Intricacies of Artistic Conflict

Put simply, every work of art, regardless of its form, is an expression with purpose.

There must be communication, representation of the experience of reality, the sound or color or motion of individual experience.  All else is presentation and narrative.

The idea that one artist "competes" with another for the same audience is ludicrous. The artist of merit is driven by the singularity of personal expression, or the so-called "art" is a ruse with no more motive or reason than a vaudeville act whose time is past.

Finding

To understand the moment transcends its limits.

To presume a work of art cannot be surpassed is to fail to grasp the nature of art.

Sphere of Mind and Art of Sound

Consider composition that imposes nothing on the atmosphere it creates.

It is absurd to assume the composer has no ego, yet it is not outside the realm of possibility that the sense of self-importance may be restrained, controlled, and directed toward total aesthetic effect.

Supersensory Impressions

Open the inner ear beyond the common and easily recognized sounds of the day.

As a consequence, expect to hear the extraordinary, what some might call the uncanny, even the paranormal.  These are sounds outside the spectrum of mundane experience.

Movement, Motive

Gain wider consciousness of abstract perspectives in sound.

Listen and hear, through instrumentation into effect, beyond structure into evolving forms, and outside the common and given expectations regarding music, including the role of the artist.

In doing so, begin to sense the aural parallels of distant, unknown territories.

Will in Being

Music, arts, culture, et cetera.  These suggest ruminations that lend themselves to creative action.

But what becomes apparent in the experience of creative action is the realization that the later years of the twentieth century brought historical forces to bear upon the artists of the time that, more often than not, blunted their perceptual sensibilities and stultified their humanity.  Yet one cannot speculate as to the extent to which numerous works suffered for this intensity of focus on the erratic, the violent, and the crude in the various cultural settings wherein art, music, literature, and poetry found expression.

These works speak for themselves; many achieve and sustain authentic greatness, while most are forgotten, or consigned to a form of mainstream obscurity, known only by name or notoriety.

What is clear is the necessity for an assertion of reason and critical acumen, if for no other purpose than as a contrast to the unsatisfying, tiresome, desperate, and despairing nature of these previous historical works.

About Now

One appearance may be judged to be reality as it is, and another, illusion and deception.

Simple questions may obscure complex, insidious subtexts; complicated processes may result in clarity of expression. There are those who say popular music is inconsequential, lyrics unimportant, yet these reinforce a wide spectrum of cultural attitudes that are everywhere visible.

Here again is a scenario reflecting stagnation in cultural consciousness; while imaginative technologies provide for entirely new dimensions of expression through sound, the critical, discriminating listener is offered nothing beyond technically proficient rhythm, percussion, melody and harmony, ad infinitum.

Culture and the Environs

Go far.

From a distanced perspective it is clear the "culture" surrounding entire populations may reflect individual taste and interests yet be devoid of a single original impulse or expression.

This is vanity and complacency, indicative of a loss of vision, a failure of the spirit of reason and inquiry, and vapid self-indulgence.  One must go beyond, even into the uncanny and unknown.

Oppose, Engage, Evolve

Art first.  All the extraneous nonsense is just that, foolish waste.

Bring together the transcendent sounds.  Elevate the surroundings and thus the culture.

Shadows, Shallows

Observe, as vicarious experience supersedes direct engagement with reality.

Art undergoes transformations that may or may not be absolute and permanent, yet regardless, what was once essential recedes into a past beyond comprehension.

Contribution

Sound may be manipulated as an art form at a distant remove from "music".

Such a statement is outside the context of cultural and academic politics.  It is the simple fact that sound may be used as an art medium, made "problematic" only by the definition, articulation and application of the creative processes involved and the fact that most such experiments are failures.

These compositions, based on aesthetic principles, are the results of successful experiments, ideas, concepts, and theories that may be replicated, refined, and extended.

The Need for Sound Art

The fish, it has been said, is not aware of the presence of water.

The discriminating listener is constantly aware of the sounds of art subverted by "programming".  It is the same set of generic structures adorned with different characterizations and attitudes of style. The artist must transcend this, and provide the listener the opportunity to acclimate to a different state of auditory awareness.

Yet it is effortless to recognize the uniqueness of these aesthetic atmospheres, composed, as it were, of  "reverse-engineered" representations of perceptual sound environments.

Distant Echoes Remaining II

Range of awareness, not complexity, extends and refines consciousness.

Contemplative understanding is not burdened by the complex nature of things.  It is the emptiness of the vessel that makes it useful; the least obtrusive sound may bear more meaning than the loudest.

Field of Listening

It is possible to hear only what seizes the attention.

When this is the case, reality is understood within narrow limits. Aesthetic awareness is more than a refined sense of perception.  It is a survival skill as well.

Atmosphere Shift

One of the pub-restaurants.

Someone asks the composer, "What kind of music do you like?"

Oh, I suppose you could say I like anything that does not sound like music.

Trailing

In the rise and fall of things, cultural decline is natural.

Still, it must be remembered that such decline is not an inevitability, but the consequence of choices.

Go

Culture demands messages from its artists.

But the arts endure oppression when the sole message the culture demands is one of affirmation and reinforcement of the status quo.  There is such a thing as a concept of right and wrong, and within the so- called "gray areas" is a single dynamic of momentum that impels ideas and actions in one direction or the other.

The arts move toward elevation.  Without direction, and only reinforcement, culture moves into decline, compelling, if possible, its artists to act as sycophants.  These are not artists, but flatterers, lackeys, and bootlickers.

High Strangeness II

It is said that pursuit of poetry leads to philosophy.

It seems to me that pursuit of art tends toward the mystic; pursuit of sound tends toward the uncanny.

Imitation of the Unseen

Before the thought is the sound.

Being is a mystery; expression, a cipher.

Unreleased Expressions

Cultures that fail to value the arts will soon be bereft of both the works and the artists.

Artists will continue to produce, without fail.

But, as I have done, they will no longer make newly-completed works generally accessible.