An Infinite Language

What is the value of the humanities and the arts? An acquiescence to the norm of a clear-cut value system is often behind such a question. There are modes of asking the question. Because we can’t see what you do in the humanities, we don’t know if it’s worth anything. The economy of straightforward worth.   Frequent answer given: studying the humanities has a derivate value. Employs practices that have easy transference to other activities. In this justification, the idea is that the intellectual activities have transference. And it is those activities that have value.   Isn’t it fundamentally worth it in and of itself? Or, we don’t need to justify a utility because it’s already about our lives, the humanities. What does it mean for the creator? A whole other talk. Is the creation of arts a viable career?

How do we derive value for a work of art? Monetary value Meaning value Pattern in these inquiries: Understanding how the question and supposed answers are built rather than chiseling out one defined answer. The question is always: when considering such a question, what can be taken into account, and how so? This show is like interpreting maps and discussing the terrains of a region. The inquiries being regions. How do we declare that art has value? Two value systems are proposed for the purposes of illustration: classical period and post-classical period in terms of value systems   Why do we make a dividing line in the history of art which we call “modern” art? Is it a distinct line or a period of transition? Stylistic concerns, representational approaches, conceptual work Modern art can mean many things: in addition to the above, it can be about when the artists are the ones steering and deciding the subject matter, scale, format, etc, of art. Difference: artist is now deciding what the subject matter is. When painting was the only way to make large color pictures. The older value system: resembles valuing approaches that we still use today. This involves recognizable and externalized things that have value that have nothing to do with expectations and not stylistics and can be easily understood in terms of time. Work as certain levels of precision, volume, time where none of it is variable in terms of voice or style. This classical system of valuing is clear cut and has been around a long time. It was at play in the art world for a long time.   Side road: the lens from now applied to then.   Once artists define the subject, they begin to steer the stylistic approach. The subject matter and the style are now within the artist’s control. What are the parameters of the question? What does it mean to pose the question? Is modern art more about stylistic or subject matter declaration? It need not be “more about,” but intentionally pitting them against positions the inquiry.   Post classical value system doesn’t play by rules that can be clarified at all times. It could be about sentiment, or about who else thinks it has value. It might be worth something because of reasons beyond what can be understood systematically and consistently. Post classical model of valuing art doesn’t have an outside visible hallmark to it. The foundation of this system is originally steered by there not being an outside valuing system in the first place. It doesn’t have an architecture to it.   Is the valuing of meaning separate or different from monetary value in terms of art? In the classic value system? In the post-classic system? Is there a clear articulation to the reasoning of a meaning valuing system?

There are some ways that offer advantages, perhaps, but not necessarily a “best.” So why phrase it this way? A question can be regarded as a precise linguistic inquiry or as an inquiry that has a heart and many implied inquiries surrounding it. It is not about linguistic exactness. It exists as a conceptual feeling. Like a work of art, where we move in various ways to get a point of view, this inquiry is profound and deserves reverence.   Only one work of art to view or many others around: the context of the “looking.” The viability of the viewability: how much true attention any work of art gets. The drawback to seeing a work of art in a space highly populated with other works of art: viewer fatigue. Mid-range venues: smaller shows with fewer works of art without viewer overwhelm. Notice what you keep getting drawn back to. With one work of art for a length of time, we start to look in different ways. We alter what “looking” means. Looking can equal listening, reading, etc… The feeling of “I need to move on,” while viewing and you’re in a place with other works, an easy solution is to notice other things. But when that is not an option, then you have the option to take on another approach to noticing. In a saturated space: the way of looking can easily stay the same, the content of looking can easily change. But when there’s just one work, or a few to look at, we might alter what it means to look.   For 45 minutes you’ll only listen to this one 5 minute song. Over that 45 minutes, you might do different things that are called “listening.” Compare this to 45 minutes with no limits of what you can listen to.   Looking in such a way that you are keenly aware that you are changing what “to look” means.   Are we going to create in such ways that allow for rich pathways of discovery?   The benefits of taking on another creative pursuit. When you are creating art, you are looking at works for a very long time. Looking for a long time as a creator in that realm isn’t unusual or a challenge. We do this all the time. We look even as we’re not working. Looking is a form of working with creative production.   Music makers know that just listening for four minutes straight through to a four-minute song is not the only way of listening.   It can be beneficial to take up another kind of creative pursuit. It allows you to see the ways of the creative process differently.   Hypothetical: a musician takes up illustrating. What does a day of illustrating allow you as a musician to see about the creative process? When you take up a creative venture that is less usual to you, it allows you to come up with other definitions of what it means to create. This is in the same way that looking at one work of art for a long time (or listening, or reading) allows you to redefine what looking (listening, reading) means.

What are the differences between teaching a creative practice and doing the creative practice?   This topic has many branches. The goal of this talk is to chisel out the general considerations. Creative practice as in painting, writing, dancing, singing, playing an instrument, composing music. The verbal phrase is explored too: compared to, along with, as opposed to.   What about when a teacher has a creative practice in the realm that they’re teaching? Can we teach creative acts? What are the differences between a teacher of great notoriety in a creative field or lesser notoriety? Should the teacher within their teaching advocate for the stylistic approach that they emerge from? Or should they teach within their realm broadly while allowing students to go into their own direction? What is any teacher’s role in the cultivation and construction of any student’s becoming as an artist? The teacher doesn’t have the practice: what about when that’s the case?   A consideration of sports is brought up. I refer to an essay from Consider the volley. The essay is titled “Coaches and Judges” and is reprinted in the show notes.

This is an exploration of the parameters of the question, the mapping of where we can go. Yes, no, maybe: is fiction a kind of communication? All three possibilities are explored.   The subconscious finger-wagging, let’s avoid.   None of the fictional worlds would have existed had the original writer not created those potentialities to carry on in that way… as if you are, as a writer, inventing instruments of imagination. Is that communication? Do we overburden the concept by making it work with one approach? The construction of imaginative instruments and parameters… is that what fiction writing is? A stage for the performance of the imagination. Allowing readers to construct in their imagination because reading is, after all, a creative act.       Non simultaneous communication What the creator cannot see: the reaction And the reactor does not impact the directionality of the creation In fiction writing

Is art always human centered? The notion of the anthropomorphic, the idea that art is always human centered, to what extent is that idea valid? Is the landscape the ultimate example of art that humans can create that isn't human centered? Is there something in the fingerprint of human creation that always leave a telling trace? Or is it possible for humans to create art with no trace of the human? And what does such an exploration prompt in the course of explanation? (Episode was recorded outside and contains ambient sounds)

We have this phenomena of artistic creation of the life beyond what’s shown to us This is a symbolic representation of said phenomena How does this work in fiction, in non-fiction, in visual conveyances? The light is also placed there for us, as we are our first audience but modally different. We are the audience to a creative process, with the need to sense that more needs to be said. So we reach to say, to tell about the life beyond the light in the window.  (Episode was recorded outside and contains ambient sounds)

Two topics at once in this episode: the crossroads and the newcomer. A consideration of the meanings of the crossroads as a hybrid place unto itself. The newcomer is a role that individuals take on, a contextual role. Like the crossroads, the newcomer is intensely aware of then and what's ahead. A consideration of the painting by Emily Shanks, "The Newcomer at School," and an interpretation of what each of the people in the picture represents.

Does art celebrate the temporary by trying to preserve it? Or is it an exultation of permanence? Is there such a thing? Is memory the only mold humans have to preserve? Perhaps recycling is the ultimate perpetuity, the collective embrace of reconstitution. When does a moment begin and end?

What is pervasive? What is elemental? What is contained within demarcations and what runs the gamut of existence? From the first two words of Hamlet to the self portrait and the fruits of or as destruction, to the assertion of the artist as inextricably bound visionary with the talent. Diego Velazquez and the portrait of the self via the portrait of the powerful other. Francis Bacon, the scream, the mouth, the difference between expression and communication. The artist as declarer of what art is, Marcel Duchamp. The critiques of conceptual art, art that does not respond to current events. Invictus, The Desperate Man, a silent scream.