bleeding edge experimentation or blinkered bullshit ???

[hjack]

... entranceway ...

... did you just said, "entranceway" ?

[Lunch Money]

There is just way too much stuff out there and it is naive and arrogant to think that you can come up with something that hasn't already been done.

Is it more arrogant than thinking we already know it all?

The happy medium is to not care if we know it all or not, which I believe is what Bones was actually saying.

(OK... enough posts for me until there are more responses... I don't want to hog the thread, though I'm quite enjoying it!)


Are you sure I didn't say, "entarnceway"?

Greg

[ouroboros]

very true! What do you teach Mr.Money?

Ideally, I'm a high school English teacher, though I have also taught Junior High English at a private school. Right now, I'm a grade 6 math teacher, though. Stupid Ottawa school board... I also teach grade 2 English at the moment, but tonight I was grading their latest project, "My Hallowe'en Counting Book", and I was hard pressed to find high art.



Greg

Hooray! You have my thanks, my respect, and my sympathy I come from a family of teachers, and my in-laws are both Canadian teachers.
[/quote]

[RTaylor]

There's no craftsmanship... there's nothing in it to admire. ...Nothing to respect. Certainly nothing to pay for.

Only one man's opinion, though, innit? I admire it, and I respect Barnett Newman. I wouldn't pay 1.2 million, but I'd pay for it.

Because of the fine craftsmanship? What do you find to be admirable in it?

And from a business point of view, it was a worthwhile purchase. There's absoloutely NO denying that. It's cold hard figures for an accountant, and after poring through the data, the only conclusion they'd be able to reach is, "Yup, it has more than paid for itself!"

Even from a strictly art point of view-- you look at it, go "huh?" and then later in your walk around the Gallery, you see something that makes you go, "Now THIS is art!" Worthwhile, no?

No.

Still, I don't want to detract from a purely artistic argument, in which I would still maintain that it has merit.

What is a "purely artistic" argument for colorfield?

Even the theory's only mildly interesting. It's the sort of thing someone might hang in their studio to cover a drafty window or something. Why in the world would anyone expect the public to take a years long series of the same painting seriously.

Apparently they do, and they did. You simply don't have the same perspective and opinion, but you can't transfer your personal thoughts onto another individual, or onto the public!

Apparently they don't and didn't. That was the end of modernism.

But, by the same token, it could be more liberating than anything else.

Indeed, it could! It very well could! Perhaps Barnett Newman liberated himself when he restricted himself to two colours. How are we to know what his intensely personal experience of painting the Voice of Fire was? The fact that it's available for public consumption doesn't change the idea that it might have been liberating and artistically redeeming for him to create it.

Graphite enforces the same restrictions. Pen and ink does to an even higher degree.

Creativity is also found in restricting yourself to a convention, just as easily as it is found in restricting yourself to 'non-convention'. My students are ALWAYS amazed and impressed in poetry class when they are given a structured poem to write (ie. a sonnet). With very few exceptions, they find it more inspiring and the end product more artistic than their "free form" poetry.

Creativity in bondage? What if you were to restrict them to two words? I'd think that the reason they might see a structured poem as more artistic is because it reads like what a poem is "supposed" to read like.

I don't see that an experimental artist has any restrictions.

Yes! It's audacity.

Duchamp's first readymade was audacious. The first colorfield painting was audacious.

The second of each was boring.

[ouroboros]

Creativity in bondage? What if you were to restrict them to two words? I'd think that the reason they might see a structured poem as more artistic is because it reads like what a poem is "supposed" to read like.

I don't see that an experimental artist has any restrictions.

Yes! It's audacity.

Duchamp's first readymade was audacious. The first colorfield painting was audacious.

The second of each was boring.

restrictions are a part of all creativity though. While 2 words might be too little, many Jewish and Christian people find immense artistry in the phrase "I Am". Besides, is there any such thing as completely unbounded experimenting? Practically speaking, perhaps, but not ultimaely.

"To be experimental" seems predicated upon convention, even if it is a reaction to it.

The artist always seems to be responding to some convention, whether it is a formal theory or school of thought, or the constrains of one's own emotions (or psyche for that matter).


I would agree though, with your second point, that many artistic endeavors, once they "break" convention, may leave little to appreciate beyond the tresspass. But that isn't true of all art. I still find both Mondrian fascinating and viscerally pleasing despite the intense abstraction and codification of his art.

[RTaylor]

There is just way too much stuff out there and it is naive and arrogant to think that you can come up with something that hasn't already been done.

Is it more arrogant than thinking we already know it all?

The happy medium is to not care if we know it all or not, which I believe is what Bones was actually saying.

That is what the "no originality" argument presumes.

The "happy medium" is in accepting it as a possibility and goal and even an artists responsiblity but understanding that it's only a relative condition. It occurs in varying degrees. More is sometimes better.

{Now I gotta' feel like a thread hog. :}}

[Lunch Money]

Tsk, tsk, RT... you're bordering on becoming obstinate instead of presenting a convincing argument.

I enjoy Voice of Fire. That's artistic merit enough. I don't really NEED any other proof... and to ask for it is bizarre. That's like asking someone to 'prove' why they like any particular artist. I like it. End of story.

As for Audacity, you must've missed seeing the impish grin on my face... I wasn't saying that Barnett Newman or the Voice of Fire is audacious at all. I was saying that it takes real audacity to publicly decry something you haven't researched. And it was audacity that the public forced the Art Gallery into 'protecting' its piece of art.

Regarding graphite and pen and ink... yes, I agree! I'm not sure how that's a refutation, though.

As for the creativity to be found in restriction... it's unfortunate that you don't see how liberating it can be, but I can't convince you of that. It's something you have to experience for yourself. Haiku is a very restricted form, but I never feel more free than when I'm writing Haiku. (For the purists, yes I'm aware that Japanese haiku using Kanji is a higher form than our scrawl!)

"Experimental" music CAN in fact have many restrictions. For example, if you say to yourself, "I can't use a I-IV-V chord progression because it's the epitome of pop/rock cliche" then you've restricted yourself. What if the song called for it? If taken to the extreme, you end up with atonality. Some people LOVE atonality. I don't, and I would feel rather constricted trying to make something that sounds wonky just for the sake of it.

At the end of the day, art is about expression. If my emotion is best conveyed with a melancholy song in Em with a sparse piano arrangement that nonetheless follows a fairly conventional chord progression, then that is how it shall be written.

So yes, there CAN be chains other than those of 'convention'.

Greg

[RTaylor]

Creativity in bondage? What if you were to restrict them to two words? I'd think that the reason they might see a structured poem as more artistic is because it reads like what a poem is "supposed" to read like.

I don't see that an experimental artist has any restrictions.

Yes! It's audacity.

Duchamp's first readymade was audacious. The first colorfield painting was audacious.

The second of each was boring.

restrictions are a part of all creativity though.

Why's that?

While 2 words might be too little, many Jewish and Christian people find immense artistry in the phrase "I Am".

The context says all sorts of things.

Besides, is there any such thing as completely unbounded experimenting? Practically speaking, perhaps, but not ultimaely.

Probably not. You always have practical limits. They're just assumed.

"To be experimental" seems predicated upon convention, even if it is a reaction to it.

The artist always seems to be responding to some convention, whether it is a formal theory or school of thought, or the constrains of one's own emotions (or psyche for that matter).

I don't follow. Where does that come from?

Why is that {psyche} a constraint in art?

I would agree though, with your second point, that many artistic endeavors, once they "break" convention, may leave little to appreciate beyond the tresspass. But that isn't true of all art.

I'm not saying that at all... I think those two premises are really weak. I think a lot of Duchamp's stuff is brilliant.

I still find both Mondrian fascinating and viscerally pleasing despite the intense abstraction and codification of his art.

:} Mondrian rocks. You've seen Vasarley's stuff?

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/va ... ictor.html

[Lunch Money]

While 2 words might be too little, many Jewish and Christian people find immense artistry in the phrase "I Am".

The context says all sorts of things.

Art in two words:

Hope
Nope.

I would agree though, with your second point, that many artistic endeavors, once they "break" convention, may leave little to appreciate beyond the tresspass. But that isn't true of all art.

I'm not saying that at all... I think those two premises are really weak. I think a lot of Duchamp's stuff is brilliant.

Don't know Duchamp, but the premises themselves aren't that weak. If breaking convention is the only redeeming element to an artist's work, then it's not particularly good art. It doesn't mean that ALL experimental art only has this 'trespass' going for it... but if it DOES then it's awfully weak art.

[vurt]

do what you do
if you enjoy it yourself who gives a flying fistweasel if anyone else thinks its art or not or experimental

[Lunch Money]

do what you do
if you enjoy it yourself who gives a flying fistweasel if anyone else thinks its art or not or experimental

I think that's what I was trying to say...

Never was very good at doing so in few words.

Thanks, Vurt!

[vurt]

no probs!we aim to please

[RTaylor]

Tsk, tsk, RT... you're bordering on becoming obstinate instead of presenting a convincing argument.

I enjoy Voice of Fire. That's artistic merit enough. I don't really NEED any other proof... and to ask for it is bizarre. That's like asking someone to 'prove' why they like any particular artist. I like it. End of story.

:} Isn't that evasive. I'm not asking for proof... I'm just asking what you find to be appealing about it. Which stripe do you like best?

As for Audacity, you must've missed seeing the impish grin on my face... I wasn't saying that Barnett Newman or the Voice of Fire is audacious at all. I was saying that it takes real audacity to publicly decry something you haven't researched. And it was audacity that the public forced the Art Gallery into 'protecting' its piece of art.

It doesn't read that way.

Regarding graphite and pen and ink... yes, I agree! I'm not sure how that's a refutation, though.

It's not refuting anything... merely saying that it's not a particularly interesting experiment. Two colors has been explored to death.

As for the creativity to be found in restriction... it's unfortunate that you don't see how liberating it can be, but I can't convince you of that. It's something you have to experience for yourself. Haiku is a very restricted form, but I never feel more free than when I'm writing Haiku. (For the purists, yes I'm aware that Japanese haiku using Kanji is a higher form than our scrawl!)

I don't deal well with restrictions.

"Experimental" music CAN in fact have many restrictions. For example, if you say to yourself, "I can't use a I-IV-V chord progression because it's the epitome of pop/rock cliche" then you've restricted yourself. What if the song called for it? If taken to the extreme, you end up with atonality. Some people LOVE atonality. I don't, and I would feel rather constricted trying to make something that sounds wonky just for the sake of it.

These are self imposed.

At the end of the day, art is about expression. If my emotion is best conveyed with a melancholy song in Em with a sparse piano arrangement that nonetheless follows a fairly conventional chord progression, then that is how it shall be written.

So yes, there CAN be chains other than those of 'convention'.

Greg

You chose the form... this is not restrictive.

[RTaylor]

Don't know Duchamp, but the premises themselves aren't that weak. If breaking convention is the only redeeming element to an artist's work, then it's not particularly good art. It doesn't mean that ALL experimental art only has this 'trespass' going for it... but if it DOES then it's awfully weak art.

Why do you need to prove recontextualization more than once?

What's interesting about the second colorfield painting?

[Caleb]

What a thread.

Funny thing - art.

Such analytic thought is usually reserved for the critic rather than the artist no?

I think in an environment like K-v-R there isn't any pressure to be anything in particular - you don't even have to be self-analytical.

Is there snobbery? Probably somewhere - I can't imagine why there wouldn't be in a group so large. But I seem to notice enough people appreciating pop in the Cafe threads not to make the pop writers feel ignored and I've noticed enough sonic manglers to appreciate the more well mangling works etc. etc.

That's what makes K-v-R pretty good actually - where one person is turning his/her nose up another is opening his/her arms.

I like pop and indie pop or whatever those sub-genres are called: strong melodies, vocals, meaningful lyrics, counter-melodies, chord progressions etc..

However, I also like testing myself a bit by listening to things I don't usually "get" - some of the 12 mins sonic-scapes produced with one VSTi on one chord with all the movement programmed into the patch are quite often a bit much for me - but I at least try to listen to 3 or 4 minutes. But I can see that alot of people here really like listening to things like this which is cool.

I know I wouldn't like to live in a world where everyone was the same as me. What a f**ked up place that would be.

Caleb