Initiated by Dallas artist Carolyn Sortor, the Pls, I’m Trying to Think Institute (PITTI) was invented as an umbrella for art-related projects in any or all mediums including reality. The Institute believed art to be as vital to survival as math or any other discipline and focussed on art because that’s what it liked. It speculated that “art” can usefully be defined to include anything that deploys non-literal means of expression while aiming more at creating or sharing enlightenment and/or beauty, and/or at making the world more the way artists might prefer it, rather than at manipulation.