Post-Modern Art: form signifying its absence
Carl Jahnes
> Carl Jahnes wrote:
>
> >> A lecture has an subject, a beginning, a middle, and an end. It
> had none
> of these. It was about itself, in the same way a modern painting is
> about
> paint, and nothing beyond paint, because it is a symbol of escape from
> form,
> >from limits, to a misconceived freedom. <<
>
> That reminds me of Joseph Campbell's comments on traditional Indian
> music
> and dance. In his recently published diary (_Baksheesh and Brahman_)
> of his
> Indian visit in 1954-55, Campbell said that the most noticeable thing
> about
> both was the lack of either a beginning or end. This might be related
> to a
> "culture of death" as you mention, but here in terms of India.
>
Louis:
I'm not familiar with Joseph Campbell's observations on traditional
Indian music, but his observation makes some sense, given what little I
know of Hindu pantheism. If we individual persons are temporary
aberrations, a sort of cosmic burp by which "differentiations" (of our
particular personalities) accidentally occurred in a once harmonious,
but now chaotic cosmos, as opposed to the bliss and harmony that obtains
if we are melded back into that great undifferentiated Ocean of Being,
into that All which is All, and if reincarnation, our lives, our karma,
is a sort of eternal return, a spiralling into a state of 'rest', like
the swinging pendulum which gradually comes to a stop, then, it seems to
me that the "form" of music which would seem proper to one with these
presuppositions would be exactly that sort of music which seems to come
from nowhere, and meld off to a dreamy pre-sleep state, where the
listener cannot tell if the music has ended, or is continuing in some
sort of silent mystical state of consciousness. I am seeing in my
minds' eye the mantra chanting meditator, with his eyeballs rolled to
the top of his head. :)
But, still, my opinion, if my observations of Indian music have any
merit at all, is that here is a 'form' which becomes a symbol of
spiritual and philosophical predelections. It is a brick in the
plausibility structure which makes Hindu pantheism seem 'true'.
Carl Jahnes
Carl Jahnes
I think it will take more than adherence to a type of form to restore art from "form which signifies its absence", because it is world-view which creates the appetite for these forms.
Postmodernism is what we have after modernism defeated form. Now we don't
have form standing in the way, our culture is dominated by the form of
antiformalism, or--as Carl put it--art in which "the form signifies is
absence."
I'm thoroughly convinced that if Ezra Pound and like mined modernists were
working today they would be high formalists, attempting to restore art from
the tyranny of antiformalism.
In the vein of where Post-Modernism is going (death), I thought the following article would be interesting for those interested in this subject to review...
CTHEORY: Extended-Body: Interview with Stelarc
If the HTML link doesn't translate, here's the web address...
www.ctheory.com/a29-extended_body.html
What other palette can be left to one who wants to break the intolerable conventions of 'form'?
Carl Jahnes
Promtheus
popular culture, is the mark of death, anarchy and chaos in our culture. No art
form, however innocent it may appear, is without ethical implications. What
motivates the sick minds behind this degenerate trash? Simply, hatred of
authority.Through their "art" they seek the destruction of all hierarchy,
authority, form, beauty, order and reason. Who would have thought that this
would be the hideous denouement of the 18th century Enlightenment?
Post-modernism is what happens when the
heresy of equality is given full reign. Democracy, behold thy son! Hatred
motivates the Revolution in all its tentacles. Differences implies inequality
and inequality suggests hierarchy. Thus the Post-Modernist left-wingers are
haters of God, property, family, gender distinctions and true government or
order. Since form and reason necessitate order, they have become the latest
victims of the left-wing pogrom against decency and tradition.
Thus rock music, modern "art", crass commercialism, sexual inversion,
multicultural glorification of primitive savagery, socialism and the cult of
total government, these are but a few of the fruits of the long war against
God. It began with Rousseau and his subjectivist critique of reason? No, try
this. It began with a serpent in a garden long before. All these trendy
literati, glitterati and Illuminati are simply the most unoriginal conformists
the world has ever known. They have added no premise of substance since their
origins in Genesis 3. But then, what can you add to rebellion, disorder and
death?
A Christian Aestheticist
rafael cardenas
prom...@aol.com "Promtheus" writes:
>
> Post-Modernism, whether in art, philosophy, theology, music, politics or
> popular culture, is the mark of death, anarchy and chaos in our culture. No art
> form, however innocent it may appear, is without ethical implications. What
> motivates the sick minds behind this degenerate trash? Simply, hatred of
> authority.Through their "art" they seek the destruction of all hierarchy,
> authority, form, beauty, order and reason. Who would have thought that this
> would be the hideous denouement of the 18th century Enlightenment?
>
> Post-modernism is what happens when the
> heresy of equality is given full reign. Democracy, behold thy son! Hatred
> motivates the Revolution in all its tentacles. Differences implies inequality
> and inequality suggests hierarchy. Thus the Post-Modernist left-wingers are
> haters of God, property, family, gender distinctions and true government or
> order. Since form and reason necessitate order, they have become the latest
> victims of the left-wing pogrom against decency and tradition.
>
> Thus rock music, modern "art", crass commercialism, sexual inversion,
> multicultural glorification of primitive savagery, socialism and the cult of
> total government, these are but a few of the fruits of the long war against
> God.
Perhaps so, but they have very little to do with postmodernism. They all
predate it, some by 2,000 years or more. Perhaps the postmodernist attack
on facts has addled the poster's brain.
--
rafael cardenas huitlodayo swarfmire college, goscote, UK
to reply, edit the to: field to delete hormel.