If you don't think collage making is art then you don't know much at all
about art.
Playing a piano is rearranging the order of the sounds designed by a
piano manufacturer. Decisions made by the piano manufacturer greatly
influence, limit, and shape the pianists vision. And if the pianist is
not a composer, then is the pianist a non-artist? They are only
rearranging the composer's vision, right?
Writers usually write in a language which was invented by their culture
hundreds, even thousands of years before. They use other people's pens,
paper, and word processors. These tools, made and designed by others,
VERY much determine what they are able to write. Do you write
differently than you did before you owned a word processor? I certainly
do.
Even painting is rearranging what's already done. Most painters don't
mine their pigments or mix their paints or weave their canvases. In the
late 1800's when tubed paint was invented, people like you condemned
their use as "low" art because their users weren't mixing the paint
themselves. An early user of such paint? Vincent Van Gogh.
Do you have to be a supernatural being, free from cultural and physical
constraints, and able to manipulate matter and energy at the subatomic
level to be a "high" artist? I hope not cuz I'm an atheist.
Someone once said that art is anything that *can* be done very well. I
like that definition. Besides, whenever somebody uses the term "high"
art I reach for my gun.
-CF
quoted 28 lines -----Original Message-----> -----Original Message-----
> From: idm-owner@hyperreal.com [SMTP:idm-owner@hyperreal.com] On Behalf
> Of Mark Bowen
> Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 1997 2:44 PM
> To: idm@hyperreal.com
> Subject: (idm) DJing isn't high art
>
> Djing is great. I do it. I love to do it and hear it done. Its art
> in the
> sense that collage making is art or flower arranging is art. You
> aren't
> creating much, just rearranging whats already done. Sometime its nice
> but its
> too easy.
>
> I will give scratching djs a little more credit partly because it is
> much more
> difficult but also because they are sacrificing years of record
> enjoyment with
> their greasy paws (that's dedication).
>
>
>
> --
> Mark Edward
> Bowen
> Warmed Breakdown
> mb@gettins.bche.uic.edu