The Post-Modern Crisis

The ways in which modern musicians try to crack new ground was very inventive as seen in Monday's class. Iannis Xenakis' "Mycenae Alpha" was a great example of this; a machine that interprets his drawings into sound is such a forward thinking idea. Another invention along the same lines was the scoreLight which used laser beams, as dictated by a drawing's shape, to make interesting sounds. To see and hear these inventions work prove that a dead end in the post-modern crisis is not soon approaching.
Stockhausen's "Helicopter String Quartet" was fascinating in that it played with the usual conventions in how music is played and how musicians interact with each other to produce music. Since each violinist was wearing headphones, they were able to capably interact with each other in their playing. I liked how the music echoed the drama of flying in a helicopter itself.

Gilbert & George/Orlan

Gilbert and George's idea that our own bodies can be used as objects of our art is pretty clever and its introduction into art galleries as "living sculptures" really provided a fascinating spin on what was commonly thought of as art. The transition from everyday objects being gazed on in a whole new light with the introduction of readymades to the works of Gilbert and George which used their own bodies in the context of art is an example of what makes art so fascinating because it constantly redefines itself and only exists through the common influx of groundbreaking new ideas and interpretations. Fr them to exist as the sculptures themselves makes the art carry a whole new meaning; they spoke of how human beings have living souls while traditional art materials do not. Their works were cited to have influence on musicians like David Bowie (I like the idea of art bleeding through from an underground phenomenon to a mainstream one; one can see the evolution of how an idea becomes palatable for a wide audience). In the case of "The Singing Sculpture," the idea of a person just singing to a pre-recorded tape and calling it art must have been radical to a lot of people at the time (as in not accepted as a legitimate art form). In the case of people like David Bowie, who presented his music as well as his own body image as art (Ziggy Stardust), found widespread success by redefining what people think of when they think of musicians (music as well as their own bodies as "objects"). Any idea that can seem radical to unsuspecting eyes can become instantly palatable through an easy pill called Pop music. In fact, the whole phenomenon of performance art intertwined with music can by traced to such events as the Who destroying their instruments after every performance in the mid 1960's and even further than that I'm sure. Gilbert and George's influence on the art world as well as the music world still reverberates today. An example of this is British Sea Power's music video for "Remember Me," which I thought of immediately when seeing the video of the "living sculptures" in Thursday's class.



Orlan is an artist whose early work was radical at the time (her own body being treated as the art itself, which is perfectly exemplified by her being photographed within a frame in the "corps sculptures" series), but the video of her going under the knife while reading text that related to body image was a bit shocking. Her latest work in which she has her own image dictated by a certain culture is an interesting idea. It provides a nice contrast to what different society's believe is that standard for beauty and body image and it uses her own image as a starting point for each one.

Xerox Project

Juan Parada

Juan Parada's presentation on was very interesting; it was fascinating to hear that some of the freelancers who have worked for him for several years have never met him in person. The proliferation of telecommuting in the way businesses are run has put cracks in the widely-held image of employees gathering around a giant wooden table to do business.
The story of how the founders of LatinRed.com fabricated the existence of a president and other authority figures by creating fake e-mail addresses is a great metaphor to how a new style of running a company is rising due to the ubiquity of the internet; the fact that two ambitious people were able to start a wildly successful organization but thought they had to present themselves under the guise of what is commonly thought of as a legitimate business (i.e. having presidents, vice presidents, etc.) in order to be taken seriously is a prime example of how the internet has changed the rules of the game. Two ambitious people have as much as a chance of taking their claim of a market as does a huge corporation. This mindset was exemplified by Juan Parada's style of business. I loved the D.I.Y. ethics that he put forth and how he said that his ideals were set by his attitude in youth (his citing the punk movement as a great influence was very surprising and reminds me of how the hippies in Woodstock had to grow up someday). From his speech, I learned that one might as well apply their attitudes towards living to how they conduct business and with access to an ever-increasing global network, the future is only looking ripe for the truly ambitious.
Also, I coincidentally saw this video over the weekend that dealt with telecommuting in a pretty funny way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFWdCs1nqSk

The Beatniks

William S. Burroughs work shown in class has really intrigued me and I'm looking forward to reading his writing. I've always recognized his name as an influential author but I never got around to actually checking out his work. The same can be said of Allen Ginsberg. I've only heard of his poem "Howl" and know him as a famous poet. However, I read "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac when I was in high school but I don't remember the contents that well. I do remember that the man who inspired the character of "Dean Moriarty," Neal Cassady, also appears in Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Interestingly, I see these two books bridging the gap between the beatnik and hippie generations with the appearance of Cassady.
The definition of the beatnik generation in class as a bit of a "lost generation" defeated by the high standards set by the "American Dream" was very fascinating. I never thought of the beatniks as being "beat down" and I only thought of the connotation of jazz music. The definition does fit as applied to "On the Road" because I actually do remember the opening page having Sal Paradise reveal that he went through a divorce (which could be seen as failure to start the perfect nuclear family). I never really thought about how "On the Road" was a revolutionary book for its time and I'm looking forward to reading "Naked Lunch" and "Howl" with this new perspective on how these works came to be (also, Burroughs' cut-up technique sounds absolutely wild!).

"L.H.O.O.Q." & "Un Chien Andalou"

"L.H.O.O.Q." by Marcel Duchamp is an example of what I love about art; to me, art is about consistently breaking boundaries and unspoken rules. It is about expressing individuality at every turn and presenting new ideas. In the case of this specific piece, the reappropriation of a famous art piece (in this case, the "Mona Lisa") results in what was a refreshingly new idea at the time. With the simple idea of placing a mustache on the subject of the iconic piece (which was printed on a postcard) with the letters "L.H.O.O.Q." printed underneath, Duchamp had presented his own art by manipulating an an already-existing and highly recognizable image with humor. The concept is like art folding into itself and an example of this concept in more modern times can be seen in the ubiquity of sampling in music.

The experimental short film "Un Chien Andalou," a collaboration between Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, was certainly one of the strangest films I've ever seen (it definitely didn't hold back as one of the first images was of a woman getting her eye sliced open). Honestly, the film seemed to surreal for me when we were watching it in class but when I read that it was based on actual dreams I started to open up to it more. Sometimes I just need to know the intention behind certain pieces of art to appreciate them because without it, it may seem like absurdity for the sake of being absurd.

Grid Project