anderson@uwvax.ARPA (05/03/84)
--------- >Pure sound is what comes from natural circumstances. If you want pure >sound devoid of "human" expressive and intellectual manipulation, >go to a game preserve. > >Art is by its very nature the expressive and intellectual manipulation of >sensory media BY HUMAN BEINGS. It is not a part of what some would call >"the natural order of things", it is an expressive attempt to create >a new order of things. To choose to negate human intervention is to negate >art itself. [R. ROSEN] I disagree. I don't want to get caught trying to define "art", but I don't think that it can be restricted to the process by which an "artist" conveys his/her emotions, thoughts, etc. This sort of noble, posturing involvement, typified equally by the 19th century romantics and by MTV, is what Cage is (over-)reacting against. To understand Cage you have to understand Buddhism, which (grossly oversimplified) says that the cause/effect process which governs our thoughts the same as the process that governs everything, and that the main barrier to fully knowing this is the desire for personal glorification. The human reasoning process is seen as a hinderance, rather than an aid, to understanding. An immediate consequence of this is that human-produced "music" is no different or better than any naturally-occuring sound (or silence). I personally don't buy the Buddhist ideas, and I agree that Cage's music is best relegated to some background role. But I don't think he's a charlatan (strongly recommended reading: "Silence" and "A Year from Monday" by Cage) and I don't think human involvement is a prerequisite for art. My own work with computer music has produced some beautiful results in which I was involved as programmer, but definitely not as artist. Where did the art come from then? From the random number routine, from the chips, it doesn't matter. Same principle as Cage, but more pleasing to the ear. David P. Anderson (anderson@uwvax)
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (05/03/84)
> ... I don't think human involvement is a prerequisite for art. > My own work with computer music has produced some beautiful results > in which I was involved as programmer, but definitely not as artist. > Where did the art come from then? From the random number routine, > from the chips, it doesn't matter. Same principle as Cage, but > more pleasing to the ear. > > David P. Anderson (anderson@uwvax) Your own work, you say. I assume this means that you gave instructions to the computer rather than walking up to a computer console and recording whatever sounds you heard. Furthermore, you listened to the result, ordered it, and made a decision about whether to call it YOUR work of art. The difference between experiencing art and experiencing nature is that nature is the result of nautral forces, and art is a construct resulting from human decision-making and involvement. -- "An argument is an intellectual process. It isn't the automatic gainsaying of what the other person says." "... Can be." Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr