Why Art Still Matters (Especially Now)

Artists comfortably work within and with the many enigmas in life — sharing their research as concrete evidence of a different path taken.

In a nutshell:

• Art resists categorization, optimization, and numbness.
• In an efficient world, art reintroduces friction.
• Artists work within life’s enigmas — not around them.
• Art helps us lose our resistance — to feel again.
• In the age of AI, art keeps us human.

There’s a tweet I wrote years ago that still rings true for me today:

Science is how the world works; art is how the world feels, as work.

I’ve always seen art as more than just a practice — it’s a mindset. It’s a kind of “work” that is less of a job, and more of a way of life. It’s a way of staying alert to the world, of picking up on the subtle shifts in culture, technology, and emotion. Where design often calibrates itself to what’s practical, art has this wonderful tendency to push past what’s comfortable, into the territory of the unknown. That’s where growth begins.

Art isn’t about decoration. It’s about disruption.

When things feel too tidy, art reminds us to shake the table — to ask harder questions instead of settling for easy answers. In that way, art is less about solving a problem and more about seeing the problem differently. The only way to do that is to, as we say in the foundational model AI world, “set temperature to high.”

Art is a disorder, to diss order.

Even in our AI-driven age — or maybe especially now — art matters. It reminds us we’re human. It reintroduces ambiguity, emotion, and nuance into systems that crave efficiency and certainty. In my experience, some of the best engineers I’ve worked with are secret artists. They know how to improvise. They know how to feel their way through a problem. They understand that sketching — whether with a pencil or a line of code — isn’t just about drawing something. It’s about learning while doing.

Art matters because it provokes questions rather than answers, offers freedom of perspective, and brings humanism into technology and innovation. It contributes to shaping culture, connecting people, and inspiring change.

That’s why I’ve long been an advocate for STEAM, not just STEM. Art and design aren’t accessories to science and tech — they’re central. They’re what bring soul into the system. They help us build not just faster or smarter things, but better things. More human things.

Art making doesn’t easily fit into a well-defined box, both figuratively and literally.

And I think that’s the point. Art resists categorization. Art resists optimization. Art resists.

In a world increasingly designed to remove friction and reduce noise, art insists on slowing us down, shaking us up, and making us feel. It doesn’t just resist the system — it reminds us there’s more to life than conforming and growing numb to our environment.

Because what we need now isn’t more efficiency — it’s more feeling. More reflection. More connection. We’ve grown too good at resisting what makes us human. Art helps us unlearn that. It helps us lose our resistance — to feel again. That’s what art does best. — JM