Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Rob C on July 15, 2017, 04:23:45 am
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Nice piece; I also believe that the photographs from Andrew's article work very well within the parameters that he set for himself with the project.
However, it's a pity he used a cellphone. Perfectly adequate for the purpose, it also make future exploitation (not a pejorative concept) difficult, as I have discovered to my own cost.
Rob C
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I agree. It's a very nice, thoughtful piece. The images work very well (my favorites are the fifth, the dirty rabbit, and the last, the roofs and wires.)
I do have to agree, somewhat, with Rantoul that there is too much essentially meaningless text applied to much photography these days, which is why I cancelled my subscription to Aperture many years ago (after subscribing regularly starting in the 1960s.)
But Andrew writes meaningful text, not deliberately trying to obscure. Good essay.
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I find this conversation very interesting. My daughter who finished her MFA a few years ago gave me some insight into the educational process that is followed in many MFA programs. She went into the program as a photographer and came out a person who is passionate about exploring many forms of art – obviously a good thing. The focus of her program was critical thinking and exposure to other forms of art that may be used to express her creative passions. Little effort or emphasis is placed on the craft of making art. As a young struggling artist, she continues to explore different media to help execute her projects. She currently spends part of her time writing art reviews for several art magazines. Her focus is performance video and sculpture – a far cry from photography.
She is long on critical thinking and short technical execution (my opinion) but she is confident she will learn what she needs to communicate her concepts. Given the work I have seen from her I can’t disagree. I come at this a different way as I learned my technical skill first then later learned the importance of better defining my concepts.
There is no right or wrong approach but my belief is art is a mixture of some level of technical competence and some level of communicating a congruent concept.
Adams quote not withstanding – “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept” – I do believe that many young MFAs over intellectualize their work at the expense of technical competence. At some point, they need to communicate more with their imagery and less with the written word.
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Courses.
I wanted to be a photographer (pro) from the moment I was about sixteen and realised that my painting/drawing skills were never going to allow me a career as an artist, which had been the original "plan", inasmuch as any callow youth has a plan. Anyway, Vincent, Cézanne and Alberto Vargas had already been invented, so where could I fit and win?
My entrée was via the engineering industry, and I spent maybe six years there learning my craft, much of it in b/w and colour darkrooms. Part of the deal was that I also attend night school towards getting a professional qualification.
Disillusion came early, when the lecturer mocked my comment on admiring David Bailey with the remark that were he to shoot fashion as did Bailey, he'd quit. Instead, I did. I didn't get fired; I suppose I was more valuable to the firm doing what I did for them than I would have been just holding a bit of paper confirming I'd bought into the college philosophy. Vindication came some years later when I'd gone solo and the lecturer's day job in a studio vanished with the times. (The studio for which he worked also ran a colour processing lab, and I derived great pleasure driving up in my increasingly nice wheels and parking outside the glass door right under the collective nose... Not an unworthy revenge, just deep satisfaction that I'd listened to my own music.)
In all my career, not one client asked to see qualifications other then my portfolio (we didn't call 'em books in those days).
I think a long art education is fine if you want to be a historian, a talker and not a doer. What I think art education should be about is NOT mind-setting, but totally about practical skill and technique. Knowledge of your predecessors should be taken as granted, and part of what led you into an interest in art or whatever you call what you do. Neither you (nor the State) should be spending money for you to do what you can do mostly for free in any library.
I have long held the notion that people should never allow their own identity to become subsumed into anyone else's ideal. That's why I think all this critique stuff so dangerous, even when people think they look for it as nothing more than part of a game they are playing. Be very careful: if you allow anyone to fuck with your head, that's how it remains.
Rob C
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Sometimes you need words. To my husband this photo is upside down. To me it is a photo of trees walking. ;D
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Sometimes you need words. To my husband this photo is upside down. To me it is a photo of trees walking. ;D
This is one of those "Why didn't I think of that?!" moments. :D "Trees walking" as caption: perfect.
-Dave-
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Sometimes you need words. To my husband this photo is upside down. To me it is a photo of trees walking. ;D
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MQVSFIA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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This is one of those "Why didn't I think of that?!" moments. :D "Trees walking" as caption: perfect.
-Dave-
+1.
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"Sometimes you need words. To my husband this photo is upside down. To me it is a photo of trees walking." ;D Sharon VL
In this case, and as I read the text without having clocked in, I saw no image on the screen. In my mind, though, I saw the reflections of vertically reversed trees in the eddies at a river's bank. For me, because of the aquatic distortions, that would have been a more convincing image for the title.
Does that make my head better than yours? Of course not. What it does is underline something writers of books fear when picking up the cheques for letting their work be turned into stage or film productions: the alteration of their mental perception of their created characters into someone else's idea of what those characters must be.
When I was shooting stock, the agency used to send out leaflets giving its latest needs, and also suggesting thought-association concepts. In other words, provide images that say something such as "Hello!"; "Oh shit!"; "I feel wonderful!" and stuff along those lines; it would have drained my enthusiasm to go out of the house to shoot, working like that. And there's the rub: I wanted life in snaps to feel exciting. After all, I was living those snaps as I made them. It's part of the job description. At least before you take it up.
Now retired, however, I sometimes employ that technique in order to give myself something new to look for within the small shooting arena that I allow myself. It seldom produces anything, and the reason is that the area remains unchanged, the difference being only in the mind when I find something that matches the mental word image. Remove the thought, and the snap's exactly the same as if there had been no preceding mental caption. In that sense, the caption can be a misleading (to the photographer) influence before the fact, resuting in a picture without any real visible sense. That's why most of the time I wander around without an idea in my mind (other than thinking about having a coffee) and just let things come to me. That way, its the receptive part of my mind that does both the walking and the working. Perhaps it simply boils down to the differences betwen proactive and reactive mindsets.
But lots of stock shooters did very well following the agency rules!
Rob
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I think words cn be very useful, as is any other technique for opening the mind to wider possibilities, or for explaining what has been tried and done.
The curse of some courses is that they instill a belief that this or that theory is the truth, before which all others must kneel.
Until the fashion changes and last year's true believers are washed away...
It's fascinating to me that at university level, there is a philosophical divide between the sciences and arts/letters that is rarely discussed: in science, you are educated to do, or at least use science. In the arts, you are mostly educated to analyse other peoples doings. Most authors do not have post-grad degrees in English Lit, vanishingly few mathematicians or physicists do not have corresponding advanced degrees.
I suspect it's because beyond the technical skills, the greater part of being an artist is senstivity and an experience of life, things that are not teachable.
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I think words cn be very useful, as is any other technique for opening the mind to wider possibilities, or for explaining what has been tried and done.
The curse of some courses is that they instill a belief that this or that theory is the truth, before which all others must kneel.
Until the fashion changes and last year's true believers are washed away...
It's fascinating to me that at university level, there is a philosophical divide between the sciences and arts/letters that is rarely discussed: in science, you are educated to do, or at least use science. In the arts, you are mostly educated to analyse other peoples doings. Most authors do not have post-grad degrees in English Lit, vanishingly few mathematicians or physicists do not have corresponding advanced degrees.
I suspect it's because beyond the technical skills, the greater part of being an artist is senstivity and an experience of life, things that are not teachable.
This must stop! I find myself in absolute agreement with someone!
Not that I was ever in university, mind you, as it never appeared as a wish in my mind. The wish had been - if vaguely - for art school, but I was denied that by my last school where the arts were considered a preserve for the dunderheads, and the annual, published results looked better (for the school) the higher the number of passes in maths, English and the sciences. So, denied higher art classes because they thought they knew better for me, I couldn't go any further on leaving those halls of basic acedeme. Sucks, but that was the darker side of the 50s mindset. (I may not have learned much about photography in art school - it didn't exist, AFAIK, in the art courses in Glasgow at the time, but the connections would have been priceless.)
Rob
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I think words cn be very useful, as is any other technique for opening the mind to wider possibilities, or for explaining what has been tried and done.
The curse of some courses is that they instill a belief that this or that theory is the truth, before which all others must kneel.
Until the fashion changes and last year's true believers are washed away...
It's fascinating to me that at university level, there is a philosophical divide between the sciences and arts/letters that is rarely discussed: in science, you are educated to do, or at least use science. In the arts, you are mostly educated to analyse other peoples doings. Most authors do not have post-grad degrees in English Lit, vanishingly few mathematicians or physicists do not have corresponding advanced degrees.
I suspect it's because beyond the technical skills, the greater part of being an artist is senstivity and an experience of life, things that are not teachable.
I don't think it's very helpful to try to draw exact parallels between "arts" and "science". One can just as easily say that science students simply study the works of others (Newton and pals) without ever developing their OWN theory of gravitation. I have tried long and hard to develop a grasp of mathematics that would allow me to go further than balancing my cheque book or (at a stretch) solving a problem on an exam paper. Alas, I have found that this is not teachable. Or at least not learnable.
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"Sometimes you need words. To my husband this photo is upside down. To me it is a photo of trees walking." ;D Sharon VL
In this case, and as I read the text without having clocked in, I saw no image on the screen. In my mind, though, I saw the reflections of vertically reversed trees in the eddies at a river's bank. For me, because of the aquatic distortions, that would have been a more convincing image for the title.
Does that make my head better than yours? Of course not. What it does is underline something writers of books fear when picking up the cheques for letting their work be turned into stage or film productions: the alteration of their mental perception of their created characters into someone else's idea of what those characters must be.
When I was shooting stock, the agency used to send out leaflets giving its latest needs, and also suggesting thought-association concepts. In other words, provide images that say something such as "Hello!"; "Oh shit!"; "I feel wonderful!" and stuff along those lines; it would have drained my enthusiasm to go out of the house to shoot, working like that. And there's the rub: I wanted life in snaps to feel exciting. After all, I was living those snaps as I made them. It's part of the job description. At least before you take it up.
Now retired, however, I sometimes employ that technique in order to give myself something new to look for within the small shooting arena that I allow myself. It seldom produces anything, and the reason is that the area remains unchanged, the difference being only in the mind when I find something that matches the mental word image. Remove the thought, and the snap's exactly the same as if there had been no preceding mental caption. In that sense, the caption can be a misleading (to the photographer) influence before the fact, resuting in a picture without any real visible sense. That's why most of the time I wander around without an idea in my mind (other than thinking about having a coffee) and just let things come to me. That way, its the receptive part of my mind that does both the walking and the working. Perhaps it simply boils down to the differences betwen proactive and reactive mindsets.
But lots of stock shooters did very well following the agency rules!
Rob
It was meant humorously, Rob. I took the shot with my iphone which presented it to me upside down. I immediately thought it looked like some graceful, slender trees walking. My title failed to convince my husband but that's still what I see. ;D
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For a photo essay where the captions are part of the photos, see "Churches ad hoc"
www.efn.org/~hkrieger/church.htm
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It was meant humorously, Rob. I took the shot with my iphone which presented it to me upside down. I immediately thought it looked like some graceful, slender trees walking. My title failed to convince my husband but that's still what I see. ;D
Hi Sharon,
Yes, I know - the emoticon tells me so; that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your proposition, though, and thinking and seeing life/reality(?) parallels is what photography seems to do well - it's a quick medium that lets you do and show that.
But verbosity, layered on top of graphics, can do as much to confuse the senses as to clarify; I think that's why we have this vast body of people who are expert in curator-speak: it's hides and disguises and clothes those pesky nude emperors. You could say that art has spawned a marketing and advertising world of its own, complete with specialised language and codes.
Of course, it some big gallery were to take it into its head to represent me, I'd be perfectly happy to espouse the opposite opinion and tell you exactly how valuable, essential and helpful the art behemoth has become! I'm nothing if not a quick learner (as long as it doesn't involve books, that is) and knowing the side that's buttered has been essential all my life.
;-)
Rob
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I don’t get it. Those photographs could have been made in Wisconsin. In fact, on first seeing them I thought Boston, and I’m from New Orleans, Louisiana, gothic and all. Molitor is basically illustrating Neal’s point: These are generic photographs that could have come from some black & white stock agency. Change the name of the town in the essay (Boston in Winter) and no-one would know the difference. Yeah, unfortunately, so it goes.
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Yeah, I'm not sure the excuse that eg Dorothea Lange's photos could get by with short captions because everyone knew the story. First of all, not everyone knew the story at the time, that's why they were made. So a test: if I don't give you any info at all about the following photo, does it grab you by the throat anyway?
(Ok, I'll tell you that the photographer was called Alfonso Lannelli... I'd never heard of him, presumably many of you have...)
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Yeah, I'm not sure the excuse that eg Dorothea Lange's photos could get by with short captions because everyone knew the story. First of all, not everyone knew the story at the time, that's why they were made. So a test: if I don't give you any info at all about the following photo, does it grab you by the throat anyway?
(Ok, I'll tell you that the photographer was called Alfonso Lannelli... I'd never heard of him, presumably many of you have...)
Yes it do, yes it does. Never come across Lannelli either; feel that we should have all come across him. Classic style and subjects.
Rob
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It seems the credit on the photo was incorrect, it should have been Iannelli. He appears to have been a fascinating man:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_Iannelli
The Wiki site make no mention of his photography, but I was able to find the photo through google under Alfonso Iannelli.
The title of the photo is "Boy smoking a cigarette, Kentucky Coal Miner Series. Harlan County, KY 1946"
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The Iannelli who took photographs was the son of the sculptor.
Found this on the web. I never came across him either.
Regards,
Dale
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Ah, excellent, thank you. So they were both Alfonso?
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Yeah, I'm not sure the excuse that eg Dorothea Lange's photos could get by with short captions because everyone knew the story. First of all, not everyone knew the story at the time, that's why they were made. So a test: if I don't give you any info at all about the following photo, does it grab you by the throat anyway?
(Ok, I'll tell you that the photographer was called Alfonso Lannelli... I'd never heard of him, presumably many of you have...)
Great photograph! My initial guess was in the ballpark; either a tenant farmer or coal miner, somewhere in the South.
And you have, in fact, made Neal's point; that is the kind of photography that is seemingly passé in many MFA programs.
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We "get" the Iannelli precisely because we've seen its ilk 100s or 1000s of times before, we've read the captions on some of those others, maybe we've read back stories. Many of us have at any rate heard of the FSA/OWI, many are aware of Walker Evans's work. We have a pretty complex set of mental "stuff" we can apply here. It doesn't need text, because it uses a pile of well-understood visual tropes.
Of course pictures like that aren't being made in MFA programs, any more than anyone is slavishly copying Vermeers.
The point of the forefront of Art or of any discipline is not to tread over the same old ground where explanations are not required.
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We "get" the Iannelli precisely because we've seen its ilk 100s or 1000s of times before, we've read the captions on some of those others, maybe we've read back stories. Many of us have at any rate heard of the FSA/OWI, many are aware of Walker Evans's work. We have a pretty complex set of mental "stuff" we can apply here. It doesn't need text, because it uses a pile of well-understood visual tropes.
Of course pictures like that aren't being made in MFA programs, any more than anyone is slavishly copying Vermeers.
The point of the forefront of Art or of any discipline is not to tread over the same old ground where explanations are not required.
That's a bit of a sweeping statement!
Outwith the commercial world (and within it if you can), I think the point at the forefront of art should be the enjoyment of whatever you like to do. Breaking new ground isn't any priority - for me - but enjoyment is. That's mirrored in my disinterest in ultra-hip digital cameras: I wouldn't feel drawn to buying even if I had all the money in the world - it's just not where I find pleasure. As a relative babe-in-arms I loved the 'look' of rangefinder Leicas and Nikons (during the end of the 40s/early 50s) but, just because I could afford to buy anything rangefinder, Leica or otherwise, when I was in business when I grew up didn't find me doing putting my money down. Use trumps fame. As, I think, does comfort innovation.
A great life lesson is this: so much seems to improve without getting any better. I think (A)rt is a great example of this notion.
Rob
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Art can be whatever you like. The forefront, which is what you'd be expected to be looking at in a graduate program, isn't. It's the forefront, the leading edge, by definition different from what people were doing 80 years ago.
You can have a great deal of enjoyment discovering Euclid. You will not, however, be granted a graduate degree in mathematics for re-doing The Elements.
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Art can be whatever you like. The forefront, which is what you'd be expected to be looking at in a graduate program, isn't. It's the forefront, the leading edge, by definition different from what people were doing 80 years ago.
You can have a great deal of enjoyment discovering Euclid. You will not, however, be granted a graduate degree in mathematics for re-doing The Elements.
False analogy equating art with maths, but then I can't imagine doing maths for fun.
My stance on art "training" couldn't be more different to yours, and I quote myself:
"In all my career, not one client asked to see qualifications other then my portfolio (we didn't call 'em books in those days).
I think a long art education is fine if you want to be a historian, a talker and not a doer. What I think art education should be about is NOT mind-setting, but totally about practical skill and technique. Knowledge of your predecessors should be taken as granted, and part of what led you into an interest in art or whatever you call what you do. Neither you (nor the State) should be spending money for you to do what you can do mostly for free in any library.
I have long held the notion that people should never allow their own identity to become subsumed into anyone else's ideal. That's why I think all this critique stuff so dangerous, even when people think they look for it as nothing more than part of a game they are playing. Be very careful: if you allow anyone to fuck with your head, that's how it remains."
In effect, and bearing in mind that I was responding (above) to something other than your post, I think the sentiment still largely holds. But then my position is not yours, and I find my belief (interest?) centres around what's inside rather than what should be inside, or perhaps what I could be trying to force inside so that it comes back out as something not quite me.
Indeed, as you wrote, art can be whatever you like. Perhaps the confusion lies in your/my definitions of forefront. You seem to be thinking in terms of new and/or different, whereas I think more in the direction of "forefront" implying the being very good at, and successful, in whichever discipline one has espoused.
Cutting-edge was a term stock libraries used to love, and claim for themselves; mainly, it meant really stiff but technically brilliant work, and as far from representing any fresh line of thought as could be. It became popular with the advent of digital: you get the snap - canoes going over Niagara. Or even up Niagara. Mindless pyrotechnics.
I've seen enough "new" stuff to be totally disabused of the merit of most of what I have seen.
Rob
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I've seen enough "new" stuff to be totally disabused of the merit of most of what I have seen.
Most new stuff in [pick your discipline or creative outlet] is and likely always has been rubbish. Sturgeon's Law (he called it a "Revelation") remains valid.
-Dave-
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We "get" the Iannelli precisely because we've seen its ilk 100s or 1000s of times before, we've read the captions on some of those others, maybe we've read back stories. Many of us have at any rate heard of the FSA/OWI, many are aware of Walker Evans's work. We have a pretty complex set of mental "stuff" we can apply here. It doesn't need text, because it uses a pile of well-understood visual tropes.
Of course pictures like that aren't being made in MFA programs, any more than anyone is slavishly copying Vermeers.
The point of the forefront of Art or of any discipline is not to tread over the same old ground where explanations are not required.
No serious artist is going to clone Vermeer from his time. But by the time someone leaves school with an MFA they should understand why Rembrandt is still good. The past is gone, and good art will always reflect a current zeitgeist even if it’s done in chiaroscuro. Working towards the forefront is good and I am a big fan of pushing the envelope, but there’s also the reality that schools desperately want preeminence and notoriety.
The thing is, you don't understand how photography can stand on it's own without words, or books. It's the reason you had so much trouble understanding Diane Arbus.
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To be honest, I'm not sure where you got the idea I have any trouble with Arbus. Perhaps you have me confused with someone else?
Regardless, I am happy to agree to disagree.
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Art can be whatever you like. The forefront, which is what you'd be expected to be looking at in a graduate program, isn't. It's the forefront, the leading edge, by definition different from what people were doing 80 years ago.
You can have a great deal of enjoyment discovering Euclid. You will not, however, be granted a graduate degree in mathematics for re-doing The Elements.
You could certainly get a graduate degree exploring the notion of "proof" in the Elements.
I can see human drama in the Iannelli photo without knowing that he was a coal miner from Kentucky, just from the assumption of an adult role by a youngish boy, his direct regard to the camera, the cigarette as a symbol of over-throwing normal societal roles. Someone else might not. There must in any case have been a first time someone saw a photo of this style, or a Doisneau to take a softer theme, and Doisneau at least was not in the habit of writing why his photos should interest the viewer.
However the problem may be around originality: art has become obsessed with originality above all else, and has often reduced itself to trivial in-jokes as a result: no matter how shitty, it's new shit.
It may be that this is inevitable, that everything that can be done that is exciting enough to stand on its own has been done and all that remains is the insipid, able to limp to the gallery only with hundreds of words of supporting text. Being inevitable does not prevent it being regrettable.
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Most new stuff in [pick your discipline or creative outlet] is and likely always has been rubbish. Sturgeon's Law (he called it a "Revelation") remains valid.
-Dave-
Thanks for that; hadn't come acros this one before, the only Sturgeon of whom I was aware (apart from the fish, that is), was the one trying to nibble a place in the Scottish history books as ultimate destroyer.
Funny that even within a name there be positives and negatives. So yeah, maybe all is science, in one form or another.
;-)
Rob
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A hypothetical alien with a visual apparatus similar to our own, but none of our language or culture, would not make much sense of any of our pictures. Well, so I opine. If you disagree, then there's nothing much to talk about.
If you agree, though, then we're in agreement that some sort of context is necessary to understand a picture, and after that it's just quibbling about how much and in what form.
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If you agree, though, then we're in agreement that some sort of context is necessary to understand a picture, and after that it's just quibbling about how much and in what form.
Yes, but the context can be implicit. There may be cultures where it's usual for a late teens male to place himself in a dominant position ahead of an older woman (who I assume to be his mother, without prompting), but it's not European-American. Similar for the signs of material poverty in the building. There is the challenge of his eyes to the camera which may apply even outside of our species.
That would come under "how much and in what form", but that is precisely the subject under discussion!
To come back to the need for novelty, however: it's interesting to think about literature and music. In the 50's, "art" music charged off into a chase after complexity and self-reference, which most people found unlistenable. I'm probably already on the fringes because I like a lot of what Elliot Carter and Boulez wrote, but there was a return to popularity through people like Glass and Reich, plus the mysticists like Gorecki and Pärt. They found a way to return to the visceral appeal of music that didn't amount to simply piling up intellectual conceits. In literature, although there has been some experimentation with narrative form (viz The New Novel of Robbe-Grillet), people are still writing stories about human experiences: sex, relationships, politics, conflicts. The stories are new because of their relationship to society, and because the characters are new... even if they are essentially riffs on ancient greek dramas or the bible, but the form really hasn't changed: they are made from text.
There are of course comics, and photo-books, and electronic music, but there is still a substantial number of composers who are writing for instruments and ensembles that JS Bach would recognise (with a certain jealousy). Writers are using fancy word-processors to generate text. It hasn't become essential to include images or hyperlinks into novels, nor have orchestras been replaced by bizzaroid hyper-theremin synthesisers. So why shouldn't visual arts retain as a core discipline, the creation of images that communicate so far as possible without resorting to other media?
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Well, it's not entirely clear to me what Omer's position is, but it sounds like he might be claiming that photographs can be/should be/might be understood context-free.
The comparison with music is, I think, not fully suitable. Music is generally non-representational. Generally we don't "get it" either without some context, but the context is generally just more music. The scales in use today, for instance, would be considered wildly dissonant by JS Bach earlier composers, but we've simply gotten used to them, and like them just fine now. See also music from other cultures. Explaining a fugue in words is, I agree, silly.
Anyways. While explaining a piece of music with words is almost never suitable, I think because it's not representational. Still, consider Peter and the Wolf, which is a perfectly lovely bit of music. It is representational, however, and makes a great deal more sense when someone tells you the story.
Without knowing the story (having the text, that is, in some sense) you would probably get some sense of a developing something with some story-like structure, but no more than that. And you might not even get that, I have no way of knowing.
So, to appreciate Peter and the Wolf in the way it was intended, you have to:
1) be steeped in western music, western tonality (cultural context)
2) know the story itself (textual context)
2a) some sense of european/american wildlife (translating it for a member of the Saan people might, for instance, require that you describe the wolf as "dangerous, like a lion") (more cultural context)
My position is that photographs are rather more like Peter and the Wolf (generally, not universally, of course) than they are like, say, Brubeck's Take Five.
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Jo does it perfectly well via sound images.
What more does anyone need - certainly not an iPhone!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paHiAP1_eGY
Rob
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Well, it's not entirely clear to me what Omer's position is, but it sounds like he might be claiming that photographs can be/should be/might be understood context-free.
The comparison with music is, I think, not fully suitable. Music is generally non-representational. Generally we don't "get it" either without some context, but the context is generally just more music. The scales in use today, for instance, would be considered wildly dissonant by JS Bach earlier composers, but we've simply gotten used to them, and like them just fine now. See also music from other cultures. Explaining a fugue in words is, I agree, silly.
Anyways. While explaining a piece of music with words is almost never suitable, I think because it's not representational. Still, consider Peter and the Wolf, which is a perfectly lovely bit of music. It is representational, however, and makes a great deal more sense when someone tells you the story.
Without knowing the story (having the text, that is, in some sense) you would probably get some sense of a developing something with some story-like structure, but no more than that. And you might not even get that, I have no way of knowing.
So, to appreciate Peter and the Wolf in the way it was intended, you have to:
1) be steeped in western music, western tonality (cultural context)
2) know the story itself (textual context)
2a) some sense of european/american wildlife (translating it for a member of the Saan people might, for instance, require that you describe the wolf as "dangerous, like a lion") (more cultural context)
My position is that photographs are rather more like Peter and the Wolf (generally, not universally, of course) than they are like, say, Brubeck's Take Five.
I’m not sure that anything is context free, but context is variable and inherent. Of course education broadens understanding but who wants pages of explanatory prose included with every book of poetry? Or is poetry also just better when it is a supportive element in a conceptual idea? And if that’s so, then there’s little point to the craft of poetry as well, correct?
I get that great photography can be done with a plastic Diana, or a smartphone, or a Phase One set up. It is imagination that makes the “magic,” but do we really want to talk ourselves out of the fun of mystery?
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/157537?locale=en
I don’t know where this tune came from and it doesn’t matter. It rocks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxsjtSEmmMg
As somebody said: Women with violins may actually be the highest form of life.
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False analogy equating art with maths, but then I can't imagine doing maths for fun.
My current coffee table reading is Michel Emery's "Stochastic Calculus on Manifolds"... :)
https://www.amazon.fr/Stochastic-Calculus-Manifolds-Universitext-Michel/dp/3540516646
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My current coffee table reading is Michel Emery's "Stochastic Calculus on Manifolds"... :)
https://www.amazon.fr/Stochastic-Calculus-Manifolds-Universitext-Michel/dp/3540516646
Graham, are you interested in developing race-car engines?
;-)
Rob
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I don’t know where this tune came from and it doesn’t matter. It rocks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxsjtSEmmMg
Yes, it does rock…to (some/most of) us anyway. Would it rock according to a typical 9th century Viking? According to a 1st century Roman citizen? According to an early member of homo sapiens ~200,000 years ago? Maybe, maybe not. It rocks to us at least in part because we hear it in context. Cab Calloway infamously derided bebop as "Chinese music" due to his lack of ability (or unwillingness) to hear it in the context of "Jazz." A musicmaker of the 1930s failing to hear the music of the 1940s. Maybe all he needed were a few explanatory words before Bird & cohorts launched into their version of "Cherokee" or whatever. ;)
The attached pic contains its own explanatory words. ;D
-Dave-
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Yes, it does rock…to (some/most of) us anyway. Would it rock according to a typical 9th century Viking? According to a 1st century Roman citizen? According to an early member of homo sapiens ~200,000 years ago? Maybe, maybe not. It rocks to us at least in part because we hear it in context. Cab Calloway infamously derided bebop as "Chinese music" due to his lack of ability (or unwillingness) to hear it in the context of "Jazz." A musicmaker of the 1930s failing to hear the music of the 1940s. Maybe all he needed were a few explanatory words before Bird & cohorts launched into their version of "Cherokee" or whatever. ;)
-Dave-
Would explaining the context to the Viking help? Who knows. Comprehension and understanding will help intellectually but how do you get someone to feel foreign music? Well, I don't think by subsuming it in narrative.
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Graham, are you interested in developing race-car engines?
Ha, motorcycles mainly... but stopped racing and the desire to fiddle with the bikes then drains away as well. But if you google you me you might find some surprising old links ;D
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Yes, it does rock…to (some/most of) us anyway. Would it rock according to a typical 9th century Viking? According to a 1st century Roman citizen? According to an early member of homo sapiens ~200,000 years ago?
Hmmm... maybe much further back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKRfHoY-PRY
More generally, there is academic research on animal musicality, but it sufferes from the usual ideological conflicts wih those who desperately need to feel that humans are utterly distinct from even their closest relatives...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoomusicology
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It's kind of strange to say that music does not need textual context because it's non-representational. It would seem more valid to say that representational photography doesn't need textual context-setting because it is implicit in the image.
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The view of a painter, who happens to be a finalist in this year's Wynne prize for landscape painting:
“In my opinion it is axiomatic that if a painting requires an explanatory text it has failed. In this particular painting, the title is explicit.”
-Tim Storrier, 2017
http://australiangalleries.com.au/archibald-wynne-and-sulman-prize-finalists-announced-2/
(Scroll down a bit, the painting at the top is for the portrait prize... no comment).
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The view of a painter, who happens to be a finalist in this year's Wynne prize for landscape painting:
“In my opinion it is axiomatic that if a painting requires an explanatory text it has failed. In this particular painting, the title is explicit.”
-Tim Storrier, 2017
http://australiangalleries.com.au/archibald-wynne-and-sulman-prize-finalists-announced-2/
(Scroll down a bit, the painting at the top is for the portrait prize... no comment).
"No comment."
None needed; it's why photography exists to tide us through these terrible periods.
Rob C