Pop Downturn, Reform Pop

What is know as the "popular imagination" conforms to a dull immediacy.

By "immediacy" I am referring to the dubious sense of urgency associated with the omnipresence of media.  The dullness, or lack of imaginative acuity, is the consequence of incessant repetition of the same ideas, beliefs, and social norms in opposition to the same "transgressive" perspectives, as if these latter were, in fact, of any consequence in comparison with expression of original, creative thought.  That is the state of culture, unless and until efforts are made to transcend the mundane, and those efforts recognized as essential to the idea of a forward-thinking civilization.

It Is Difficult On Train "A"

Ideas and actions have consequences.

The idea that individuals or cultures are somehow "beyond" cause and effect brings about the most severe of consequences.  There is a profound difference between destruction and extinction.

Agency

Vanity and money are undeniably powerful motivations for creativity.

The creative act in the service of a higher vision is its own motivator.

Up for Air

Artful contrivance is not the central fact of cultural expression.

That central perspective is, and always is, reserved for expressions of authentic experience, as opposed to mere appearances, no matter how refined, raw, or superficially impressive.

Among many things easily observed, the continuing decline in cinematic arts attests to this.

Grotesques

There is no individuality within collective strictures, nor can there be.

Yet this does not apply to appearances, as these are by nature insignificant in contrast to conformity of collective thought, expression, and action.  A spurious, superficial "sense of personal identity" is conferred by acceptance of infantile extravagances. Countenance and bearing are of little moment to those who define social and cultural agendas, provided absolute conformity to ideology remains fully intact. Consequently, the apparently extreme, distorted, and abnormal become commonplace, and the slavish adherent to illiberal groupthink is as easily identifiable as a traitor to humanity as the nameless, faceless apparatchik.

The independent thinker, artist, warrior, and self-reliant individual, on the other hand, defies both illegitimate authority and mundane expectations. The very existence of free culture demands this.

Projection vs. Awareness

It is ignorance, or a lack of intelligence, to approach any artistic work with assumptions of any kind.

Artistic works, paintings, music, performance, mixed media, etc. only suffer when crafted for the purpose of serving social and political agendas.  What may "make a statement" as propaganda is nonetheless transient as "art".  Of even less value is the assessment or opinion regarding a work that is based upon such ideological conventions, which are as insignificant as mere subjective biases.

What is demanded of the artist is equally expected of the observer, and that is aesthetic perception.

If You Look Closely

Consider a social and cultural environment that is actively hostile to the arts.

Suppression of individual freedom is the outcome of collective tyranny and its concomitant control of expression that reduces every work to a form of propaganda.

It is a monumental challenge to stand against a tide of surrender.

Edge of Perception

Know the concrete and the abstract of the phenomena of appearances.

Awareness of the cultural environment is the difference between freedom of action and acting according to the influences of forces neither recognized nor understood.

Metaphysical Approach

A contemplative aesthetic elevates sense of being.

This is an objective like every other aesthetic purpose, and will not be denied those who seek it, whether artist or audience, unless and until a culture has totally lost the wherewithal to accept and embrace it.

Presence

Expression conveys the observer within reach of experience.

Culture may or may not make that expression accessible; the observer may or may not extend grasp. Nonetheless, it is impossible to reduce all aesthetic possibilities to a point at which the ignorant and illiterate can comprehend them. There are ideas and experiences that can never be transmitted in their entirety through choreographed dance moves.

Art of Flux

In dysfunctional cultural conditions, the artist is an island of energy.

Bounded by absurdity and failure, that is to say, failure of the culture to thrive without direction, the artist, like the military strategist, brings reason, experience, and foresight to the creative act.

This is the essential nature of expression both critical and independent, without which cultures are entirely lost.  Many will recognize this loss of once-thriving cultural settings within living memory, with the understanding that the surrender of personal freedoms brought about these extinctions.

As far as cultures of free individuals are concerned, the artist is the last line of defense, the last stand against encroaching darkness.

Enough

The antithesis of the creative act is the dismissal of the reality of Time Past.

Beyond the benighted repudiation of cultural fundamentals, of much more profound moment is the elimination of cultural momentum, the negation of future possibility.

Observe contemporary cultural and social conditions.

The Great Work

No present-day artist and composer can ignore cultural decline.

At issue is not commercialism, but essential human knowledge.  This is an era burdened by mediocrity and superficiality in every area of endeavor.  As an artist, explorer, innovator, or independent thinker, one must rise to enormous challenges, if for no other reason than one's obligation to oneself.

Dharma for One

Boethius (A.D. 480-525) suggests the arts, particularly music, are revealing as means to transcendental contemplation and perspective.

But certainly the failed Nineteenth Century ideologies of scientific materialism and collectivism will not allow for such considerations.  The individual, however, retains personal freedom and choice.

Impulse, Elevation, and Decline

Every artistic gesture represents choice and purpose.

Simply put, expression in all the arts may enhance or diminish a sense of shared culture.

Directions and Outcomes

Progress is not mere prolongation.

Progress is marked by advancement, improvement, development and exploration; anywhere time has passed on any aspect of culture without these virtues evolving, vision and wisdom are not recognized, because freedom of thought and action are suppressed.

Among the myriad negative aspects of collective stasis now witnessed everywhere, the failure to comprehend possibilities cannot be accepted or tolerated.

Thought and Memory

Individual expression demands objectivity and integrity, or it will not be.

Such things as awareness and skills can not be taken, but they may be surrendered.

Unreal State

Art is beyond ideology.  Art is far beyond ideology, and far removed from it.

Certainly it will be called art, among other things.  But the artist knows ideology as waste, transient, unimaginative, humorless, and dull-witted delusion, an execrable quest for power founded in ignorance and masked as knowing.

To Choose The Real

Original expression may be overshadowed by the mundane, but it never dies.

Art, as an expression of truth, will never yield to the spurious, the specious, and the false.

What Is, What Is Not

The artist is often called upon to make a distinction between appearance and reality.

It is understood that art is a representation, and that this understanding is a responsibility of vision, not mere propaganda to be manipulated for some other purpose.  To do less is its own punishment.

Approaching the Mystic

Think of that which is greater than the self.

In life, perceive accordingly; in art, give expression to those perceptions.

Likenesses

The only choice is action.  The choice is always action.

Regardless of social and cultural conditions, art asserts perspective.  It was ever thus.

Course and Trajectory

The final years of the present century are clearly foreseeable.

Existential frenzies, mindless voices crying "apocalypse" in every quarter, and everywhere the bland, banal triumph of universal ignorance and illiberal ideologies.

There is no doubt this will come to pass, unless circumstances are changed through the transcendent virtues of the arts.  And if this is possible, it must begin soon.

Sword and Shield

The first necessity is freedom of the individual.

Civilization and culture do not simply "exist" any more than they merely "happen".

Set Repeat

Bland cultural environments indicate oppressive control of thought and action in varying degrees.

Those who cannot think, speak, and act freely can neither fully experience life nor engage in any viable, original creative expression. The most visible effect of such a situation is witnessed in those who can do no more than affect cultural attitudes that are not within their direct experience, which are, at best, sad representations of a spurious reality.

Reform Modernism

A modern aesthetic is philosophically reformed and characterized by intellectual clarity.

Modernism of the late nineteenth century rejected tradition while retaining its general structures, hierarchies, and essential human values.  Late in the twentieth century, a fully nihilistic strain of thought represented itself as "postmodern", characterized by academic posturing, shallow, banal pretension, and nugatory gibberish, realized in the dead Sargasso of the contemporary moment now.

The reality of the future, and of possible futures, will not be ultimate triumph of failed ideas that bound themselves to early modernism, these being scientific materialism and collectivism in all their social, economic, political and cultural guises. but a reassertion of independent thought and freedom of expression. 

Source

Let the "aesthetic" that elevates consciousness be the one of paramount value.

This is the essential aesthetic and the origin of all others, these being lesser lights.

Breaking Point

Art and Time can not be contained or eliminated.  Their influences are manifest.

Art and Time are ever in flux, and only the artist moves in this manner, which is the expression of creation.  Civilization and creation are the mark of the artist, and without the artist, civilization will not be, and life will be altogether removed, cruel, evil, and brief.

Controversy I

Culture is manipulated; it is not evolving naturally.

This is the result of ignorance, rather than any conspiratorial action. When populations and demographics en masse are bereft of the cultural knowledge that makes essential expressions comprehensible, there can be, within such a culture, no individual freedom.

Existentially, the artist can only be an outsider.  There is no audience behind a wall of sleep.

Distortions

Absurdity is ubiquitous; it remains no less pointless.

There are those who believe, and who are being conditioned to believe, that reality must comport with one "narrative" or another.  There is no such reality.  What is needed is transcendence.

Trust

Media culture demands nothing, and requires assent in everything.

Art, conversely, expects insight, foresight, individuality, and freedom of expression.

Imagery and Individuality

Imagery's representations are formed in perceptual impression and memory.

Out of these origins are formed poetry and narrative, the visual arts, and certain forms of music, in particular the tone poem, ambient music, and aesthetic non-linear sound arrangements or designs.

These are produced by the artist, not by "collective culture".

Normal

In the absence of noise, attuned only to the brash and frenetic, some claim to hear "nothing".

Surrounding atmospheres are only as perceptible as the auditory sense is awakened and alive.

Air Space

To grasp the term "aesthetic" it is necessary to know far more than its definition.

Aesthetic means a great deal more than "appreciation of beauty" or knowledge of a set of principles underlying a work of art, architecture, literature, poetry, music, dance, and etc..

These suggestions indicate little more than general impressions and appearances.

The aesthetic experience is not simply how a given thing "looks" and the reaction one is expected by others to have in relation to it.  This is superficiality, a shallow reflection at best.

The aesthetic experience is a full and clear perceptual awareness of what, and how, such a work of art means.  As such, it is an authentic expansion of consciousness.

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Two Essays By Kyle Chayka:  

From theverge.com: Welcome to Airspace

From theguardian.com:  Same old, same old. How the hipster aesthetic is taking over the world

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Approaching

Art must be, as it will be.

What any creator envisions that is brought into being serves to make the future present.

Impression and Consciousness

The state of cultural discourse reflects the quality of civilized life.

Thus the necessity of creating new arts, new sounds, and new ways of perceiving them, rather than to simply expect their appearance in cultural conditions unfit for the elevation of humanity.

Symbol, Custom, and Balkanization

Rather than the case or situation of "audience", observe that of "participants".

It is a phenomenon of identity politics projected into the cultural setting.  One is no longer informed, experiencing, and sharing aspects and elements of culture and community, but separating into any one of numerous highly insular subcultures that evidence hostility toward all others.

This has nothing to do with art and artists, but is rather an anomaly of social conditioning that must ultimately run its course before a renewal of aesthetic values comes about.

Listening Beyond Music

Whether simple or sophisticated, music is subject to general principles of organization.

But what I am interested in are compositions based on evolving tones and their spatial and temporal relationships.

State of Being, Perceptual Acuity, Elevation

Rhythm generated responses develop as actions in individual and social interactions.

Hence, the art of advertising utilizes rhythm in its productions to enhance desirable effects, with the implication that rhythm may be consciously used to manipulate activities in various settings.

Conversely, stillness enhances reflection, equanimity, and reasoned decision making; these responses make external motivations difficult, if not impossible, to take hold in individuals and groups.

As an artist and composer, I assert that more of the latter forms of music and sound art, those based upon tone and atmosphere as opposed to frenetic movement, are called for in contemporary culture, for obvious, and yes, existential, reasons.

Depth

Grasp its appearance only; it says nothing.

Art is the connection between two worlds, between the perceiver and the reality expressed.

Delineation

Creation is representation- object, idea, event.

There is no perfection.  That is not necessary.

Form, manner, expression, and ultimately, vision- these are of critical importance.

Clear Cause

For the time being, culture appears bereft of focus upon clarity of thinking.

Reason, and what is typically called the evidence of the senses, is all but eliminated from the cultural discourse, which is dominated by emotion and feeling.  One need not even question the agendas behind this development over the last decades.  It is enough to know it as an element of control in various scenarios involving social engineering throughout corporate, political, academic, and cultural settings. Only the individual can choose to transcend these failures of objectivity and the intellect, but even so, it is a monumental challenge to overcome these ubiquitous forces.

Not All Things Are Connected

The art of sound belongs to no movement, but to the individual.

What the art of sound will be, it becomes.  The force of what has not come to pass exists now.

Vanishing Futures

There is no "global culture", a fabrication.  Observation and reasoned analysis confirm this.

Any promotion of multiculturalism as meaning other than shared values is a form of ideological manipulation with an agenda anathema to forward progress of civilized life. Simply observe.

Time Flash

There exists an absurd belief that the artist is only capable of creating for a present audience.

Futurity is not a mere abstraction, but a reality to be created and claimed.  For the artist who can comprehend this, there can be no expectations, only work in the process of coming into being.

Gesture and Response

The senses perceive, the mind interprets.

The canvas is bare until expression transfigures it with meaning.  This is the way of the artist as composer no less than that of the legitimate musical composer, but each differs from the other in approach and methodology, philosophy and intent.

Survival Instinct

Arts must be preserved, as culture must be preserved, or these things will be abandoned.

Utopias do not allow expression other than the approved messages of collective egalitarian value.

This is the rejection of art, and of freedom, in service of failed nineteenth century ideologies.

It is indeed strange that before one may act autonomously as a creator one must refuse to be held in subjection to theories reflecting pre-adolescent ideals of "fairness", the ultimate extension of the ignorant and nugatory belief that "anyone can draw like Picasso".

Sound and Myth

Culture tends to re-invent itself over prolonged periods.

Often this involves a loss of cultural ideals.

Nonetheless, as culture becomes unsustainable, typically due to corruption, ignorance, and vanity, cultural change inevitably overwhelms these causes, until such time as they rise again.

First Light

Contrast noise and aesthetically pleasing sounds.

There is more, far more, to the beauty of sound and its perception than "music" represents.

Exercise XII

Observe settings as a perceiver, or experiencer.

As a visual artist frames a photograph or sketch, the composer expands the aural sense into the sonic field, identifying individual sounds, their origins, their juxtapositions within the atmosphere, and the dynamics of the sound setting as a whole.

Transpose this sonic reality into an aesthetically rich representation, an evolving canvas of auditory impressions.