Renaissance People

"In a renaissance society driven by the need to forge connections, play is the ultimate system for social currency. It's a way to try on new roles without committing to them for life. It's a way to test strategies of engagement without being defined by them forever. It's a way to rise above the seemingly high stakes of almost any situation and see it as the game it probably is. It's a way to make one's enterprise a form of social currency from the beginning, and to guarantee a collaborative, playful, and altogether more productive path toward continual innovation." [Doug Rushkoff, Get Back in the Box]

As many of you know, Renaissance was a European cultural movement that took place between the Middle Ages and the Reformation. It came in all sorts of flavors for the many countries in which it blossomed. In Italy, il Rinascimento saw a beautiful fusion of art and science -- think of the works of Leonardo.

I have a Leonardo as a friend: Leonardo Previ that is, at Italian knowledge factory Trivioquadrivio. The company’s cultural mission, a weighty one, is to unify all knowledge. This mission is reflected in the company’s name: In the Dark Ages, knowledge was split in the arts of the trivium (dialectics, grammar, rhetoric) and the disciplines of the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy).

Trivioquadrivio uses a methodology that unifies and cuts across disciplines and combines the knowledge and practices of art, philosophy, architecture, design, literature, video production, and web design to help companies generate, produce, and manage knowledge through high-level cultural experiences.

What if we all considered ourselves renaissance people? What would we do more of?

[illustration of Santa Maria del Fiore and Battistero in Florence]

Comments

[Chris]

> What if we all considered ourselves renaissance people? What would we do more of?

Sketching nudes?

[Joe Raasch]

Hi Valeria,

We would all have more refined observation skills! I recently started taking drawing classes. In two hours I learned more about observation, perception, patience, humility, and precision than in all my previous formal education, MBA, etc.

Thank you for pointing us to Trivioquadrivio. People learn more here by accident than other places by design!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Joe, thank you for taking the conversation to the next level. I'm sure Chris won't mind, it was probably his intention all along.

In "More Space", which is a book that collects 9 blog essays on business, Johnnie Moore speaks about "Simple Ideas. Lightly Held" and provides a series of paired drawing exercises to illustrate some of his points. Link to the full essay here http://www.astroprojects.com/media/MSSimple5.html

Thank you for your kind words. My curiosity and shared experience brought me to Trivioquadrivio's doorstep. The bonus was learning that Leonardo and I had the same course of studies, even read the very same books in high school.

[Terri Waterman]

Yes yes!! Draw more! You'll learn so much about your relationship with yourself (a long road for me!). Just throw yourself in it and let it develop to whatever it will be. The book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a great way to look at things differently - here's the site just to give you an idea: http://www.drawright.com/

Thanks Valeria, this was so cool...