This is my blog regarding our first class for graduate seminar fall 2011. The first book we read and discussed was called The Railway Journey by Wolfgang Schivelbusch. The book was published in 1977-86 but I found it to be as relevant today as ever. The train itself, if we never knew what it was could serve as the perfect visual metaphor for our mechanized existence. One passage that stood out was one describing the idea that there could be no "play" in the alignment of the train wheel and the track. the slightest mal-alignment could result in catastrophe. I believe this is an adequate symbol for the metaphysical (mostly unseen) consequences of our drive to be first, faster, better, best. We have tried to outmaneuver the whims and timing of nature believing all along that if we are wrong nature will remind us immediately with failure. Nature (so to speak) does not abide by humans misinterpretation of any or all phenomena . I was also struck by the idea that the train for the first time was a manifestation of humans entering (physically) the industrial machine in a literal sense (we became parcels and consumers of a product which was the destruction of time and space). Entering, as it were, the industrial umbrella. In ways, if one reads any variety of Marx's ideas about industrialized capitalism, this metaphor (the train) adequately captures the "trap" we've all willingly entered. The larger question is, what is it about the human that has allowed us to willing enter this unknown so quickly for the sake of SPEED? Why must humans outpace" natural" velocity and inertia? Has it made life freer and easier? I'm sure it has not. Where is the real trap? The train or the human?
First thoughts on Wanderlust. I'm thinking about those in power wanting discourse to take place more or less indoors. Then I think of the market women of the revolution, Confucius , Socrates, Jesus, civil rights marchers,the person standing in front of a tank at Tiananmen Square. Those in power if one refers to the Railway Journey would prefer we remain "parcels" in our movements through space.
When discourse takes place indoors it takes place under the thumb of power. Watched a show on TV called "Who Was Jesus?". It was a secular view. Jesus walked the streets and disrupted the money changers in the temples ( i can't help but visualize some person walking into a Walmart and just ripping things apart violently. He spoke of the hypocrisy of those religious figures and their lip service and opulent lifestyles while the oppressed remained voiceless. the average christian would not approve of Jesus or his methods. Speak on the streets and those in power get nervous. I am not religious but Jesus was a political figure more than some guy with a funky halo and nicely coifed locks.
Travel is less important than arrival: this has a direct connection to our contemporary relationship with “process”. Is anything to be gained from process? Walking six flights of stairs to find a book and find the correct passage versus a Google search. When the process is stripped from a destination is its inherent meaning stripped as well?
Life is moving faster than the speed of thought: does this throw the idea of what qualifies as “thought” into question or is thought degenerating into “reaction”. I can't help but think about cable news and what seems to be reactionary discourse. I suppose this is not entirely new but it seems as if it is more difficult to locate accessible yet original ideas used in political discourse.
The incalculable is what gives life value and or vitality: if life was immediately quantifiable it seems in ways that would be a form of death. Without the “in-betweens “ from one resolution to the next at least life would seem less alive. Goals! Corporations are goal oriented not life oriented.
Leisure is being crushed under the anxiety to produce (from Wanderlust). Which in turn means we have lost an understanding or ability to play. When we do play (video games) it is in a way finite. There are specific walls within which one operates in the realm of play.
Thoughts move or better yet “saunter” much as the pace of a walk. A walk without destination constitutes the actions of aesthetic synthesis chiefly because aesthetic synthesis is a journey with no defined destination. this synthesis serves as a question. I relate this to what Rilke wrote regarding questions. He encouraged Kappus to love and live the questions. this seems to be antithetical to Global Capitalism which has been reduced to appropriation, duplication without synthesis or translation. Maybe this is relative in some ways to a seemingly prevalent anti-intellectual zeitgeist. If we set finite goals and destinations we only become practiced at setting goals. Once we “arrive” the next goal has been set and no moments in which to absorb, examine or translate experience.
In Wanderlust, Solnit refers to phenomenologist, Edmund Husserl writing that walking allows us to “ understand our body in relationship to world". This is about the walk serving to recontextualizing ourselves through the act of walking. Juxtaposing a self to illicit new contexts and meaning. Fresh revelations about self are highlighted and made available.
A place is difficult to grasp/realize without walking to that place. Walking the steps of a library. The walk delineates the makeup of a place. A walk to a place defines the spiritual, “unperceivable” underpinnings of a place. The spirit of place is felt.
Gardens I saw Rebecca Solnits writing on the garden as an interesting manifestation of the western world’s impulse to control nature, remain outside of nature while more indigenous peoples live within nature as part of a whole. The western world believes in the superiority of the human species and their art reflects that value. Indigenous people respected the characteristics of the natural world and were grateful for its reciprocation. It seems this is perhaps why westerners were on the forefront in the development of industrialism that seems to serve as an enormous symbol of our (innate?) arrogance. Maybe industrialism was not part of the “natural” continuum of the human species but a horrible glitch and bad joke on us only destined to eventually implode. Maybe we should make an effort to qualify the nature of our values. Why do we not make use of our ability to anticipate unintended consequences? I’d like to venture a guess. We are so amazed by ourselves and in our arrogance we’ve become blind. In the book "Duchamp" by Calvin Tomkins he quotes Duchamp as saying," We are so fond of ourselves, we think we are little gods of the earth- I have my doubts, that's all". Now we need to investigate what the unintended consequences of unguarded exponential growth in technology may bring. Yes, people are investigating these things but no one is really listening. Therefore maybe there needs to be bridges built to reveal these potential dark sides in more accessible ways. While some thinkers need to explore these ideas without restraint and unabridged there needs to be a few (artists, writers etc.) who attempt to make these prognostications more accessible. The idea of the walk could not be more relevant in a time in which many concepts developed during postmodern times are being called into question. I found Nicolas Bouriard explored this idea as it may relate to the walk in his 2004 book "The Radicant". He is troubled by the propensities to appropriate multicultural motifs without bothering to translate those cultural products. How does this relate to a walk? To walk any given expanse is in of itself a sort of narrative. The expanse is defined and unfolds through the act of walking. A map on the other hand may serve as a metaphor for postmodern expression in a relative comparison. The map serves as only a symbol of that space. It may serve, in a sense, as a colonial construction allowing humans to “control” the space it represents. A map symbolizes human’s mastery of space. A map represents the space as little more than a motif. It is also a tool with an emphasis on “arrival” (end) and a dismissal of the potential benefit of the means of arrival. For Bouriard, postmodernism was about the destination as a static place emptied of meaning.
Mountains The mountain serves as an exquisite symbol for the west's impulse to control and dominate. It also served as an appropriate counter weight to the walk. The mountain can represent some of the ideas about authenticity, perception and illusion in image. I remember in about 2003 reading a book by historian John Lukacs called The End of an Age. In this book Lukacs uses the mountain as a metaphor regarding how written history can be deceptive. He writes that the horizon line of a single mountain changes according to where one is positioned in relation to the mountain. This points out the instability of “truths” as all truths are manifest in how they are expressed and from what angle. Again I must refer to one of my favorite passages from Tomkin's bio on Duchamp, "Chance, random order, and game playing, those familiar tools of the contemporary artist, have invaded scientific methodology, and many of the familiar laws of science have become shaky as Duchamp liked to think they were. " In spite of Einstein," as the cultural historian O.B. Hardison Jr., put it, " it is fair to say that the dominant movement of twentieth-century science, especially mathematics, physics, and cosmology, has been away from certainties and toward masks and games." Early in his career Duchamp stopped taking science seriously. "We have to accept those so-called laws of science because it makes life more convenient, but that doesn't mean anything as far as validity is concerned. Maybe its all just an illusion. the word 'law' is against my principles. Science is so evidently a closed circuit, but every fifty years or so a new 'law' is discovered that changes everything." This instability inherent in perceptions of the nature of mountains opens it to a variety of manipulations. It seems to be an appropriate symbol of western human's desire to appropriate the symbols of greatness for no other reason than the claim of greatness. To scale a height that few if any have achieved becomes a symbol of greatness while providing no inherent benefit. I couldn’t help but be reminded of an advertisement made in the late 70’s or early 80’s featuring tennis star Andre Agassi promoting a camera. At the end of the ad Agassi recites the slogan “Image is Everything”. I thought at the time it was an excellent slogan for a camera and it seemed to be especially appropriate for the time which seemed to be the time the postmodern project was coming into its own. It also seems relative to American's cult of trophys and awards. I remember growing up our family had a trophy case in our family room filled with golf, football, tennis and wrestling trophys. I also recall a golf tournament in which my brother participated. In his category the contestants were comprised of one opponent and himself. My brother lost to the opponent however there was a trophy allowed for first and second place. Technically he lost yet it was proudly displayed in our home trophy case.
A few comments on the Walter Benjamin essay, "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".
Photography reduced the human component necessary for artistic production to the eye, thereby allowing creative process to move at the speed of perception. What happens to aesthetic synthesis when one no longer needs to synthesize perception “brick by brick”, so to speak, much as layers of paint are required to allow an image to emerge as it were? Is perception and creative synthesis compromised? The photograph allows for arrival without journey, at least from a formal perspective. It seems now we work with layers of fully resolved images to articulate meaning. I’m not quite sure how to, or if it is even necessary to qualify this development. Without a requirement for aesthetic synthesis, though, does the artist lose something?
Marinetti wrote “War is beautiful because it establishes man’s dominion over the subjugated machinery by means of gas masks, terrifying megaphones, flame throwers, and small tanks." If this is true of the aesthetics of modern warfare I ask two questions , what are the aesthetic components of hand to hand combat and what are the aesthetic components of contemporary methods of warfare? (I.E. what are the aesthetics humans face to face with the intention to kill the other and what is the aesthetic of a human sitting in an office in Las Vegas dropping bombs in Iraq as if it were a video game only to go out to Taco Bell for lunch with "co-warriors". I once thought to myself that is we were not aware of what is was, the sounds of an ancient battlefield would provide the perfect symphony.
Notes from Rilke's, Letters to a Young Poet. This is one of the first passages that stood out to me; "When a truly great and unique spirit speaks , the lesser ones must be silent". I'd be interested to see if anyone was struck by this as a bit anti-egalitarian and a bit of an homage to the "master".
More thoughts on Letters to a Young Poet. I'm trying to understand all the possible implications in this passage, " We are utterly alone in the things that are the most important". First of all, this presents perhaps part of the struggle I am encountering in my own studio practice. I have just completed my midway exhibition and am having several critiques by members of my committee and my graduate studio practice instructor. Several of the views expressed were similar while having their own shades and hues. I also felt the comments ignited things that were vibrating in the back of my mind. However, now I have to decide how to act on these comments. I have to sit in my studio and, in a sense, render myself "utterly alone". Does this mean I must operate in a vacuum? I don't believe so. I believe it takes a kind of emotional maturity or something related to understand how to act on VALID comments made regarding my work. During my first year of graduate school I just made work to find "answers" , so to speak. Perhaps I need just a bit of quiet time to allow some digestion. Ultimately, though I'm thinking my most salient work may be manifest somewhere outside the realm of intentions (or maybe its a blend). This brings me to a passage on page 28 of the book, " innocently unaware of his best virtues". I guess this means a lot of my job is in creating a fertile field of play to allow some things to occur on their own? Of course, I am not sure. How do I defend a question mark?
I have mixed emotions about some of the passages and their implications. Several of them reminded me to varying extents of a book I was given a while ago called "Everyday Zen". It was given to me by someone who thought I needed to adopt more of a zen approach to life. On page 84 of the Rilke book he writes that "there are no traps or snares set for us; nothing that could frighten or torture us. There is no reason to untrust our world". This seems to fly directly in the face of my current (far more tragically rendered) thesis regarding the human's inescapable conundrum. I TRY to find the Hallmark Card ending to the human story and have yet to find it. I can't help but often feel that humans are a minor species.
Thoughts on Ben Shahn's, "The Shape of Content" : One of the first interesting passages that stood out for me was Shahn's observation that both The Soviets AND Americans are technocracies. This rings very true to me and I believe to a large extent it may be the source of our demise. Technocracies are hard and rigidly wired. When the going gets really tough (as it is now) there will be little bend, only break. Our country is in crisis and decline and I believe this is largely due to our (as Shahn describes it) "art blindness".
It is also interesting to see Shahn pointing out our significant similarity to the Soviets while they seemed to represent the core of all we fear and despise. Is there such a thing as collective self hatred?
As a country, why are we not creative? Or maybe better yet, why are we afraid of it? Chaos is a central component of the creative process which is in turn antithetical to the American industrial and post industrial project, right? Precise control of all variables and risk management are the hallmarks of successful capitalist practice. That idea is burnished into our overarching value set. Mimicry is the core value. Theoretically mimicry is frowned upon while it is our defining characteristic. Nonconformity is our battle cry but it flys in the face of all we are about in act. Nonconformity is celebrated until someone employs it.
I am and have been very interested in the social realist's intention to prevent their work from becoming "ingrown" as Shahn writes. I have been interested in George Grosz's work for several years and recall his feelings about the need for accessible art. I'm interested in how this may be relevant in contemporary art and culture in general. What may serve as relevant examples of contemporary social realism? Would Shepard Fairey serve as an adequate example? Has the zeitgeist of contemporary art become too "ingrown"? I wonder what the consequences are when the hub of the art world (so to speak) separates itself from the masses. Does this underscore and inspire the masses to become even more of a technocracy? I've been around many current commercial artists (many trained in two year technical art schools) who resent the fine art world and many others who pay virtually no attention at all to what contemporary fine artists are doing these days. Should people from both ends of the spectrum try to build a few bridges or is a further uncompromised divide ok?
I guess the nonconformity piece in this book may be about an artist's provocations about broad issues that have no perceived urgency to the public. When those viewing the work realize that their hair is not in flames as a result of some malady or social ill an artist brings to light they figure they can ignore it for now and later never arrives.
The idea of deglamorizing the genius stood out. I've felt for a while that it has become a grossly overused term in the first place. I've read certain Hollywood directors be described as geniuses over time and after working there for a few years seeing the sausage being made first hand I found the ground barely fertile for genius to blossom. This, in turn probably makes authentic genius more difficult to cultivate much less harvest.
I am interested in the idea of repression and restraint shaping content. I have found a few interesting paradoxes since coming to grad school last year. I find myself in a studio "free" to do as I pleased after years of being lead by the nose in my work. Without realizing it I started to feel myself building my own traps and restraints. A self imposed prison would/could be built if I let it. To indulge in "freedom" without restraint is possibly the ultimate trap. I need to build some restraints on occasion.
A few comments regarding the book by Guy Debord "Society of the Spectacle. Section 19 states that precise technical rationality may lie at the heart of the illusionary project of spectacle. I can't help but think that it is this westernized form of rational thought that has lead to many of the absurdities we observe and experience continually. Are humans really meant to negotiate the physical world in this "precise" mathematical architecture? It may provide the a sense of efficiency without providing a way of measuring or detecting any much less all unintended consequences. How significant are these consequences that seem to inevitably become exposed and manifest over time?
I guess I can add to this. I suppose its this pretense of linear precision which is still pervasive that in actuality is such a clumsy way of negotiating phenomenon in many if not all forms. Corporations have a very difficult time employing collective "finesse" and to compensate they must use a hyper form of micro precision that rams a problem into closure. Rarely has a company been able to address issues the way a brilliant musician plays a piano. Or perhaps the way an athlete performs at his/her peak. Without this finesse the consequences never seem to be immediately apparent. It is much more insidious. It seems to be manifest dormantly as what I would call a CTD ( Corporately Transmitted Disease). It slowly eats away at the psyche of the individual and collective of the corporation.
This is my blog regarding our first class for graduate seminar fall 2011. The first book we read and discussed was called The Railway Journey by Wolfgang Schivelbusch. The book was published in 1977-86 but I found it to be as relevant today as ever. The train itself, if we never knew what it was could serve as the perfect visual metaphor for our mechanized existence. One passage that stood out was one describing the idea that there could be no "play" in the alignment of the train wheel and the track. the slightest mal-alignment could result in catastrophe. I believe this is an adequate symbol for the metaphysical (mostly unseen) consequences of our drive to be first, faster, better, best. We have tried to outmaneuver the whims and timing of nature believing all along that if we are wrong nature will remind us immediately with failure. Nature (so to speak) does not abide by humans misinterpretation of any or all phenomena .
ReplyDeleteI was also struck by the idea that the train for the first time was a manifestation of humans entering (physically) the industrial machine in a literal sense (we became parcels and consumers of a product which was the destruction of time and space). Entering, as it were, the industrial umbrella. In ways, if one reads any variety of Marx's ideas about industrialized capitalism, this metaphor (the train) adequately captures the "trap" we've all willingly entered. The larger question is, what is it about the human that has allowed us to willing enter this unknown so quickly for the sake of SPEED? Why must humans outpace" natural" velocity and inertia? Has it made life freer and easier? I'm sure it has not. Where is the real trap? The train or the human?
First thoughts on Wanderlust. I'm thinking about those in power wanting discourse to take place more or less indoors. Then I think of the market women of the revolution, Confucius , Socrates, Jesus, civil rights marchers,the person standing in front of a tank at Tiananmen Square. Those in power if one refers to the Railway Journey would prefer we remain "parcels" in our movements through space.
ReplyDeleteWhen discourse takes place indoors it takes place under the thumb of power. Watched a show on TV called "Who Was Jesus?". It was a secular view. Jesus walked the streets and disrupted the money changers in the temples ( i can't help but visualize some person walking into a Walmart and just ripping things apart violently. He spoke of the hypocrisy of those religious figures and their lip service and opulent lifestyles while the oppressed remained voiceless. the average christian would not approve of Jesus or his methods. Speak on the streets and those in power get nervous. I am not religious but Jesus was a political figure more than some guy with a funky halo and nicely coifed locks.
ReplyDeleteMore notes and thoughts on the book Wanderlust...
ReplyDeleteTravel is less important than arrival: this has a direct connection to our contemporary relationship with “process”. Is anything to be gained from process? Walking six flights of stairs to find a book and find the correct passage versus a Google search. When the process is stripped from a destination is its inherent meaning stripped as well?
Life is moving faster than the speed of thought: does this throw the idea of what qualifies as “thought” into question or is thought degenerating into “reaction”.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but think about cable news and what seems to be reactionary discourse. I suppose this is not entirely new but it seems as if it is more difficult to locate accessible yet original ideas used in political discourse.
The incalculable is what gives life value and or vitality: if life was immediately quantifiable it seems in ways that would be a form of death. Without the “in-betweens “ from one resolution to the next at least life would seem less alive. Goals! Corporations are goal oriented not life oriented.
ReplyDeleteLeisure is being crushed under the anxiety to produce (from Wanderlust). Which in turn means we have lost an understanding or ability to play. When we do play (video games) it is in a way finite. There are specific walls within which one operates in the realm of play.
ReplyDeleteThoughts move or better yet “saunter” much as the pace of a walk. A walk without destination constitutes the actions of aesthetic synthesis chiefly because aesthetic synthesis is a journey with no defined destination. this synthesis serves as a question. I relate this to what Rilke wrote regarding questions. He encouraged Kappus to love and live the questions. this seems to be antithetical to Global Capitalism which has been reduced to appropriation, duplication without synthesis or translation. Maybe this is relative in some ways to a seemingly prevalent anti-intellectual zeitgeist. If we set finite goals and destinations we only become practiced at setting goals. Once we “arrive” the next goal has been set and no moments in which to absorb, examine or translate experience.
ReplyDeleteIn Wanderlust, Solnit refers to phenomenologist, Edmund Husserl writing that walking allows us to “ understand our body in relationship to world". This is about the walk serving to recontextualizing ourselves through the act of walking. Juxtaposing a self to illicit new contexts and meaning. Fresh revelations about self are highlighted and made available.
ReplyDeleteA place is difficult to grasp/realize without walking to that place. Walking the steps of a library. The walk delineates the makeup of a place. A walk to a place defines the spiritual, “unperceivable” underpinnings of a place. The spirit of place is felt.
ReplyDeleteGardens
ReplyDeleteI saw Rebecca Solnits writing on the garden as an interesting manifestation of the western world’s impulse to control nature, remain outside of nature while more indigenous peoples live within nature as part of a whole. The western world believes in the superiority of the human species and their art reflects that value. Indigenous people respected the characteristics of the natural world and were grateful for its reciprocation.
It seems this is perhaps why westerners were on the forefront in the development of industrialism that seems to serve as an enormous symbol of our (innate?) arrogance. Maybe industrialism was not part of the “natural” continuum of the human species but a horrible glitch and bad joke on us only destined to eventually implode. Maybe we should make an effort to qualify the nature of our values. Why do we not make use of our ability to anticipate unintended consequences?
I’d like to venture a guess. We are so amazed by ourselves and in our arrogance we’ve become blind. In the book "Duchamp" by Calvin Tomkins he quotes Duchamp as saying," We are so fond of ourselves, we think we are little gods of the earth- I have my doubts, that's all". Now we need to investigate what the unintended consequences of unguarded exponential growth in technology may bring. Yes, people are investigating these things but no one is really listening. Therefore maybe there needs to be bridges built to reveal these potential dark sides in more accessible ways. While some thinkers need to explore these ideas without restraint and unabridged there needs to be a few (artists, writers etc.) who attempt to make these prognostications more accessible.
The idea of the walk could not be more relevant in a time in which many concepts developed during postmodern times are being called into question. I found Nicolas Bouriard explored this idea as it may relate to the walk in his 2004 book "The Radicant". He is troubled by the propensities to appropriate multicultural motifs without bothering to translate those cultural products. How does this relate to a walk? To walk any given expanse is in of itself a sort of narrative. The expanse is defined and unfolds through the act of walking. A map on the other hand may serve as a metaphor for postmodern expression in a relative comparison. The map serves as only a symbol of that space. It may serve, in a sense, as a colonial construction allowing humans to “control” the space it represents. A map symbolizes human’s mastery of space. A map represents the space as little more than a motif. It is also a tool with an emphasis on “arrival” (end) and a dismissal of the potential benefit of the means of arrival. For Bouriard, postmodernism was about the destination as a static place emptied of meaning.
Mountains
ReplyDeleteThe mountain serves as an exquisite symbol for the west's impulse to control and dominate. It also served as an appropriate counter weight to the walk. The mountain can represent some of the ideas about authenticity, perception and illusion in image.
I remember in about 2003 reading a book by historian John Lukacs called The End of an Age. In this book Lukacs uses the mountain as a metaphor regarding how written history can be deceptive. He writes that the horizon line of a single mountain changes according to where one is positioned in relation to the mountain. This points out the instability of “truths” as all truths are manifest in how they are expressed and from what angle. Again I must refer to one of my favorite passages from Tomkin's bio on Duchamp, "Chance, random order, and game playing, those familiar tools of the contemporary artist, have invaded scientific methodology, and many of the familiar laws of science have become shaky as Duchamp liked to think they were. " In spite of Einstein," as the cultural historian O.B. Hardison Jr., put it, " it is fair to say that the dominant movement of twentieth-century science, especially mathematics, physics, and cosmology, has been away from certainties and toward masks and games." Early in his career Duchamp stopped taking science seriously. "We have to accept those so-called laws of science because it makes life more convenient, but that doesn't mean anything as far as validity is concerned. Maybe its all just an illusion. the word 'law' is against my principles. Science is so evidently a closed circuit, but every fifty years or so a new 'law' is discovered that changes everything."
This instability inherent in perceptions of the nature of mountains opens it to a variety of manipulations. It seems to be an appropriate symbol of western human's desire to appropriate the symbols of greatness for no other reason than the claim of greatness. To scale a height that few if any have achieved becomes a symbol of greatness while providing no inherent benefit. I couldn’t help but be reminded of an advertisement made in the late 70’s or early 80’s featuring tennis star Andre Agassi promoting a camera. At the end of the ad Agassi recites the slogan “Image is Everything”. I thought at the time it was an excellent slogan for a camera and it seemed to be especially appropriate for the time which seemed to be the time the postmodern project was coming into its own. It also seems relative to American's cult of trophys and awards.
I remember growing up our family had a trophy case in our family room filled with golf, football, tennis and wrestling trophys. I also recall a golf tournament in which my brother participated. In his category the contestants were comprised of one opponent and himself. My brother lost to the opponent however there was a trophy allowed for first and second place. Technically he lost yet it was proudly displayed in our home trophy case.
A few comments on the Walter Benjamin essay, "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".
ReplyDeletePhotography reduced the human component necessary for artistic production to the eye, thereby allowing creative process to move at the speed of perception. What happens to aesthetic synthesis when one no longer needs to synthesize perception “brick by brick”, so to speak, much as layers of paint are required to allow an image to emerge as it were? Is perception and creative synthesis compromised? The photograph allows for arrival without journey, at least from a formal perspective.
It seems now we work with layers of fully resolved images to articulate meaning. I’m not quite sure how to, or if it is even necessary to qualify this development. Without a requirement for aesthetic synthesis, though, does the artist lose something?
Marinetti wrote “War is beautiful because it establishes man’s dominion over the subjugated machinery by means of gas masks, terrifying megaphones, flame throwers, and small tanks."
ReplyDeleteIf this is true of the aesthetics of modern warfare I ask two questions , what are the aesthetic components of hand to hand combat and what are the aesthetic components of contemporary methods of warfare? (I.E. what are the aesthetics humans face to face with the intention to kill the other and what is the aesthetic of a human sitting in an office in Las Vegas dropping bombs in Iraq as if it were a video game only to go out to Taco Bell for lunch with "co-warriors".
I once thought to myself that is we were not aware of what is was, the sounds of an ancient battlefield would provide the perfect symphony.
Notes from Rilke's, Letters to a Young Poet.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the first passages that stood out to me; "When a truly great and unique spirit speaks , the lesser ones must be silent". I'd be interested to see if anyone was struck by this as a bit anti-egalitarian and a bit of an homage to the "master".
Overall, I thought there were many nuggets of wisdom in this book but it did hover into sentimentality and an overly romanticized perspective.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMore thoughts on Letters to a Young Poet. I'm trying to understand all the possible implications in this passage, " We are utterly alone in the things that are the most important". First of all, this presents perhaps part of the struggle I am encountering in my own studio practice. I have just completed my midway exhibition and am having several critiques by members of my committee and my graduate studio practice instructor. Several of the views expressed were similar while having their own shades and hues. I also felt the comments ignited things that were vibrating in the back of my mind. However, now I have to decide how to act on these comments. I have to sit in my studio and, in a sense, render myself "utterly alone". Does this mean I must operate in a vacuum? I don't believe so. I believe it takes a kind of emotional maturity or something related to understand how to act on VALID comments made regarding my work. During my first year of graduate school I just made work to find "answers" , so to speak. Perhaps I need just a bit of quiet time to allow some digestion. Ultimately, though I'm thinking my most salient work may be manifest somewhere outside the realm of intentions (or maybe its a blend). This brings me to a passage on page 28 of the book, " innocently unaware of his best virtues". I guess this means a lot of my job is in creating a fertile field of play to allow some things to occur on their own? Of course, I am not sure. How do I defend a question mark?
ReplyDeleteI have mixed emotions about some of the passages and their implications. Several of them reminded me to varying extents of a book I was given a while ago called "Everyday Zen". It was given to me by someone who thought I needed to adopt more of a zen approach to life. On page 84 of the Rilke book he writes that "there are no traps or snares set for us; nothing that could frighten or torture us. There is no reason to untrust our world". This seems to fly directly in the face of my current (far more tragically rendered) thesis regarding the human's inescapable conundrum. I TRY to find the Hallmark Card ending to the human story and have yet to find it. I can't help but often feel that humans are a minor species.
ReplyDeleteThoughts on Ben Shahn's, "The Shape of Content" :
ReplyDeleteOne of the first interesting passages that stood out for me was Shahn's observation that both The Soviets AND Americans are technocracies. This rings very true to me and I believe to a large extent it may be the source of our demise. Technocracies are hard and rigidly wired. When the going gets really tough (as it is now) there will be little bend, only break. Our country is in crisis and decline and I believe this is largely due to our (as Shahn describes it) "art blindness".
It is also interesting to see Shahn pointing out our significant similarity to the Soviets while they seemed to represent the core of all we fear and despise. Is there such a thing as collective self hatred?
ReplyDeleteAs a country, why are we not creative? Or maybe better yet, why are we afraid of it? Chaos is a central component of the creative process which is in turn antithetical to the American industrial and post industrial project, right? Precise control of all variables and risk management are the hallmarks of successful capitalist practice. That idea is burnished into our overarching value set.
ReplyDeleteMimicry is the core value. Theoretically mimicry is frowned upon while it is our defining characteristic. Nonconformity is our battle cry but it flys in the face of all we are about in act. Nonconformity is celebrated until someone employs it.
I am and have been very interested in the social realist's intention to prevent their work from becoming "ingrown" as Shahn writes. I have been interested in George Grosz's work for several years and recall his feelings about the need for accessible art. I'm interested in how this may be relevant in contemporary art and culture in general. What may serve as relevant examples of contemporary social realism? Would Shepard Fairey serve as an adequate example? Has the zeitgeist of contemporary art become too "ingrown"? I wonder what the consequences are when the hub of the art world (so to speak) separates itself from the masses. Does this underscore and inspire the masses to become even more of a technocracy? I've been around many current commercial artists (many trained in two year technical art schools) who resent the fine art world and many others who pay virtually no attention at all to what contemporary fine artists are doing these days. Should people from both ends of the spectrum try to build a few bridges or is a further uncompromised divide ok?
ReplyDeleteI guess the nonconformity piece in this book may be about an artist's provocations about broad issues that have no perceived urgency to the public. When those viewing the work realize that their hair is not in flames as a result of some malady or social ill an artist brings to light they figure they can ignore it for now and later never arrives.
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ReplyDeleteThe idea of deglamorizing the genius stood out. I've felt for a while that it has become a grossly overused term in the first place. I've read certain Hollywood directors be described as geniuses over time and after working there for a few years seeing the sausage being made first hand I found the ground barely fertile for genius to blossom. This, in turn probably makes authentic genius more difficult to cultivate much less harvest.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in the idea of repression and restraint shaping content. I have found a few interesting paradoxes since coming to grad school last year. I find myself in a studio "free" to do as I pleased after years of being lead by the nose in my work. Without realizing it I started to feel myself building my own traps and restraints. A self imposed prison would/could be built if I let it. To indulge in "freedom" without restraint is possibly the ultimate trap. I need to build some restraints on occasion.
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ReplyDeleteIntentions. I am interested in Shahn's views on intentions forming values and wonder if, in fact, our values are the sum of unINTENDED consequences.
ReplyDeleteA few comments regarding the book by Guy Debord "Society of the Spectacle. Section 19 states that precise technical rationality may lie at the heart of the illusionary project of spectacle. I can't help but think that it is this westernized form of rational thought that has lead to many of the absurdities we observe and experience continually. Are humans really meant to negotiate the physical world in this "precise" mathematical architecture? It may provide the a sense of efficiency without providing a way of measuring or detecting any much less all unintended consequences. How significant are these consequences that seem to inevitably become exposed and manifest over time?
ReplyDeleteI guess I can add to this. I suppose its this pretense of linear precision which is still pervasive that in actuality is such a clumsy way of negotiating phenomenon in many if not all forms. Corporations have a very difficult time employing collective "finesse" and to compensate they must use a hyper form of micro precision that rams a problem into closure. Rarely has a company been able to address issues the way a brilliant musician plays a piano. Or perhaps the way an athlete performs at his/her peak. Without this finesse the consequences never seem to be immediately apparent. It is much more insidious. It seems to be manifest dormantly as what I would call a CTD ( Corporately Transmitted Disease). It slowly eats away at the psyche of the individual and collective of the corporation.
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