A dozen notes on art #1
August 1st 2007 01:30
Never points to the possible...
Among the basic frustrations of Harry Potter is the claustrophobia of its mythology -- its parochialism, simplicity, linearity. The Potterverse is small and rule-bound, even when most magical. There's only one sport. There aren't really any American or Asian wizards. There's only really one newspaper, and it has an enormous effect on what people believe. There's a straightforward working of political power. There's a limited number of spells, locations, characters, and character responses -- bullies will always laugh cruelly, adults are reliably unreliable, the same gags are repeated with Dumbledore and Hagrid and Neville...
Part of the depression of goth music is that it lacks closure, it's always incomplete -- it points to emotional possibilities it never ventures into or aesthetic standards it never delivers on. It's a cheap version of real melancholy.
It's strange to look in a photo, as in Harry Potter, and report on the fate of the people there -- that these two died in torture, that this person turned traitor, that that person rots in prison -- when in the photo they're all standing together, and they're carefree, and they smile.
Part of the strangeness, and part of the reason the photo cuts, is its reality, its thereness, "like a look, perhaps, or a scent, or dirt, or some sort of trace when they've got up and the doors have closed behind them". Or as Barthes or Sontag might have put it, the photograph is an emanation from a dead star.
So you empathetically experience their joy, and you feel joy for their joy, and their smiles trigger your smile -- and juxtaposed are a whole swag of thoughts and sensations to do with fragility and elusiveness and impermanence -- the ravages of time, and loss, bitterness, waste, regret -- and Robin Williams creepily whispering "Carpe diem".
And the mind dwells, also, on the stories of these people, and what they'll feel in coming years, and what they would have felt, standing here in your place, watching.
I don't know why cinema on the whole lacks the same effect, though it showcases dead actors. -- Are there different conventions of experience there? Or are films too fictional?
There is all the difference in the world between a photograph, and exactly the same image created with pencil and paper.
The cheapskate's gallery -- instead of paying the entry fee, and queuing your way through an exhibition, visit the giftshop and browse the guidebook.
Sport coverage is sometimes characterized by fast-paced editing -- confusing and hard to follow. You thereby convey something of the excitement of being there, and the sensory overload.
(Like fight scenes and sex scenes in movies.)
But there are two paths to the resulting effect. On the one hand, such editing is confusing and hard to follow. And on the other hand, it refers to the genre of sports editing, which is supposed to be confusing and hard to follow.
On the one hand, genes and conditioning. On the other, meaning and convention.
We're sensitive to speech norms. We unconsciously recognize the difficulty of a long passage sung without breathing. Apart from any symbolic meanings, we applaud the skill, are fascinated by it.
And I think we recognize the difficulty of a smooth pitch transition. "Another suitcase in another hall" seems to be structured around such jumps -- "I don't expect my love affairs to//last for long", "Being used to trouble I an//ticipate it", "But every time it matters all my//words desert me", "So what happens//now"...
Moments of boring ain't all bad, and avoiding boredom needn't be the game. For why can't boring be an experience, an effect, as valid as any other -- "You didn't bore them enough," said Beckett to the Waiting for Godot director.
From Sergio Leone and Hitchcock one learns to compose the music first, and the scene after.
Theatre is quite often more of a continuous experience than film -- such that theatrical moments will slide by without underlining, and you're not made as aware of what's valuable.
The ideal to photographing sculpture, which is quite impossible, is that you convey whatever experience the sculpture gave you -- think first, photograph after.
A lot of what keeps people reading (a subset of what's interesting) is some question they want answered.
So, consider:
-- the cliffhanging end of every episode (but the last) of a television series (especially "24").
-- that the solutions to today's crossword come in tomorrow's newspaper.
-- that in the Coen Brothers' "The man who wasn't there", practically every scene begins with what is the stranger doing here, why is that woman at my door, why is the door to my cell unlocked...
-- that you advertise the final book of Harry Potter by emphasizing all the puzzles and issues that get resolved.
Now, perhaps the hardest trick here is making some question interesting in the first place, or identifying what interests people.
But other skills would include:
-- not wearing out people's patience (and thereby turning engaging questions into frustrating "Lost"); and
-- structuring your plot with connected questions (perhaps overlapping questions), so that one naturally leads on to another, and people are carried on from one to the other, until the tale's conclusion.
It's all about the detail. It's all about the detail. Alberto Giacometti, Johnny Cash, Geoffrey Rush. The films of Stanley Kubrick are thick with consciousness. Or consider the care and effort that might have gone into a morsel of food from Level 41 -- perhaps six animals had to die for it, and vegetables and spices were flown from halfway across the world...
Among the basic frustrations of Harry Potter is the claustrophobia of its mythology -- its parochialism, simplicity, linearity. The Potterverse is small and rule-bound, even when most magical. There's only one sport. There aren't really any American or Asian wizards. There's only really one newspaper, and it has an enormous effect on what people believe. There's a straightforward working of political power. There's a limited number of spells, locations, characters, and character responses -- bullies will always laugh cruelly, adults are reliably unreliable, the same gags are repeated with Dumbledore and Hagrid and Neville...
***
Part of the depression of goth music is that it lacks closure, it's always incomplete -- it points to emotional possibilities it never ventures into or aesthetic standards it never delivers on. It's a cheap version of real melancholy.
***
It's strange to look in a photo, as in Harry Potter, and report on the fate of the people there -- that these two died in torture, that this person turned traitor, that that person rots in prison -- when in the photo they're all standing together, and they're carefree, and they smile.
Part of the strangeness, and part of the reason the photo cuts, is its reality, its thereness, "like a look, perhaps, or a scent, or dirt, or some sort of trace when they've got up and the doors have closed behind them". Or as Barthes or Sontag might have put it, the photograph is an emanation from a dead star.
So you empathetically experience their joy, and you feel joy for their joy, and their smiles trigger your smile -- and juxtaposed are a whole swag of thoughts and sensations to do with fragility and elusiveness and impermanence -- the ravages of time, and loss, bitterness, waste, regret -- and Robin Williams creepily whispering "Carpe diem".
And the mind dwells, also, on the stories of these people, and what they'll feel in coming years, and what they would have felt, standing here in your place, watching.
I don't know why cinema on the whole lacks the same effect, though it showcases dead actors. -- Are there different conventions of experience there? Or are films too fictional?
***
There is all the difference in the world between a photograph, and exactly the same image created with pencil and paper.
***
The cheapskate's gallery -- instead of paying the entry fee, and queuing your way through an exhibition, visit the giftshop and browse the guidebook.
***
Sport coverage is sometimes characterized by fast-paced editing -- confusing and hard to follow. You thereby convey something of the excitement of being there, and the sensory overload.
(Like fight scenes and sex scenes in movies.)
But there are two paths to the resulting effect. On the one hand, such editing is confusing and hard to follow. And on the other hand, it refers to the genre of sports editing, which is supposed to be confusing and hard to follow.
On the one hand, genes and conditioning. On the other, meaning and convention.
***
We're sensitive to speech norms. We unconsciously recognize the difficulty of a long passage sung without breathing. Apart from any symbolic meanings, we applaud the skill, are fascinated by it.
And I think we recognize the difficulty of a smooth pitch transition. "Another suitcase in another hall" seems to be structured around such jumps -- "I don't expect my love affairs to//last for long", "Being used to trouble I an//ticipate it", "But every time it matters all my//words desert me", "So what happens//now"...
***
Moments of boring ain't all bad, and avoiding boredom needn't be the game. For why can't boring be an experience, an effect, as valid as any other -- "You didn't bore them enough," said Beckett to the Waiting for Godot director.
***
From Sergio Leone and Hitchcock one learns to compose the music first, and the scene after.
***
Theatre is quite often more of a continuous experience than film -- such that theatrical moments will slide by without underlining, and you're not made as aware of what's valuable.
***
The ideal to photographing sculpture, which is quite impossible, is that you convey whatever experience the sculpture gave you -- think first, photograph after.
***
A lot of what keeps people reading (a subset of what's interesting) is some question they want answered.
So, consider:
-- the cliffhanging end of every episode (but the last) of a television series (especially "24").
-- that the solutions to today's crossword come in tomorrow's newspaper.
-- that in the Coen Brothers' "The man who wasn't there", practically every scene begins with what is the stranger doing here, why is that woman at my door, why is the door to my cell unlocked...
-- that you advertise the final book of Harry Potter by emphasizing all the puzzles and issues that get resolved.
Now, perhaps the hardest trick here is making some question interesting in the first place, or identifying what interests people.
But other skills would include:
-- not wearing out people's patience (and thereby turning engaging questions into frustrating "Lost"); and
-- structuring your plot with connected questions (perhaps overlapping questions), so that one naturally leads on to another, and people are carried on from one to the other, until the tale's conclusion.
***
It's all about the detail. It's all about the detail. Alberto Giacometti, Johnny Cash, Geoffrey Rush. The films of Stanley Kubrick are thick with consciousness. Or consider the care and effort that might have gone into a morsel of food from Level 41 -- perhaps six animals had to die for it, and vegetables and spices were flown from halfway across the world...
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Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Harry Potter gets a serve.