Meeting an artwork at the right time and place can unlock new reserves of understanding. However, the same work in a different setting can bring you down like a black banana peel.

Let’s take music as an example. What happens when melody is mixed with new people and places? Stan Getz can drop the temperature in Goa, while bossa nova on tiny speakers can heat up a Québec ice shanty. Listening to Kind of Blue might feel clichéd in New York but subversive in Moscow. Raw funk can reveal both the absurdity of a too-precise train station and the logic of Kolkata’s chaos.

Books can also color a journey. Ducking into Philip Roth’s or Don DeLillo’s America, for example, can help you measure how far you are from home (and motivate you to stay on the road). When native speakers of your language are scarce, a book can provide rich conversation–it’s no surprise we contemplate desert island reads.

What about when you and your story have the same location? Reading about a place while visiting it can help you spot details you would have overlooked. But you also risk having the real and the written fail to gel, creating disillusionment, dissonance, or frustration (with either the work or the place).

How about movies? If you watch a Western movie while immersed in a non-Western culture, you might see home in a new light (the theater experience contributes, too). With such insights, it becomes easier to spot cultural contrasts and similarities–a step toward understanding and acceptance. Be prepared, though: While movies can help build appreciation, they can also trigger envy, discomfort, impatience, or homesickness (for starters).

How have music, books, movies, and other art affected the way you experience a place? Have you realized any benefits or drawbacks to feeding such work into your brain while traveling? What intersections of art and place have floored you?

Photo by occ4m via Flickr.