[MD] Defining Art (was Churning Point)

[khaled Alkotob]

Well said Arlo

On a side note here. Our local Philharmonic is closing the season with:

Dvorak "Husitska overture"
Stravinsky " Le scare du Printemps"

and 

Sculthorpe "Quamby" played on the didjeridu by William Barton.

William Barton is widely recognised as one of Australia's finest
traditional didjeridu players, teachers and composers for the instrument.

here is the link
http://www.fresnophil.org/season_08.html

Intresting enough, when the Rite of Spring was played for the first time,
the audience practically rioted, it was new art. here is the story

http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/milestones/991110.motm.riteofspring.
html

As for the question of why even bother going to a live symphony
performance as opposed to enjoying an MP3 rendition on your IPOD at the
park or on the beach, well that's the ageless question and I think you
hit the nail on the head when you said it's to shatter the static values
and patterns.
Not just listening to the music, as opposed to silence or traffic or the
TV but also to watch 75 people in sync on stage, faults and all, create
something just for the moment.

A musical experience comes in many degrees
1. Player or listener
2. listener to a reproduction
3. listener in a music hall to a live performance
4. Listener Up on stage and actually feeling the bass through your feet,
hearing the breathing, the clacking of the keys and so on.

Pirsig talked about the layer of veneer we put on things to make them
palatable. Art is the real product, good or bad.

Khaled

[Arlo]
> 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
>