17 Aug
2013
17 Aug
'13
7:18 a.m.
Ralf wrote:
There's a difference between art and tools
released for the public. Art,
excepted of the crap on the radio, should not suit to
anything.
Interesting comment, off topic from the original thread so I'll spawn a new
one.
I don't entirely agree that art should not suit to anything. I come to feel
more and more that art doesn't exist without a subculture, and people make
art/music/fashion etc to appeal to one or more subcultures. There are
possible exceptions (Harry Partsch, perhaps) but I'd argue those are
extremely rare.
Many western classical composers in the early twentieth century argued for
"music for its own sake" -- music that captures a glimpse of the Eternal
and thus whose artistic merit transcends human relationships. But of
course, it's all tap-room banter without a community of musicians and
listeners who agree with that idea! So this was just another musical
culture (which sought to pretend that it was beyond culture).
This is, of course, not to say that artists must obey subcultural
expectations and have no autonomy. Most (western) musical subcultures value
surprise (except the aforementioned generic radio pop). I think artistic
autonomy is always in a balance, or tension, with the artist's chosen
scene. One of the decisions an artist has to make is where to position
herself on the continuum between participating in a musical community
(adhering to its standards) and critiquing its norms or expanding the
subculture's boundaries. Many are not aware that this is a choice -- hence
the bands or singers who sound just like everybody else in the genre. But
part of my point is that participating in a musical culture is not "less
than" breaking molds.
All this is from a western perspective, of course. Some non-European
musical cultures (I'm thinking of the amazing music of the Aka pygmies)
seem to place no value at all on individual autonomy in music... that is,
autonomy is not a universal value.
hjh
17 Aug
17 Aug
11:53 a.m.
On Sat, 2013-08-17 at 13:18 +0800, James Harkins wrote:
Ralf wrote:
> There's a difference between art and tools released for the public.
> Art, excepted of the crap on the radio, should not suit to anything.
This is a simplified statement. I guess it's Woody Allen's "Hannah and
Her Sisters" were somebody wanted to buy a painting, that should fit to
the color of the sofa. Design isn't the same as art, handcrafts isn't
the same as art. Sure, art you like will fit to your psyche, but it's
not the target to please people, it should give people a wake call.
Regards,
Ralf
12:05 p.m.
On Sat, 2013-08-17 at 11:53 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Sat, 2013-08-17 at 13:18 +0800, James Harkins
wrote:
PS: Still simplified, entertainment can be art too and shouldn't give
people a wake call, but just entertain ;). It's an extensive subject and
the boarder between art and not art is without any transition. Folk art
e.g. does have all kinds of "tasks", one is to suite, to decorate.
Ralf wrote:
> There's a difference between art and tools released for the public.
> Art, excepted of the crap on the radio, should not suit to anything.
This is a simplified statement. I guess it's Woody Allen's "Hannah and
Her Sisters" were somebody wanted to buy a painting, that should fit to
the color of the sofa. Design isn't the same as art, handcrafts isn't
the same as art. Sure, art you like will fit to your psyche, but it's
not the target to please people, it should give people a wake call.
3:37 p.m.
Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf@...> writes:
On Sat, 2013-08-17 at 13:18 +0800, James Harkins
wrote:
Part of my point is that this wake-up call depends on the existence of an
audience (even if only a small audience) that *wants* a wake-up call -- an
audience that takes pleasure in getting smacked upside the head with something
they never heard before. The wake-up call function of music may be a feature
of this or that musical subculture, but I'm not sure that it has any meaning
independent of a musical community that supports it.
hjh
Ralf wrote:
> There's a difference between art and tools released for the public.
> Art, excepted of the crap on the radio, should not suit to anything.
This is a simplified statement. I guess it's Woody Allen's "Hannah and
Her Sisters" were somebody wanted to buy a painting, that should fit to
the color of the sofa. Design isn't the same as art, handcrafts isn't
the same as art. Sure, art you like will fit to your psyche, but it's
not the target to please people, it should give people a wake call. 
8:04 p.m.
On Sat, 17 Aug 2013, James Harkins wrote:
I don't entirely agree that art should not suit to
anything. I come to
feel more and more that art doesn't exist without a subculture, and
people make art/music/fashion etc to appeal to one or more
subcultures. There are possible exceptions (Harry Partsch, perhaps)
but I'd argue those are extremely rare.
I'd agree completely with that. In fact, that may be exactly what's
been wrong with pop music since about 1997 or so -- there is no
subculture. In fact, apart from the electronic(a) movement and its
various sub-genres, the one thing that immediately strikes me about pop
music after grunge is that it has no name, no statement, no people, no
look, and no intent. It's just a bunch of a assorted songs from various
labels which, while they all seem to be trying to co-opt some sort of
look or feel from the past, don't actually have anything in common or
seem to be in unison trying to say anything. In all the years that rock
music (and its offspring) have existed since 1955 or so, that has never
happened before, and is probably the best argument that rock music has
stopped evolving and has become like jazz -- an important style that's
well on its way at this point to being taught in college courses. The
last prevalent style movement that had a name and a look and a
subculture was grunge/alternative in the mid-90's. Fashion and music
have been on auto-pilot ever since, for lack of any concrete direction.
(I wasn't much of a fan of grunge, so I'm not defending it as some sort
of golden age -- just acknowledging that it was a real rock movement,
and it looks like maybe the last one ever.)
Many western classical composers in the early
twentieth century argued
for "music for its own sake" -- music that captures a glimpse of the
Eternal and thus whose artistic merit transcends human relationships.
But of course, it's all tap-room banter without a community of
musicians and listeners who agree with that idea! So this was just
another musical culture (which sought to pretend that it was beyond
culture).
One could actually argue that the musical conservatory type culture they
had created between themselves and their audiences was a subculture in
itself, with far more direction than the post-1997 top-40.
The ironic thing about all of this is that the most potent rock
subculture ever, the psychedelic period in the 60's, was very political,
and happened in an evironment that's very similar to where we are now --
questionable foreign wars, questionable executive branch practices (from
both parties), massive popular disapproval of the US government.
Except this time, music and art is strangely silent about it all. One
would think in times like these, artists would not need to be coaxed to
make a statement.
--
+ Brent A. Busby + "We've all heard that a million monkeys
+ Sr. UNIX Systems Admin + banging on a million typewriters will
+ University of Chicago + eventually reproduce the entire works of
+ James Franck Institute + Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet,
+ Materials Research Ctr + we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky
8:31 p.m.
On Sat, August 17, 2013 11:04 am, Brent Busby wrote:
The ironic thing about all of this is that the most
potent rock
subculture ever, the psychedelic period in the 60's, was very political,
and happened in an evironment that's very similar to where we are now --
questionable foreign wars, questionable executive branch practices (from
both parties), massive popular disapproval of the US government.
Except this time, music and art is strangely silent about it all. One
would think in times like these, artists would not need to be coaxed to
make a statement.
The thing is, we do not live in a democracy. We seem to have a practical
anarchy. That is whoever has the biggest stick leads. (whatever that stick
might be) A lot of that stick seems to belong to those who release music
and other art, who have seen these things as a way of training the main
population to act a certain way that will meet their ends. Where are the
singer/songwriters? They are still around, but not on the
radio/itunes/record store/whatever. One has to search for self-released
stuff on private web sites for the most part. I would suggest that
political art that is counter power is actively suppressed. Even through
small acts like forcing utube to remove content for copyright purposes
without any need of proof. Protests are squashed much more
quickly/violently now too, and protestors labelled as terrorists. The
average radio artist is chosen for their malleability and told very firmly
what songs they will sing and how those songs will be represented in a
video. They have the name "star", but they are just an employee.
--
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net
9:13 p.m.
On Sat, 2013-08-17 at 11:28 -0700, Len Ovens wrote:
The thing is, we do not live in a democracy. We seem
to have a practical
anarchy. That is whoever has the biggest stick leads. (whatever that stick
might be) A lot of that stick seems to belong to those who release music
and other art, who have seen these things as a way of training the main
population to act a certain way that will meet their ends. Where are the
singer/songwriters? They are still around, but not on the
radio/itunes/record store/whatever. One has to search for self-released
stuff on private web sites for the most part. I would suggest that
political art that is counter power is actively suppressed. Even through
small acts like forcing utube to remove content for copyright purposes
without any need of proof. Protests are squashed much more
quickly/violently now too, and protestors labelled as terrorists. The
average radio artist is chosen for their malleability and told very firmly
what songs they will sing and how those songs will be represented in a
video. They have the name "star", but they are just an employee.
Full ACK, but btw. in the 60s there already was a great rock'n'roll
swindle. Snobs like Malcolm McLaren already started before the 70s with
their capitalistic fraud.
9:05 p.m.
On Sat, 2013-08-17 at 13:04 -0500, Brent Busby wrote:
grunge
Hi Brent :)
I was born in 1966, IOW I'm from the so called "generation x" and btw.
I'm a rock/pop musician. "Grunge" is a name invented by music reviewers,
they needed to pigeonholed something they completely didn't understand.
There is a mainstream calling itself grunge, but don't call the
"subculture" "grunge", some consider this as insult. Don't worry,
I
don't care about it.
There's no clear boarder between art and not art.
At the moment John Zorn's statement "Jazz Snobs Eat Shit" comes to mind,
too funny that he became a snob himself. At some point art can become
non-art. FWIW Rock music only can be learned in the streets, forests
etc., but not in a school.
Lauri Anderson: "Talking about music is like dancing about
architecture."
Let's make what we consider to be art, instead of talking about it ;).
Regards,
Ralf
9:24 p.m.
On Sat, 17 Aug 2013, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
I was born in 1966, IOW I'm from the so called
"generation x" and btw.
I'm a rock/pop musician. "Grunge" is a name invented by music
reviewers, they needed to pigeonholed something they completely didn't
understand. There is a mainstream calling itself grunge, but don't
call the "subculture" "grunge", some consider this as insult.
Don't
worry, I don't care about it.
Oh I know. New wave (and its derivitives) were the same way -- the
artists mostly hated the term, and some say it was an invention of Sire
Records. It's still what everybody ended up calling it though. Grunge
was probably more an invention of Viacom (who were directing MTV by that
time instead of Time/Warner before them) rather than any kind of a real
movement in Seattle, but it still ended up being something big with a
look and a sound to it, and people in the population who had adopted it,
even if its start was a bit contrived.
On the other hand, if there's a popular social movement somewhere behind
2000's pop music, I've missed it.
--
+ Brent A. Busby + "We've all heard that a million monkeys
+ Sr. UNIX Systems Admin + banging on a million typewriters will
+ University of Chicago + eventually reproduce the entire works of
+ James Franck Institute + Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet,
+ Materials Research Ctr + we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky
10:30 p.m.
On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 2:05 PM, Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net>wrote;wrote:
Lauri Anderson: "Talking about music is like
dancing about
architecture."
When Laurie Anderson said that on a radio special promoting Home Of The
Brave (I happen to have the vinyl) she attributed it to Steve Martin, which
(surprisingly) is wrong. Nobody knows who said it first, but variations on
it go back at least the turn of the LAST century.
That's why it has been attributed to everybody from Anderson to Zappa to
various journalists; it's more of an "old saying" than a contemporary
quote.
http://www.pacifier.com/~ascott/they/tamildaa.htm
--
DJ Dual Core's Blog
http://oldmixtapes.blogspot.com/
Order without government; Peace without violence.
19 Aug
19 Aug
7:38 p.m.
On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 2:05 PM, Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net>wrote;wrote:
There's no clear boarder between art and not art.
Whether something is art or not is typically a bogus question. This kind
of argument confuses whether something "is" art with its quality as art.
The evidence that something is art is that it has been composed or intended
as art.
If you want to further remove the role of its creator from that definition,
you can say that whether something is or is not art is simply self-evident.
Everything else is in your interpretation and your judgment of its
qualities.
17 Aug
17 Aug
9:33 p.m.
On 08/17/2013 08:04 PM, Brent Busby wrote:
But making political statements doesn't go well with individualism. A
lot of artists barely make statements, they only make music centered
around themselves. I think this tendency also contributes to the fact
that no new exciting genres pop up anymore. Artists are so busy with
themselves that they barely care about what others are doing.
Jeremy
On Sat, 17 Aug 2013, James Harkins wrote:
There have been pop music sub-cultures after grunge, like postrock,
mathrock and emo for example. Especially emo was a very big subculture
with quite some influence on contemporary music and even fashion since
it was the emo kids that started wearing skinny jeans and shirts, had
their hair like Justin Bieber when he was still in his diapers, boosted
the sales of classic Vans shoes and made the so-called 'sleeve' popular
(fully tattood arm). Besides their own clothing code they also had their
own dance (anyone recall violent dancing?). But postrock and mathrock
and all of its sub-genres (like jazzcore, what's in a name) are indeed
genres that are like jazz. So I'd say emo was the last prevalent style
movement that didn't co-op a look or feel from the past.
I don't entirely agree that art should not
suit to anything. I come to
feel more and more that art doesn't exist without a subculture, and
people make art/music/fashion etc to appeal to one or more
subcultures. There are possible exceptions (Harry Partsch, perhaps)
but I'd argue those are extremely rare.
I'd agree completely with that. In fact, that may be exactly what's
been wrong with pop music since about 1997 or so -- there is no
subculture. In fact, apart from the electronic(a) movement and its
various sub-genres, the one thing that immediately strikes me about pop
music after grunge is that it has no name, no statement, no people, no
look, and no intent. It's just a bunch of a assorted songs from various
labels which, while they all seem to be trying to co-opt some sort of
look or feel from the past, don't actually have anything in common or
seem to be in unison trying to say anything. In all the years that rock
music (and its offspring) have existed since 1955 or so, that has never
happened before, and is probably the best argument that rock music has
stopped evolving and has become like jazz -- an important style that's
well on its way at this point to being taught in college courses. The
last prevalent style movement that had a name and a look and a
subculture was grunge/alternative in the mid-90's. Fashion and music
have been on auto-pilot ever since, for lack of any concrete direction.
(I wasn't much of a fan of grunge, so I'm not defending it as some sort
of golden age -- just acknowledging that it was a real rock movement,
and it looks like maybe the last one ever.)
Many western
classical composers in the early twentieth century argued
for "music for its own sake" -- music that captures a glimpse of the
Eternal and thus whose artistic merit transcends human relationships.
But of course, it's all tap-room banter without a community of
musicians and listeners who agree with that idea! So this was just
another musical culture (which sought to pretend that it was beyond
culture).
One could actually argue that the musical conservatory type culture they
had created between themselves and their audiences was a subculture in
itself, with far more direction than the post-1997 top-40.
The ironic thing about all of this is that the most potent rock
subculture ever, the psychedelic period in the 60's, was very political,
and happened in an evironment that's very similar to where we are now --
questionable foreign wars, questionable executive branch practices (from
both parties), massive popular disapproval of the US government. Except
this time, music and art is strangely silent about it all. One would
think in times like these, artists would not need to be coaxed to make a
statement.
19 Aug
19 Aug
7:55 a.m.
On Aug 18, 2013 2:04 AM, "Brent Busby" <brent(a)keycorner.org> wrote:
The ironic thing about all of this is that the most
potent rock
subculture ever, the psychedelic period in the 60's, was very
political,
and happened in an evironment that's very similar to where we are now --
questionable foreign wars, questionable executive branch practices (from
both parties), massive popular disapproval of the US government. Except
this time, music and art is strangely silent about it all. One would think
in times like these, artists would not need to be coaxed to make a
statement.
I just chanced across a quote that seems relevant:
http://www.npr.org/2013/08/18/212609212/a-dystopian-view-of-americas-fallen…
~~
On what [Patrick Flanery] wants readers to take away from Fallen Land
"I wanted the book to speak to a kind of crisis in neighborliness, and
thinking about the ways in which people are becoming so inward-looking, and
the ways in which it's incredibly easy — I think in part because of
technology — not to think about what's happening around us. And that's not
just thinking about security but thinking about who needs help. So it's
almost about a crisis of empathy with the people that we should be looking
out for but who we fail to look out for in fairly fundamental ways."
~~
... inward-looking... it's incredibly easy not to think about what's
happening around us...
I'm guilty of that myself.
hjh
17 Aug
17 Aug
11:15 p.m.
On 08/16/2013 07:18 PM, James Harkins wrote:
Ralf wrote:
In the Western music history, music was very much part of the culture
and community (not a subculture!), universally part of building cultural
cohesion. Look at folk and dance music going way back. Modern example,
for me, is square dance music. The "modern" disco-style emphasis on
individuals standing out is a late arriving alien.
Nothing made by humans is beyond culture, since all humans are embedded
in at least one culture. Even if an individual is rebelling against
their culture, their rebellion is formed by the culture they're
rebelling against.
My non-musical artist daughter says that if a piece of art doesn't
communicate, it's not art; it's just a "spot on the wall."
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://dancingtreefrog.com
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/
There's a difference between art and tools
released for the public.
Art, excepted of the crap on the radio, should not suit to
anything.
Interesting comment, off topic from the original thread so I'll spawn a
new one.
I don't entirely agree that art should not suit to anything. I come to
feel more and more that art doesn't exist without a subculture, and
people make art/music/fashion etc to appeal to one or more subcultures.
There are possible exceptions (Harry Partsch, perhaps) but I'd argue
those are extremely rare.
Many western classical composers in the early twentieth century argued
for "music for its own sake" -- music that captures a glimpse of the
Eternal and thus whose artistic merit transcends human relationships.
But of course, it's all tap-room banter without a community of musicians
and listeners who agree with that idea! So this was just another musical
culture (which sought to pretend that it was beyond culture).
This is, of course, not to say that artists must obey subcultural
expectations and have no autonomy. Most (western) musical subcultures
value surprise (except the aforementioned generic radio pop). I think
artistic autonomy is always in a balance, or tension, with the artist's
chosen scene. One of the decisions an artist has to make is where to
position herself on the continuum between participating in a musical
community (adhering to its standards) and critiquing its norms or
expanding the subculture's boundaries. Many are not aware that this is a
choice -- hence the bands or singers who sound just like everybody else
in the genre. But part of my point is that participating in a musical
culture is not "less than" breaking molds.
All this is from a western perspective, of course. Some non-European
musical cultures (I'm thinking of the amazing music of the Aka pygmies)
seem to place no value at all on individual autonomy in music... that
is, autonomy is not a universal value.
11:41 p.m.
On Sat, 2013-08-17 at 11:15 -1000, david wrote:
My non-musical artist daughter says that if a piece of
art doesn't
communicate, it's not art; it's just a "spot on the wall."
I agree, but it's said that if something doesn't communicate, it does
communicate that it doesn't communicate, IOW it's impossible not to
communicate.
Nothing made by humans is beyond culture, since all
humans are
embedded in at least one culture.
Yesno, you for example could care about something while being against
it, e.g. by using an inverted cross, but you also can ignore what you
don't like, e.g. don't fight against "organized Christianity", but
against lies per se, you won't find a cross or an inverted cross among
my things, I simply don't care about it, OTOH there are "things" that
shaped us, e.g. Christian values, while not being a Christian. Christian
or not, less of us will kill our daughters, if she is in love with a man
we don't like, this is completely different for other cultures, ... what
I want to point out is, that artists should be philosophers. It doesn't
matter what culture does surround us, we're searching for something and
the result of such a search might fit or not fit to the culture
surrounding us. This isn't rebellion, but might be worth to send a
message by making art.
3913
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14 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
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Brent Busby -
Charles Z Henry -
david -
James Harkins -
Jeremy Jongepier -
Len Ovens -
Neil -
Ralf Mardorf