Replying to LO30586 --
I'm not sure how to do this but I have a couple of attachments in JPG that
chart the current situation. One is four of the possible ways that people
look at the Arts and music in particular and the other charts the history
and decline of the complex arts while in the US the commercial and
religious segments of these arts have flourished.
[Host's Note: What you've done is just fine... Send the mail with the
attachments; I'll separate the attachments and insert a link.
Ray's charts are at
http://www.learning-org.com/docs/LO30605_ViewsOfMusicWorld.jpg
http://www.learning-org.com/docs/LO30605_FRAGMENTATION_CHARTc.jpg
.. Rick]
The questions are still out on why the secular complex arts that bind all
of the groups together in a society have died while the Arts for
Entertainment (much lower competence and complexity) and the Religious
arts which serve a "use" role whether worship or proscelytization has
flourished. The same is true for the military bands and arts used to sell
things. (not shown on graph) It is just the complex secular arts that
develop the higher brain functions that are withering.
Economist Richard Florida has been talking a lot about the need for
creativity but when he uses an example of the arts it is always
entertainment or work that is very low on the complexity scale.
(Multiplication tables to advanced Algebra or Calculus.)
The charts are a little complicated but so is the history. If there is a
problem I will translate. On the other hand they are more holistic than a
four page prose piece. Maybe we need both. We'll see.
Thank you Bill and At for your comments. Its the right questions. Bill,
I think you helped me focus on the fact that some will simply not have the
hard wiring to care and that I should let that go. That's hard. As a
teacher I sort of believe I can teach anyone if they are willing to try.
But in producing this there will be people that it simply doesn't reach or
isn't interesting to them. As for the systems model? Is a systems model
possible for the third largest country on the planet and what would it
look like?
At, I define aesthetics a little differently. I define it simply as the
organizing of perception by the organism. There are many levels of
organization and the study of beauty or excellence is one of those rooms
but at its roots it is about perception and starts when the child first
begins to understand the water and the sounds in the womb. In that sense
the "organization of perceptual learning" or aesthetics, is antecedent to
all other learning that involves "taking in" the environment. Arts are
the conscious expression of that organization in activities that develop
growth, success, pleasure and memory in the perceptual environment. "The
Play's the thing." It's in the active play and imagination or the
"psycho-physical pursuit of values in a perceptual medium "i.e. sound,
plastics, kinetics, etc. that defines art. It is a "pursuit". In the
first "views" graph attachment, it shows four of the possible ways of
looking at the arts on three different levels, or ten if you are dealing
with complexity. Andrew I apologize for being over-simple but I have to
be in my first halting steps at organization.
At, the resonance that I had with what you said was around the issue of
Information. I tend to look at all of the external world in that fashion
as an artist. For me complexity is a pedagogical issue of mastery of how
we interprete and use that external information. How we "relate" to it.
As for Bloom, he never resonated much with me because all art accepts
relativity and the importance of an open vulnerability to all time and
space. All artistic styles are arbitrary and culture bound and all exist
only in relation to something else. So Bloom and his followers didn't
work for me but one of my Masters is teaching me to reevaluate other
people. Maybe you will help me appreciate Bloom as long as we don't lose
focus on the purpose of the work.
Thanks,
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The American Masters Arts Festival Biennial
The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc.
mcore@nyc.rr.com
--"Ray Evans Harrell" <mcore@nyc.rr.com>
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