Author Description

David Walsh owns a cricket bat autographed by stars of the 1980s: Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee, Viv Richards and Abdul Qadir to name a few. David shows his mates and they refuse to bowl at him. 'You can't play cricket with that!' they cry. 'Of course I can, it's a fucking cricket bat,' he replies. He's wrong, of course, and he knows it. Not only does he know it's a special cricket bat-an unsigned bat cannot take its place-it's no longer really a cricket bat at all.This is not an exhibition about cricket. But the status of David's non-cricket bat brings certain questions into focus. Why are we drawn to certain objects and people? What makes the big names big: Porsche, Picasso or Pompidou? What is the nature of status and why is it useful? One possible explanation is essentialism, which is the sense that things and people have an essence, spirit or soul, that transcends their material state. Figuring out whether or not this can provide an accurate description of the world isn't really our objective; essentialism appears to be more about perception, the way we think about things.Are things-like cricket bats, works of art, books, and other special objects-meaningful to us as a proxy for this essence? Is that why we (people in general) love originalé, and get upset about fakery, not to mention modern art that thwarts detection of 'the artist's hand'?This is where status and our ferocious human pursuit of looking good in the eyes of others come into play. A fundamental component of creativity appears to be its use as a status enhancer, for attracting appropriate mates and allies-which is biologically useful. This is why we believe namedropping, signalling for status by association-be it for getting sex, power, enhanced reputation or in-group identity-is probably a universal human instinct. Social position is a life and death matter for human beings. Put simply, we are not evolved to survive and thrive alone. We're born with brains primed to think about what other people t