Musings and Care

I just want to chime in here. It has been awhile. Not too long, but a bit. I am starting into my graduate studies now. It’s hard because I don’t know if anyone reads these transmissions. Then again I guess none of that really matters if I approach this in the right way. I write for me. I write to share also.

It is important to me to say we have to keep thinking about the planet and our connection to it. It is important for me to say how we must stand up to Trump and be the face of good in the midst of his ugly charade. We must find the light within ourselves and scatter it all around.

I am listening to a sound artist named Jana Winderen. The piece is called “Out of Range.” It is made with bat calls including other sound sources. I think it is really good aesthetic stuff but at the same time. Oh and also I should say I read the first 10 or so of some art world people speaking to what is contemporary in art.

The thing is I want to help myself have a better life so that I can be in a position to help others. The art world can eat you up. And you can eat up the art world as well. But beyond all that, I thought, kind of in a John Cage sort of way, about why or how is sound put forth as an object of focus be it this piece by Winderen which is really gorgeous or the Jonas Brothers? What is sound without an in stream, context, a multidimensional context coming from many autonomous sources from many different directions in space.

That brought me back to art as life. I am still doing this art as life thing. I just can’t go into headlong the seemingly trap of sound as art and the manner of presentation of any kind. Have it unfold organically in space, in time as a part of lived reality. As an aspect fine art presentations are a part of the life flow but it seems to me very important to not go into that aspect or element as if it were the whole, because it is not.

This piece is really good though but it seems decadent to make too much of a hobby of this sort, for me anyway. I appreciate the abstract unconventional conventional manner of it. Also I have to say that, as I have said before, if one follows the trajectory laid out by Marcel Duchamp (beginning of last century) and John Cage (middle of last century) the beginning of this century, in my opinion is life as art, art as life dealing through living with notions of the planet and society and culture. Conventional art like sculptures and paintings in exhibitions will and should go on but just not as indications of the historical development of Western fine art. In fact it seems very much that that narrative has dissipated and become infused into the very life flow we all share.

I do think conventional practice should certainly continue to go on and thrive. Just because Western fine art has come to an end in a conventional sense should not mean that conventional practice should not be used as expression and communication. In fact now that I think of it, conventional practice may for the first time really surface in all its many splendor without the institutionalization and matrix of the art world. Its a fine time to make good spirited art of any kind. Peace.