bleeding edge experimentation or blinkered bullshit ???

[kaden]

Experimentation without plan or intent?

Not wanting to get all Heisenbergish or anything, but that doesn't actually seem possible. The mere act of setting out to 'experiment' makes it a planned event. Trying to figure out how to 'experiment' without 'plan or intent' ("right, Field recordings, 12 sided dice and image-to-wav conversions of roadkill stains...that'll be *damned* experimental") becomes a planned event.

As a genre, Experimental music ain't no different from tarnce in its suffering from rigidly applied genre restrictions applied by self-appointed 'experts in the field'. In the case of experimental music, the overwhelming concern is more with the process than the product. A 12 minute swathe of white noise, microtonal arpeggios and discretely processed stellar radiation executed in MAX/MSP is hailed as breakthough innovation. The identical piece done with freeware VSTs and a circuitbent speak and spell is 'artschool rubbish'.

Waddayagonnado?

Play, don't worry...


K

[vurt]

Play, don't worry...


K

the bobby mcFerrin classic?

[dystonia_ek]

I've often been accused of making experimental music. In fact, though, I think there are some subtle dividing lines in the work of many people working in unusual areas that have maybe not been considered.

For myself, the experimentation happens when I'm trying out some kind of sound generation process. By the time these processes are actually used in a composition, they are tried and true, and so there is no experimentation in the actual finished work AT ALL. Any random artifacts that arise do so within a set of more or less predictable limitsm and are therefore subject to control. Most people I have talked to who work in similar areas say more or less the same thing.

Second of all, the absence of traditional musical structures or forms does not necessarily imply abstraction - if anything I think it's less abstract in the sense that it's not so much tied to some sort of arbitrary theory, and it strives for a kind of objectivity of approach. The most structured music is generally more 'abstract' in the sense of being farther from some sort of naturally occurring form.

Where I draw the line with this sort of thing is when the 'experimental' phase goes directly to release, resulting in a load of directionless sonic scribbles - I think this is the sort of thing that is being widely criticised here.

As for the bleeding edge, that's just peoples obsession with novelty. Nothing is really new, most of the time.

[kaden]

Mick Ronson's solo album, as I recall.

K

[jens]

how I hate this crap - shitting from the brain and calling it 'art'

What's your idea of art then Jens?

whoah - though question

I could write pages and pages about it...

first of all in is something which comes from the inside and goes to the outside - but that's actually only half of the truth - it is also something that comes from the outside and goes to the inside.
(speaking from the viewpoint of the artist)

Actually art is a personally coloured paraphrasing of reality and a combination of different aspects of reality.
You could say it's patchwork of experiences, thoughts and emotions.

A simple example:

It's autumn and you go out for a walk. There are a lot of leaves lying on the floor. Suddenly you feel this typical sadness you always feel when it's autumn and you go out alone for a walk. But you enjoy it. It makes you feel alive. You feel the seconds and hours, days and years pass through yourself as you see it pass through the trees of the avenue you just walk along. It makes you think of long passed days and what has happened to them. Of course you know they're simply gone forever and a melancholia fills your heart you couldn't put into words.

You're a painter and of course there's a need within you to transform this strong emotion you're just experiencing into a painting.

You go home and two days later your new painting is ready and you feel relieved and elevated. People who look at it can at least partially feel the melancholia which made you creating it. Your painting makes you share something with them.


Sorry for the banally formulated example but english isn't my native language

[munchkin]

I think this defines the difference between experimental music and noodling. There is an intent behind the experimentation. A plan that is thought out in a rigourous manner. I imagine that's how Stockhausen and Cage approached their compositions. And that's what's expected from an artist whether they are of the sonic variety or from another area of art.

in YOUR opinion i guess ... i think its absolutely wrong to assume that ALL experimental art (of whatever nature - my background is in visual / fine art so thats whats in my mind as i type this) must be expected to stem from a rigourous intellectual plan or concept ... to do so is to deny (as you point out in the 2nd half of your post) the visceral / emotional impact of art in favour of cold intellectualism ... to SOME extent at least

I don't believe this has to be how art should be created but preparation and intent are hallmarks of modernism in all it's guises. Intent is a staple of every fine art and sonic arts course the world over. An artist won't get away with creating something on one of these courses without attempting to explain his/her intent and methadology.

Howard Barker attacks this fetishism for meaning. He attacks the national theatre for promoting this type of play. He locates this ideology in the educational and state sponsered structures in society. You offer Rothko as an example of emotion over intent but that's how he is fetishised. He is as calculating as Mondrain. And he fits into his category, developed with his collusion, by the sponsers of art.

I don't believe that an experimental artist or musician will ever succeed unless their peers validate their art. Art doesn't exist in isolation. Art is successful because it's co-opted by those who decide what has meaning in society. Whether we like to acknowledge this or not.

[RTaylor]

I think this defines the difference between experimental music and noodling. There is an intent behind the experimentation. A plan that is thought out in a rigourous manner. I imagine that's how Stockhausen and Cage approached their compositions. And that's what's expected from an artist whether they are of the sonic variety or from another area of art.

in YOUR opinion i guess ... i think its absolutely wrong to assume that ALL experimental art (of whatever nature - my background is in visual / fine art so thats whats in my mind as i type this) must be expected to stem from a rigourous intellectual plan or concept ... to do so is to deny (as you point out in the 2nd half of your post) the visceral / emotional impact of art in favour of cold intellectualism ... to SOME extent at least

Depends on who you're talking about.

Mondrian was obsessive. If you've ever looked through a 200 page book of his art you'll know that. His goal was to represent reality in the simplest terms possible. Basically, anyway... It's purely an academic thing. So's his intent.

Kandinsky took an approach that's pretty appropriate in light of *this* context. ...And is very appropriate to the new forms of multimedia art that lurk on the horizon. ...One of the reasons I decided that I needed to learn music in order to animate. People used to tell me that my paintings looked like music. I'm taking that to one literal end.
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kandinsky.html

Ernst used experimentation to generate ideas and images. His intent was to generate images that were experimental but that he ultimately influenced the direction of. I do the same with both video and audio... Many of us do. I generate long streams of random sound then make something out of it. ...Sort of like ordering chaos. :} Makes me feel a bit god-like.
http://www.abcgallery.com/E/ernst/ernst52.html
Ernst strikes me as really appropriate to today.

You really need to look to early modernism for truly valid experimental art... It still has some innocence and humanity about it. Later modernism {the stuff everyone hates} starts to get far too contrived... too cold and intellectual. It somehow stops being an expression of anything human and begins to be nothing more than intellectual exercises {ie: "This is one way to represent this".} ...cold and calculating and lacking in passion and depth.

It sort of forgets, as Faulkner put it, "The Sound and the Fury".

This rocks by the way

[dystonia_ek]

I don't believe that an experimental artist or musician will ever succeed unless their peers validate their art. Art doesn't exist in isolation. Art is successful because it's co-opted by those who decide what has meaning in society. Whether we like to acknowledge this or not.

That's the conventional wisdom, given that most artists need a lot of ego-stroking to 'validate' them.

As for this pop/non-pop thing, this is only a recent phenomenon. Music has existed for thousands of years for a multitude of reasons and purposes - now everyone has decided that Western music of the latter half of the 20th century is the benchmark by which all else is deemed valid or not?

[nuffink]

Anybody ever spent a while in the Seagram Murals room in the Tate?

[RTaylor]

Second of all, the absence of traditional musical structures or forms does not necessarily imply abstraction - if anything I think it's less abstract in the sense that it's not so much tied to some sort of arbitrary theory, and it strives for a kind of objectivity of approach. The most structured music is generally more 'abstract' in the sense of being farther from some sort of naturally occurring form.

Definition 1 #6
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=abstract

[RTaylor]

That's the conventional wisdom, given that most artists need a lot of ego-stroking to 'validate' them.

What movie is this from?

[RTaylor]

You offer Rothko as an example of emotion over intent but that's how he is fetishised. He is as calculating as Mondrain. And he fits into his category, developed with his collusion, by the sponsers of art.

This Rothko?
http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/rothkosplash.html

[nuffink]

You offer Rothko as an example of emotion over intent but that's how he is fetishised. He is as calculating as Mondrain. And he fits into his category, developed with his collusion, by the sponsers of art.

This Rothko?
http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/rothkosplash.html

Yep. D'you like it?

[Wopelka]

IMO, any piece of art is valid as an expression.

what can be judged? the technical qualities, not the expression.

what can be analyzed? the constructions and the intents of the author, not the expression.

expression is just a subjective issue. does it fit your taste or not?

personally i like experimental arts because they tend to offer new worlds, new sensations, new ways of thinking, new points of view.

[RTaylor]

This Rothko?
http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/rothkosplash.html

Yep. D'you like it?

Not especially. Most colorfield folk fall under my definition of "late modernism". I think the whole movement could have easily been summed up in one painting.

In music it would be the same as one long tone. {Or in the case of the painting that's at the end of that link... 3 long tones.

That may be ok for one experiment but if the music world were to suddenly produce nothing but "tones". I doubt any of us would react very well.