quoted 13 lines you wrote:> you wrote:
>
> Form-driven art is not original and therefore boring.
>
> I write:
>
> hmmm....I beg to differ. Should we therefore nullify all of the visual
> arts of the past 1oo years? I would say it's limited and problematic, but
> certainly not unoriginal and boring.
>
> but that's for another list...
>
> Nate
form is a result of constraint.
ever stare at a blank page/canvas/sheet of tablature and feel overwhelmed?
Schoenburg did--he pushed tonality as far as he could, and when it broke
stopped composing for several years. he spit out short bursts, pieces
trying to self-organize into 'Music.' how to motivate
beginning, ending? only as a struggle to put into form, to
mediate, to transmit through a medium, to map, a landform. limitlessness
is implacable--it contains no truth, permits everything, and is the
ultimater horror. kurtz's revelation--kubrick, conrad, brando.
Archimedes wanted a point to stand on--a forum for speaking, a wall for
reverberation.
George Perec, Italo Calvino, Gilbert Sorrentino (writers) wrote immense
lipograms, anagrams, false translations, houses of cards . . . all because
most people embark with realizing their hidden formalisms. all these
people i have mentioned (and countless others) have experienced
formlessness radically, and recoiled from it. intuition is how we lie to
ourselves--we read small signs and claim that it's all impulsive.
Granted, i don't believe that it is necessary to do as the serialists
desire and make every element of every larger set a serially motivated
element, BUT WHY THE ANTI-FORMALISM? formal doesn't mean suit and tie.
there are small forms for minor musics, marginal and articulate.
ryan whitehead