anyone know who this artist is >>??
Dale Houstman
"vze252vy" <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:iccZ5.69$uI1....@typhoon2.ba-dsg.net...
> i found this a while ago .. had a major crash on the hard drive .. there
> were dream surrealism pictures ... here is one pic and you cant make out
> the sig on it !! ..... thanks for any help !
> aq !
>
Whoever they are they're pretty awful. There are many arguments (here) over
what does and what does not represent surrealism, but a gaudy image of a
girl dreaming of a carousel surely doesn't fit the bill.
This would probably make a nice birthday card for a recreation-starved
tenyear old shut-in.
Why does it represent surrealism to you?
dmh
Nikolaus Maack
> Whoever they are they're pretty awful. There are many arguments (here) over
> what does and what does not represent surrealism, but a gaudy image of a
> girl dreaming of a carousel surely doesn't fit the bill.
How would you know, Dale, unless you know what process there was behind
the creation? I was under the impression that you felt surrealism to be a
spontaneous, uncontrolled release? If this artist spontaneously created
this work, without pre-planning, letting it squirt out of their head like
pus outta zit, you'd have no choice but to rub your goateed chin and
mutter, "Masterful. Masterful! True surrealist genius!"
And then I would push you down into a mud puddle and laugh at you like the
cruel bully that I am.
> This would probably make a nice birthday card for a recreation-starved
> tenyear old shut-in.
Most surrealism should aspire to be so great.
> Why does it represent surrealism to you?
If surrealism is about releasing uncontrolled subconscious impulses
without repressing any of the details, then almost anything can "represent
surrealism", artifact-wise, if it was created using the "correct" process.
That's why I think such an approach to surrealism is mentally-handicapped.
I really should finish my FAQ, or at least post what I have so far. Alas,
I am at work, and it is at home. No worries. I have to go home sometime.
Nik
--
Licking clouds while my toes
touch the centre of the earth.
brandon...@my-deja.com
> I really should finish my FAQ, or at least post what I have so far.
I'll have mine up by the end of January.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Dale Houstman
"Nikolaus Maack" <ac...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:915ark$2ac$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
> "Dale Houstman" (dm...@citilink.com) writes:
> > Whoever they are they're pretty awful. There are many arguments (here)
over
> > what does and what does not represent surrealism, but a gaudy image of a
> > girl dreaming of a carousel surely doesn't fit the bill.
>
> How would you know, Dale, unless you know what process there was behind
> the creation? I was under the impression that you felt surrealism to be a
> spontaneous, uncontrolled release?
I never said this, so you never read it. At any rate, there is spontaneous
and there is spontaneous. This gaudy sentimentalism is obviously guided by
social mandates of a very retro fashion. Spontaneous tripe is still tripe.
If this artist spontaneously created
> this work, without pre-planning, letting it squirt out of their head like
> pus outta zit, you'd have no choice but to rub your goateed chin and
> mutter, "Masterful. Masterful! True surrealist genius!"
Again, wrong.
>
> And then I would push you down into a mud puddle and laugh at you like the
> cruel bully that I am.
I don't think you're a bully, I think you're an idiot. There can be bullying
idiots and idiotic bullies of course, but I assume you're one and have no
opinion on the other.
>
dmh
Dale Houstman
<brandon...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:91684p$71f$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Nikolaus Maack wrote:
> > I really should finish my FAQ, or at least post what I have so far.
>
> I'll have mine up by the end of January.
>
efficacy of the entire enterprise still, but what the hell...
dmh
john adams
Granted, nothing jumps out and demands this piece be called representative
surrealism or anything- if i had to attempt some categorization i might
venture to say 'fantasy art'. I admit to having enjoyed it myself even, on
some level. If anything, there is a nice craftmanship present there, and
also just maybe a little too much glittering it up for looks, overall. I
think the point is that not everyone is going to conincide in their opinion
on a piece of art. Does a disdain for little girls and carousel horsies
reflect the nature behind the work? An example i find is L. Carrington's
"The Inn of the Dawn Horse". While i do like many of her others, this one i
dont care for as much, comparatively speaking. It is also, coincidentally,
very fantasy dreamy horsie like. I dont know, maybe there was a whole
cultural flourishing of carousels and little girls dreaming of them before
my time that this could have drawn from, and which would make it patently
bourgeoise (and retro-sentimental?).
Dale Houstman wrote in message
<3a36aec0$0$89522$65a9...@news.citilink.com>...
>
>"Nikolaus Maack" <ac...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
>news:915ark$2ac$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
>> "Dale Houstman" (dm...@citilink.com) writes:
>> > Whoever they are they're pretty awful. There are many arguments (here)
>over
>> > what does and what does not represent surrealism, but a gaudy image of
a
>> > girl dreaming of a carousel surely doesn't fit the bill.
>>
Dale Houstman
"john adams" <johnqa...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:0aEZ5.20290$x6.11...@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com...
> To me it just seems more a matter of personal preferences at work.
> Granted, nothing jumps out and demands this piece be called representative
> surrealism or anything- if i had to attempt some categorization i might
> venture to say 'fantasy art'. I admit to having enjoyed it myself even, on
> some level. If anything, there is a nice craftmanship present there
The "craftsmanship" (if important) strikes me as strictly run-of-the-mill.
It has no (as Nik put it in a la-de-da way) spontaneous quality, since it
appears the artist must have worked very hard just to get the cheap velvet
painting feel that he did. The main revulsion I feel in its presence though
is not on the craftsmanship level - since I prefer the work of what are
termed "Naive" or " Raw" or "Primitive" artists - but on the level of a
perceived "pre-thoughtfulness" (although a thoughfulness thoughtful of the
most banal social conventions) combined with an imagery of quite stunning
sentimentality.
>and also just maybe a little too much glittering it up for looks, overall.
I
> think the point is that not everyone is going to conincide in their
opinion
> on a piece of art. Does a disdain for little girls and carousel horsies
> reflect the nature behind the work?
That's an interesting point: it might, and then I would probably like it
more. However, if this had anything to do with the guidance behind it, I
must say overall it failed.
> An example i find is L. Carrington's "The Inn of the Dawn Horse". While i
do like many of her others, >this one i dont care for as much, comparatively
speaking.
Carrington's writing strikes me as more "on point" but even though I see
your idea here, I must say that Leonora's painting, although often
uncomfortably close to this girlish ideal, almost always tends to radiate a
disturbing sexual element (disturbing in its incongruity): she suggests
adult sexuality within the parameters of what might otherwise be a fantasy
painting. The thing in question is just what it is it seems. Whether or not
the artist had Carrington in mind when he/she produced the work, a severe
breakage (maybe ascribable to a thick paste of sentiment) seems to have
occurred.
>It is also, coincidentally,
> very fantasy dreamy horsie like.
I don't think it's entirely coincidental: the connections (psychologically)
between little girls and horses is almost trite, and doesn't to be gone into
at any length. It's what one makes of it it seems. Carrington isn't in the
least shy about this element. The work under scrutiny seems almost to be
bare of such, although we might project upon it.
>I dont know, maybe there was a whole
> cultural flourishing of carousels and little girls dreaming of them before
> my time that this could have drawn from, and which would make it patently
> bourgeoise (and retro-sentimental?).
I know people hate to committ to anything. It seems Nik's notion of
"whatever" has taken a soft hold on the general psyche, possibly to assuage
(by pandering to) the continuous irritation of his presence, but I think it
is obvious to anyone with open eyes that this picture is retro
sentimentality lacking commentary upon that retro sentimentality.
One doesn't want to get into that coma-like state of "art is subjective" and
(despite any assertions contrary) the surrealist certainly did not (and more
importantly I do not) believe this avoidance credo.
dmh
Nikolaus Maack
> I never said this, so you never read it. At any rate, there is spontaneous
> and there is spontaneous. This gaudy sentimentalism is obviously guided by
> social mandates of a very retro fashion. Spontaneous tripe is still tripe.
I suggest you rip the word "obvious" out of your vocabulary, and fill the
hole with cement so it doesn't grow back. When you have a thought or a
vision where the word "obviously" is involved, you're taking a mental
short-cut, and not considering the world for what it is -- complicated
biologically-perceived funk.
How do you know what guided this painting? Answer -- you don't. So how
can you determine if it's surreal? Answer -- based on your model of
surrealism, where the process is "surreal" and not the "artifact", you
cannot determine if a work is "surreal" or not. Not unless you talk to
the artist who made it and find out what process guided them.
Unless you believe that when a surrealist is being "spontaneous" there is
a "correct" form of spontaneity. This is something I have suspected you
and other "automatic surrealists" believe. Yes, by all means, cease all
censorship and express the true you! Just make sure that when you're
being automatic you create the "right" kind of automatic stuff.
Surrealist irony -- we all know what "proper" automatic writing looks
like.
Nik
PS.
I bought the CD "dead elvis" by Death in Vegas. What a fantastic CD. It
was in the electronica section of my local record store, and it is
electronica, sort of. Only it features reggae, hammond organ playing,
sax, flute, trombone, harmonica, and more. Juicy like a lemon soaked in
sugar water and bourbon.
brandon...@my-deja.com
> How do you know what guided this painting? Answer -- you don't.
Certain deductions can be made simply from looking at the picture. The
composition, the color choices, and that apple (?) all point to a bad
idea, not a free flowing mind. Parts of it beg to be interesting, but
they aren't. I would say its more along the lines of sub-imaginative
fantasy art. More than anything I'm greatly bothered by the little
girl's hair and nose.
> Surrealist irony -- we all know what "proper" automatic writing looks
> like.
Actually, we are all very aware of the downfalls of automatic writing
and drawing. Aragon was aware of this too. Just because a piece of text
was written automatically doesn't mean it is going to be attractive to
read. The point of automatic writing and drawing is beyond this, and
relies more on the author's search for the Marvelous, which can only be
found within the grips of chance and freedom. I think that the
objection by others to this painting as Surrealist is simply a
deduction from the fact that it is not a representation of convulsive
beauty.
Dale Houstman
<brandon...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:918pek$a8f$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Nikolaus Maack wrote:
> > How do you know what guided this painting? Answer -- you don't.
>
> Certain deductions can be made simply from looking at the picture. The
> composition, the color choices, and that apple (?) all point to a bad
> idea, not a free flowing mind. Parts of it beg to be interesting, but
> they aren't. I would say its more along the lines of sub-imaginative
> fantasy art. More than anything I'm greatly bothered by the little
> girl's hair and nose.
>
> > Surrealist irony -- we all know what "proper" automatic writing looks
> > like.
>
> Actually, we are all very aware of the downfalls of automatic writing
> and drawing.
Again (and - I presume - anon): this particular point has been explicated
for Nik time and time. Breton - in his own lifetime - became aware that pure
automatic writing was not the end-all of surrealist action, and - in fact
(as has also been said over and over) Breton was NOT a great adherent to his
idea: friends describe him reworking automatic texts endlessly. At any rate
even if automatic writing had not been questioned at the time, Breton and
others found fault with automatic creation when it came to painting.
The more important features of surrealism ALWAYS have to do with degrees of
liberation: from the superego, from the Academie, from bourgeois
expectations, and certainly from sentimentality. Nik again and again
islolates one aspect of surrealism's complex to make a worthless point,
and - since it pleases him - that is all he wants to do. This is fine with
me: I've given up him.
>I think that the
> objection by others to this painting as Surrealist is simply a
> deduction from the fact that it is not a representation of convulsive
> beauty.
More like repulsive to my eye and mind. Though I have no doubt it would
please the tastes of one who is dedicated to making bad paintings from
photographs and having a local friend string them up in her - to be sure -
erstwhile gallery.
dmh
dmh
Parry
Nik’s odd argument, as I understand it, is that theoretically there
could be an artist whose imagination is so impoverished that he can only
trade in clichés; that this artist is nevertheless a surrealist because
he follows the Surrealist Handbook; and that, because you can’t read the
artist’s mind, *this* could be the guy. Don’t such exchanges usually
involve swamp land?
> >I think that the
> > objection by others to this painting as Surrealist is simply a
> > deduction from the fact that it is not a representation of convulsive
> > beauty.
>
> More like repulsive to my eye and mind. Though I have no doubt it would
> please the tastes of one who is dedicated to making bad paintings from
> photographs and having a local friend string them up in her - to be sure -
> erstwhile gallery.
It does look like a photo-collage, maybe digitized. The girl and the
carousel appear to be waiting to return to the pictures from whence they
came. I don’t know if the picture’s Victorian-postcard style is simply a
manifestation of sentimentality, though; it may reflect some fetish,
maybe nympholeptia (I hear John Ruskin’s making a comeback).
And -- that story about the hard drive crash aside -- this is the second
breathless question this week about some obscure fantasy painter. Is
there some sort of contest or scavenger hunt afoot?
-- Parry
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Dale Houstman
"Parry" <pa...@zxOMITmail.com> wrote in message
news:3A3836...@zxOMITmail.com...
The sad truth is that Nik has repeatedly berated some of us for seeming to
follow that same vague handbook, yet he seems the most tied to it.
Yoicks and whatever...
dmh
john adams
Dale Houstman wrote in message
>
>The "craftsmanship" (if important) strikes me as strictly run-of-the-mill.
>It has no (as Nik put it in a la-de-da way) spontaneous quality, since it
>appears the artist must have worked very hard just to get the cheap velvet
>painting feel that he did. The main revulsion I feel in its presence though
>is not on the craftsmanship level - since I prefer the work of what are
>termed "Naive" or " Raw" or "Primitive" artists - but on the level of a
>perceived "pre-thoughtfulness" (although a thoughfulness thoughtful of the
>most banal social conventions) combined with an imagery of quite stunning
>sentimentality.
No, ill agree - the craftmanship is not essential at all, and also it
proably does
lack some spontaneity. However, the piece did not sit with me quite so foul
as
it apparently did you, et al - i was just left feeling much more neutral
about it.
>
>Carrington's writing strikes me as more "on point" but even though I see
>your idea here, I must say that Leonora's painting, although often
>uncomfortably close to this girlish ideal, almost always tends to radiate a
>disturbing sexual element (disturbing in its incongruity): she suggests
>adult sexuality within the parameters of what might otherwise be a fantasy
>painting. The thing in question is just what it is it seems. Whether or not
>the artist had Carrington in mind when he/she produced the work, a severe
>breakage (maybe ascribable to a thick paste of sentiment) seems to have
>occurred.
Well, in case you happened to get the wrong idea, i wasn't arguing that
the artist borrowed from Carrington, nor below that it was really
coincidental. Incidental would have be closer, i guess.
> >It is also, coincidentally,
>> very fantasy dreamy horsie like.
>
>I don't think it's entirely coincidental: the connections (psychologically)
>between little girls and horses is almost trite, and doesn't to be gone
into
>at any length. It's what one makes of it it seems. Carrington isn't in the
>least shy about this element. The work under scrutiny seems almost to be
>bare of such, although we might project upon it.
>>I dont know, maybe there was a whole
>> cultural flourishing of carousels and little girls dreaming of them
before
>> my time that this could have drawn from, and which would make it patently
>> bourgeoise (and retro-sentimental?).
>
>I know people hate to committ to anything. It seems Nik's notion of
>"whatever" has taken a soft hold on the general psyche, possibly to assuage
>(by pandering to) the continuous irritation of his presence, but I think it
>is obvious to anyone with open eyes that this picture is retro
>sentimentality lacking commentary upon that retro sentimentality.
>
>One doesn't want to get into that coma-like state of "art is subjective"
and
>(despite any assertions contrary) the surrealist certainly did not (and
more
>importantly I do not) believe this avoidance credo.
Coma-state could be an overboard assert-a-ment. Of course it is subjective.
However, i don't maintain that art as we know it is open-endedly equal to
all
or no things - that strips away the meaning that atleast serves in
discussing it and
using the term. Art is (and maybe tomorrow the meaning will change) simply
some
artifact of our creative impulse. Surrealism in my view strives to overcome
the obstacles
on a road to a more imaginitive experience. A fine credo then might go:
'avoid
objective architectures in creating art'. Also: 'avoid the Santa Domingo
Sleigh Man,
and his caped codhound cohort Camille', is another memorable one.
john adams
cythera wrote in message <917kuj$a05$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>john adams wrote:
>You don’t think that the white rocking horse behind her is Tartar,
>from "The Oval Lady" (1939), or his prototype? He is further appearing
>through the curtained window as the Dawn Horse.
>I suppose that with his crescent, or bow-shaped, rockers, the interior
>horse could be a night horse or moon horse.
Well, I suppose that is who it is. I never studied up on the subjects within
that
picture. But since you asked, I wasn't intending to mean it was a carousel
horse.
[snipped]
>
>I’m not sure if you’re saying here that there is a carousel horse in
>the Carrington work. I don’t see one.
>
>
>Leonora Carrington (b. 1917) left England in 1937 to live in Paris
>with Max Ernst. During their three years together, through intensive
>self-exploration, she developed a personal mythology and pictorial
>vocabulary. In both stories and paintings, female characters--often
>including the artist--encountered a bestiary of real and imagined
>creatures. A white horse, in particular, variously represents mythic,
>transformative, sexual, and, when a rocking horse, nurturing and
>magical powers [...]
>
>Excerpted from the book: _Women Artists_.
>Dada and Surrealism.
>http://www.hlla.com/reference/surreal.html
>
>cythera.
>
brandon...@my-deja.com
> Perhaps you will explain what you mean in this context by "fantasy",
> "dreamy", and "horsie."
Oh, please. Does her majesty's return have to be so obnoxious. I find
her entire mis-reading of John's post to be evidence of both her lack
of cognition, and her intent on being a shit.
She must make Dale so proud.
Dale Houstman
<brandon...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:91a8fc$f2k$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> cythera wrote:
> > Perhaps you will explain what you mean in this context by "fantasy",
> > "dreamy", and "horsie."
>
> Oh, please. Does her majesty's return have to be so obnoxious. I find
> her entire mis-reading of John's post to be evidence of both her lack
> of cognition, and her intent on being a shit.
>
> She must make Dale so proud.
>
disagreement I had nothing to do with nor comprehended in the first place.
This sort of fifth-level drive-by snideness should be beneath you, but I
suppose you've lowered yourself so you might cool your combination fuck
sac/stomach gate in the muck that leaks from your dogma hole.
dmh
Nikolaus Maack
"process". Any "artifact" that is created by this process, they claim, in
itself contains no surrealist elements. It is the equivalent of the dirty
dishes left after the meal. The dishes might be interesting to look at,
but they are beside the point.
I say that this position is clearly a load of bullshit, given that people
are constantly picking up these artifacts and insisting that they fail to
display "the proper surrealist process". How can you tell?
Look at it this way -- someone could engage in the automatic surrealist
process and produce a pound of dogshit. According to the supposed "rules"
of automatic surrealism, it is surreal and proper and wonderful. They
automatically made it. Hooray!
This does not happen. People point at the dogshit and mutter, "Clearly
this person did not engage in 'real' automatic liberation! Otherwise they
wouldn't have produced shit."
I argue that, when you take this position, what you are effectively
saying is:
"Engage in the automatic. However, should your automatic impulses lead
you to a place that is ugly, unpopular, and vulgar, don't go there."
In other words, "Be automatic, just don't be automatic."
And thus you wind up with "automatic" texts that are obviously not
automatic at all. They are guided, mapped out, plotted to look like
"proper" automatic writing. And yet everyone nods and smiles and carries
on perpetuating the myth of the "automatic" surrealist process.
I find the painting in question -- the little girl and the red curtain and
the carousel -- ugly and bland. I don't like it. But according to the
supposed rules of "automatic surrealism", I simply cannot judge accurately
whether it is surreal or not. This doesn't mean the painting is surreal!
It means that something is wrong with the automatic surrealism ideology.
My conclusion is that the automatic approach to surrealism is irreparable
flawed. It's utter nonsense, it's hypocritical, and it's false.
Pretending it is the centre of surrealism -- as so many of you do -- is
completely ridiculous.
Nik
jsday
>Some in this newsgroup have argued ENDLESSLY that surrealism is a
>"process". Any "artifact" that is created by this process, they claim, in
>itself contains no surrealist elements. It is the equivalent of the dirty
>dishes left after the meal. The dishes might be interesting to look at,
>but they are beside the point.
Some in this newsgroup have bellowed SOUNDLESSLY that surrealism is a
"catfish". Any "process" that is cremated by this cesspool, they clamour,
in itself constrains no differentiating mufflers. It is the elephant
who sings here, wailing after his sister in the choir as she gallops
off-stage riding a tired blue mule.
I say that this position is steering a boat-load of frogs into the
dark night of shadowy voices, printing favorite emblems of forgotten
philosophies on the bottom of the hull. How can they tell?
Look at the figurehead -- she engages the incoming cloud-forms with
her terrible teeth, insisting that they display the "proper invisible
process", and shredding them into failure.
According to the rules, all the blue-suited passengers abandon ship,
diving into the sea of envious sliver forks.
_
brandon...@my-deja.com
> I have no idea why you involve me in your trite continuation of a
> disagreement I had nothing to do with nor comprehended in the first
> place.
I was under the impression that the two of you were wed in a web of
negativity and excrement. For two people who hate this newsgroup you
sure do spend a lot of time here yaking.
> This sort of fifth-level drive-by snideness should be beneath you,
> but I suppose you've lowered yourself so you might cool your
> combination fuck sac/stomach gate in the muck that leaks from your
> dogma hole.
And Nik says that automatic writing is bunk ... well, this is semi-
automatic writing at best, but its still very poetic.
By the way, how do you determine the "level" of the drive-by snideness?
Recently you said a critique of mine was "sub-basement" so I'm assuming
you have somesort of architectual outline by which you judge and
condemn all my posts. In all fareness, could you post this outline? It
would seem pointless for you to continue judging me by an outline I
have no awareness of.
john adams
cythera wrote in message <919tu8$709$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>In article <lzYZ5.22167$x6.12...@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com>,
> "john adams" <johnqa...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> cythera wrote in message <917kuj$a05$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>> >john adams wrote:
>>
>> >You don’t think that the white rocking horse behind her is Tartar,
>> >from "The Oval Lady" (1939), or his prototype? He is further
>> >appearing through the curtained window as the Dawn Horse.
>> >I suppose that with his crescent, or bow-shaped, rockers, the
>> >interior horse could be a night horse or moon horse.
>>
>> Well, I suppose that is who it is. I never studied up on the
>> subjects within that picture.
>
>between the different elements within the picture... they are
>relatively straightforward. (Or maybe you do not find them to be
>so?).
It isn't a matter of my finding them to be straightforward or not. Honestly,
i never cared to investigate the elements of 'Tartar and his prototypes'.
So, all i was saying essentially was: "I shall take your word for it", and
nothing
more. But, simplicity does not always gaurantee amity, does it.
>http://www.proa.org.ar/exhibicion/mexico/salas/carrington-01.html
>
>> But since you asked, I wasn't intending to mean it was a carousel
>> horse.
>
>Well then, what did you intend it to mean?
>I had some trouble following your thoughts in this post. You wrote:
>
>> Does a disdain for little girls and carousel horsies reflect the
>> nature behind the work?
> An example i find is L. Carrington's "The Inn of the Dawn Horse".
>
>An example of what, exactly?
>
>> While i do like many of her others, this one i dont care for as
>> much, comparatively speaking.
>
>> It is also, coincidentally, very fantasy dreamy horsie like.
>
>Someone else has commented on the "coincidence", I believe.
>I myself was more curious why you described the Carrington painting
>as "fantasy dreamy horsie like."
>
>Perhaps you will explain what you mean in this context by "fantasy",
>"dreamy", and "horsie."
>
>And what "horsies" actually have to do with the Carrington painting.
>
>>I dont know, maybe there was a whole cultural flourishing of
>>carousels and little girls dreaming of them before my time that this
>>could have drawn from,
>
>You're now talking about the other painting, I think...
>>and which would make it patently bourgeoise (and retro-sentimental?).
>
>Patently bourgeoise in what regard?
>
>cythera.
>
So many questions, so many questions. Patently meaning: blatant and obvious.
As for the rest, i really don't feel like delving into what i felt were more
or less understandable words and providing further oppurtunity for
misunderstandings and "low level" discussions.
john adams
jsday wrote in message ...
Sven
> My thoughts are with you on this one, jday. Well said and bravo...
Yeh but...
I can't help but think Nik has some sort of point here.
Look at the automatic writing below. Notice the amount of animals in it?
We have...
"catfish", "elephant", "mule", "frogs"
...all of which are "surreal" animals. I don't claim to be a surrealist. I
use such animals also, because I like the texture of the words and I like
the air of off-the-wallness they add to the sentence. But then, all of my
writing is geared towards generating a response in the reader. Because I'm
a writer (of sorts). I can't write independently of my audience. And I
really don't think anyone here can.
But there are certainly common elements that are a hallmark of a lot of text
that claims to be surreal.
brandon...@my-deja.com
> "Yaking", hmmm?
Do I have to explain everything to you?
Here:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/17/Y0001700.html
http://www.bartleby.com/62/51/Y1725100.html
Unless, of course, you prefer the alternative:
http://www.bartleby.com/65/ya/yak.html
john adams
his actual commentary. It just so happens i love blue mules and the dark
nights
in shadowy voices. The importance of automatism: then and now - how much
ever importance one may attach - lies in freeing oneself from common
convention;
the literary devices and hallmarks you refer to would fall into that
category, incidentally.
Yes, stones, glass, hair, various animals, and so on may
have all been repeated by various writers over time seemingly as convention,
however this is by no means a sign of the limitations with automatism.
The point of it is 1) to derive spontaneous thoughts, ideas, words and so
on
and 2) to transcend habitual thinking and self-constraints. It does not
equate to
a blind jump off the edge into oblivion by striving for greater imaginations
in this
way or through which-ever manner one happens to apprehend. And, further,
there
need not be strict adherence to those and only those words one writes first,
through automatism. The only concern with even attempting that is to
maintain
spontaneity. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't have to be kept.
So now, why need the audience be the focus of a creative work (in such a
way
as to preclude something like automatism)? It certainly doesn't need to, and
it would
indeed seem limiting to . Furthermore, poetry beyond communicating ideas is
art, and
it's rather tough to set about creating anything (very wonderful anyway)
while focusing
intently on how to control and arrange all the small details to fall into
place into one nonlinear
(to use a metaphor) structure, if you catch my drift.
[ With that, i take a silver fork and lunge it through my fabled heart,
retracting from it a secret
antigram. It turns out to be a pearl finch braided into a half-star, much
admirably like the spine of a particular marlin hanging in my father's fish
closet.]
Sven wrote in message ...
Dale Houstman
"Sven" <sv...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:B65F272A.153E2%sv...@blueyonder.co.uk...
> john adams wrote:
>
> > My thoughts are with you on this one, jday. Well said and bravo...
>
> Yeh but...
>
> I can't help but think Nik has some sort of point here.
>
> Look at the automatic writing below. Notice the amount of animals in it?
>
> We have...
>
> "catfish", "elephant", "mule", "frogs"
>
> ...all of which are "surreal" animals. I don't claim to be a surrealist.
I
> use such animals also, because I like the texture of the words and I like
> the air of off-the-wallness they add to the sentence. But then, all of my
> writing is geared towards generating a response in the reader. Because
I'm
> a writer (of sorts). I can't write independently of my audience. And I
> really don't think anyone here can.
Not certain what you mean - this argument over "audience" goes on quite lot
on poetry groups - but I have never considered any audience.
>
> But there are certainly common elements that are a hallmark of a lot of
text
> that claims to be surreal.
>
There is some truth to this - in fact I once thought of assembling (in the
spirit of education of course) a small text gathering together as many
surrealist "cliches" as I could. The emergence of such elements is to be
expected I suppose. I don't however see the list of animals as being
particularly (and certainly not exclusively) surrealist. In my poetry I have
utilized countless animals, but the list is so extensive at this point it
almost seems exhaustive. I've never used a catfish that I know of, but I
have often mentioned elephants and fish of all other kinds. And - for some
reason - there has been more than one "horse" poem here and there. I
probably can blame this one on Arp!
Still: do surrealist cliches exist? Undoubtedly...
dmh
Dale Houstman
"Nikolaus Maack" <ac...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:91aosi$dmv$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
> Some in this newsgroup have argued ENDLESSLY that surrealism is a
> "process". Any "artifact" that is created by this process, they claim, in
> itself contains no surrealist elements. It is the equivalent of the dirty
> dishes left after the meal. The dishes might be interesting to look at,
> but they are beside the point.
I think the argument has been that the process is the more important part of
the art, rather than that the product is totally without "surrealist"
qualities. It's just a personal feeling: it is the adventure of exploration
into the Marvelous that most defines the surrealist relation to art, of
which the product is an important landmark or "clue" (as in thread) to. This
has been my experience.
>
> I say that this position is clearly a load of bullshit, given that people
> are constantly picking up these artifacts and insisting that they fail to
> display "the proper surrealist process". How can you tell?
This - I think - has been answered quite well already. Since one of the most
important features of the surrealist experience is a liberation of the
imagination (from traditional aesthetics, from the marketplace, and
certainly from sentimentality), I would see in this painting under
discussion a reliance on rather obvious sentimental attachments. It is
common in its relations. From this I conjecture (and - of course - it is
only a conjecture) that the painter did not attempt to forge a new path
toward the pictorial, but rather lazily fell into pure fantasy. What is not
a conjecture however (as you clearly point out) is that the picture in
question fails to achieve the Marvelous. It is neither provocative nor
evocative. It has no "umor," it has no sesne of derangement about it. Quite
the contrary: it feeds on assumed commonalities.
>
> Look at it this way -- someone could engage in the automatic surrealist
> process and produce a pound of dogshit. According to the supposed "rules"
> of automatic surrealism, it is surreal and proper and wonderful. They
> automatically made it. Hooray!
A sad reductionist vignette that needs little response.
>
> This does not happen. People point at the dogshit and mutter, "Clearly
> this person did not engage in 'real' automatic liberation! Otherwise they
> wouldn't have produced shit."
This is not being argued really. Even non-surrealist artwork should engage
one on a rather more complex set of responses than "ooh, the pretty girl
likes carousels." It isn't a matter of such callous pronouncements of
something as "shit" although one can make the argument this picture is shit
of some sort.
>
> I argue that, when you take this position, what you are effectively
> saying is:
>
> "Engage in the automatic. However, should your automatic impulses lead
> you to a place that is ugly, unpopular, and vulgar, don't go there."
We have already discussed (recently and many times before) that your
obsessive focus on the automatic as the end-all and be-ll of surrealism is
narrow and unproductive. It is probably not worth going into it once more.
It appears you can only carry one idea at a time to the table, and it
invariably is the wrong one for the occasion.
>
> And thus you wind up with "automatic" texts that are obviously not
> automatic at all. They are guided, mapped out, plotted to look like
> "proper" automatic writing. And yet everyone nods and smiles and carries
> on perpetuating the myth of the "automatic" surrealist process.
Well, it seems that you do: many of us have long ago explained that
automatic production - even in Breton's own mind - was soon seen to be only
one portion of the process. It is not greatly productive that you keep
repeating a lie that you seem to have fixated upon, and have deluded
yourself into believing came from someone else. This obsession remains yours
only.
>
> I find the painting in question -- the little girl and the red curtain and
> the carousel -- ugly and bland. I don't like it. But according to the
> supposed rules of "automatic surrealism", I simply cannot judge accurately
> whether it is surreal or not. This doesn't mean the painting is surreal!
> It means that something is wrong with the automatic surrealism ideology.
Yes: brilliant. It is too bad that Breton and the others beat you to this
grand idea (and that we have been telling you the same for years now), but
better late than never. Automatism can only be viewed through the lens of
the surrealist philosophy as the complex entirety it is. That you seem
unable to do this is no problem of mine: it is your lack.
>
> My conclusion is that the automatic approach to surrealism is irreparable
> flawed. It's utter nonsense, it's hypocritical, and it's false.
> Pretending it is the centre of surrealism -- as so many of you do -- is
> completely ridiculous.
Again: we do not consider it central, and neither did Breton. He came to see
it as one path to the Marvelous. But the most important feature was that you
reach the Marvelous. You yourself see the painting as bland and
uninteresting. Thus it cannot provoke - even in you - that sense of the
Marvelous. It seems this solves the question at hand. There is- for
instance - no doubt that tether ropes and pitons are central tools for
climbing mountains. Yet one can use them to paint one's eaves. This painting
is more or less an example of eave painting.
In other words, the automatic is only one part of a larger process. Breton
addressed this himself when he criticized those who would use automatic
writing to create "bland and ugly" works full of common elements. In other
words, he knew that this "tool" (which does not rise to the level of
"ideology") could be mis-used. He could not have said this if he did not
realize that the surrealist experience was MORE than the mere utilization of
automatic "techniques." You see: you are saying nothing that a surrealist
does not already know.
dmh
>
Salamander
scathing intellect towards someone who came here specifically for feedback?
That would be me. I don't care if you hate the stuff, I simply would like
feedback.
http://communities.msn.com/youcoma
Choose "exhibition" from the menu on the left side.
Thank you.
john adams <johnqa...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:0uYZ5.22154$x6.12...@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com...
brandon...@my-deja.com
I don't think you understand the difference between Pure Psychic
Automatism (the freedom of the mind) and Automatism as a creative tool
(as in automatic writing and drawing)?
Any technique that gives way to the freedom of the mind is Surrealist,
not just automatic writing and drawing. Forced Inspiration (it is sort
of like the Rorschach Ink Blot Test) is an example of a technique that
requires no automatic writing or drawing at all, yet allows the mind,
imagination, and desire to operate freely.
Nikolaus Maack wrote:
> Some in this newsgroup have argued ENDLESSLY ...
Sven
> In article <B65F272A.153E2%sv...@blueyonder.co.uk>,
> Sven <sv...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>> john adams wrote:
>>
>>> My thoughts are with you on this one, jday. Well said and bravo...
>>
>> Yeh but...
>>
>> I can't help but think Nik has some sort of point here.
>>
>> Look at the automatic writing below. Notice the amount of animals
>> in it?
>>
>> We have...
>>
>> "catfish", "elephant", "mule", "frogs"
>>
>> ...all of which are "surreal" animals.
>
> I hope this doesn't seem rude to you, but what does (and does not),
> make an animal a "'surreal' animal"?
By this I simply meant animals which crop up a lot in this sort of writing.
They are all slightly ridiculous animals, either in sound ("mule") or in
appearance. Their unexpected appearance in a sentence can often reap
humorous rewards.
For instance:
"Yesterday I was outside varnishing my cat."
is moderately successful, but not as successful as
"Yesterday I was outside varnishing my possum."
You may not find either funny, but the second certainly has a greater
feeling of the absurd.
Sven
> Excuse me, but I wonder if one or two of you might care to turn your
> scathing intellect towards someone who came here specifically for feedback?
> That would be me. I don't care if you hate the stuff, I simply would like
> feedback.
> http://communities.msn.com/youcoma
> Choose "exhibition" from the menu on the left side.
> Thank you.
I like it. I thought that "slaughterhouse" is a bit unsubtle - it leaves
you with much less to think about than the others. But I particularly liked
"unknown soldier" and "war tower", which radiate unspecified violence and
malice respectively. Although my favourite both in title and appearance is
"if you see paul virillio on the road, kill him", which draws the eye
fatefully towards the centre in a sort of explosion cum sunflower cum
light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel. And there's all sorts of cool junk at the
bottom too.
jsday
>We have...
>
>"catfish", "elephant", "mule", "frogs"
>
>...all of which are "surreal" animals.
"Surreal" animals, eh? The elephant, maybe, but it has mythological
connotations that I found it useful to evoke there.
The frogs too, and I don't see how you could have anything against
them; they are mere passengers in this ride, unconscious of where
they're being carried to.
The catfish and the mule you are probably right about, mostly, but
I rather like the catfish.
My writing there was geared towards generating a response in the
writer. I haven't done enough of that semi-automatic writing lately
to free up the process completely enough that I can do it without
using the occasional spurious animal just to get the wheels moving.
So you're right about that, but you seem to have fixated on the
words and ignored their meaning.
_
jsday
>"Yesterday I was outside varnishing my cat."
>
>is moderately successful, but not as successful as
>
>"Yesterday I was outside varnishing my possum."
You can't just substitute a possum for a cat and not expect
the whole thing to completely change. They are not equivalent.
and neither seems at all "funny" in itself. Mere non-sequitur
is not usually all that humorous. But hey, if you like that kind
of thing...
Yesterday, I planned to varnish my cat, and then take him in
to the body shop for a gin and tonic. The ravens were out in
force that day, and they swam off with my cat before I could
even whet the incisors. My chipmunk army was off socializing
with the rabbits, and my handlebarred red fox slept beneath
his fruitcake, too maudlin to disturb. Cadillac sunshine
swarmed through the forest, bringing sounds of the tweak and
pitter of gleeful black eyes piercing the sides of my cat.
"O letterbox," I cried, "gaffer and duct tape don't ring
brittle! Gable and soda, mattress and turnpike!" At the
intersection of my incantation, the ravens were paralyzed
with lustful sugar. Turpentine, they ran, and eels slithered
from their throats. My cat stretched his tubers and returned,
pleading delicately "got any spare change?" as he passed the
final furrow.
_
Nikolaus Maack
> Some in this newsgroup have bellowed SOUNDLESSLY that surrealism is a
> "catfish". Any "process" that is cremated by this cesspool, they clamour,
> in itself constrains no differentiating mufflers. It is the elephant
> who sings here, wailing after his sister in the choir as she gallops
> off-stage riding a tired blue mule.
Depressingly enough, this is a pretty good example of non-automatic
automatic writing. It conforms so precisely to our expectations of what
automatic writing is "supposed to be" that it's clear there is no way this
emerged "spontaneously".
Automatic writing is "supposed to" look weird, "supposed to" sound vaguely
Monty Python-esque in nature, is "supposed to" use lots of adjectives, is
"supposed to" have an odd clash of interesting objects. All of these
unwritten rules of what the spontaneous is "supposed to" look like brings
about a total lack of spontaneity.
I'm not convinced that automatic writing is even possible. I think that
when we appear to be writing "off the cuff", we aren't doing so at all.
What's the alternative to "automatic surrealism"? A surrealism that
admits that spontaneous, automatic artistic processes are bunk.
Calculated oddity, deliberate juxtaposition, refined madness -- instead of
leaving it all to "chance", create a polished form of madness.
Let the same old spew of automatic drivel die. How many times do we need
to read this stuff before we admit that it's boring?
> I say that this position is steering a boat-load of frogs into the
> dark night of shadowy voices, printing favorite emblems of forgotten
> philosophies on the bottom of the hull. How can they tell?
Kafka surrealism -- where the oddity has a direction, a purpose, a point
-- is far more interesting and far more engaging. Let us go there,
instead of being caught in an ideology that says that this mindless
ranting of "automatic writing" is of value.
Dale Houstman
"Salamander" <thepro...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:t3jag71...@corp.supernews.com...
> Excuse me, but I wonder if one or two of you might care to turn your
> scathing intellect towards someone who came here specifically for
feedback?
> That would be me. I don't care if you hate the stuff, I simply would like
> feedback.
> http://communities.msn.com/youcoma
> Choose "exhibition" from the menu on the left side.
> Thank you.
>
say I find the work interesting. It certainly avoids the "errors" replete in
the other work we have been discussing, most specifically sentimentality
wouldn't you say? Unless there is a sentimentality of sordidness? If it were
ever merely a matter of "craftsmanship" I would also comment that I find
these works to be satisfying in that arena also. I also know that the woman
I live with would hate them and/or be repulsed by them, and that constitutes
a kind of compliment also. I particularly enjoy the color choices which do
not allow for glitter, escape into the pretty, adornment etc. They are
reminsiscent of other work I have seen, but at this far side of the modern
(which has descended into satire and pastiche), this is increasingly a
difficult thing to avoid, and so doesn't constitute (to me) an overwhelming
negative.
I will say that a few of the titles strike me as too obviously geared toward
either the delineation of ambiguous signs ("bird heart dagger") or are too
overt in their fronting of the style ("slaughterhouse") and so lose - for
me - any poetry that might have evolved from that consideration. And the
addition of words to one painting ("I / WILL / DIE") doesn't strike me as
evocative in any real way, and detracts from the presentation in the same
way (only more intrusively) that these titles do. Of course, the use of text
in paintings has always been a tough assignment: the Cubists seem to have
done it well.
If I felt it was my place to give advice, I would say that you might develop
some sort of counterpoint to the sordidness and viscera, either by the
simple action of assigning titles of some neutral or satirically contrary,
or by some more complicated and personal manipulation I cannot - at the
time - imagine defining for you. This would not be so we might feel more
"happy" about the works, but so that a certain derangement or fracture would
ensue between what is looked at (the viscera, the horror) and what the
viewer is led to beleive is supposedly there ("Alice's New Pinafore")
Other than what amounts to minor quibbles, I find the work interesting.
dmh
Nikolaus Maack
> Not certain what you mean - this argument over "audience" goes on quite lot
> on poetry groups - but I have never considered any audience.
And that's why your writing sometimes sucks. On a bad day you can't even
bring yourself to paragraph your text properly. By not doing so, you make
your words unreadable. Do you even care if that's the case?
Why write, and post it online, if you don't want to be read? If it's
writing that is "just for you", write it at home, and keep it at home.
Don't show it to the world.
I say that writing without considering your audience is like looking for a
specific book at the library, but refusing to use the card catalogue.
It's like enjoying the taste of chocolate, so you eat anything that's
brown. It's the ultimate in rudeness -- like taking a shit without wiping
your ass.
[repetition in automatic writing]
> There is some truth to this - in fact I once thought of assembling (in the
> spirit of education of course) a small text gathering together as many
> surrealist "cliches" as I could. The emergence of such elements is to be
> expected I suppose.
Why is it to be expected? I say it's to be expected because automatic
writing is in fact not at all automatic. Actively, consciously seeking
out discordant imagery is far more productive than putting your mind on
auto-pilot and assuming good words will come to you.
jsday
>The point of it is 1) to derive spontaneous thoughts, ideas, words and so on
>and 2) to transcend habitual thinking and self-constraints.
Yes. I'd just like to add for the sake of clarity that freeing oneself to
travel outside the bounds of common convention does not necessarily mean
abandoning common convention entirely. The "spontaneous" ideas can still be
manipulated in the usual, common, customary ways. They provide new material
for the conscious mind to play with and find patterns in.
> Yes, stones, glass, hair, various animals, and so on may
>have all been repeated by various writers over time seemingly as convention,
>however this is by no means a sign of the limitations with automatism.
"seemingly" as convention? How is it possible to tell when these elements
are thrown in out of habit, and when they arise spontaneous and unbidden,
new and marvellous? It's difficult for the writer to discern in the first
place, much more difficult for him to guess how it will appear to any
supposed audience, audiences being what they are these days.
_
Nikolaus Maack
> Yes: brilliant. It is too bad that Breton and the others beat you to this
> grand idea (and that we have been telling you the same for years now), but
> better late than never. Automatism can only be viewed through the lens of
> the surrealist philosophy as the complex entirety it is. That you seem
> unable to do this is no problem of mine: it is your lack.
Whenever I point out that what you've been saying is stupid, you quickly
insist that you were saying no such thing. In fact, you say, "Yes, yes,
Nik, we all know this and have been saying it to you for years. Do try to
keep up."
You and your clan have always been chanting that the key to surrealism is
spontaneity, the process not the product, liberating the self and being
"automatic".
Even as you tell me that, "Yes, yes, the automatic isn't all there is,"
you're actually reinforcing the idea that, indeed, that's all there is.
After all, when you speak of liberating the imagination, what do you mean?
Behaving "spontaneously"? Shedding social conventions and acting as you
would "automatically"?
> In other words, the automatic is only one part of a larger process.
I find it odd that you say this, but never categorize what the other
elements that make up this processes might be. I suspect it's because
you've never given it much thought. Like many, you've define yourself as
a "surrealist". Ergo, whatever you do must be a part of the "surreal
process".
The emperor is nude. And what's this? He's not even an emperor. He's
some tit who can't paragraph his sentences because that would be
"considering the audience", and we all know how terrible THAT would be.
Nikolaus Maack
> Any technique that gives way to the freedom of the mind is Surrealist,
> not just automatic writing and drawing. Forced Inspiration (it is sort
> of like the Rorschach Ink Blot Test) is an example of a technique that
> requires no automatic writing or drawing at all, yet allows the mind,
> imagination, and desire to operate freely.
It is my contention that any model that suggests that a writer or artist
can "spontaneously" generate material without any conscious effort is
flawed. The spontaneous material won't be spontaneous at all. It will be
shaped in such a way so that it is "appropriate" for what is expected.
In other words, we all know that elephants and monkeys and llamas are all
interesting and funny and childish animals. They are surreal animals.
Whether engaged in automatic writing or "forced inspiration", those are
the animals that will appear.
The only way to avoid the cliches is for the author or artist to make a
CONSCIOUS effort to avoid all the old cliches of surrealism, and shape
their art towards a more interesting goal. But once that begins, the
spontaneous aspect is lost.
"What does this inkblot look like?"
"It looks like a llama! No, no, llamas are done to death. It looks like
an alien sneeze dripping off a stained-glass window."
My point is, perhaps we should abandon the notion of spontaneity
altogether, given that it is so prone to producing that which is expected.
Instead of being random and hoping what emerges will be "appropriately
surreal", we should actively and consciously plan to go after those
personal aspects of our personality that are most "surreal" in nature.
After all, social programming runs deep. It's in your blood, in your
bone. You aren't going to rid yourself of it simply by acting at random.
Only through a conscious effort, an act of will, can you rid yourself of
that which displeases you.
Relying on the spontaneous to rid you of your programming is like trying
to rid yourself of alcoholism by drinking lots of booze and any other
pleasant liquids you happen to come across. Remarkably, most of those
"other pleasant liquids" will be booze.
barrett john erickson
> scathing intellect towards someone who came here specifically for
feedback?
> That would be me. I don't care if you hate the stuff, I simply would like
> feedback.
> http://communities.msn.com/youcoma
> Choose "exhibition" from the menu on the left side.
> Thank you.
you need to get a new ISP -- one run by people who don't feel it's their job
to protect bourgeois sensibilities from sudden encounters with things that
may challenge them.
all i get today is a warning that some anonymous MSN hack has identified
your site "as containing adult material that may not be appropriate for all
users".
and it won't let me past this screen even if i do agree to risk the moral
corruption they fear your work will spread.
-- barrett
BLUE FEATHERS #3 is now available
http://www.MagneticFields.org/blue/
bar...@MagneticFields.org
http://www.MagneticFields.org/
surrealists in minnesota
Sur...@MagneticFields.org
==============================================
"Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a
certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and
the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the
incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as
contradictions."
...André Breton
==============================================
jsday
>[...] It conforms so precisely to our expectations of what
>automatic writing is "supposed to be" that it's clear there is no way this
>emerged "spontaneously".
Uh, okay then. You'd be pretty much completely wrong. I am thinking
that the reason you don't like the idea of "automatic" writing is
because you have no idea how to actually do it. And yes, I remember
seeing you try.
>I'm not convinced that automatic writing is even possible. I think that
>when we appear to be writing "off the cuff", we aren't doing so at all.
Anyway, that post was really "semi-automatic" writing. Which is just
letting the automatic output flow, but leaving out most of it and only
typing out the "good" bits, ie. the ones that fit what I was trying to
say.
Here's a short bit of almost fully-automatic writing, constrained
only by my effort to use actual english words and occasionally
insert some punctuation: Fortunate lasses fluff their billows,
minding the farce of of pee snipper flower guff. big now fada
fading into blindness, bick bik elequent fortress insane. Bad now
uncle frost, skipping back a mud flap bit into metal. trot trot
up to the tinker half - near big but losing grovel-time to enter
supper lazy.
It's quite easy once you get the hang of it. So assuming that you're
not just trolling, if I wasn't being "off the cuff" there, what the hell
was I doing then? Where did those words come from? They certainly
didn't come from the same place that *these* ones do.
>Let the same old spew of automatic drivel die. How many times do we need
>to read this stuff before we admit that it's boring?
I completely agree that un-cut automatic spew is usually boring.
However, it's also liberating, and usualy small parts of it are
relavent and inspiring, too.
Calculated absurdity can be useful too, but it often feels
comparatively dead and hollow, like a varnished 'possum.
_
Parry
>
> john adams wrote:
>
> > My thoughts are with you on this one, jday. Well said and bravo...
>
> Yeh but...
>
> I can't help but think Nik has some sort of point here.
>
> Look at the automatic writing below. Notice the amount of animals in it?
>
> We have...
>
> "catfish", "elephant", "mule", "frogs"
>
> ...all of which are "surreal" animals. I don't claim to be a surrealist. I
> use such animals also, because I like the texture of the words and I like
> the air of off-the-wallness they add to the sentence. But then, all of my
> writing is geared towards generating a response in the reader. Because I'm
> a writer (of sorts). I can't write independently of my audience. And I
> really don't think anyone here can.
I don’t particularly think about an audience when writing (working out
a creative tension) but I have a kind of premise that my audience is
myself; and as I’m not essentially different from everyone else my
audience is potentially unbounded -- though in actuality only around two
other people have read most anything I’ve written over the past decade.
> But there are certainly common elements that are a hallmark of a lot of text
> that claims to be surreal.
I don’t see how a commonality of thought is contradictory to automatism,
since we all work from the same language pool. I wouldn’t say these
animals constitute a surrealist vocabulary, but that the animal kingdom
remains a potent poetic attractor. It seems perfectly natural that the
mind, when racing for analogy, should conjure animals, so why shouldn’t
they be a recurring element?
-- Parry
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Parry
> Since one of the most
> important features of the surrealist experience is a liberation of the
> imagination (from traditional aesthetics, from the marketplace, and
> certainly from sentimentality), I would see in this painting under
> discussion a reliance on rather obvious sentimental attachments. It is
> common in its relations. From this I conjecture (and - of course - it is
> only a conjecture) that the painter did not attempt to forge a new path
> toward the pictorial, but rather lazily fell into pure fantasy. What is not
> a conjecture however (as you clearly point out) is that the picture in
> question fails to achieve the Marvelous. It is neither provocative nor
> evocative. It has no "umor," it has no sesne of derangement about it. Quite
> the contrary: it feeds on assumed commonalities.
There’s no question that this artist isn’t a surrealist, but surrealism
does have a place for this sort of “bad” art. The badness of films has
been celebrated, but badness in painting less so. The principle is that
as the artist fails to reach his chosen aesthetic goal, a rupture is
created through which something internal to the artist is inadvertently
revealed. This work would seem to be a textbook case: the girl’s face,
cut-and-pasted to be the focal point of the picture, has been selected
as an ideal then coupled with horses, a common fetish figure for young
females. A forbidden obsession leaks through the cracks in the picture’s
veneer of sentimentality.
Nikolaus Maack
> Uh, okay then. You'd be pretty much completely wrong. I am thinking
> that the reason you don't like the idea of "automatic" writing is
> because you have no idea how to actually do it. And yes, I remember
> seeing you try.
No, I can do it. I just don't see the raw, uncontrolled material as of
value. I wouldn't bother sharing my raw, automatic writing with people.
Like all raw automatic writing, it's not a pleasure to read.
What I prefer to do is write for a bit, wonder what comes next, and flip
through the dictionary at random to find a random word. I then get a new,
random angle to work from, and I consciously incorporate the twist into
the story. This kind of conscious manipulation of the random impulse
strikes me as far more useful and "surreal" than counting on your own mind
to come up with randomness.
I think our minds are a little too clever for that. Saying, "Okay, brain,
give me something random!" only results in subconscious associations
coming forth. Some might be useful -- mother leads to vampire leads to
wondering why you'd think this about your mother -- but other random
associations lead to cliched nonsense.
"The lemur's elbow feels moldy to your mother's vampiric tongue."
Who cares? Who wants to read this?
> It's quite easy once you get the hang of it. So assuming that you're
> not just trolling, if I wasn't being "off the cuff" there, what the hell
> was I doing then? Where did those words come from? They certainly
> didn't come from the same place that *these* ones do.
I'm not sure where they come from. I'd argue the subconscious.
But I don't think that the raw, subconscious material is squirting out.
Even when we're making material automatically, without controlling it, our
censor is still in place. It's still controlled! We think faster than we
can type (or write) and that gives us time to think of several words and
reject them, choosing the "correct" word, all before we finally reach the
stage of writing them down.
And the odd thing is, this all happens so fast we can't even tell that
we're doing it. We don't notice we're censoring ourselves.
In this way, our minds eliminate material that is "too contraversial" or
"not weird enough". The end result is "automatic writing" that is in
keeping with the general definition of what automatic writing should look
like.
"The bugs of Mars lick the frost off their upturned reading lamps."
Same old, same old.
What might be interesting is "assignments" that encourage different takes
on the automatic. Write an automatic western, or an automatic Penthouse
Forum letter, or an automatic spy story. Guided randomness.
> I completely agree that un-cut automatic spew is usually boring.
> However, it's also liberating, and usualy small parts of it are
> relavent and inspiring, too.
I have been overstating my case somewhat. I do find that thinking or
writing "automatically" can provide me with useful information, now and
then. I just don't think the human brain can produce truly random
material.
That, and I think most of the "automatic" stuff that gets posted is just
plain dull. I suspect it's one of those cases where people enjoy writing
it, rambling along in their own egos, but rarely do they enjoy reading the
automation of others.
"Cancer forms a pretty pink bow on her lung. Fascist boots on paper
plates. A folk dancer. Lemons."
In short burts, this stuff can be tolerable -- even fun to read. I
couldn't bring myself to write several lengthy sentences, as most people
do. Lengthy pages of run on sentences of random stuff? That's hell to
me. Even as I write automatically, I want my text to be clear, precise,
meaningful, and above all, well written.
I'm a writer, damn it -- even when I write nonsense.
When I write random, I am tempted to make it theme oriented. I found the
pink bow of cancer on her lung interesting. I want to know more about who
this woman is, and how she's dealing with her cancer. If I'm going to
free associate, I'll do it with a linear goal. Aroused by an initial
image, I will chase it to its conclusion. If I get stuck, I go to the
dictionary and pluck a random word for assistance.
An automatic STORY is far more interesting to me than a stream of
automatic sentences.
(Cancer, by the way, often comes up when I am writing "automatically".)
What I find somewhat bleak is that some people seem to be suggesting that
if you let go of the wheel, the car is going to drive better. You'll
write great text and be loved by all good surrealists. What actually
happens is you start driving with your knees, all the while conning
yourself into thinking you're not driving at all. You then produce
blandness.
Writing automatically, one random sentence after the other, doesn't aim
high enough. Stringing together nonsense and trying to make it make
sense, making it into a story, making it a pleasure to read, is a far more
challenging task, and is far more rewarding.
To me, surrealism is about demonstrating that the absurd makes sense, and
that the sensible is absurd. A lengthy, logical, but totally nonsensical
story does that for me. A string of randomly typed, thematically
unconnected sentences does not.
brandon...@my-deja.com
> My point is, perhaps we should abandon the notion of spontaneity
> altogether, given that it is so prone to producing that which is
> expected.
Well, you're not going to get any takers. I, honestly, am not too aware
of surrealist cliches that spring up in automatic writing. In fact,
the "evidence" you are pointing too (stolen from another thread on
animals) is debatable.
Boy, you sure are a long way from Freud.
brandon...@my-deja.com
> After all, when you speak of liberating the imagination, what do you
> mean? Behaving "spontaneously"? Shedding social conventions and
> acting as you would "automatically"?
Freeing the imagination to work at the dictation of the internal drives.
brandon...@my-deja.com
> What I prefer to do is write for a bit, wonder what comes next, and
> flip through the dictionary at random to find a random word. I then
> get a new, random angle to work from, and I consciously incorporate
> the twist into the story. This kind of conscious manipulation of the
> random impulse strikes me as far more useful and "surreal" than
> counting on your own mind to come up with randomness.
I was doing that in high school. It can be fun, but it gets old. What I
really want to know is why are you creating a false problem? This
method is not opposed to automatic writing nor is automatic writing
opposed to it.
> "The lemur's elbow feels moldy to your mother's vampiric tongue."
> Who cares? Who wants to read this?
Me.
> "The bugs of Mars lick the frost off their upturned reading lamps."
This is probably the most interesting thing you've written the past few
days.
> I just don't think the human brain can produce truly random material.
It can't, the point is to let the human brain function at the dictation
of the internal drives.
> In short burts, this stuff can be tolerable -- even fun to read.
You've just up-ended you're entire argument. Why?
> Lengthy pages of run on sentences of random stuff? That's hell to
> me. Even as I write automatically, I want my text to be clear,
> precise, meaningful, and above all, well written.
This is the problem.
> I'm a writer, damn it -- even when I write nonsense.
This is more of the problem.
> I found the pink bow of cancer on her lung interesting.
I found it empty.
brandon...@my-deja.com
> I say that writing without considering your audience is like looking
> for a specific book at the library, but refusing to use the card
> catalogue. It's like enjoying the taste of chocolate, so you eat
> anything that's brown. It's the ultimate in rudeness -- like taking
> a shit without wiping your ass.
Nice imagery.
> [repetition in automatic writing]
Oh, no wonder. Good old automatic writing saving Nik's ass again!
Now Nik, what does you beef against automatic writing have to do with
Pure Psychic Automatism. Could you repeat that again? I still don't
think you know the difference.
brandon...@my-deja.com
> trot trot up to the tinker half
There is something special about these words. I can't put my finger on
it.
Dale Houstman
"Parry" <pa...@zxOMITmail.com> wrote in message
news:3A3A42...@zxOMITmail.com...
> Sven wrote:
> >
>
> I don't particularly think about an audience when writing (working out
> a creative tension) but I have a kind of premise that my audience is
> myself; and as I'm not essentially different from everyone else my
> audience is potentially unbounded -- though in actuality only around two
> other people have read most anything I've written over the past decade.
This is similar (well - it's exactly the same) as a response I received when
I protested the necessity of the audience to someone years ago, but it
really strikes me as such a reduction of what "audience" means to almost
anyone that it is meaningless. Of course one keeps oneself in mind when one
is writing: this seems so obvious as to not need stating. However it was
stated, so one must assume audience means more than oneself.
dmh
Dale Houstman
"Parry" <pa...@zxOMITmail.com> wrote in message
news:3A3A42...@zxOMITmail.com...
> > Since one of the most
> > important features of the surrealist experience is a liberation of the
> > imagination (from traditional aesthetics, from the marketplace, and
> > certainly from sentimentality), I would see in this painting under
> > discussion a reliance on rather obvious sentimental attachments. It is
> > common in its relations. From this I conjecture (and - of course - it is
> > only a conjecture) that the painter did not attempt to forge a new path
> > toward the pictorial, but rather lazily fell into pure fantasy. What is
not
> > a conjecture however (as you clearly point out) is that the picture in
> > question fails to achieve the Marvelous. It is neither provocative nor
> > evocative. It has no "umor," it has no sesne of derangement about it.
Quite
> > the contrary: it feeds on assumed commonalities.
>
> There's no question that this artist isn't a surrealist, but surrealism
> does have a place for this sort of "bad" art.
Precisely: obviously the work can be "viewed" surreally, as can cereal box
art. But that is hardly the question under study I would think, since it is
self-evident.
>The badness of films has been celebrated, but badness in painting less so.
This is no different from Rimbaud's injunction to find the marvelous in
common vendor signs of course. And - again - it is obvious.
The principle is that
> as the artist fails to reach his chosen aesthetic goal, a rupture is
> created through which something internal to the artist is inadvertently
> revealed. This work would seem to be a textbook case: the girl's face,
> cut-and-pasted to be the focal point of the picture, has been selected
> as an ideal then coupled with horses, a common fetish figure for young
> females. A forbidden obsession leaks through the cracks in the picture's
> veneer of sentimentality.
>
Yes, but that is not the question at hand: is the painting itself an
investigation of the marvelous? I would - for all the reasons already
given - say obviously not. Can we look at it within a surrealist framework?
Of course, and some of us are. But - to be honest - even at this rather
fundamental level the painting is not a good example of its kind, precisely
due to what appears to be a purposeful fronting of its artistic qualities.
It appears to be quite conscious of its own place in the world of painting.
In this regard, almost any bad postcard is inifinitely more likely to be a
treasure trove of the marvelous, due to the ingenuous quality of such
peripheral work.
dmh
john adams
jsday wrote in message ...
>
>> Yes, stones, glass, hair, various animals, and so on may
>>have all been repeated by various writers over time seemingly as
convention,
>>however this is by no means a sign of the limitations with automatism.
>
>"seemingly" as convention? How is it possible to tell when these elements
>are thrown in out of habit, and when they arise spontaneous and unbidden,
>new and marvellous? It's difficult for the writer to discern in the first
>place, much more difficult for him to guess how it will appear to any
>supposed audience, audiences being what they are these days.
Here, the idea was that automatism was not used out of convention,even
though sometimes overuse or words and cliches did occur from time to time.
As for the
rest of the rebuttal, i agree there as well.
Nik just cannot seem to imagine himself out of his bricked in paradigm and
, through
these years, arrive at the simple jist of it. For instance, that a balance
of the 'conscious' and 'unconcious' thought could be applied to work
together in forming something. He's missed the idea of
'liberating the imagination' , and releasing the normal controls on thought,
thereby allowing
oneself greater creative freedom.
john adams
in the way of surrealist writing/writers (unsurprisingly), though you always
claim so.
Because you are unable to arrive at a marvelous phrase through automatism
does not mean that others are also incapable of it. But, it is a little
surprising to hear your depressing declaration that the mind is incapable
of randomness, or farily enough, new creative turns. Chance, such as turning
to
pages in a book or doing 'cut ups' is another method of going about it, and
why pit one against the other as you are doing? It is because you're still
in the
shadows with automatism and related ideas concerning imagination.
It just goes to show: you uphold irrationality so adamantly, then
in an opposite turn around, support conscious reason (very heavily might
I say) in expression. "What gives?" truly becomes the question.
Nikolaus Maack wrote in message <91djc9$oce$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca>...
john adams
already. Your only interest appears to lie in quibbling over the
non-essential
details over and over again and in fact negating every other person's
statements at every level,
and yes most of those being 'low-level' lying quibbles, without much to
offer in a creative way whatsoever.
And, the other problem lies in your failure to grasp hold of ideas
initially, as well as some inability to
cling to a fair-sized idea for any extended period of time in order to
successfully deal with and discuss said idea with others, without shooting
the whole attempt down into tumbling flames.
THIS is why i first kindly declined to engage you off the bat. You may call
it general acquiescence
or inaction, if this suits your little ill-crocked fancies well. But then
the possibility is very clear to me you may be trying to cover your own
tracks of miscommunication and constant misunderstandings, on the one hand
by compiling whatever baseless effusion you can create, or quite simply
because you are
always confused.
note: I never said any of carrington's paintings were bourgeoise - that one
is entirely
cooked up by your own brain.
>
>Understandable words, yes, but not particularly understandable
>_ideas_, if they have gelled into such for you; and from where I am
>sitting they haven't-- (and I feel no desire to pretend that they
>have, for the sake of an artificial unity.).
Screw unity, you are on cloud nine here anyway.
I care for no 'union' with you. The thing you should avoid, as far as
pretending is concerned, is this facade you are always wearing.
>If you expect your readers not to question the meanings that you use
>words to express, that seems unrealistic and unchallenging, for
>everyone...
>
>> and providing further oppurtunity for
>
>> misunderstandings
>?
>
>and "low level" discussions.
This is fair. But let me say that first off i dont always devote a lot of
time
in posting messages here, nor do i feel it shoudl be the greatest of import
in my life.
Also, i often-times write without a lot of reflection and desire of getting
the details exactly right. So my apologies go out to those, others, that i
come off
abstractly to and ill-defined. Also, those who come off dunce-headed now and
again in
reading me, you are of course swiftly excused.
Salamander
brandon...@my-deja.com
> ... (Which, after all, and quite clearly, does not even have a
> carousel in it.) ...
I find it rather dull of you to only now to have touched on this point.
I am very sure that John knew this, and his whole post was a lucid
attempt at creating an analogy between the rocking horse of
Carrington's and the carousel horses by the unknown artist. What do
they have in common? Both painting depict inanimate imitations of
horses that have somehow come alive. It's called Fixed-explosive. Why
are you so upset over John's slip?
> But this whole post (except for the contents of the url) is about as
> stimulating as a chad...
Then why read and respond to it?
> You (as some posters here have been time and again) were questioned,
> challenged, and...
Cythera, this is not alt.witchhunt. You're sad attempts at making room
for yourself by picking at the small details of the post of others only
depresses me. All its doing is causing a strange fungus/mask known as
Andrea Chen to develope over your fat and lumpy flesh of a face. Since
you and your ego care so little about the newsgroup it seems only sane
of me to ask you to leave before the mask becomes cemented to your
flesh. That's right, honey. Close up the shop. Put away the rack. Pack
up the chinese water torture. Shows over. Move along.
Here let me show you the door ...
Nikolaus Maack
> I, honestly, am not too aware
> of surrealist cliches that spring up in automatic writing. In fact,
> the "evidence" you are pointing too (stolen from another thread on
> animals) is debatable.
Have you ever looked for repeating patterns in automatic writing? Because
I think it's pretty safe to say that there are cliches that appear over
and over again in this kind of work. Certain animals, particular
adjectives, and a specific pattern of word spew makes up what we call
"automatic writing".
I think you should be worried that you haven't noticed these repeating
themes. It means you're probably guilty of perpetuating them.
Maybe the problem here is that I'm just bored of automatic writing, and I
don't understand why no one else is. I write something about bugs on mars
licking the frost off their upturned reading lamps, and you think that
random blob of gibberish is the best thing I've written in a long time?
Brandon, raise your standards. We are both capable of so much more than
just shouting out random dreck. That's not art. That's not literature.
That's not even especially interesting.
Maybe you (or was it the Dali Dale?) might be right -- I'm just voicing
criticism raised by Breton. He supposedly said that automatic writing is
flawed and can lead to bland, repetitive, circular experimentation? He
polished his automatic writing, rewriting it into something more
enjoyable? I'd like to suggest we all do the same -- try harder.
> Boy, you sure are a long way from Freud.
Yeah, I was noticing that myself. But I think verbal diarrhea tends to be
freer, different, looser than written diarrhea.
Maybe my largest complaint is this... It's not so much that people are
writing the same random crap over and over again. It's that no one seems
to be thinking, "Someone has to read this. I should write this material
so that it is legible to a reader."
Dale can't paragraph. Cythera (and others) are guilty of leaving pages
and pages of quoted material attached to their messages. Few seem to be
making any kind of effort to achieve readability and clarity.
I skip articles that aren't spaced properly. If someone has just one big
ugly paragraph that goes on for three screens -- forget it. If someone
writes random sentences for three screens and there's no connecting
thought between the sentences -- forget it. If I see a lot of spelling
mistakes and typos -- forget it. If the author isn't striving to be
interesting and new and fresh and real -- forget it.
While you might be satisfied reading the same random rubbish over and over
again, I'm not. Surrealism should aim for something higher than a
collection of unpolished, repetitive, automatic rants.
Nikolaus Maack
(brandon...@my-deja.com) writes:
> Freeing the imagination to work at the dictation of the internal drives.
And how does one distinguish an internal drive from a "borg implant"?
What's me, and what's what society put there?
I ask because inevitably I am told that the main way to determine this is
to behave "automatically". Somehow, it is said, this will show you what
is you, and what is them. I don't think that works.
Nikolaus Maack
> It just goes to show: you uphold irrationality so adamantly, then
> in an opposite turn around, support conscious reason (very heavily might
> I say) in expression. "What gives?" truly becomes the question.
It's called "critical thinking". Occasionally I must question my own
beliefs, embracing my opposite, in an effort to understand what truly
works best. Striving to be consistent means never having to wonder if the
past was a mistake.
Besides, giving up automation isn't the same thing as giving up
irrationality.
Salamander
barrett john erickson <bar...@magneticfields.org> wrote in message
news:3a3a351d$0$89522$7f89...@newsreader.visi.com...
>
> "Salamander" <thepro...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:t3jag71...@corp.supernews.com...
> > Excuse me, but I wonder if one or two of you might care to turn your
> > scathing intellect towards someone who came here specifically for
> feedback?
> > That would be me. I don't care if you hate the stuff, I simply would
like
> > feedback.
> > http://communities.msn.com/youcoma
> > Choose "exhibition" from the menu on the left side.
> > Thank you.
>
>
> you need to get a new ISP -- one run by people who don't feel it's their
job
> to protect bourgeois sensibilities from sudden encounters with things that
> may challenge them.
>
> all i get today is a warning that some anonymous MSN hack has identified
> your site "as containing adult material that may not be appropriate for
all
> users".
>
> and it won't let me past this screen even if i do agree to risk the moral
> corruption they fear your work will spread.
>
>
> -- barrett
I think I have fixed the problem.
jsday
> Surrealism should aim for something higher than a
> collection of unpolished, repetitive, automatic rants.
So you're going for a polished, finely-crafted collection of repetetive,
incoherent rants?
Just in case you didn't notice... in one post, you wrote "I don't think
automatic writing is even possible." In the very next one, you claimed
that you've done lots of it and are bored with the results.
You started out arguing that automatism is flawed because it is
inevitably constrained by conscious habits and self-inhibiting
mental conditioning, and then you switched to saying that automatic
material is useful only when it is further consciously edited and
manipulated.
You started out fishing for seeds in the river of Highway 417,
and you ended up a blind man, groping for tubers in the depths
of a Fransican's basement.
_
Parry
>
> "Parry" <pa...@zxOMITmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3A3A42...@zxOMITmail.com...
> > a creative tension) but I have a kind of premise that my audience is
> > myself; and as I'm not essentially different from everyone else my
> > audience is potentially unbounded -- though in actuality only around two
> > other people have read most anything I've written over the past decade.
>
> This is similar (well - it's exactly the same) as a response I received when
> I protested the necessity of the audience to someone years ago,
You must have run into one of my many clones. If it had three buttocks
it was from the Rapmaster 2000 series.
> but it
> really strikes me as such a reduction of what "audience" means to almost
> anyone that it is meaningless. Of course one keeps oneself in mind when one
> is writing: this seems so obvious as to not need stating. However it was
> stated, so one must assume audience means more than oneself.
In my view, this approach doesn’t remove consideration of an audience,
but considers the audience on human terms rather than as potential
buyers -- in other words, the audience is more than (but including)
oneself, rather than separate and distinct from oneself. It’s an
ethics-based approach to art -- the choice of writing something one
would himself want to read over writing to an abstract target audience,
of avoiding the pandering and tailoring to a market that repels me as a
reader. Forgetting the audience and writing with no more than oneself in
mind is something else. I’ve done that and while it’s given me personal
benefit I would not want anyone else to read the material or have my
name associated with it.
-- Parry
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Parry
>
> "Parry" <pa...@zxOMITmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3A3A42...@zxOMITmail.com...
> > Dale Houstman wrote:
> > > Since one of the most
> > > important features of the surrealist experience is a liberation of the
> > > imagination (from traditional aesthetics, from the marketplace, and
> > > certainly from sentimentality), I would see in this painting under
> > > discussion a reliance on rather obvious sentimental attachments. It is
> > > common in its relations. From this I conjecture (and - of course - it is
> > > only a conjecture) that the painter did not attempt to forge a new path
> > > toward the pictorial, but rather lazily fell into pure fantasy. What is
> not
> > > a conjecture however (as you clearly point out) is that the picture in
> > > question fails to achieve the Marvelous. It is neither provocative nor
> > > evocative. It has no "umor," it has no sesne of derangement about it.
> Quite
> > > the contrary: it feeds on assumed commonalities.
> >
> > There's no question that this artist isn't a surrealist, but surrealism
> > does have a place for this sort of "bad" art.
>
> Precisely: obviously the work can be "viewed" surreally, as can cereal box
> art. But that is hardly the question under study I would think, since it is
> self-evident.
The question at hand, for me, is whether the picture is entirely lacking
in a “sense of derangement.” Here, I’m just setting up my opinion for
why it has. Cereal box art would not have the sort of derangement I am
raising, as it tends to achieve its aesthetic goals without being
sabotaged by desire.
> >The badness of films has been celebrated, but badness in painting less so.
>
> This is no different from Rimbaud's injunction to find the marvelous in
> common vendor signs of course. And - again - it is obvious.
For whatever reason, it’s less controversial to remark the surreality of
a film like “King Kong” than of certain paintings.
> The principle is that
> > as the artist fails to reach his chosen aesthetic goal, a rupture is
> > created through which something internal to the artist is inadvertently
> > revealed. This work would seem to be a textbook case: the girl's face,
> > cut-and-pasted to be the focal point of the picture, has been selected
> > as an ideal then coupled with horses, a common fetish figure for young
> > females. A forbidden obsession leaks through the cracks in the picture's
> > veneer of sentimentality.
> >
> Yes, but that is not the question at hand: is the painting itself an
> investigation of the marvelous? I would - for all the reasons already
> given - say obviously not. Can we look at it within a surrealist framework?
> Of course, and some of us are. But - to be honest - even at this rather
> fundamental level the painting is not a good example of its kind, precisely
> due to what appears to be a purposeful fronting of its artistic qualities.
> It appears to be quite conscious of its own place in the world of painting.
> In this regard, almost any bad postcard is inifinitely more likely to be a
> treasure trove of the marvelous, due to the ingenuous quality of such
> peripheral work.
There is a sterility to the picture which is typical of digital art. (I
haven’t looked at the picture closely enough to ascertain if it actually
is digital, but my first impression is that it is.) Agreed, it’s not a
prime example of... well, anything really, but the “purposeful fronting
of its artistic qualities” isn’t relevant to its strangeness, which
emerges from the Achilles’ heel of the artist’s control. I bet if this
picture were on a cereal box you would be warmer to it.
brandon...@my-deja.com
> And, what do "horsies" have to do with this.
Kind of off the point, but it seems to me that Carrington was the only
Surrealist who ever painted a horse (even if it was only a rocking
horse). I'm not sure I gather that there is a difference
between "horse" and "horsies".
> in what _non-obvious_ way/s is the Carrington work
> "very fantasy-like", "very dreamy-like."
An art history professor once tried to convince me that Carrington,
Tanning and the other female surrealist painters weren't Surrealist at
all, but rather that they were Fantasy Artists since there art looked
nothing like the male surrealist artistic output. While I disagree,
Carrington's work still does have something in common with the
basic "fantasy" idea. I can't explain it now since I don't want to do
the research, but such assertions have been made.
> You know, this is hardly deep conversation, though it would require
> you to inch off the personalist dime, a place you seem glued to, as I
> see from having just scrolled down. But I am leaving my responses to
> you as I wrote them, and shall address your spleen below. So if there
> is a disjointed quality to the next few responses, it's because I
> hadn't yet read the part below, where you flip out.).
Barrett once said of A.C. that the problem with her is that you have to
continuely re-state your position which she had just misinterpreted and
misrepresented in her response to your post making communication
completely impossible. My fear is that this statement will someday be
said of you. You know A.C., the woman not interested in conversation
but in debating even when there wasn't a debate ... so she would make
something up (by misread) just to keep the flame alive. I'm not a fan
of this, and will oppose it no matter who is projecting it.
> Thanks for the term. I know very little about art, and now I know
> what phrase to put through google.
You'd know the term if you'd read Mad Love. It looks like my FAQ will
serve some good after all.
john adams
exudings of late, which have all but decapacitated me through their foul
driven odors. Amazingly, this recent billowing enigma has persisted,
in utter platitude and virtually on its own, despite certain resistance to
contact.
It is a shame, but one mine as well confess, the atrocity continues in
rapid state of decline. I had hoped, for it's sake, it's efforts would have
brought it in a more 'exquisite' direction. Such is life, i wish it the
best, and all
the rest...
brandon...@my-deja.com wrote in message <91fq1e$rcv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
john adams
Nikolaus Maack wrote in message <91fs81$80h$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca>...
>"john adams" (johnqa...@yahoo.com) writes:
>> It just goes to show: you uphold irrationality so adamantly, then
>> in an opposite turn around, support conscious reason (very heavily might
>> I say) in expression. "What gives?" truly becomes the question.
>
>It's called "critical thinking". Occasionally I must question my own
>beliefs, embracing my opposite, in an effort to understand what truly
>works best. Striving to be consistent means never having to wonder if the
>past was a mistake.
>
>Besides, giving up automation isn't the same thing as giving up
>irrationality.
Critical thinking is fine - in the case of writing, it can be applied at any
point
to the work, and as but one component to the totality of it. It does not
have
to be given up entirely during any 'process', nor should it control the
flowering
of the imagination. The irrational comes into play because what it most
importantly
signifies is the relinquish of normal rational controls at some point, this
coming into
popular use dating back to dada and before.
Consider brain-storming - surely you are familiar with this exercise - and
compare it
to automatism, then realize it is simply a smaller, perhaps more disabled
version of automatism.
Dale Houstman
"Parry" <pa...@zxOMITmail.com> wrote in message
I wasn't thinking in terms of "buyers" but in terms of shaping one's work to
the perceived dictates of others - and "audience" (if it is to mean anything
distinct from the word "myself") means others.
-- in other words, the audience is more than (but including)
> oneself, rather than separate and distinct from oneself. It's an
> ethics-based approach to art -- the choice of writing something one
> would himself want to read over writing to an abstract target audience,
> of avoiding the pandering and tailoring to a market that repels me as a
> reader. Forgetting the audience and writing with no more than oneself in
> mind is something else. I've done that and while it's given me personal
> benefit I would not want anyone else to read the material or have my
> name associated with it.
I do not understand the distinction between writing something "one would
want himself to read" and writing for oneself. Unless you are attempting to
include (in this audience that is not an audience) the idea of writing so as
to meet standards set by historical precendent, or writing with the history
of language in tow. This strikes me as little different than writing for
oneself, since all this is memory and intellect and knowledge, which surely
are components of this "self".
I would like to comprehend this approach, but - as of yet - I don't. Want to
try again, if you have the patience?
dmh
Dale Houstman
"Parry" <pa...@zxOMITmail.com> wrote in message
This I am not certain about, for two reasons I can come up with. A painting
can be as much an advertisement (and as self-conscious as any ad) as a
commerical, although the product being sold is only the painter's cleverness
or his level of skill. And advertisements do not - I think - remain free of
this sabotage by desire. In fact I find that the immense attention to every
detail of the presentation creates "ambiences" and radiations that escape
the attention, as if the tube were being squeezed too tightly. And of
course - the entire field of commercial endeavour is aimed (baldy enough) at
bagging desires of various sorts. This is why it can be so intriguing
despite its obvious ploys. It's damaging certainly, and bothersome, but not
without interesting features, if only due to the great field for satire. A
truly bad painting (lacking in the saving "grace" of innocence and
ignorance) seems even emptier to me. This might be personal of course.
>
> > >The badness of films has been celebrated, but badness in painting less
so.
> >
> > This is no different from Rimbaud's injunction to find the marvelous in
> > common vendor signs of course. And - again - it is obvious.
>
> For whatever reason, it's less controversial to remark the surreality of
> a film like "King Kong" than of certain paintings.
Yes I see that. It probably has something to do with the perception of film
as being a somewhat "suspect" artform, of being peripheral. But a certain
attention has been paid to crudity and at least faux stupidity in painting,
and there are those who dig through the second hand stores precisely for
such "gems." If I had found this picture in a junkyard it might have more
charm for me. And I suppose it is probably - in part - its presentation in
this "clean white space" for consideration that puts me off. Context -
context - context...
Not unlikely. Maybe I'll work on it! But even then I think there is a
distinction to be made between the innate surreality of any work and the
critical view which may be based in surrealism. Whether or not this is an
important division is questionable.
dmh
Dale Houstman
"Nikolaus Maack" <ac...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:91frot$7dv$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
> (brandon...@my-deja.com) writes:
> > I, honestly, am not too aware
> > of surrealist cliches that spring up in automatic writing. In fact,
> > the "evidence" you are pointing too (stolen from another thread on
> > animals) is debatable.
>
> Have you ever looked for repeating patterns in automatic writing? Because
> I think it's pretty safe to say that there are cliches that appear over
> and over again in this kind of work. Certain animals, particular
> adjectives, and a specific pattern of word spew makes up what we call
> "automatic writing".
Breton and others have already noted this, and that is why Breton (to
produce "finished work" as opposed to pure texts) engaged in what most
writers engage in, rewrites. And - to be more to the point - why is a
repeated phrase or word a sign of non-authenticity in autmoatic writing,
since the mind is filled with such redundancies and patterns? And there are
only so many words in the language: repetition is bound to occur. This seems
to be a point hardly worth making, except for the fact that you seem so
bound to avoid understanding, no matter how often something is talked about.
>
>
> Maybe the problem here is that I'm just bored of automatic writing, and I
> don't understand why no one else is. I write something about bugs on mars
> licking the frost off their upturned reading lamps, and you think that
> random blob of gibberish is the best thing I've written in a long time?
This is where you make your error; automatic writing is not meant to be
about producing the "best" writing, but about releasing your imagination
exactly from such aesthetic considerations. It is more on the order of an
exercise, or a walk in the park, neither of which we would claim as Olympic
events.
>
> Brandon, raise your standards. We are both capable of so much more than
> just shouting out random dreck. That's not art. That's not literature.
> That's not even especially interesting.
"Art"? "Literature"? Do you even have the slightest idea of what surrealism
is about?
>
> Maybe you (or was it the Dali Dale?)
You noticed (again) that "Dali" and "Dale" are only one letter apart: your
cleverness proceeds you. Again...
might be right -- I'm just voicing
> criticism raised by Breton. He supposedly said that automatic writing is
> flawed and can lead to bland, repetitive, circular experimentation?
Yes, he did. He was often discouraged by the results of any one session.
>He polished his automatic writing, rewriting it into something more
> enjoyable? I'd like to suggest we all do the same -- try harder.
Don't presume to be the expert/teacher in this arena: your own work is not
as splendid as you might think. As for revising: I learned that lesson over
thirty years ago, and scarcely need your advice.
>
dmh
Nikolaus Maack
> And - to be more to the point - why is a
> repeated phrase or word a sign of non-authenticity in autmoatic writing,
> since the mind is filled with such redundancies and patterns?
If everyone who does "automatic" writing keeps coming up with the same
list of "appropriate" animals, for example, how automatic is it? You said
yourself at one point that you were considering writing up a list of
surreal cliches. Presumably, from your perspective, people who produce
such stereotypes are not actually engaged in automatic writing. Is that
an accurate interpretation of your point of view?
> And there are
> only so many words in the language: repetition is bound to occur.
It isn't mere words that are being repeated -- it's a specific pattern of
words. Call the pattern the "Monty Python school of inappropriate
wordage".
"My hovercraft is full of eels."
Words like "albatross" and "spam" have a comedic tone, and they appear far
more often than words like "dog". And that "Monty Python" pattern is what
we call "good automatic writing".
Don't you find it at all strange that all automatic writing in this
newsgroup reads pretty much the same? Isn't it possible that people are
simply producing what they consider to be "appropriate" automatic writing?
In other words, what is supposed to be a shedding of social conventions is
actually the adoption of a different convention -- "Look at me, I'm a free
thinker! I'm writing automatic writing like a surrealist!"
It's like teenagers rebelling by adopting the traditionally accepted
costume of the teenage rebel. Now they are different, because they're
exactly like all the other "different" people.
> "Art"? "Literature"? Do you even have the slightest idea of what surrealism
> is about?
Yes, yes. Your surrealism is about freeing your mind, not making art or
literature. Process, not product. Which means you never have to
risk success.
"But who wants success, Nik? I'm happy being small."
But what choice do you have, Dale? You are small.
"Blah blah blah liberate the imagination. Blah blah blah social
conventions. Blah blah blah corporate control. Blah blah blah you'd
understand if you would listen to me."
> Don't presume to be the expert/teacher in this arena: your own work is not
> as splendid as you might think.
Ah, but it is better than you. No, I don't mean to suggest my writing is
better than your writing. I'm saying that my writing is better than your
very existence.
> As for revising: I learned that lesson over
> thirty years ago, and scarcely need your advice.
It sure seems like you need a refresher course, mister I-don't-need-
to-paragraph-cuz-I-don't-consider-my-audience.
jsday
>
>Don't you find it at all strange that all automatic writing in this
>newsgroup reads pretty much the same? Isn't it possible that people are
>simply producing what they consider to be "appropriate" automatic writing?
I started doing "automatic" writing long before I ever heard of surrealism,
and even before I'd ever knowingly seen the results of anyone else doing it.
And yes, certain patterns emerged that might very well fit the suppposedly
stereotypical form you're talking about.
So? Automatic writing is still probably more varied in its syntactical
formulations than your usual writing is. Everyone has at least one
characteristic style of writing whose constructions they fall back on
frequently. Why shouldn't automatic writing have the same?
Your earlier misunderstanding of automatism as aiming for "random"
output is perhaps still at work here. The idea is not at all to go
for randomness, but to lessen certain constraints and gain access to
a lower level of consciousness that is otherwise obscured.
(and perhaps *reading* automatic writing requires the same kind of process
as writing it.)
It even makes sense that the range of patterns observed in automatic writing
should be somewhat more uniform among larger groups of people, if you concede
any shred of credibility to the idea that our ordinary language-processing mind
is built on a lower-level cerebral construct that has elements common to all of
us (IMO one of the less-unlikely of Chomsky's ideas).
The mention of Monty Python is interesting. I'm not sure how it's relevant.
Another stylistic paradigm for you: Zippy the Pinhead. Is Zippy a surrealist?
>Yes, yes. Your surrealism is about freeing your mind, not making art or
>literature. Process, not product. Which means you never have to
>risk success.
"success"? WTF is that?
_
john adams
>
>>Yes, yes. Your surrealism is about freeing your mind, not making art or
>>literature. Process, not product. Which means you never have to
>>risk success.
>
A bit of a shame that you are still clinging to and embracing that whole
line of thought. It clarifies how you were simply lying about your new-found
feelings about work vs. life to everyone not long ago. Product over
process - kind of a capitalist-materialist attitude to hold, don't you
agree?
-j
Parry
Are there reasons for “shaping one's work to the perceived dictates of
others” other than commercial reasons; that is, for instance, to satisfy
editors or the tastes of a target audience?
> -- in other words, the audience is more than (but including)
> > oneself, rather than separate and distinct from oneself. It's an
> > ethics-based approach to art -- the choice of writing something one
> > would himself want to read over writing to an abstract target audience,
> > of avoiding the pandering and tailoring to a market that repels me as a
> > reader. Forgetting the audience and writing with no more than oneself in
> > mind is something else. I've done that and while it's given me personal
> > benefit I would not want anyone else to read the material or have my
> > name associated with it.
>
> I do not understand the distinction between writing something "one would
> want himself to read" and writing for oneself. Unless you are attempting to
> include (in this audience that is not an audience) the idea of writing so as
> to meet standards set by historical precendent, or writing with the history
> of language in tow. This strikes me as little different than writing for
> oneself, since all this is memory and intellect and knowledge, which surely
> are components of this "self".
It has less to do with history and precedent than with simulating the
objective view of a cold reader to direct the work through its finishing
stages. The notion of “writing for oneself” can represent two different
sorts of output. It could mean writing which is self-indulgent,
constrained by private references, or forever revised yet incomplete. Or
it could mean writing which attempts to achieve universality through
personal exploration of language. To effect this latter approach, the
author must stand in for the reader, and so an other audience is
implied. The writing is shaped “to be read,” even if no actual readers
are sought. This is why I think there are three distinguishable
approaches: author-without-audience, author-representing-audience, and
author-serving-audience (the commercial avenue). Of course, the sway of
memory, intellect and knowledge holds for all three approaches.
> I would like to comprehend this approach, but - as of yet - I don't. Want to
> try again, if you have the patience?
Did the foregoing paragraph make anything more comprehensible or was
there some other aspect to be addressed? Frankly, my attitude towards
writing has operated quietly in the background for so long it may appear
etiolated and unintelligible when dragged back into the light.
Dale Houstman
"Parry" <pa...@zxOMITmail.com> wrote in message
I think so. One wishes to satisfy even without hope of commercial gain. One
wishes to be doing "good work" so one - with or without desire for money -
attempts to follow the Icons. And so on: I think these are non-commercial
approaches. One can think of ANY approval as a sort of coin of course, and
then all such involvements are commercial. But that strikes me as
reductionist.
I think not: I think - if universality is indeed a useful goal - it can be
achieved simply by writing to the best of one's abilities. This doesn't
imply audience to me. An audience may or may not come later, but that is not
a concern of mine. Everything after composition is commerce.
> The writing is shaped "to be read," even if no actual readers
> are sought.
But the shape is read my me. I assume - due to my grounding in the same
language and culture as millions of other people - that what I write is -
more or less- readable by others, but I don't shape the work according to
the dictates of this imaginary audience.
> This is why I think there are three distinguishable
> approaches: author-without-audience, author-representing-audience, and
> author-serving-audience (the commercial avenue). Of course, the sway of
> memory, intellect and knowledge holds for all three approaches.
>
>
> > I would like to comprehend this approach, but - as of yet - I don't.
Want to
> > try again, if you have the patience?
>
> Did the foregoing paragraph make anything more comprehensible or was
> there some other aspect to be addressed? Frankly, my attitude towards
> writing has operated quietly in the background for so long it may appear
> etiolated and unintelligible when dragged back into the light.
>
I understand, but I can't agree. To me your tripartite author division is
highly arbitrary, and seems not to capture what I do. I suppose I could be
considered an "author-without-audience" but I also shape my work rather
obessively, and assume - due to a common culture - that there are those who
could read it if I cared enough to show it. I don't think that not writing
"for" an audience necessarily makes one self-indulgent. In fact - quite the
opposite happens often enough. Self-indulgence can be as much a "playing to"
(the "idea" of the maverick artist, the "idea" of the misunderstood genius)
as a "hiding from" and the most hermetic work (Rimbaud) can achieve some
great level of permanent audience. And so on: this is why I don't bother to
consider an audience. They seem hardly worth my effort. Who are they?
As for achieving universality, I think what this lies in is an internal
integrity: a metaphorical unity of phrases and images. If a piece refers
perfectly enough to its parts and its parts refer back then a certain
integrity which may or may not translate to "acceptance" or "comprehension"
may occur. Beyond such considerations, audience never occurs to me.
dmh
Salamander
> jsday (js...@dragon.achilles.net) writes:
> > Some in this newsgroup have bellowed SOUNDLESSLY that surrealism is a
> > "catfish". Any "process" that is cremated by this cesspool, they
clamour,
> > in itself constrains no differentiating mufflers. It is the elephant
> > who sings here, wailing after his sister in the choir as she gallops
> > off-stage riding a tired blue mule.
>
> Depressingly enough, this is a pretty good example of non-automatic
> automatic writing. It conforms so precisely to our expectations of what
> automatic writing is "supposed to be" that it's clear there is no way this
> emerged "spontaneously".
This is where I got stuck in this thread and went, huh. Spontaneous and
automatic are such *wrong* words to describe anything the brain does.
Spontaneous and automatic processes are things like breathing and sweating.
Creative human activities are never altogether spontaneous because these
activities imply consciousness. I understand we want to remove our mental
blockades to reach into the muddy fertile place where we keep all our good
stuff hidden away, but to talk about it as even possible to behave
spontaneously or automatically is like saying you want to not know what you
are doing.
I think of automatic writing or art not as a method for results but as a
practice of releasing inhibition-can you spit it out and let it go without
editing? do you dare? that to me would be the point of automatic and
spontaneous art, to open, unleash, relax the instrument so then later Real
Work can begin. Because there is consciousness, and there are goals, despite
surrealist and buddhist theories of "first thought, best thought." I don't
think you can have freedom without discipline.
Salamander
Dale Houstman <dm...@citilink.com> wrote in message
news:3a3a2c7f$0$89526$65a9...@news.citilink.com...
>
> "Salamander" <thepro...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:t3jag71...@corp.supernews.com...
> > Excuse me, but I wonder if one or two of you might care to turn your
> > scathing intellect towards someone who came here specifically for
> feedback?
> > That would be me. I don't care if you hate the stuff, I simply would
like
> > feedback.
> > http://communities.msn.com/youcoma
> > Choose "exhibition" from the menu on the left side.
> > Thank you.
> >
If your perception is that i was being pissy, you're right. It's annoying to
be overlooked cause people are busy having personal squabbles.
I must
> say I find the work interesting. It certainly avoids the "errors" replete
in
> the other work we have been discussing, most specifically sentimentality
> wouldn't you say? Unless there is a sentimentality of sordidness?
sure sure my romance with the abyss.
but it's over. i got the house and the car, the abyss got my soul.
If it were
> ever merely a matter of "craftsmanship" I would also comment that I find
> these works to be satisfying in that arena also.
I also know that the woman
> I live with would hate them and/or be repulsed by them, and that
constitutes
> a kind of compliment also.
other women don't seem to like my stuff much, unless they are bipolar.
I particularly enjoy the color choices which do
> not allow for glitter, escape into the pretty, adornment etc.
i thought my colors were very pretty.
They are
> reminsiscent of other work I have seen, but at this far side of the modern
> (which has descended into satire and pastiche), this is increasingly a
> difficult thing to avoid, and so doesn't constitute (to me) an
overwhelming
> negative.
>
> I will say that a few of the titles strike me as too obviously geared
toward
> either the delineation of ambiguous signs ("bird heart dagger") or are too
> overt in their fronting of the style ("slaughterhouse") and so lose - for
> me - any poetry that might have evolved from that consideration. And the
> addition of words to one painting ("I / WILL / DIE") doesn't strike me as
> evocative in any real way, and detracts from the presentation in the same
> way (only more intrusively) that these titles do.
It says "you will die" not "i"
and i look at that knowing it is an aesthetic mistake but that the purpose
of the picture is as an incantation or banishment, and though it may look
wrong, it works.
i tweaked it a bit so it would look more like the x-rays it is based upon,
see attachment below. i rather like it better this way. may i suck my own
cock for a moment here, i love this composition. it delights me
compositionally.
Of course, the use of text
> in paintings has always been a tough assignment: the Cubists seem to have
> done it well.
there is text all through my drawings, but most people do not notice. it is
there for texture and implication; it's not meant to be read.
> If I felt it was my place to give advice, I would say that you might
develop
> some sort of counterpoint to the sordidness and viscera, either by the
> simple action of assigning titles of some neutral or satirically contrary,
> or by some more complicated and personal manipulation I cannot - at the
> time - imagine defining for you. This would not be so we might feel more
> "happy" about the works, but so that a certain derangement or fracture
would
> ensue between what is looked at (the viscera, the horror) and what the
> viewer is led to beleive is supposedly there ("Alice's New Pinafore")
i don't like this idea. this bunch of pictures are from a phase that is
ending for me, so i suppose i could go back and be more witty and clever,
but the point of them was to be blunt. the point was to say what you mean
and say it mean. the point was to say, hold still while i kick you in the
face-Wham!! there! ha ha ha ha I WIN!
> Other than what amounts to minor quibbles, I find the work interesting.
>
> dmh
thank you for taking your time to look.
Salamander
cythera <cyt...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:91es0f$7j3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <t3jag71...@corp.supernews.com>,
> "Salamander" <thepro...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Excuse me, but I wonder if one or two of you might care to turn your
> > scathing intellect towards someone who came here specifically for
> > feedback?
> > That would be me. I don't care if you hate the stuff, I simply would
> > like feedback.
> > http://communities.msn.com/youcoma
> > Choose "exhibition" from the menu on the left side.
> > Thank you.
>
> whatever, and didn't want to; today I was able to just go through...
>
> Yes, I would definitely change the titles... as I read "Masculine
> Side", I thought instead, "Masculine Robe." And I suppose that was
> what I hoped to see: an illusion of masculinity, or an
> object/device/idea that was covering masculinity, contrasted with a
> revealed masculinity -- as seen through your eyes.
recently i moved into a somewhat new style and decided all new drawings will
be named after a food or drink. solves that whole damn problem. i'm working
on one called Pie.
> My critique here isn't very objective (sorry):
don't apologize; i don't expect "objectivity" and i don't want it.
some of the images
> reminded me of Clives Barnes' "Hellraiser" movie, and such images are
> _not_ my thing.
El Greco is about as grotesque as I go for, and I
> do get a + charge from his work (I've seen a lot of it in person, and
> it has "flesh impact.").
> But usually I prefer a more distant, cool, and Spartan "look."
> That said, I did find myself asking questions as I looked at your
> images: why are the same colors appearing again and again? (More
> sheer subjectivity here: I don't like those colors without chiaroscuro,
> and prefer b/w and/or a muted palette anyway).
there are many many different color combinations used that arrive at the
same 'conclusion color' in the drawings; this doesn't translate in tiny
pictures. these all range from 24 x 30 to 32 x 40 inches, and being
primarily pencil, so much of the complexity is lost when they are reduced.
there are more subtle colors, but one must look closely, and you can't on
the computer.
> Looking at your stuff, I also wondered, are these colors signs of
> something important to the artist, and if so, what?... and so there
> _is_ a something-something there -- for me -- that I let myself be
> drawn in by. But I prefer your poems.
now that scares me.
> Thanks for showing your work.
> cythera.
thanks for responding.
Parry
Dale Houstman wrote:
> "Parry" <pa...@zxOMITmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3A3ED1...@zxOMITmail.com...
I think universality is always a goal of surrealist activity (the
definiton's elaborated below). But my question is: what would you call
the writing in which you do *not* try your best if not “writing for
yourself”? Is there no difference between writing which has only
personal value and that which has broader significance?
> > The writing is shaped "to be read," even if no actual readers
> > are sought.
>
> But the shape is read my me. I assume - due to my grounding in the same
> language and culture as millions of other people - that what I write is -
> more or less- readable by others, but I don't shape the work according to
> the dictates of this imaginary audience.
If the shape of the work is determined by how one feels art should be
represented in the world, I think an extended audience is implied. This
may be more evident as concerns song-writing.
> > This is why I think there are three distinguishable
> > approaches: author-without-audience, author-representing-audience, and
> > author-serving-audience (the commercial avenue). Of course, the sway of
> > memory, intellect and knowledge holds for all three approaches.
> >
> > > I would like to comprehend this approach, but - as of yet - I don't.
> Want to
> > > try again, if you have the patience?
> >
> > Did the foregoing paragraph make anything more comprehensible or was
> > there some other aspect to be addressed? Frankly, my attitude towards
> > writing has operated quietly in the background for so long it may appear
> > etiolated and unintelligible when dragged back into the light.
>
> I understand, but I can't agree. To me your tripartite author division is
> highly arbitrary, and seems not to capture what I do.
The distinction isn’t arbitrary to me, of course: there seems a
fundamental difference between those things I write which I don’t care
if anyone reads, and those which I wouldn’t want anyone else to read.
I’m uncertain whether we’re arguing semantics or if we actually use
different methods. My attitudes were influenced many years ago by an
interest in film, in which I found creating a satisfying work and
preparing the work for an unknown viewer to be the same process.
> I suppose I could be
> considered an "author-without-audience" but I also shape my work rather
> obessively, and assume - due to a common culture - that there are those who
> could read it if I cared enough to show it. I don't think that not writing
> "for" an audience necessarily makes one self-indulgent.
This perforated border between self-indulgent and not is where I’m
drawing the distinction between “author-without-audience” and
“author-representing-audience.”
> In fact - quite the
> opposite happens often enough. Self-indulgence can be as much a "playing to"
> (the "idea" of the maverick artist, the "idea" of the misunderstood genius)
> as a "hiding from" and the most hermetic work (Rimbaud) can achieve some
> great level of permanent audience. And so on: this is why I don't bother to
> consider an audience. They seem hardly worth my effort. Who are they?
They could be anybody. Those that actually appreciate the work would
likely be people much like yourself.
> As for achieving universality, I think what this lies in is an internal
> integrity: a metaphorical unity of phrases and images. If a piece refers
> perfectly enough to its parts and its parts refer back then a certain
> integrity which may or may not translate to "acceptance" or "comprehension"
> may occur. Beyond such considerations, audience never occurs to me.
There’s that, but I think universality also means a temporal disruption
or anything else which opens the work to having a wider significance
beyond the author’s intentions or the predictions of the form. I suggest
that wherever a sense of universality is achieved, the author becomes a
spectator to his own work.
Dale Houstman
>
> Dale Houstman <dm...@citilink.com> wrote in message
> news:3a3a2c7f$0$89526$65a9...@news.citilink.com...
> >
> > "Salamander" <thepro...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:t3jag71...@corp.supernews.com...
> > > Excuse me, but I wonder if one or two of you might care to turn your
> > > scathing intellect towards someone who came here specifically for
> > feedback?
> > > That would be me. I don't care if you hate the stuff, I simply would
> like
> > > feedback.
> > > http://communities.msn.com/youcoma
> > > Choose "exhibition" from the menu on the left side.
> > > Thank you.
> > >
> > Although the perceived tone of your request is a trifle offputting,
>
> If your perception is that i was being pissy, you're right. It's annoying
to
> be overlooked cause people are busy having personal squabbles.
I was not aware that you were, but even if so this is partly the nature of
the medium, and - at any rate - if you do want a thought out consideration
of something, overt "pissiness" won't buy you much wool.
>
> I must
> > say I find the work interesting. It certainly avoids the "errors"
replete
> in
> > the other work we have been discussing, most specifically sentimentality
> > wouldn't you say? Unless there is a sentimentality of sordidness?
>
> sure sure my romance with the abyss.
> but it's over. i got the house and the car, the abyss got my soul.
Not a great loss, I assure you.
>
> If it were
> > ever merely a matter of "craftsmanship" I would also comment that I find
> > these works to be satisfying in that arena also.
> I also know that the woman
> > I live with would hate them and/or be repulsed by them, and that
> constitutes
> > a kind of compliment also.
>
> other women don't seem to like my stuff much, unless they are bipolar.
The great aesthetic advantage of emotional storms.
>
> I particularly enjoy the color choices which do
> > not allow for glitter, escape into the pretty, adornment etc.
>
> i thought my colors were very pretty.
Yes: you comprehend what I mean. I think my poems are rational also, but I
am talking on the general notion of the term, of course.
>
> They are
> > reminsiscent of other work I have seen, but at this far side of the
modern
> > (which has descended into satire and pastiche), this is increasingly a
> > difficult thing to avoid, and so doesn't constitute (to me) an
> overwhelming
> > negative.
> >
> > I will say that a few of the titles strike me as too obviously geared
> toward
> > either the delineation of ambiguous signs ("bird heart dagger") or are
too
> > overt in their fronting of the style ("slaughterhouse") and so lose -
for
> > me - any poetry that might have evolved from that consideration. And the
> > addition of words to one painting ("I / WILL / DIE") doesn't strike me
as
> > evocative in any real way, and detracts from the presentation in the
same
> > way (only more intrusively) that these titles do.
>
> It says "you will die" not "i"
Maybe I wasn't compelled enough by the presentation to achieve accuracy in
this case? It doesn't change the opinion at all.
> and i look at that knowing it is an aesthetic mistake but that the purpose
> of the picture is as an incantation or banishment, and though it may look
> wrong, it works.
No one can argue your personal view on it, and I recommend (without your
needing a recommendation) that you stick with your instincts. But they don't
work for me.
>
> i tweaked it a bit so it would look more like the x-rays it is based upon,
> see attachment below. i rather like it better this way. may i suck my own
> cock for a moment here, i love this composition. it delights me
> compositionally.
Suck away...
>
> Of course, the use of text
> > in paintings has always been a tough assignment: the Cubists seem to
have
> > done it well.
>
> there is text all through my drawings, but most people do not notice. it
is
> there for texture and implication; it's not meant to be read.
But this is probably the area of trouble: text may be meant for lots of
things, but it naturally demands reading.
>
> > If I felt it was my place to give advice, I would say that you might
> develop
> > some sort of counterpoint to the sordidness and viscera, either by the
> > simple action of assigning titles of some neutral or satirically
contrary,
> > or by some more complicated and personal manipulation I cannot - at the
> > time - imagine defining for you. This would not be so we might feel more
> > "happy" about the works, but so that a certain derangement or fracture
> would
> > ensue between what is looked at (the viscera, the horror) and what the
> > viewer is led to beleive is supposedly there ("Alice's New Pinafore")
>
> i don't like this idea. this bunch of pictures are from a phase that is
> ending for me, so i suppose i could go back and be more witty and clever,
Not witty or clever, but counterpointing.
> but the point of them was to be blunt. the point was to say what you mean
> and say it mean. the point was to say, hold still while i kick you in the
> face-Wham!! there! ha ha ha ha I WIN!
Point taken.
>
> > Other than what amounts to minor quibbles, I find the work interesting.
> >
> > dmh
>
> thank you for taking your time to look.
>
I liked them. It was an easy "assignment."
dmh
Dale Houstman
"Parry" <pa...@zxOMITmail.com> wrote in message
> [snips]
>
> Dale Houstman wrote:
> >
> > I think not: I think - if universality is indeed a useful goal - it can
be
> > achieved simply by writing to the best of one's abilities. This doesn't
> > imply audience to me. An audience may or may not come later, but that is
not
> > a concern of mine. Everything after composition is commerce.
>
> I think universality is always a goal of surrealist activity (the
> definiton's elaborated below). But my question is: what would you call
> the writing in which you do *not* try your best if not "writing for
> yourself"? Is there no difference between writing which has only
> personal value and that which has broader significance?
I can't speak for others of course, but the answer for me is "no." It never
occurs to me to think about this process much, but it just seems obvious to
me that if I am writing for myself (whether or not I think of it that way:
in truth I don't consider who I am writing for or why I am writing at all)
then - unless I am pathologically "abnormal" (to a degree that would remove
my sensibilities from considerations of humanity) - I am simply bound to be
writing to a broader "significance" if only because all people who read must
be interested - in some way - with the adventures of language, and I am
using that language. It need go no further than that for me as per active
consideration (and - as I say - not even that far).
>
>
> > > The writing is shaped "to be read," even if no actual readers
> > > are sought.
> >
> > But the shape is read my me. I assume - due to my grounding in the same
> > language and culture as millions of other people - that what I write
is -
> > more or less- readable by others, but I don't shape the work according
to
> > the dictates of this imaginary audience.
>
> If the shape of the work is determined by how one feels art should be
> represented in the world, I think an extended audience is implied. This
> may be more evident as concerns song-writing.
It may be an audience is "implied" by text, but this is a different process
than an active consideration of that audience in the act of writing, which
is what I assumed we were discussing. A cobbler makes shoes (usually I
surmise) with an "audience" of potential (or specific) feet in mind during
the creation. But this isn't the process I - as a writer - go through,
whetehr or not "eyes" are implied by "text."
>
>
> > > This is why I think there are three distinguishable
> > > approaches: author-without-audience, author-representing-audience, and
> > > author-serving-audience (the commercial avenue). Of course, the sway
of
> > > memory, intellect and knowledge holds for all three approaches.
> > >
> > > > I would like to comprehend this approach, but - as of yet - I don't.
> > Want to
> > > > try again, if you have the patience?
> > >
> > > Did the foregoing paragraph make anything more comprehensible or was
> > > there some other aspect to be addressed? Frankly, my attitude towards
> > > writing has operated quietly in the background for so long it may
appear
> > > etiolated and unintelligible when dragged back into the light.
> >
> > I understand, but I can't agree. To me your tripartite author division
is
> > highly arbitrary, and seems not to capture what I do.
>
> The distinction isn't arbitrary to me, of course: there seems a
> fundamental difference between those things I write which I don't care
> if anyone reads, and those which I wouldn't want anyone else to read.
I see; this division does not inform any of my writing.
> I'm uncertain whether we're arguing semantics or if we actually use
> different methods. My attitudes were influenced many years ago by an
> interest in film, in which I found creating a satisfying work and
> preparing the work for an unknown viewer to be the same process.
I am dedicated to revision, but I suppose this is more than mere semantics.
It may be that the division here is difficult to define in language. I
rework so as to "satisfy" only the demands of my own learning and
experience, which - I assume - is connected to a long history of textual
choices and approaches, so - thus - to the rest of the world. But this is
never a consideration for me. I suppose (again - this is not a particulalry
conscious act on my part) I am attempting to assist a certain potential that
may exist in a selected group of words and phrases to reify into a pleasing
or shocking (or pleasingly shocking) object which is then a sort of memorial
to the processes I went through.
>
> > I suppose I could be
> > considered an "author-without-audience" but I also shape my work rather
> > obessively, and assume - due to a common culture - that there are those
who
> > could read it if I cared enough to show it. I don't think that not
writing
> > "for" an audience necessarily makes one self-indulgent.
>
> This perforated border between self-indulgent and not is where I'm
> drawing the distinction between "author-without-audience" and
> "author-representing-audience."
>
> > In fact - quite the
> > opposite happens often enough. Self-indulgence can be as much a "playing
to"
> > (the "idea" of the maverick artist, the "idea" of the misunderstood
genius)
> > as a "hiding from" and the most hermetic work (Rimbaud) can achieve some
> > great level of permanent audience. And so on: this is why I don't bother
to
> > consider an audience. They seem hardly worth my effort. Who are they?
>
> They could be anybody. Those that actually appreciate the work would
> likely be people much like yourself.
They may be. But they never occur to me. All that occurs to me while writing
is the process of engaging with words so as to surprise even myself. In a
real sense I am not even trying to "satisfy" my own expectations, but to
derail then, to court new sensations. Otherwise - for myself - the act of
writing is simply not worth the effort.
>
> > As for achieving universality, I think what this lies in is an internal
> > integrity: a metaphorical unity of phrases and images. If a piece refers
> > perfectly enough to its parts and its parts refer back then a certain
> > integrity which may or may not translate to "acceptance" or
"comprehension"
> > may occur. Beyond such considerations, audience never occurs to me.
>
> There's that, but I think universality also means a temporal disruption
> or anything else which opens the work to having a wider significance
> beyond the author's intentions or the predictions of the form. I suggest
> that wherever a sense of universality is achieved, the author becomes a
> spectator to his own work.
Oh certainly: this I comprehend: one is always trying to become an outsider
to the object at hand. And - as you say - the work may become more widely
"loved" (or at least famously disdained), but this potential occurence is
still quite a different tapir than an idea of audience while in the act.
>
Interesting, though...
dmh