Jay, (01)
Yes, music needs to be intentionally produced, if you describe
something X as music. That's intentional. The description. It's
interpretation, literally. However, if you don't do that, then X is not
music or it's coincidentally music, non-music, etc. I.e., there is no
description. It's just sound. At most it's perception without
structuring or interpretation. (02)
However, if you come across something, a sequence of chirps and leaves
vibrating in the wind, that is non-music until you say it is or
describe it as music, or at least experience it as music (and describe
it to yourself post-hoc as music). Found things can be art. But it
takes the artist or the audience to make it so. It's the thing going
through the human interpreting head that comes out "art" (or perhaps
another animal's head; I don't want to rule out aesthetic interpreting
events for other animals just yet). At least, so far. We expect other
kinds of machines some far off day will be able to do that same thing
(at least some of us do). (03)
I think part of the John Cage et al movement was to focus on the
receptor of the art, i.e., the actual or possible audience. And this
happened in literature too, to my direct knowledge, i.e., initial
so-called "reader response", quasi-deconstructivist criticism (ALERT: I
think most of so-called deconstructionism is a load of crap). That is,
what is the contribution of the reader/receptor to the work of art? We
know the anecdote of sound of the tree falling in the forest. That's
perception. But the sound of that tree's falling in the forest
encountering a human ear may not just be about perception, but
interpretation: "Ah, that's sublime!" The modernist or perhaps emerging
postmodernist music movement (John Cage et al) would say that nature
can create music (indeed does, but "create" here is used
non-agentively), but it is only recognizable as music by an intentional
(interpreting) mind. And so, similarly, silence. (04)
And yes, there was and still is probably that kind of debate going on.
I'm not a historian of art, but I think that these kinds of thoughts
have passed through most artists' minds in the past, i.e., what exactly
is it that I'm doing? What is it that I have created? I know it has
passed through mine, as a practicing poet. If you read the literature
on literary artistic introspection (I won't speak for other arts), you
find that most of us don't know where the best of what we come up with
comes from. (05)
By the way, I think similar thoughts pass through the mind of the
mathematician and the scientist, except of course it's refracted to be
about "important stuff". I.e., what it is that I describe and
characterize? Am I inventing it? Did God create it? Was it there before
I grew aware of it? Is the way we've learned to address this stuff the
right way, the wrong way, a way? What do I really know about this
stuff? (06)
As you can tell and no doubt know, aesthetics definitely needs syntax,
semantics, and pragmatics. But probably there is other stuff too. (07)
Thanks,
Leo (08)
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
>Jay Halcomb
>Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2007 3:37 PM
>To: [ontolog-forum]
>Subject: [ontolog-forum] Fw: Current Semantic Web Layer pizza
>(was ckae)
>
>Correction: does music need to be sound *or silence*
>intentionally produced?
>
>Wasn't there a big debate about this sort of thing in Cage's
>day? Musique
>concrete? Taped sounds, etc.?
>
>Analogous to 'assemblage art'?
>
>BTW, what about the difficulty in hearing real silence?
>Anechoic chambers?
>Is that any element of this discussion?
>
>Cheers,
>Jay
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
>Subscribe/Config:
>http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
>Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
>Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
>To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> (09)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (010)
|