Impression, Sensation

Music and memory are most often associated with time and place.

More interesting to me is the idea of removing such associations while enhancing mood of place as well as state of mind.  While the imprint of music "sets" a mood, whether at a dance party or in the soundtrack to a film, compositions crafted to stimulate, rather than dominate perception provide a context conducive to clarity in thought and feeling.

Cross the Gulf

Elevate tradition with modern perspective.

For the artist as composer, this is the sound of the future awakening in the past.

One must transcend the ignorance of the times that corrupts the beauty of darkness.

Empty, and Fill

To gain audience, repeat the known, the expected, and the understood.

To express vision, reveal what cannot be seen or heard, evoking mystery and the unknown.

Word Virus / Image Virus

Media as controlling force repeats continuous visual and verbal cues that are unconsciously absorbed.

These combine to implant ideas, ideologies, and directions for focus, yet the effect is that individual and group believe they are fully aware and act autonomously.

What is the role of the artist?  It depends upon this understanding, and the degree to which character, courage, and moral reason are developed.

Media Reach

Media recognizes, promotes and rewards all that satisfies its controllers' varied agendas.

But media does not define, grant permission to, or dictate ideas and actions to anyone, including the artist and composer.  The artist who believes otherwise is no artist at all, but a victim of delusions.

Constriction

The artist as free individual gives expression to that freedom.

If that expression is beyond the comprehension of the uninformed, the critic, or the "consumer" of art, this is a cultural issue beyond the power of the artist to correct.

The only course, as Camus would have it, is disdain, and I might add, work. It is the first fact of life for the artist that there can be no expectations, for anything whatsoever.

Imprint and Effect

Observe the levels of technical perfection at which digital programs render artistic products.

Observe, beyond the illusory excellence of contemporary productions, technology suppressing art, rather than elevating creative work.  It is an anonymous perfection, generated by artificial means, and unmarked by the stamp of individuality. In opposition to this uniformity the artist and composer must strike with force of thought.