abstract expressionism is visual music

Rich: "It was weird for me because at the time I was very into technical playing- I was trying to hit benchmarks set by people like McLaughlin, Fripp, Holdsworth, and so on...I suddenly realized that there was more to music than technical expertise."

I agree on the last part, however, the problem with the punk rebellion against "formalism" or "classicalism" was the same as the one Rand portrayed in THE FOUNTAINHEAD. The punks were similar to the "artists" depicted in Toohey's circle, falling prey to false individualism and the ideas of anti-art.

The best line that sums it up was Lois Cook's "Let's be ugly...".

Post 21

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 11:26am

If 'abstract expressionism' is visual music, then it is one without melody... for all the so-called patterning, at best it is merely decorative artisanship, as there is no cognitive communication to the visual - no perceptual concretes to refer to, no as such means of communicating ideas, of showing...

Post 22

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 11:32am

I tend to agree, in that it works real well for decor. On the other hand, sometimes it does trigger something in the consciousness, or maybe I should say it can contribute to a temporary consciousness shift. It can affect mood, I think.

Post 23

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 11:40am

The punks were similar to the "artists" depicted in Toohey's circle, falling prey to false individualism and the ideas of anti-art.

Well, the thing is that they were acting like they were throwing things out and they weren't. They still had to lean heavily on technology, and on musical principles. That's what annoyed me about a lot of them- the contempt while using tools that were still much more advanced than they could have ever figured out. You know, you're watching some asshole beat the shit out of a nice Les Paul, and you know he doesn't know anything about what went behind what is a Les Paul. Same thing with technique- they could go on all they want about fuck technique, but there they were still doing analyzable I-IV-V type stuff. I was just starting to work in the shops back then and these guys were by and large such dickheads. I learned a few things about attitude on stage, in terms of projecting a presence, but that was pretty much it. I cannot overemphasize what a pain in the ass these guys could be, though. I used to have to fix their $%$#-up nasty-ass guitars when they'd get in a pinch.

Some things in that era were very interesting, though. If you ever heard of a group called Pere Ubu, I did a fair amount of support work with those guys and saw them a bunch of times, they had some stuff going on. But that was more avante garde- same thing with groups like The Residents, Snakefinger, Henry Cow, and so on.

Post 24

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 11:46am

Robert: "for all the so-called patterning, at best it is merely decorative artisanship, as there is no cognitive communication to the visual..."

This seems to be the key...

I wrote earlier: (And it's no coincidence that the principle thinkers in the matter, Plato and Aristotle, disagreed over the existence of "ideal forms". But, taking Plato on his own terms, if the forms are pre-existing, an artist/esthetician cannot create forms, only "recreate" them, so in that sense, form would not be art in itself, but the subject of art. BUT, if there was a primacy of conscious, that would imply a creator who created the "ideal forms", making him the supreme artist and mankind mere imitators of that artist's work, creating imperfect forms. Safer ground is Aristotle's assertion that the universe exists sans consciousness (ok, there's the matter of the prime mover), but not necessarily sans form, so that forms are pre-existent and archetypal in some manner. That would mean the artist does not create form but utilizes it?)"

Rich, you wrote:
"I tend to agree, in that it works real well for decor. On the other hand, sometimes it does trigger something in the consciousness, or maybe I should say it can contribute to a temporary consciousness shift. It can affect mood, I think."

I was discussing this with someone off thread, who suggested this in regards to those triggers:
"Those lines are abstractions of things in life that we associate experiences with. I calm sea _________

Jagged rocks.

Phallic symbols (stiff uprights)

Organic comfort, pillows, breasts soft rounded objects.

etc....so like deja vu they zap us with emotional associations."

This is very similar to what Jung called projection. Is the whole issue simply a matter of psychological projection? I ask because it seems too easy, making Rand's quesion of why we experience an emotional reaction to music answered...sure, there's the physical quantification of ratios and harmonies (the golden ration in visual art, the concord and discord of vibrations in music), but that would be the how as opposed to why, wouldn't it?

Post 25

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 1:05pm

Joe- For sure sometimes it's projection. I think people make whole art careers knowing how that works, and that it's valuable. So if someone's got the right pallette (esp. for the colors), an abstract piece would be very condusive for projection, and they might be inclined to buy it. I think people buy things for that reason without knowing why they do ("I just like it") which ain't necessarily a bad thing.

Now, objective art, on the other hand, used to work quite differently than that. As an example I might use icon painting. There were very specific symbols, figures, and so on that were meant to mean the same thing to a lot of people.

The thing with the classic Objectivist stance of romantic realism being the appropriate art... Well, for a classic Objectivist, that's probably true. However, seeing as Objectivism does not represent the highest tier of consciousness, it stands to reason that there is other art that is preferred by those who sit on a higher tier of consciousness.

rde
Hanging by a tier like usual.

Post 26

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 1:13pm

Patterning is a means, not an end in itself - one has to keep in mind the nature of the being which is discussed, and the primal senses in which it evolved the cognitiveness... We as humans are visual creature - it is thru visual perceptual concretes we survive primordially, with sound as a secondary cautionary one.... if, to throw out a 'counterfactual', we had evolve cognitively in a space in which the primal means of survival was thru sound, then we could not have music as we know of it but aural sight, like bats do, and it would then espress thru aural means the perceptual concretes we see thru sight... but we did not so evolve, and our perceptual concretes from which we cognitate are visual - by the nature of the beings we are - and thus are so used to communicate the cognitivity via sound [vocal, eg speech] or sight via literature or viaual art... thus so-called 'abstract expressionism' cannot be 'visual music' and as said at best can only pervade some of the senses of moods - and even those are largely culturally influenced, not biologically...

Post 27

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 1:33pm

Robert: "We as humans are visual creature - it is thru visual perceptual concretes we survive primordially, with sound as a secondary cautionary one...."

Which is why we can't seem to get away from visual descriptions of music (high and low pitches, bright and dull sounds, warm and cool colorings...).

"thus so-called 'abstract expressionism' cannot be 'visual music' and as said at best can only pervade some of the senses of moods - and even those are largely culturally influenced, not biologically..."

Which would explain the commercial failure of FANTASIA, and the oil slides and color symphonies sans music. The irony being that the MUSIC is providing the narrative, as opposed to a movie or opera where the music is justified by the play...

But this confuses me, because Rand asserted that music could not convey concretes, only a feeling...but a melody does possess the linear structure that provides a type of narrative, even if it's not a conceptual one...and it's the melody throughout time that provides the narrative, as opposed to a chord or single tone played by itself with a pictoral companion...

Post 28

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 1:36pm

It's the language of the soul... :)

rde
Make sure and tune that bitch up first, though.

Post 29

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 1:53pm

"Make sure and tune that bitch up first, though. "

Reminds me of George Harrison's embarrasment when Ravi Shanker got applause from the audience when he was tuning up; the audience couldn't tell the difference!

Post 30

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 2:07pm

Rand's concrete was refering to visual concrete - an image... part of this was her mistake regarding the sensation/perceptual in hearing, thus leading to presuming some false consequences... while it is true music evokes feeling, it is nonetheless tied in with the visual, in much the same way as the ancestralness of music - mating sounds and territorial sounds - were tied to visual, and - as I indicated in earlier post on another thread, tied to dancing and imitatives of visual concretes familiar to the primitives... it is when these tie-ins get forgotten, and the sonorous sounds become as means on their own that trouble starts, and there is loss in understanding the means of communicating ideas [which music, just like other arts, is purposed for], and what kind of ideas are best expressed thru music - especially stand-alone music...

Post 31

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 2:11pm

Remember, there are aural concretes, just as there are visual concretes... as Roger implied if not actually said, a melody is akin to the plot of a written work... what, then, makes for aural concretes?

Post 32

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 2:16pm

Well, she did also say that music is unable to specify abstract concepts like "peace," "revolution," or "religion,"; they are too specific...are these visual? I think I see what you're saying regarding the tie-ins, the emotional projections are associated with those concepts...and by themselves, have no significance beyond a somatic feeling...and it's not enought to simply feel an emotion for emotion's sake...?

Robert: "there is loss in understanding the means of communicating ideas [which music, just like other arts, is purposed for], and what kind of ideas are best expressed thru music - especially stand-alone music..."

So music as a sonorous end in itself is pointless, unless it provokes an emotion, which provokes a concept?

Post 33

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 2:25pm

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 3:02pm

Robert: "what, then, makes for aural concretes?"

Same associations, I suppose, that happen in the line and form examples pictured. A roughly drawn line evokes the association of rough emotions, smoothly drawn shapes evokes the feeling of elegance...I guess that with musical sounds a roughly played melodic line will invoke rough feelings, and harmonic dissonance will provoke a sense of tension...the concrete comes from the effect of sound waves upon the listener.

Actually, McCloud makes the case in UNDERSTANDING COMICS that the reader fills in the space between panels of the story, automatically filling in the gaps to make the story flow.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

This has to relate to how the brain assemble the notes and how it makes a series of tones into a melody, the idea that the brain is filling in the spaces between the notes...

Post 35

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 3:11pm

While there may be gaps, there has to be a sense of continuity - stepping stones across the water, for instance - else the gaps are just holes to fall into...

Post 36

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 4:29pm