Experimenting with Public Naughtiness

Like the force, we have a light side and a dark side. I believe even the most righteous people often have unpure thoughts and if we have learned anything from Catholicism, we are all sinners and will spend our lives routinely in confession. For jews, it is once a year. We figure, let the sins accumulate and do one massive fasting forgiveness orgy (followed by honey cake and chinese buffet) and hope for forgiveness, because if not, you die. Well, you are not written in the book of life, which by process of elimination means you are done.

So, I am confessing on my behalf and on yours. We are obsessed with other people. We can't help it as it is part of our anthropological disposition. History, in a nut shell, is about linking the past to the present through the actions of what sometimes feels like fictional characters. Our raison d'etre can be explained by looking back. However, what we are taught are the major accomplishments, the quotes, the speeches, the discoveries, the product that somehow guided history this way and that.

But behind all these seemingly great events, there are regular people that eat, sleep, and yes go to the bathroom, release gas, pick their nose, and have physical and emotional idiosyncrasies that usual escape our study, unless they happen to be interesting in their own right. For example, Beethoven loosing hearing towards his later years in life, or Napoleon having a complex, of perhaps Einstein failing mathematics. But can you imagine Marie Antoinette going number 2?

It is true that for most of our lives, we interact with a myriad of people, most of which present just a facade at some degree. There are private moments that we never get to see, learn and experience, and we are relieved that most do not get to share our private, intimate, and perhaps somewhat embarrassing moments. Did you ever loose yourself playing air guitar or conducting a rambunctious movement of a Shostakovich Symphony? Or perhaps slobber, snore, and say horribly inappropriate things in your sleep? Maybe you like you pick your ear and smell the wax?

Diverseworks presented the US premiere of Voyeur, the latest performance installation by Australian-based Company Clare Dyson that explores notions of intimacy, desire, and the act of revealing. Thought-provoking, it made me explore how many private moments exist in our lives, what it would feel to be watched, and how we respond when watching others. At times forbidden, erotic, naughty, tender, and sometimes hilarious, we walked into a world of the unknown, where we had a chance to explore this curiosity, with permission from the artists, but acknowledging our curiosity with the other 30 or so folks in the active audience.

The work presented took the following form: on stage, a closed performance spaced was created with drywall. Holes of different sizes, shapes, and heights were placed strategically around the space. You were given the option of where to watch, move around and change perspectives. There were also monoculars, as well headphones to "hear" the dancers thoughts, one for the male another female. To see a video, visit http://www.dysonindustries.com.au/performance/voyeur/film.html

Here, we truly explore the banal of the everyday, while intruding into the space and choosing our point of view, exposing the vulnerability of the artist, and exploring our own taboo for engaging in voyeurism in plain view of others doing the same thing. As much as we watch the artists, we also notice other eyes prying out of other peepholes, creating a humbling and accepting experience. We connect, we are being seen, without identifying ourselves.

I leave with many questions after exploring a taboo that I had not experienced before. I have the sense that I want to smile, and take a shower at the same time. Yes, we all have a dark side. We just have to be brave and open enough to admit it.

The 64 Million Dollar Question

It is much easier to understand the evolution (if one can call it that) of artistic movements in retrospect. Evolution is perhaps not the right noun as it implies that to evolve means to develop and to get better. To claim that one artistic movement is better than another is not only unfair, it is just plain nonsensical (although naturally, we can be drawn to one over another). I find it particularly successful to examine this as it relates to visual art. From experimentation of perspective, to the discovery of orthogonal lines, foreshortening, trompe l'oeil, realism, baroque, impressionism, cubism, fauvism, suprematism, abstraction, etc. I have left quite a few out in the interest of simplicity, but one can certainly deduce that in visual art, the general movement has been from figurative to abstract.

The definition of what is art becomes more difficult today. In an age where everything goes, how does one distinguish between art, things that have artistic merit or artifacts, or things that appeal to our aesthetic judgement? It is easier to ask this question having a little background of where we have been, where we are, and indulging in the temptation to hypothesize where we are going.

I recently read in another blog the notion that opera Da Capo arias (basically, musical form where the first part is a complete musical form, the second contrasting, followed by a repeat of the first) are somewhat not received well due to their redundant nature as they do not further the plot. They just repeat and depend on the agility and artistic ingenuity of the performer to embellish the repeated first section. Audiences would have been able to identify the improvisational quality and be satisfied with the ingenuity and novelty. Today, the style may seem antiquated, as the novelty does not have the same impact. We are exposed to more and unless performed with the highest artistic merit, it does little for us. We are desensitized.

Look at the content of popular programming. It follows the same pattern. Novelty lessens the efficacy of older programs. The amount and degree of profanity, violence, indecency increases, allowing these to become less shocking and acceptable in our modern vernacular.

In general, audiences have trouble with contemporary music questioning what makes it music, more so, what makes it art music. But I'd argue that although earlier music styles like classical, baroque, and romantic periods are easily identified as art music, most will have difficulty explaining why and appreciate and understand its context.

In a Musiqa (Houston based non-profit committed to presenting contemporary art music) performance tonight, I appreciated the composers vulnerability to explain their works and allow for a Q and A post performance. I asked what composer Anthony Brandt labelled as the 64 Million dollar question: where are we in art today and is it fair to ask to forsee the future of classical music?

I received one of the best answers. Unlike technology where progress is somewhat predictable (although the effect may not be), if one can think of it today, it can be done today. If I can predict what can be done tomorrow, there is no reason why it cannot or would not be done today. Meaning, predicting the direction of art movements is an impossibility.

Art movements have always carried some sort of tradition from the past while at the same time rejecting another. In a time of extreme artistic clutter, confusion, and overwhelming variety, would it be fair to predict a rejection to a neo-simplistic period of easily identifiable styles in easily recognizable formats? Has the pendulum swung so far one way and it is inevitable to swing back the other?