Enjoying this thread very much...
Guillaume Grenier wrote:
quoted 12 lines On 21/05/01 18:49, Digital Cutup Lounge said in living color:
> On 21/05/01 18:49, Digital Cutup Lounge said in living color:
>
> > Right, it's not a matter of better/worse...however, I do think that one of the
> > important elements of art is it's contemporary relevance. Good art suggests
> > ways of dealing with new experiences and how to live in new contexts, which is
> > why we always need new art/music -- the world and our experiences are always
> > changing, perhaps never more quickly than right now.
>
> I don't think I can really agree with that (at least, in the way it's
> formulated/in the way I comprehend it). It seems you're implying that every
> work of art carries an "expiration date", after which it no longer has any
> relevance... (Also see below).
Not so black and white, but IMO works of art and even whole genres do lose some of
their relevance over time, particularly when society (as well as the fabric of our
daily lives) is changing as fast as it has been in recent years. I am currently
doing a thesis on electronic music and the Internet (there's more than one way to
get paid for surfing the Web), and have recently been re-reading classic media
theorist Marshall McLuhan on this topic, here's a couple of choice quotes:
"In the history of human culture there is no example of a conscious adjustment of
the various factors of personal and social life to new extensions [i.e., media]
except in the
efforts of artists. The artist picks up the message of cultural and
technological challenge decades before its transforming impact occurs. "
"
in the electric age there is no longer any sense in talking about the artists
being ahead of his time. Our technology, also, is ahead of its time, if we reckon
by our ability to recognize it for what it is
Just as higher education is no
longer a frill or luxury but a stark need of production and operational design in
the electric age, so the artist is indispensable in the shaping and analysis and
understanding of the life of forms, and structures created by electric technology."
- both taken from _Understanding Media_
These are issues I have grappled with in my own career as a musician. My musical
goal was always to be a great jazz bass player, I love to improvise and create
music in the moment. However, it takes years of practice to become a really good
improviser, and just by the time I started to feel like I was making real progress,
I looked around and found that the relevance was draining right out of what I was
doing. Time for a change. Now I'm co-leading a laptop improv band here in HK and
I'm happy again...
John
--
John von Seggern
DJ/producer
Digital Cutup Lounge
Hong Kong
http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com
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