Week 6 2/9/20

Vision centers consciousness, and expands both.

Observe cultures that are unified by shared visions, in contrast with those that fail.

Week 50 12/15/19

Think ahead.  See ahead.

Freedom is a creative act.

Week 44 11/3/19

Without question, culture will dictate the direction of art.

Therefore culture, its premises, and its adherents must be questioned, and often defied.

Direct Experience

Connectivity is not creativity. Not by a long shot.

Effortlessness renders expression dubious, spotlighting its impermanence and eviscerating its power.

If my concepts are not given due consideration, if my music is not in your ears, I accomplish nothing, as far as "connectivity" and other such claptrap goes.

And far more than wasted effort is in progress; here, now, and at all times, one must move forward.

Promoveo, promovi, promotum.

Outside Perceptual Limits

Reveal the unseen and unheard.

Elevate the real; eliminate the false.

Substance, Shadow, Consciousness

So-called "dark" visions and expressions are but infantile, morbid extravagances.

To place greater value on technology than upon the ultimate potential of the human mind is an affront to humanity itself. Such a false perspective is one of infinitely greater hazard to freedom, culture, and society than any demoralized view of the human condition can possibly be.

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.

Too Starved an Argument...

The appeal of many aspects of popular culture is the same as that of numerous political ideologies.

They generate attitudes among their adherents that negate the need for thought; they eliminate the necessity for questions; they substitute, in point of fact, for educated, even literate perspectives.

And the result is a ceaseless cycle of ignorance, contention, and a host of ills easily done away with by refusing to acknowledge and support atavistic totalitarianism masquerading under the elitist banners of "progress".

Nothing More

Technology, in and of itself, is central to contemporary culture.

Yet it is art that elevates the human condition, and technology is nothing more than a tool.

Exceptional Event Awareness

Take cognizance of those impressions that appear on the distant edge of perceptual awareness.

Sensory impressions of this order may, or may not, be within grasp.  For the composer, these can be indicators of auditory possibilities, just as the nebulous image in the mind's eye may inform the visual artist. These may be considered extramundane events, sought out by very few, but the scientist, poet, warrior, and individual of imagination know how to grasp and reveal them.

Identity, Image, and Audacity

Typically, diversion and dance come to mind when discussing the purposes of music.

Further consideration suggests the use of music in ceremony and ritual, and for artistic expression of emotion and ideas. Enhancement of concentration and meditative focus, refinement of perception and the reinforcement of contemplative states of mind and being, however, are of far greater importance to those who practice these ways of engagement with reality through expansion of consciousness.

Certainly this is the position of one who composes works in sound to such ends as these.

As Forge Demands Fire

Much is made, in contemporary terms, of the concept of progress.

But progress implies improvement.

Show me this improvement.  Reveal it, that I may believe it.

Otherwise it is only a word to obscure the consolidation of power of the status quo.  This much is plainly evident, everywhere, at all times.  Look and see directly.  Listen, and hear.

Resistance III

Neither oppression nor repression of the arts ever reach an end.

Whether imposed by historical traditions or through contemporary cultural imperatives, subjection to collectivist thinking in academic and political circles will always plague artists no less than historians and all those who strive for true representations of reality. The purpose is simple: to eliminate utterly the power and value of the individual.

And the artist is nothing if not an autonomous free agent.  Nothing more than a lackey, a bootlicker.

Evidence of this is plain and clear.  It is not hidden from sight; one need only look at it directly.

There is no end to it.  Yet even if there is no winning, there can be no surrender, or all-- and this means all that is essential to cultural reality itself-- is lost.

Culture Paradox

Observe the "information society".  Find knowledge ubiquitous, literacy merely functional.

When this plethora of information leads to the assumption that the possession of an internal fund of knowledge is unnecessary, the error is one of profound consequence. Consider only the implications of failed, archaic, totalitarian ideas impressed upon art, politics, and the social order because their outward appearances give the uninformed the specious impression of "novelty". Yet this is of very little moment in comparison to the mass abdication of critical reason it presupposes.

Thus the essential nature of the contemplative, and of atmospheric sound art to enhance reflection.

Cloud-Hidden

At the nadir of cultural decline lies ignorance and apathy and self-absorbed complacency.

Since neither art, nor its understanding, are effortless, intellectual curiosity cannot be neglected by those who would gain the broader, deeper perspectives on life the arts reveal.

This is a critical contemporary issue, and its most odious aspects are intentionally reinforced by the elite institutions and mass media under the guise of "populist" egalitarianism.  Since these conditions are, in point of fact, the direct results of social engineering aimed at producing an anemic, totalitarian, collectivist mentality, the resolution of this cultural crisis is far from certain.

In any event, the work of the artist moves forward, openly or underground.

Overwrite Antiquity

Forgotten events are in motion.

The composer will do well to capture their forces, origins, tones and dynamic movements.

Their essential natures may be lost to contemporary understanding, but not to the modern listener, who feels their impulses in the unformed sounds of imagination.

Media Fog

Artists of integrity are never less than honest brokers of cultural information.

Artistic communication is often shadow-play, nevertheless, yet artists direct the attention to the places where they dwell, either toward light or darkness.

This understanding is the responsibility of the audience-- but it is not always present.