| Spectacular Spectacular!! |
[Jun. 27th, 2007|05:14 am] |
6/27/07 5:22 PM GMT
SO EXCITING...!!!
The audience will stand and cheer!
Hmmm...
I saw a spot on PBS the other day. A group of
musicians (an orchestra?) was playing string
instruments, and one of them began to smoke
as it was being played. Then a man smashed
his cello on stage. It only lasted a few
minutes, but I haven't been able to get it
out of my head...
(I'm finding PBS to be rather compelling lately.
Everything I see I wish I recorded!)
It has me wondering about the state of the
arts in this nation as we face the very real
possibility that the republic is in decline.
I haven't been drawing many connections between
the art movement(s) of our time with contemporary
politics, but now that I'm in a period of my life
in which I have the time to ponder such things,
I think that such an excursion will indeed be
appropriate.
I've already mentioned the need for the public
to stop regarding art as a bunch of widgets to
be consumed, and to develop new and more mean-
ingful relationships with individual artists.
While this was directed at the problem of the
deteriorating quality of popular music within
the African-American community, I strongly
suspect that other forms are suffering similar
fates. This phenomenon is probably not limited to
AA art forms.
As I've said, I haven't been following art his-
torians too closely of late, but I realize that
I can establish a clearer picture with regards
to where Western culture and consciousness are
going, and make stronger arguments against the
Iraq War and Occupation as a result.
It is well known that societies at war don't
produce great art. Adolf Hitler deliberately
manipulated the public's perception of specific
works in order to exercise mind control. He
was a painter, by the way.
Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that if
art is degraded over the entire society to the
status of a consumable, then just about every-
thing else will be too. This includes citizens
of other nations, natural resources, the Con-
stitution of the United States of America, etc.
I am concerned. Once I assess the state of the
American mind with regards to art (which I
strongly suspect is concurrent with a highly
maladaptive lifestyle), I will be able to gen-
erate a clearer picture of the (de-)evolution
of the culture at this time.
I'm sure that art, and political historians
recognize the patterns in their respective fields
that a society displays when it is in its twilight.
I've spent a good amount of time of late wonder-
ing if this is indeed the case for the U.S. of A.
What conditions have been met, or are on the verge
of being met, that would support such a contention?
I need to find out, so that I can inform the Malloy
Collective.
*
I'm looking at some sites that discuss the current
state of affairs in the art world now...
This one's pretty interesting.
A brief critiscism of consumerism is located at this link.
I just read a humorous and intriguing entry discussing
Australians who are rejecting consumerism.
at this link.
Libertarians are in opposition to the anti-consumerism
movement, according to several of the Wikipedia entries
discussing the term.
I wonder if there is some way to "green up" the
libertarian ideologues.
What's the point of being "free" if you can't
breathe the air, or drink the water?
I have a feeling that user-societies on the Internet
will have strong libertarian leanings, flavored with
green principles. Those of us most likely to flock
to these entities are the people least satisfied
with society's mores, failings, and limitations.
How to develop a libertarian-green axis? It will
take time, and an in-depth analysis of the purveyors
of both schools of thought to find possible ways
to initiate dialogue and ultimately, alliances.
...
I want to find that article on pseudo-modernism I
read a while back...
Ah!
Here it is...
I want to find out who Dr. Alan Kirby is too...
Now that I've read the article, I'm also wondering
if post-modernism is dead. He hit the target in
a lot of places, I think.
I need to see more discussions, though.
I'm going to print it out, for later use. I recommend
that you read it.
I may be a pseudo-modern. Referencing Dr. Kirby,
I'm demonstrating multiple properties of what he
would likely call, "pseudo-modern man."
I'm not sure if I should be scared, fascinated,
or humored.
Is post-modernism dead?
What are the ramifications of pseudo-modern con-
sciousness on the future of the nation-state?
Culture as we know it (along with a great many
other things) may be on the brink of collapse,
people.
Yeah.
I gotta print that out...
On second thought, "collapse" may be too strong
a word.
I feel a need to include a few excerpts from the
text, but I think it better if one simply reads
the entire thing.
**
My early thoughts on pseudo-modernism have me
pondering its seeming contextlessness.
We're fighting a war with no context.
Contemporary popular music seems devoid of context.
The Bush Administration has no context.
I need to evaluate other forms of contemporary
art, find out what their purveyors are saying
about their quality and future, and attempt to
integrate this information into a more global
assessment of the nature of our times.
The better our understanding, the more effective
we'll be as the Progressive Web evolves.
I'm thinking that we need to establish an approach
to art and to artists that will promote a vibrant,
exciting, and prolific culture within cyberspace.
This will strengthen our appeal to newbies, make
them more amenable to our ethos, and increase
our numbers with time.
It's not enough to simply be political. Our user
community needs to establish a way-of-life more
appealing and forward-thinking than the others
available in both biospace and cyberspace. When
we accomplish this, our influence will expand
even with those who do not spend large amounts
of time on-line, or within Progressive Web sites.
This is an ever-present human need.
*
In the raging sea of mindless consumerism, we of
the Progressive Web can establish an oasis of
high culture - both avant-garde, and accessible,
within our cybersubspaces.
On KCET the other night, Simon Schama's Power
of Art discussed pertinent moments in the
lives of van Gogh and of Picasso. Unfortunately,
I taped just the first hour (I figured it would
be about an hour long), and saw only the
first bite of the segment with Picasso. The
show delved into the sociopolitical dimensions
of their lives and work, and I think it would
be a good idea for members of the Collective to
check out the series - and look around for
creators of visual art who may be involved with
similar activity or are developing their work
with activism in mind.
We also need to assess the relationship of con-
temporary art with the political establishment.
Wynton Marsalis said some very interesting things
about the relationship between the African-American
community and the world of art.
The lack of depth in a lot of American popular
culture has been bemoaned by many for decades,
particularly since the introduction of the TV.
Are we rushing headlong towards the logical
culmination of a culture whose unifying theme
seems to be "consumption as virtue?"
In a conversation with an artist that took
place years ago, she told me that post-modernism
emerged as a response to WWII.
There certainly seems to be an anti-technology
strain to the movement, but if the rejection
of the rigidity of realism and objectivity
was intended to bring about cultural enlighten-
ment, Could one say that the effort has failed?
Has the rush of technology and its avail-
ability to the millions outpaced such efforts to
the point where it not only served as a vehicle
for the imposition of the objective in the first
half of the 20th century (with disastrous results),
but as an upgraded vehicle for the provision of
the ambient and lamentable subjective reality
to which Dr. Kirby refers?
It has been said that one of the major themes of
the 20th Century was that of being victimized by
our own creations (The Titanic, Frankenstein's
Monster, Three Mile Island, etc.)
Is consensus reality the lastest casualty, and
one might ask, "Have we truly left the 20th Century
in 2007 A.D.?"
Some final thought-bites:
Is postmodernism's victory also its cataclysmic
demise?
Is culture itself, obsolete?
That doesn't seem possible, at first glance.
An aggregation of minds, each experiencing its
own exclusive reality, may or may not constitute
a culture.
Has Western culture's run from the objective and
the technological resulted in a collision of
the subjective and technological? Retrospectively,
is this outcome what the postmodern philosophers
wanted?
Technology certainlly wasn't going to go away...
Is it hopeless to attempt to reject technology?
As uncomfortable as we say we are with it, does
our mutual interconnectedness render futile any
effort to purge civilization of it after tasting
its most bitter of fruits?
Those won't be answered today.
Pseudo-modernly,
ArchMind
P.S. SO DELIGHTING!
It will run for fifty years! |
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