Essentialism
A theory advocating the teaching, on traditional lines and to everyone, of certain ideas and methods supposed to be essential to the prevalent culture.
"Gayatri Spivak defends the idea of a 'strategic essentialism,' in which minority individuals or groups lay claim to the cultural substance on which they found their identity, which permits these 'subalterns' to gain a voice in the context of globalized imperialism."
Heterogeneity
Of a body in respect of its elements: Composed of diverse elements or constituents; consisting of parts of different kinds; not homogeneous.
"The more that contemporary art heterogeneous artistic vocabularies deriving from multiple non-Western visual traditions, the more clearly there emerge the distinctive characteristics of a single global culture."
Homogenization
The process of making or becoming homogeneous; the action of homogenizing.
[Homogenous
Of one thing in respect of another, or of various things in respect of each other: Of the same kind, nature, or character; alike, similar, congruous.]
Once you cut through the pretentious bullshit of the language in this book (the above words are mere small fry), you find that many ideas are actually quite enlightening. In fact, I'd say this book has opened my mind a bit.
It got me thinking about my own goals and aspirations. My initial plan for after school was to find a city and root myself down, spend 2-5 years trying to make rent while trying to find time for my art and then somehow break into a scene. My goal was to eventually support myself with my art so it was all art all the time (I'm lumping music into art). This is the Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman) ideal. Show up in a city, become a god.
That seems to be an old ideal. Cities are only getting bigger and people are less and less willing to listen to you what with all the information that's thrown at them.
After reading these first few pages of the Radicant, I had a thought. What if I helped pull together a group of artists interested in the beauty of a creative world? We could provide out art for free online while keeping a rooted presence in many different areas around the world.
In many ways this would seem to be exactly like the metaphor: roots extending to other roots. Each artist in the collective would be connected to many different artists and traditions in their respective regions. Bringing artists from one region to another would only get easier and in the end, the world stops seeming like a vast hole and more like a cozy cabin. All I want is to snuggle up with my friends and make sweet sweet music.
The internet seems to be a way of having small virtual villages of like-minded artists who don't necessarily have to live in the same physical location to share ideas. That seems much more appealing to me than being another nameless face in a big, dirty, art-saturated city. I'll help make sweet sweet music in your cozy cabin.
ReplyDeleteOnce it was zines, cassette tapes, postcards and chance encounters. Very slow, but artists and musicians could connect. The Internet speeds it up and spreads it around....Take advantage...
ReplyDeleteI still feel that we see very near eye to eye on these sorts of issues. My favorite part being,"Once you cut through the pretentious bullshit of the language in this book (the above words are mere small fry), you find that many ideas are actually quite enlightening. In fact, I'd say this book has opened my mind a bit," which I feel is something like what everyone reading this is thinking only there are few of us who can phrase it so straight forward and realistically blunt as you. I feel like maybe once you try to start some sort of organized artistic network it would grow and you could really see how many people do feel similarly.
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