to universal themes and emotions.
Fifty years before the current revolution of body-positivity, body-inclusivity, diversity and gender-fluidity, Kogelnik was head-on exploring the relationship between the human body and its representation in contemporary culture. She addressed issues of objectification, commodification, and the influence of advertising and media on our perception of the self. "My women are neither victims nor heroines. They are independent beings."
Kogelnik played a role in challenging the established norms and paving the way for future generations of artists and thinkers. Her innovative approach continues to inspire and resonate with audiences today, in part because she was able to communicate her ideas in a straightforward manner.
Inventing the future is a creative endeavor that often emerges from a combination of knowledge, observation, experience, imagination, and cognitive flexibility. What allowed Kogelnik to see so much into the future was a cultivation of natural curiosity about emerging trends and technologies, thinking long-term, and embracing change. Things that most of us can do.
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TEDX TALK
Have you already watched my TEDx Talk: “NFTs, Graffiti and Sedition: How Artists Invent The Future”?
I share three lessons I have learned from artists that always work for anyone in their careers. Watch it here.