[MD] MOQ and Art

[Mike Craghead]

At 03:13 AM 8/27/2006, Ham wrote to Steve:
'I wonder, too, about how this works in the creative process.  When does the composer, for example, experience the "DQ event", if at all, and does it occur before a note is set to paper?  Often, I'll struggle to write an essay on a difficult subject, getting a "high" only while reviewing the final result (if I see it as worthy).  In other words, the work of writing --which should be DQ because it's the act of creating -- seems to have less pleasure for me than the finished piece -- which should be sq because it's "dead" and done.  How do you explain that anomaly in  Pirsigian epistemology?'

Hi, Folks!

I have been wrestling with the meaning of art for a long time, viewing the question through various goggles: those of a visual artist, of a musician (singer & songwriter), and (to a much lesser degree) of an actor. I'll contribute my ideas on the subject, since they seem to fit quite nicely within the MOQ, and might help with Ham's question (above).

For me, the appeal of these pursuits has always been the piece of them that is undefinable. Ask anyone about their favorite art or music or theater performance, and at some point they'll have to start using some really amorphous and unsatisfying language that will never really approach the goal of "capturing" the experience in words. I've always enjoyed that "next level" aspect of art; I've called it "the most tangible form of magic" that we've got. 

I've always said that creating great art is "finding the balance between the heart and the head." Art that fails can be said to be off-balance: either too cerebral; overworked and underfelt, or too visceral; lots of feeling which is lost because the structure failed. In terms of the MOQ, Dynamic Quality is visceral and Static Quality is cerebral.

Art is a means of communication. If it weren't, no one would need galleries or theaters or concert halls, artists would just stay in their rooms and paint and sing and act all alone. I believe that any artist that claims not to care about their audience at any point in their process, is fibbing; it's a "controversial" sentence in their press kit, not a statement of fact. And art that fails, does so because it fails to communicate. The joy or angst or fear or hope doesn't make it to the audience. It's the performance by an actor in a theater that is utterly believable and moving, but can't be heard by the folks in the back row because the actor doesn't project their voice (the performance has plenty of DQ but not enough SQ: Stage blocking, voice technique, etc). It's the song on the radio with an irresistible, poignant melody that you can't get out of your head, whose lyrics turn out to be utterly banal (DQ in the music, probably born of great inspiration, but lost because of low-SQ, "phoned-in" lyrics). It's the sculpture that can't be appreciated without an art degree and thousands of words worth of exposition (DQ lost because the artist didn't "let the viewer in" with some SQ thinking; or provide a path into the vision). 
[An aside about visual art here: I realise that my "sculpture" comment may reveal my own bias about visual art, so in the interest of full disclosure I'll spill those beans. Shouldn't work have inherent Quality woven into it's fabric, that any viewer can perceive, not just the folks who know the artist's life story or the history of the movement they're a part of? Those facts  may sometimes convince us that a work has higher Static Quality than we would have thought otherwise, but should those facts be crucial to enjoying the piece? The cliche, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like," is far more valuable than the art critics would have us believe: it's Dynamic Quality, which only reaches us (as audience members) when the artist balances it with Static Quality. Leaving all of the Static Quality bottled up in words (the descriptions, expositions, histories, etc), is, in my view, a cop-out (for more airing of this particular pet peeve, see Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word," 1975). But I digress.]

Back to the MOQ: 
Ham speaks of the end result being more satisfying than the process. I've felt it and seen it, and it's opposite. I think the reason lies in the fact that the creation of the work is a completely separate experience from it's "consumption," i.e. writing is entirely different than reading. Writing (and any other creative process) is taking the "inspiration" (DQ) and communicating it (using SQ effectively) to the audience. If you wrote it, you're not going to read it like a reader, you're going to read it too critically and think about it using different pieces of your brain. To circumvent this pitfall in judging our own work, the best thing to do is develop a split personality of sorts: become an objective observer. Sometimes distance (physical or temporal) from the work helps. But in any case, you try to put on the goggles of a reader. If you do it right, you can experience your own work from a fresh perspective, and get a better idea about what your reader sees and feels. If you manage to trick your brain properly (a "Method" acting trick; "The Actor's Studio," Sanford Meisner, etc), you may even achieve the same forehead-slapping moment of epiphany that you're hoping to induce in your reader! Read it again and again and you'll find it's DQ giving way to it's SQ, just like it probably will for your reader. So, Ham, the act of writing isn't just DQ; it's DQ filtered through SQ. And the end result, for you (unless you manage to read it like a reader) will be nearly all SQ. Isn't that the goal of writing? To create something with very high Static Quality? It's DQ appears only at the moment of conception (writing), and comes back at the moment of consumption (reading). If you're finding the end result more satisfying than the creative process, perhaps you've mastered the "split-personality" trick, and are reading your work like a reader. Congratulations! 

In my own realm of experience, I find visual art to be the least satisfying, because the Dynamic part(creation) is private and short-lived, then the Static part (consumption) can happen when I'm not even there. I feel good when I know I've made Quality work, but I'm not held immediately accountable, and that's not as rewarding. 

In contrast, I find acting to be a bit of an overdose of DQ; if you're doing it right, you're so "out there" that it's downright spooky. That's why great actors (with VERY few exceptions) have to develop massive egos, just to survive the process. "Acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances" (Boleslavsky, If I recall): the "living truthfully" is behaving (like Lila?) as YOU really would in the situation; not as a character, because you have fooled your brain into thinking like the character would think, using intellectual tools you've developed ("preparation") which are designed to elicit Dynamic behavior in yourself. At the same time, you've managed to believe in the "imaginary circumstances:" the camera, the stage, the costumes, the audience. It's an experience alive with DQ, but it's exhausting!  

So for me, music is the perfect balance. Writing a song is the "private" experience that's akin to painting in that it's balancing DQ with SQ to create the song. But then I get to perform it, which is an entirely different experience: DQ (performing: give & take with the audience) and SQ (remembering the lyrics, deciding what song to play next, using correct mic technique). Recording is yet another rewarding experience, balancing DQ with SQ. 
(Incidentally, as a musician, I took great issue with Phaedrus when he criticized the singer Lila had seen on the riverboat. But I'll leave that rant for another day...)

Thank you for your time!

Mike Craghead
humboldtmusic.com
humboldtmusic.com/mc
humboldtmusic.com/sarimike