For al­most a year now, cul­ture has been par­a­lyzed due to the Coro­na pan­dem­ic — apart from a few in­ter­rup­tions and open-air episodes. That’s not on­ly bor­ing, it’s al­so bad for the brain.

“Leisure ac­tiv­i­ties” is what many politi­cians call cul­tur­al events be­fore and dur­ing the coro­na pan­dem­ic. And they were met with a lot of op­po­si­tion. And right­ly so. Be­cause whether it’s con­certs, ex­hi­bi­tions or stage plays : Cul­ture is much more than en­ter­tain­ment, dis­trac­tion or so­cial dis­course. Cul­ture is nour­ish­ment : for the soul and the mind. But not least al­so for the brain.Culture helps in every way to stim­u­late the func­tion­al ar­eas in the brain, it stim­u­lates our per­cep­tion, our think­ing. You can say that cul­ture takes place in the brain.

Of course, cul­ture can al­so be ex­pe­ri­enced at home, in front of the lap­top, the TV or when you get cre­ative your­self. But the brain works much more ex­ten­sive­ly when it does so to­geth­er with oth­er peo­ple. Then the brain re­leas­es neu­ro­trans­mit­ters like oxy­tocin or calm­ing sub­stances like sero­tonin. Be­cause when­ev­er we ex­pe­ri­ence cul­ture to­geth­er with oth­er peo­ple, the brain is ready to learn some­thing — so­cial­ly, cul­tur­al­ly — much more than when we do it alone or in front of a vir­tu­al screen.

If this shared cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ence is miss­ing, then the neu­ro­cock­tail in the brain gets mixed up, then our mood clouds over and then much less of cer­tain mes­sen­ger sub­stances are re­leased. We ex­pe­ri­ence less joy and find it hard­er to con­cen­trate. Dig­i­tal so­lu­tions are okay to a cer­tain ex­tent to keep in touch at all, but they are not bi­o­log­i­cal so­lu­tions. We lack the warmth of the blood and life it­self. It helps us not to get lost, but it’s not help­ful to re­al­ly feel life. And to feel life means to feel one­self while per­ceiv­ing it.

SLUG­GISH AND UNBALANCED

The artists al­so feel that, and so does the Berlin band Shirley Holmes. Be­ing on the road, on tour, look­ing the au­di­ence in the eye — that usu­al­ly char­ac­ter­izes the band’s week­ends. The ex­pe­ri­ences with the band are al­ways about cre­at­ing some­thing to­geth­er with oth­ers, with the fel­low mu­si­cians, but al­so with the or­ga­niz­ers, the crew, the fans. There is a con­stant ex­change, a con­stant broad­en­ing of hori­zons. You could say that cul­ture cre­ates synaps­es. Since none of this is hap­pen­ing at the mo­ment, the band mem­bers are slow­ly notic­ing how they are be­com­ing more lethar­gic. Mu­si­cians still feel like mak­ing mu­sic and writ­ing songs, but with­out up­com­ing con­certs, they some­times spend af­ter­noons just hang­ing out and eat­ing choco­late and be­ing unbalanced.

But there is one piece of good news in all of this : if shared ex­pe­ri­enced cul­ture can hap­pen again, the brain will im­me­di­ate­ly re-en­gage with it. So, the brain will im­me­di­ate­ly re­mem­ber how it used to be, how fer­til­iz­ing, how warm­ing, how alive, then, when the gates are opened again, it will first bub­ble up. And that is a com­fort­ing prospect.