Berkeley Talks: Art is a ‘strange tool’ that reveals us to ourselves

“Life and art are entangled,” says UC Berkeley philosopher Alva Noë. “Art works us over, art makes us new. Art makes us.” By Public Affairs September 19, 2025 In his 2023 book The Entanglement , UC Berkeley philosopher Alva Noë argues that human nature is not a fixed phenomenon, and that art acts as a kind of “strange tool” that actively changes us.  “Life and art are entangled,” says Noë, who spoke about his research at a Berkeley event in June 2023. “To say that life and art are entangled is to say not only that we make art out of life, all the habits and systems and meanings and certainties, but that art then works these raw materials over — art works us over, art makes us new. Art makes us.” When we take an everyday object, like a photo, out of its normal setting and hang it in a new place, like an art gallery, it allows us to “reflect on everything our ordinary lives with pictures conceals,” says UC Berkeley philosopher Alva Noë. Unsplash In this Berkeley Talks episode, Noë discusses how humans are in a constant state of becoming, and that art works to unveil us
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