[MD] Defining Art (was Churning Point)

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

This answers Platt briefly, and then goes a little longer. Please read down.

[Arlo previously]
Then you were speaking incorrectly. The arts do "progress".

[Platt responded]
You call beating with a stick and blowing through a tube art? 

[Arlo]
You call etchings on the inside of a cave "art". Why was their music any less
so?

[Arlo previously]
Another question, do you think your enjoyment of Mozart is cultural? That is,
could digiderooing produce similar feelings of musical Quality in Australian
aboriginees, or is Mozart objectively superior in Quality?

[Platt responded]
I have no idea what musical Quality an Australian aborigine feels. Neither do
you.

[Arlo]
Maybe not. But I do know that digiderooing is considered a highly valuable, and
quite beautiful, act of "art" by aboriginal cultures. Either they, like most
Americans in your book, lack superior discrimination skills, which would lead
them to see the music you like as inherently superior, or Quality that is
revealed through auditory experience is highly culturally bound, what is
Quality in one culture, may be fingernails on a chalkboard in another.

But, I'm curious, what "idea" do you have about how the cave etchers in France
17000 years ago felt that makes you judge their creations as "art"? 

[Arlo previously]
Finally, what "ancient folk tunes" are you speaking of, that are music, while
aborginal digiderooing is not.

[Platt responded]
Check out http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/F_0127.htm for some information
about ancient folk music, especially the definition. You'll notice that "tune"
and "song" are involved.

[Arlo]
And to you, for some particular sound experience to be Quality it must have
"tune" and "song"? Is this an inherent aspect for "music" to have Quality for
all people? In other words, are the aboriginals who feel digiderooing to be
"art", regardless that it might lack what you personally call "tune" or "song",
mistaken? Uneducated? Primitive? Indisciminatory? What?

By the way, if you think "beating something with a stick" can not be beautiful
"art", I recommed starting with the Shanghai Percussion Ensemble's work for
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

And, Spiritual Adriondak, if you're lurking, this is a good point for me to
point out the "literal/mythos" divide present. It is not enough, in this case,
for the argument to be made that whatever auditory representations are encoded
by a culture for the purpose of "breaking" the listener out of static social
and intellectual patterns, for opening the individual to a Dynamic experience,
no. What we define as "art" cannot simply be the visual and auditory (among
other styles) of activity performed to open to the listener to DQ, it must be
that what one culture sees as "art" is true for all cultures and all people.
That is, because Mozart opens Platt up to a Dynamic Experience and digiderooing
does not, it must be because Mozart is univerally and objectively "True" art
and digiderooing is "not".

I contend that art, in any of its cultural and sensory guises, is "art" when and
only when it succeeds in freeing the mind of the "witness" from static social
and intellectual patterns. In this way, it has to always be fresh, to keep the
metaphor from hardening, and its "artness" does not have anything to do with
"tune" or "song" or "use of colors" or "dimensionality". It is "art" when FOR
YOU your static patterns are broken, and you just "are".

If digiderooing is recognized as beautiful (something I'd argue is also defined
by its shattering effect on static patterns) art by the aboriginees, then who
is anyone to say it is "not art", or "lesser art" than Mozart? Who is to say
that Mozart SHOULD be seen as Higher Quality art by everyone, and those who do
not are indisciminatory (at best) or uneducated (at worst).

The halls of our museums are hung not with "art" that simply reproduced static
social values and patterns, but with "art" that we recognize as powerful
because of its ability to shatter static values and patterns. Some, perhaps,
have "hardened" over time. Maybe a Botticelli does not have the same shattering
effect it once had, maybe the cave paintings in France Platt spoke of still do,
but the point is not that "art" is relative, but that "art" relies on the
metaphors of the mythos to point a way OUT of the mythos. Its "artness" is not
a product of what cultural pointers it uses, but its success in getting you
out.

What do you think?

Arlo