Replying to LO24803 --
Andrew,
I read through your response as I have read others. A couple of questions
and observations.
Question:
1. What form of psycho-physical pursuit of values are you involved in?
i.e. definition of art is a "psycho-physical pursuit of values in sound,
graphics, architecture, movement, words etc. etc.
2. What is the audience that you aim that work at and do you succeed?
i.e. how is the reception of your artistic product?
3. What do you hope to learn, by being on a multi-professional list of
consultants, that will make you more successful in the development
and reception of that artistic product?
4. Are you meeting that goal?
5. If yes could you explain how?
6. If no could you explain why?
7. What is it that you need from us and why should someone
learn your cultural use of English in order to give it to you?
Comments:
It is a part of the role of art to holistically express the time and place
of the audience to the greater good of all. It is a part of the problem
of the artist that he find a way of doing it that doesn't seem to the
audience like they are being ensnared in a foreign system where they feel
unsafe.
Art is not supposed to be war but to express through mediums the meaning
of war and not just any war but our war in order to make us wise about
war.
That is the mirror aspect of art. As the artist struggles with his life,
in the present, from a place of varying complexity (zero to 100) he
mirrors the lightest to the deepest struggles of his audience. That makes
them wise and gives him food, clothing and shelter and makes a family
possible.
The other aspect of art, and its most difficult part especially today, is
what the aesthetes call Beauty and what you related, correctly I believe,
to semiotics. As a performer and a CEO of an opera company (company
concerned with expression in all of the art forms as well as a
multiplicity of cultural and learning styles) the issue of Beauty is a
simple one. It simply means the "best possible example of a product."
Poor work is ugly, good work is beautiful. That is true in all of the art
forms in opera, music, voice, dance, design, literature, drama and
ensemble.
We endeavor to escape subjective projection onto new work by asking the
artist to lead us into the universe he has created. If the work holds
together, i.e. has integrity within itself after living with it for a
while, then we assume a level of Beauty i.e. excellence. An artist in any
profession is considered the best at what he does. Someone who can take
failure and turn it into a door to answers and innovative solutions.
There is a problem with Beauty. Great work is often highly complex.
Great old work is not only complex but removed semiotically (contextually)
from the minds of the audience. That keeps them from really perceiving it
and makes subjective projection their modality for judgment. They are
often comfortable with their projections and thus "entertained" but it is
a masturbatory experience rather than a dialogue.
Artists struggle to get through this but failure is the norm. You can
tell because there is a 98% full time unemployment of all graduate
performing artists in America. A figure beyond an economic depression and
greater even than the unemployment on the most horrible Indian reservation
(about 80%). This artist unemployment has lasted since the so-called
"Great Depression" which at its height in 1933 had only 24.9% of the
employable population (including 14 year olds, now 16 is the cut off
point) out of work. Some economists put that figure in today's terms as
low as 14% which matches the unemployment figures in the high producing
countries of Europe.
That figure was so traumatic to the common person that a 2nd American
revolution is generally to have been in the works saved only by going to
war with Hitler. Roosevelt and the politicians of the period not only had
the left wing to deal with but few remember the Wobblies or the Green Corn
Rebellion in Oklahoma that simply eliminated 17,000 socialists in the
state. Did Roosevelt know about the Japanese plans for Pearl Harbor? He
could barely get his New Deal through Congress and his health care was
kaput. Of course we know what Hitler's solution for dealing with an under
20% unemployment figure amongst non-Jews, Gypsies & Homosexuals was.
I am one of the 2% who has worked and provided work in the private
not-for- profit art sector for forty years, thirty being in the
competitive market of New York City.
So why did I make the above comments? Because I believe artists are the
serious mirrors of society. I believe we have a serious profession that
has been given up to the daily reporters, commercial entertainment, the
courts, the religions and the professional anthropologists of American
"culture." Don't get me wrong, I believe all of these people have art in
their work but to them art is not the product but a means to their
achieving the product of their work. Artists provide the eyes and ears of
society put through the professional filter of their expertise and their
emotional life living within the culture. We hear the heart of America as
well as see the pollution. Art is inclusive and is the product of the
identity of the time, place and people that it springs from. People who
understand the Art understand the time and place within which they live.
Mirrors have only the agenda of truth within their context as their
responsibility. Even Snow White's mother's mirror told the truth.
It is the audience's responsibility to know two things. 1. the universe
the artist creates, i.e. its system, and 2. the context that the Artist
body's forth the art from.
Without both of these, their judgments are flawed. A flawed judgment is
like a poor learning curve on the latest computer program. It is the
program that suffers in the market, not the consumer. So it is important
that Artists learn to live in this dense, complicated world by helping
their audiences with the learning curve. Otherwise simple rejection is
the most common response except for those few who share the context.
Frankly I do not understand why it is important for many of these
conversations to happen in a hostile environment unless there is another
agenda. And that leads me to the last question for you.
Is the purpose of your posts performance, dialogue or persuasion?
I ask this from an Artist's place not a place of judgment. As an Artist I
am comfortable with whatever intent you have. It is simply easier in
making a decision as to how I will relate to what you are doing. i.e.
shall I consider it a work of art, an exploration of a problem that you
have not been able to solve or a desire to help me understand my mistakes?
Regards,
Ray Evans Harrell,
artistic director
The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc.
mcore@idt.net
ACampnona@aol.com wrote:
> [Host's Note: Full subject line was too long, "The 'art co-efficient' of
> Marcel Duchamp and the 'creative-tension' of Senge." ..Rick]
>
> I don't know as I write this if anyone will want to split some
> metaphorical hairs with me about the connectivity of the terms chance and
> chaos or complexity. I use the term here in the sense I understand it when
> I, if I, purchase a ticket in a lottery. I would like to ask --, If it
> could be fruitfully understood that 'chance' opens possibilities for
> untold human constructive creativity, can anyone else contributing here
> think of constructive connections? I give my own example much written of
> as the string noise --- data --- infomation ---- knowledge ---- products
> realising that my use of string might be technically deficient in some
> way.
[...snip by your host...]
--"Ray E. Harrell" <mcore@idt.net>
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