--- On Thu, 3/24/11, Mathieu Bouchard matju@artengine.ca wrote:
From: Mathieu Bouchard matju@artengine.ca Subject: Re: [PD] Am I alone? To: "ailo" ailo.at@gmail.com Cc: "Jonathan Wilkes" jancsika@yahoo.com, pd-list@iem.at Date: Thursday, March 24, 2011, 6:24 PM On Mon, 21 Mar 2011, ailo wrote:
"Art is the product or process of deliberately
arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect."
This sounds like it would include advertisement, spin-doctoring, agitation-propaganda, religion, ... what else ?
Perhaps Matju is correct when stating: "By extension, the word « art » is often used to
mean whatever skill is
considered unexplainable or mysterious. "
That wouldn't include interpreting any event as being
art.
Isn't interpreting something as art what makes it art.
Not what
"creates" it?
There are several concurrent meanings being used by different groups of people. "Art" is a word with certain linguistic functions serving different purposes in different places.
The "interpretational" meaning of art often doesn't apply to the general public. Artists may think that artists are the ones who have the right to decide whether something is art or not. Thus art is what artists make, and artists are people who make art. It's not a circular definition, it's a feedback loop. There's also that art is what artists think it is, and the more you think like that, the more you're (like) an artist.
That definition often ends up with the "artist" (I'd rather call the person an "artkeeper") being a hypocrite. That's not the necessary outcome, but it often happens because it's really hard for people to form an exclusive group while at the same time remain fair minded across those group boundaries. (Because there _must_ be some benefit to the group members in forming the group-- otherwise why form it at all?)
For example: If we adore Shakespeare's line "The lady doth protest too much, methinks," as artists, what are we doing? Using that definition above, we are looking at it from the standpoint of a writer, who (may) admire the way Shakespeare can take a simple, seemingly innocuous sentence and imbue it with a deep sense of irony by virtue of its context within the larger work (implying that we as artists understand that larger context), while at the same time being iambic pentameter and creating a convincing rhythm. Notice that in this interpretation "protest" means to affirm or avow.
Now do a test-- if you're ever around some "artists" and one of them is objecting to something-- anything-- make some art: say the Shakespeare phrase above as a taunt. I hypothesize that what you will find is that the more someone in that group thinks of him/herself as an artist (a writer, in this case) the more they will feel a pressure to correct you by noting that Shakespeare used "protest" in the sense of "avow" and not "object". Also, the more of an outsider you are to that group, the harsher the correction will be. Finally, if you are an outsider with hopes of becoming an insider (e.g., student), there will probably be some condescension mixed in for good measure.
The hypocrisy comes because Shakespeare is allowed to take a phrase from the public domain and add meaning to it, but the student of the artkeepers is not. In situations like this I find the professed justification for the correction is always that the student's usage doesn't display a deeper awareness of the roots of the phrase (or melody, or gesture, or whatever). But rarely will you hear the artkeeper articulate an awareness of the "art" to a corresponding degree-- in this instance, this would be a history of the word "protest" (especially as it relates to women) before Shakespeare ever used it. This hypocrisy is doubly bad-- it not only creates anxiety in the student but also creates an imaginary finish line where intellectual laziness can tacitly creep in (e.g., learn as much as "artists" care about, and then you too will be an artist and can just coast downhill from that point onward if you so choose).
The "mysterious skill" meaning of art is closer to the original meaning of the word. "Tech" is a greek word that means "Art"... etc. But university artists tend to ignore this use of the word... it's foreign to them. Their art-word is about Duchamp and John Cage and stuff.
Your feedback loop seems unnecessarily strict. If Romantic period composers found a way to give Mozart an honorary membership, surely you can find an inlet for something by Cage in your feedback loop.
-Jonathan
| Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801 ---- Villeray, Montréal, QC