Magazine

Mut zur Lücke

Mind the Gaps

by Janne Tüffers

Yawning emptiness in playgrounds, railway station forecourts and on café terraces, blank pages in appointment books and scrapped holiday plans. Life in the time of the corona pandemic is marked by gaps, void and free spaces. Maintaining a gap of at least 1.5 metres to those around us has become almost normality. By contrast, getting accustomed to the gaping hole where work and financial security were once safely assumed to be will take some time. But what most particularly unsettles us is the lack of knowledge and certainty, the dearth of routines and stuff we take for granted, and the absence of concrete future scenarios. We had believed we could predict the course of things and were preoccupied predominantly with coming to terms with this. And now we find ourselves facing the fact that we don’t know the future – and maybe even not very much about the present as well.

Aside from all the video chats, YouTube workout channels and the quest for new and almost forgotten hobbies, cultural institutions are also showing ingenuity by seeking to fill this void with digital displays of exhibitions and gallery streaming. But art can do much more than that. It can help us learn to accept this free space, to strengthen our courage to leave gaps in what we know and understand.

It seems incompleteness is one of the few consistent factors accompanying us through this time. Just how hard it us for us to accept this incompleteness and the attendant insecurity is highlighted by our consumption of the latest news. News tickers and push notifications entice us to consume news at all times and everywhere in the hope of closing the gaps in our knowledge. Yet for all this, a comprehensive explanation of the situation and a clear-cut strategy to take us through the crisis are nowhere in sight. Frustration with this circumstance is shown when information about the coronavirus and anything deemed remotely connected with it are ingested without filter, or when once broadly assimilated media competence and source verification are abandoned. In their stead, counter to all reason, statements flanked by abnormal cohorts of exclamation marks are treated as reliable information and social and media bubbles have ever greater impact. Such conditions in particular give self-appointed experts an opportunity to fill the gaps quickly and easily with untruths and accusatory finger-pointing.

At the same time, we are witness to a sheer flood of qualified contributions. Scientific expertise seldom enjoys such high esteem. Yet let us not expect to hear a single answer to resolve our questions once and for all. Not simply because this crisis is exceedingly complex and obscure but also because the craving for the one and only truth, the one and only insight, the one and only course of action can never be justified. While the purpose of science is naturally to build knowledge, research is first and foremost a process, search and gradual approximation. Science feeds on failure and correction; by its own definition it is reflective, critical, inconsistent and aware of its limits. New developments in science rarely offer the “breaking news” scoops that politics and media would relish. Scientific research tends to illuminate individual aspects from certain perspectives; seldom do they in one fell swoop close the gaps in our understanding of the world that we find so hard to cope with. What we call “reality” only begins to be described when one combines the totality of all these aspects and perspectives, compares conflicting study results and involves different disciplines. And even then, we should continue to think of “reality” within inverted commas and discard any notion of absoluteness; in lieu of this we should consider knowledge and perception as situational and mutable, and learn to live with residual uncertainty.

However, the current crisis calls for knowledge, not just for the sake of acquiring knowledge but also as the basis on which to reach decisions and take action – and without delay. There is no longer time for the necessary exchange, categorising, failing and correcting. This pressure represents a stiff test for the quality and credibility of research. And a high degree of responsibility now falls on the shoulders of communicators, journalists and politicians – to admit, “We don’t know”. The inchoate data situation needs to be articulated, subjects must be simplified in their expression yet openly disclosed in their complexity. Results and opinions have to be put into context and contradictions explained, rather than instrumentalised for polarised debate. It is not enough just to present figures, they also need to be elucidated, with divergent cases identified as such. The delicate balancing act between complex argumentation and heated debate in the media is nothing new but in times of crisis becomes further precarious. To hear politicians admit that they cannot be sure of what they are talking about, that their opinions might and should modify if the known facts change, that the adopted strategy will perhaps turn out to have been the wrong decision, may be unusual yet is imperative. The closest we get to the “truth” is one that includes these gaps.

But this requirement also perforce entails us accepting these gaps: we cannot expect scientists to provide irrevocable facts and prescribe a definite course of action; we need to invest attention and time to study differentiated, complex and purportedly boring journalism that offers the best possible description of the situation, while at the same time pointing out its incompleteness. We must be able to endure the uncertainty that such political short-termism involves and maintain trust.

Yet how are we to foster this acceptance? Can it be reinforced with the help of art? Familiarity with artistic practice suggests letting go of our expectations of completeness. This might have crucial influence on how we perceive and describe the crisis, as well as how we respond to it. Giving priority to reflection and differentiated analysis vis-à-vis an objectively to be determined outcome makes it possible to embrace the complexity and maybe also the irresolvable nature of a problem. It harbours the potential to show how we can acknowledge uncertainties rather than despairing of them. As viewers of art we seek greater knowledge without demanding absolute answers.

Can we adjust our demands to this effect in other spheres as well? By calling this attitude to mind can we initiate a culture of misgiving and hesitation, of approximation, weighing up and realignment? To do so, we would need to interiorise the gestures of stepping back, observing and distancing ourselves, of seeing things in the bigger picture and adopting a modified perspective – as we would when viewing a work of art. Only once we have consciously created a gap – spatially, mentally, temporally – and made deliberate use of it can we understand and judge and exchange views as to how each of us in different ways finds access to a particular work.

So, just as we are able to accept and discuss differing interpretations of a work of art, can we also accept and discuss differing political opinions and standpoints without this ever being about who can win the debate? The forte of art – that it not only permits but also encourages a plurality of voices, not only acknowledges but also emphasises subjectivity – fosters a tolerance of ambiguity that in times of crisis we as a society so urgently need. We must deal with conflicting information, new impressions, people of different opinion and unpredictable situations in a differentiated and reflected manner rather than clinging to structures built on a black-and-white way of thinking.

However, showing tolerance for alternative perspectives to overcome such rigid categories does not simply mean accepting other people’s approaches. Equally, it also requires us to use imagination, fantasy and detachment to think “outside the box”. So are we able to come up with artistic perspectives, fictional narratives and creativity to formulate ways out of the crisis that will not entail a return to old structures? Can optimism be learned? Visions of the future and fantasy scenarios allow us to find a language for alternative realities and to create new spaces, maybe even a new reality. We should grasp this opportunity.

Art can, if you like, be seen as training. As an exercise in prevailing against insecurity rather being captive to a spiritual or mental condition that incapacitates us. A practice that trains us to handle contradictions, uncertainty and incompleteness, to embrace free spaces and use them to our own benefit. Art can help us to cultivate openness and dialogue, diversity and understanding, and thereby find ways to appreciate gaps and provisional situations, incongruity and ambivalence. This appears to be important right now, but certainly not solely in this period of corona crisis. This crisis is not the trigger ­­of, but the sudden confrontation with, a reality that could be headlined “We don’t know”. Our explanations of this world are strewn with gaps, our understanding has limits. Art can inspire us to envisage alternative scenarios if we remind ourselves that we cannot reliably plan the future. The future has always been uncertain. Up till now this was simply much less evident.

Irrlichter tour in Steele

On a Saturday morning, under the heatwave called El Niño, I went on a walk in Essen-Steele with seven people and visited public artworks created specifically for places you wouldn't normally enter ...

Beyond the imaginable

Eva Koťátková in conversation with Britta Peters about the exhibition My Body Is Not An Island

Loss of Control Is the Necessary Condition for Sleep

To what extent do working conditions influence our sleep behaviour? In the post-industrial era, do we sleep better or do digitalisation and the unboundedness of working conditions deprive us of sleep?