CREDIT: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
An artist in the U.S. created an evocative performance piece that painted a portrait of the lives of Guantanamo Bay prisoners set on a busy urban street.

There is a pleasure in feeling deeply. Even though breaking up with your boyfriend makes you want to curl up and die, or running five kilometres makes your stomach feel like it's going to fall out of your body, (to sum up the sentiment of many a pop song) it's better to feel pain than nothing at all.

Vincent van Gogh was a big fan of emotions. He loved them so much he cut off a chunk of his ear because he was sad. That's dedication, and dedicated he undoubtedly was. When van Gogh developed his own style of painting, he took his feelings and splattered them onto the canvas like his ear would splatter blood onto the wall years later. He painted in the language of sentimentality.

In a letter to his brother (and confidant), Theo, he wrote “I should be desperate if my figures were right…that I have a longing to make such incorrectness, such deviations, remodelling, changes in reality, so that they may become, well — lies, if you want — but truer than the literal truth.” He warped and twisted trees, coloured them blue with pink leaves. He aimed to show the world not literally, but through the not-always-rosy coloured glasses he wore. And thus, he became a renegade of the Post- Impressionists and the father of the uber-influential Expressionist movement — one that is rooted in the experience and emotion of both the creation and viewing of art.

Last week I spoke of art and advertising being friendly cousins, not enemies pitted against one another — that art can learn a lesson or two about persuasion from advertising. And this week, advertising has taken a lesson from van Gogh, one of the most prolific artists to ever pick up a brush.

Experiential Marketing is taking the world of selling products by storm. It's why Budweiser has bikini-clad women handing out beer, and why Red Bull sponsors extreme sports. It's all about letting the consumer (you and I) feel something while using their product. It's more memorable that way.

When you look at a van Gogh painting, you begin to feel the world and adopt how he felt when painting it.When you watch someone jump a dirt bike, you feel a rush of adrenaline — something Red Bull aims to give you as well. Interaction has become a rare commodity in our digital era. Connection is now so rare it feels refreshing and memorable. And so they sell, sell, sell, sell you things based on your deprivation of experience.

In the dawn of this, artists have an interesting opportunity to take back what our friend van Gogh pioneered, and apply it to our modern art. We have already begun: people are cutting themselves open and using their blood to paint a canvas, using cremated remains to make pottery. They're trying desperately to appeal to the droning public. But I'm suggesting a more clever approach to tapping into human emotion.

What would van Gogh be doing now? It is a dangerous question to pose, given his perceived timelessness, but I dare to venture a guess. Experiential art. Interactive pieces that allow you to be enveloped in the sensuality of your emotion. It would wrap around you like the blanket that covers you while you sleep, or the water you splash on your face to refresh.

Interactive art reaches out beyond the canvas. It alludes to public involvement — not neatly tucked away in a museum or gallery, but for it to interrupt one's daily routine. It would force us to confront questions, both personal and societal, that are more comfortable to pass by. We wouldn't be bystanders watching as art happens; it'd be a part of our lives to allow ourselves to honour our emotions.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.