Where The Hell Art Thou?

OK, OK, everyone just calm down.  Sheesh!  We stop posting for six months and you'd think the world was coming to an end...which it just might if NATO and ISIS get their ways.

Anyway, yes we haven't lashed our faithful readers with our trademark wry viewpoints since August last year, but we have damn good excuses!  To start with, right about the time we last gurbled on this site, we managed to contract typhus, amoebic dysentery and dengue fever, all in the space of six weeks.  We laid prone in a krankenhaus for 20 days having all sorts of witches' brews pumped directly into our veins, though the nurses were rather cute, so we didn't complain too much.

We managed to survive, though barely.  There were days when we were sure we would never assault our readers again, but much to your chagrin, dear reader, we muddled through.

Laundry lists of tropical diseases notwithstanding, we've also been hard at work completing and commissioning Jakarta's premier arts and entertainment complex - a $22 million exhibition hall, museum and live theater - called The Ciputra Artpreneur.  Projects of this size have a way of sucking up all of one's energy and free time, so we haven't had much left for our usual rants and raves in our little digital safe room here.

Yes, it's easy to sit around slinging bits and bytes telling everyone that they should do this and must do that to change the world, but it's a much bigger proposition to be an actual, real live positive force in the actual, real live world.

Just so the gentle reader knows, we put our actions where our mouth is.  We would never tell someone to do something we weren't willing to do ourselves.

What it all comes down to is this: what can you do to make the world a better place in your little part of the world.  We have explored the fact that the PTB are trying desperately to destroy culture, beauty and individual creativity.  It offends them that us sugar ants on their tables of privilege dare to improve the world, rather than destroy it, as they do oh-so-well.

Art is dangerous to the controlling class.  It is why they try so hard to destroy music, trash the fine arts and turn performace into celebrations of filth and baseness.  They can't stand that we seek to elevate ourselves and celebrate beauty and harmony.  They cringe that we seek rhythm and balance.  They shiek in horror when one of us dares to stand out as a force for good and joy.

Which is why we must do all in our power to achieve these things.

Their moda operandae are gore, hate, destruction, and filth.  They wallow in death and destruction like diseased swine, and must lower everyone else to their level so as not to feel the pain of their lack of humanity.  They dine on our pain and bathe in our suffereing.  Every soul they corrupt is another grotesque trophy on their mantle.  Can you imagine the profound emptiness they feel when just one of us rises above and creates something of beauty?

And so the responsibility falls on us, dear reader.  We do not need weapons.  We do not need harshness or force.  We do not need to fight fire with fire, for then we descend to their pit of Ultimate Evil.

Instead, we counter them with beauty.  We create and celebrate the creations.  We take the rubble of their hate and build new works of great Humanity.  We halt their onslaught with magnificent splashes of color and glorious strokes of sound.  We refuse to buy into their degradation, and instead support and encourage those who dare to greatness.

It is a shame that so many great artists have died in abject poverty, while others make vast fortunes trading on their work.  This is a symptom of greed and hate. 

Instead, we should buy a painting, commission a song, help publish a book.  Imagine if you took all the money and time used for lousy TV programs and crap movies and trash novels, and put it into supporting a local artist, writer or performer.  Suppose you helped send a child to music school, or helped a group of youngsters stage a great play, or offered to pay to publish another's first book?  What kind of ripples would that send through the world?  What great things would happen years from now because of that simple act?

The other day, I was in a meeting with a group of children, aged 11 to 17, who had formed their own quintet.  I listened to one lovely girl, 17, play Mozart on the violin.  I listened to another girl, 13, play Mendelsohn also on the violin.  I listened to a boy, 14, play Beethoven on the viola.  Their fingering and bowing was impeccable.  Their phrasing was interpretive and emotional.  Each told a short story about the composer and the background of their chosen pieces.  And they did it in flawless English, a second language for them.  The youngest member is a boy, aged 11, who plays the cello.  It is bigger than he is.

I'm going to hire them to play at the Ciputra Artpreneur Grand Opening Gala Event on 26 May, when the first Broadway musical ever (Disney's Beauty and the Beast) will open in Jakarta.

They deserve all the encouragement I can give them.

A 1,000 Words

Kurt Wenner, "Flying Carpet"

Few people, even artists, stop to realize that art is the highest form of mathematics.  Just as language has informal and formal forms, mathematics has formulae and aesthetics.  Language has grammar and vocabulary, art has principles and elements.  Mathematics is to art what language is to poetry.  Mathematics are the tools by which we create beauty and harmony.

In language, we arrange words in a meaningful ways.  The writer's job is to make that arrangement the most pleasing and harmonious composition possible.  In mathematics, we arrange numbers in meaningful ways.  The artist's job is to arrange the numbers in ways that we want to hang on our wall or go to a museum to see.

Music is nothing but mathematics.  It is the science of vibration and harmonics massaged into glorious sound.  Music uses time, sine waves and vibrations in order to create individual sounds that are then blended into deeply moving compositions.

Art uses light, shadow, perspective, and spacial relationships.  It uses shape, form and function.  It blends these geometric and physical concepts into images that evoke emotional responses in the viewer.  Art is numbers given voice, because the greatest art speaks to us in a voice that we intuitively know is that of the Universe itself.

How many of us analyze the way we perceive the Universe?  How do we know what something feels like by looking at a photo of it?  How do we know something is further or higher than another?  You may think these are elementary questions, but try closing one eye for a day and going about your normal routine.  Without stereo vision, what clues are you using to navigate the world?

Here's a fun and easy experiment.  Take a friend or family member and sit them in a dark room.  Take a portable light source, say a flashlight, and move the flashlight around their head.  Try every position - up, down, sides, back, dead on.  How do you feel when you see their head lit from different positions?  Which ones "feel" right and which "feel" wrong?  Which frighten you and which attract you?  Which ones are boring and which exciting?

Now ask yourself, "Why do I feel these things?"

It is not an easy question and the answer requires many hours of deep reflection.  That is art.

We all know the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is why.  It is easier to show artistic principles than it is to describe them because the language we need is visual.  Try describing a shadow to a blind person.  Try telling them the difference between red and green.  Better yet, take your blind friend to the Louvre, stand them in front of the Mona Lisa and tell them why everyone marvels at that picture.  It can be done, but it will take a long time and the right vocabulary.

How many of us stop to consider that a trapezoid is just a square viewed from one edge?  That means that pyramids are cubes viewed from a certain perspective.

Art is a rabbit hole that causes us to turn our Universes upside down and start thinking about what our senses are telling us.  This is the primary difference between great art and crap.  Art that doesn't clarify some universal secret or take us out of our complacent lives is NOT art.  It is just noise, and the world is full of noise.

Art is the glory of silence.  As anyone who has ever tried to record silence knows, there is no such thing.  But, there is the control of noise to create softness and harmony, and that is art.

Control of noise is done through mathematics, and when that control rises to its highest expression, that is art.  Regardless of which sense is receiving the noise, we can mathematically organize the noise to make it pleasing to our senses.  That is the artist's job.

The more we observe our Universe, the more we appreciate the great works of art.  And if you need proof that art exists beyond the senses, then remember that one of the greatest painters (Claude Monet) was blind, and one of the greatest composers (Ludwig von Beethoven) was deaf.

Culture's Not For Yogurt Anymore

Another looong day in the world of "high art".

It is not easy building a world-class art and performance center, especially on the 11th, 12th and 13th floors of a city as densely packed as Jakarta, but I'm determined to do it because, damn it, creating and promoting beauty and harmony is the only way to beat the bastards.

I've gone on at length in this column about art and how it is like garlic to vampires when it comes to the PowersThatNeedTheirToastButtered (PTNTTB).  Educating and elevating humanity is/will be the key to winning the Culture Wars.

Pick a random film from the 50s and another from this past year.  Doesn't matter the genre or plot, and listen to the words.  Runing them again and watch the pictures.  Notice anything?  The portrayal of humanity is ever coursening.  People talk course, act course, think course.  Dress has gone downhill.  Manners have all but vanished.  And this is how the PTNTTB expects us to act because animals are much easier to train when they are broken.

They don't want us to have high culture and art.  They don't want us to elevate our minds and spirits.  They just want unthinking animals that can push buttons and pull levers.

How do Warhol, Lichtenstein and Pollock compare to Rembrandt, Titian or Monet?  How do Pearl Jam, Tin Idiots and Sex Pistols compare with Chopin, Handel or Mendelssohn?  They are really trying to kill us spiritually by continually rubbing our souls in filth and denying us the ability to rise above baseness.  They want to save god-like status for themselves while the rest of us happily serve their every whim (see Star Trek TOS: Plato's Stepchildren).

Speaking of art and Star Trek, have you noticed that it's kind of like the Bible?  You can find an episode to illustrate just about any point you care to make.

Where was I?  Oh, right...

It stands to reason that if the PTNTTB are so desperate to reduce humanity to little more than lap dogs, then the best/only way to fight back is to create beauty and educate ourselves.  Right here in Indonesia, the PTNTTB are so paranoid and afraid of folks getting smart and out of hand that last year they cancelled all art and history classes in the public schools so they could stuff more religion down everyone's throats.  And next year, since the public schools are determined to turn out idiots, then by golly all the private schools need to get rid of their language and computer classes so everyone is equally squalid and subservient.

Sad but true.

It's a real good sign of fascism when society (such as it is) is geared specifically to create one-trick ponies who are just smart enough to punch buttons, but could never challenge the folks in the board rooms.

Only problem is that whatever the rest of the world is becoming, so are the breeding products of the slimy PTNTTB.  The...children for lack of a better term...of those useless blood-sucking would-be masters are just as slimy, dreary and vacuous as their "parents".  More so.  Look at Paris Hilton.

We're on our own.  We have to read, to listen to fine music, to ponder philosophy, to appreciate good art, and to control to the greatest extent possible the quality of information that enters our souls.

Not only are the PTNTTB in terminal decline and soon unable to rescue even themselves, we are certainly not on their list of priorities.

If you are one of the few with the self-awareness to not only determine whether you have a mind and soul, but able to define and develop them, then run...don't walk...to the nearest gutenberg.org terminal and start packing your head with real, uplifting information.

You owe it to the future of the human race.

L'art Pour L'art

What is art?

Related to that, what is creativity?  Few people stop to think about these things in their daily lives, though we are surrounded by things called art nearly every moment of every day.  Many large cities have public art on display.  Counties maintain museums to display art.  Some people call TeeVee, movies and pop music art.  There is no lack of folks around that call themselves artists.  But what is it?

Can we be objective about art?  People commonly say that art is in the eye of the beholder.  One man's trash is another man's treasure.  Art is a statement that provokes emotion and even fistfights.  But is all that really art?

Robert Mapplethorpe's Pisschrist at one time was the center of tremendous controversy, with pickets and heated public debate over its merits.  It was defended as art on the grounds that it was self-expression.

Andy Warhol became famous for taking pop culture icons and removing them from context to show them in isolation.  Who can forget the Campbell's soup can or the Marilyn Monroe four-panel?  Are they art?

Are the works of Steven Spielberg or The Beatles art?  In fact, are any movies, commonly called a collaborative art form, definable as art?

The central problem here is whether we can measure art objectively.  Everyone has a favorite movie, book, painting, or song.  They can be very moving and meaningful to us and evoke strong memories and emotions when we encounter them.  However, the smell of frying bacon does the same thing for me.  Does that make cooking bacon an art form?

I submit that creativity and art are two very distinct things, and that just because something elicits strong emotions does not make it art, but simply a memory trigger.  Art is not necessarily emotional, though art can bring forth emotions.  Creativity is not art, though art is creative.  How does this work?

Well, one can do something creative that is not art.  Mapplethorpe's Pisschrist is creative.  I juxtaposes two things that no one in the public sphere had done before (mostly out of fear of being burned at the stake).  Placing a crucifix in a jar of urine was a creative act.  It took two objects that had never been combined before and did so in a way that provoked comment and emotion.  Some people thought it was sacrilege, other thought it was poignant.  Some felt compelled to look at it as a challenge to their personal paradigm, others felt compelled to cause damage and injury to prevent folks from looking at it.  But...it was not art.

Art is taking raw materials and, according to certain rigid rules, creating beauty by making the raw material conform to opposing rules.  Now that all sounds fine and dandy, but what does it mean?

Michelangelo's David took raw stone, and by the rules of symmetry, balance, rhythm, and context, converted the stone into flesh.  When one views the statue up close, one can see the ripples of sinew, the veins, the pensive look in the eyes.  The stone was forced to assume an unnatural state for the material.  The assumption was predicated on certain rules of 'beauty' that all people everywhere consider true and verifiable.  The pose of the subject creates the expectation of further motion and emotion, something which stone is not supposed to possess.  For that reason, the statue has endured for centuries as a treasure and work of art because it forces the natural (raw) to appear soft and flexible, while at the same time making flesh appear to be inflexible and eternal.

The artist not only accomplished an unusual juxtaposition in textures, but did so while creating a remarkably beautiful object.  Both in subjective and objective measures, the statue   The figure has perfect symmetry, is visually balanced, and the pose implies forward motion and thus rhythm.  Combined, these elements are the hallmark of true art.

By comparison, Mapplethorpe took two manufactured items - one produced by involuntary processes in his body and other by some manufacturer - and put them together without value added to either object.  The materials do not deny their basic natures and functions.  There is no rhythm, balance or created symmetry.  The crucifix is simple dunked in the urine in a more or less random manner.

While this might be considered a creative juxtaposition, it is not art.  It does not bear any of the hallmarks of subjective or objective measurements.  There is no beauty.  There is no modification of raw materials.  In fact, the only real labor involved was an involuntary body function requiring no conscious effort at all.

We can say this about much of pop culture.  Music is little more than organized chaos.  Most movies do not rise above being cuss fests and car crashes.  Even much of painting and sculpture can not be considered art.

One key factor of art is the hardest to judge because it takes a lot of time, and that is that art must withstand the test of time.  True art rises above contemporary fashions and trends.  It is as fresh at this moment as it was 400 years ago.

Art also exists above culture and, in fact, creates culture.  A work of art from any place and time can be appreciated in any other place and time.  The works of da Vinci, Mozart or the creators of King Tut's funerary pieces have fascinated and enthralled audiences across time and space.  You do not need to be Egyptian, nor even know anything about Tut's culture to marvel at the incredible workmanship and beauty of the art.

I find it hard to believe that the works of Jackson Pollock or Roy Lichtenstein will survive this century as anything but curiosities.  Some of The Beatles' music has withstood a half century and is greatly enjoyed on every continent.  It may well be that we could apply the term 'art' to some of their work, particularly that of John Lennon and George Harrison.

As for Steven Spielberg, the only thing artful about his work is the amazing way he has risen to the top of the movie world.   In 20 years, I would be surprised if anyone remembers who he was or what he did.  For that matter, after nearly a century of Academy Awards, how many Best Pictures can you name?  If you can think of two or three then there's a job as a film historian waiting for you.

Art never causes revulsion.  Things done for shock value can not be art.  Art does not shock.  It is elevating and inspiring.  It is timeless and exists outside the culture in which it is created.  Real art has no need to be anything but itself.

And can we please stop calling those brainless, clueless bucketheads in the recording industry "artists"?  At least in the movie and TeeVee industry, they call the actors "talent" and not "artists".

When it comes to art, at least there is one thing we can all agree on: Life on the Far Side is high art!