Continued from "
Part 1" below ...
So, what is your inner dialogue like? What is actually going on your head after you watch a TV show, or see a movie that you really enjoy? How do you think? I'm so curious about this, that I'm risking sounding like a rambling fool in this long (now two-parter!) post.
Me? I happen to be a really good multi-tasker, so what happens for me is that in addition to the interpretive growth and development dialogue I mentioned, I have these other meta layers of activity going around in my head at the same time. For example my "music and audio layer" is very strong, and just sits there pulsing along like it's own separate multi-processor, handling all the musical and vibrational perception that's either going on in the real world around me and recording it in real time and often like playing it back in retrograde-like loops, and I'm thinking about it and analyzing it. Also whatever current creative project I'm working on or whatever album I just listened to is also playing through in there, so whether I throw on like Sgt. Pepper's or Porcupine Tree, or maybe I was just working on some vocal parts on a new song of mine that I'm either writing, recording or mixing. Those things are just always playing. My own work plays back to me the same way other people's work does.
My own art hangs on the walls of the corridors of my co-called meta audio layer elbow to elbow with all of the other creations of other artists that I listen to or watch - especially the ones who I get to know either personally, or through offerings like Ron Moore's podcast. I don't ever think of the stuff that I create as
lesser than the stuff created by people who are famous. I know some people do think of their stuff that way - I have at times thought that way. I have at times felt certain that I was down here, and they were up there. This really isn't true. In terms of skilled artisans and craftspeople, there certainly is arguably a "qualitative" relationship very akin to the one I just laid out that could be drawn, agreed. But nowadays, I realize that assigning an "comparative artistic value" to something created by this person and something created by that person - whatever the level of success, accomplishment, fame - no matter what it is they've created, in terms of its complete and whole validity as a work of art is exactly the same. Even if I made it.
Especially when I made it. (note to self: beat self up less today than you did yesterday. Repeat.) This is not meant to discount the process of honing, and trying to get better at a craft, and even seeing the flaws in our own work - that's all very important. I just think we tend to lean awfully hard on the dual tenets of"oh, that's great," and "aw, that sucks."
I realize that the skill and craft of the details themselves actually don't have any baring on how valid my art is, and whether it's "good." But I shouldn't even mention the construct of good and bad that we all subscribe to, and freely prescribe to every piece of art or entertainment that we see or come into contact with. Seems like that's what we're good at now. Most people have just stopped making stuff, and sit around talking about what's good and what's bad.
Ok, I'll mention it a little bit, might as well. I blame my generation's propensity for this divisive reaction to other people's creations on Siskel and Ebert who in the early 80's began experimenting with the idea of making their bottom line reviews black or white, with very little gray. Just an "A" or an "F" - thums up or thumbs down. It's just a cultural evolution, and the way we've happened to go between 1980 and 2008 and beyond that. We are all critics. Ask ten people what the last movie they saw in the theater was, and after they tell you, then ask them "how was it?" (we don't ask "what did you think about it?" nearly as much any more, do we? Because we really don't think that way as a culture any more, we focus on "how was it?" as though it were a universal standard being applied, and a person's reaction is Truth.) We've identified with Siskel and Ebert when in 1979 they came on the air, and they said two thumbs up, one up one down, or two thumbs down. We fancied ourselves critics on the spot. "Hey, I can do that." "How was your dinner Johnny?" "Thumbs down." "How is the new Death Cab record dude?" "Two thumbs up, man." And now there's the whole "two thumbs up; WAY up!" thing to contend with. So it's like we've got an "F", a "C+", an "A" and maybe a "A+++" We are all critics. And we love it. I feel strongly that we love being critics so much that we've basically stopped making things as a society generally speaking. I mean the average person in a neighborhood somewhere... that you might talk to, ask them what they created as an expression of the way they see the world or themselves this week, and 85 people out of 100 will reply "what are you talking about?"
Am I wrong? Where does this all leave us? Better asked perhaps, where does this all leave this rambling soapbox of a post? I'm not sure. Id love to know what some of you think about this stuff. I think about it a lot, clearly. And I'm not positive this post is the best dressed version of this thought process that I could have delivered, but I know that if I don't put this on ZIO right now, that I'll sit here and revise it forever, and then I'm just having a dialogue with myself. I'd much rather discuss this with all of you, the creative people, the crafts people - the artists - who read this blog. So I give it to you as is.
