What will art become?
"What will art become?" was what John Cage questioned. As we are learning from this class, a good question is what makes a difference,not necessarily a good answer. A good question starts off the creative process. With his vision, he conducted his art in an inclusive, interactive way which summed into "art" as a result of the overall experience. A total spiritual,sensational experience. He made this possible by simply "getting out of the way of viewer." He has set his audience free, instead of making them stick to their traditional observer status. It's been many years he performed 4'33' : a silent musical piece. It became a subject for attack at the time. A future he visioned, is already here and is inspiring many contemporary artists from around the world in conducting their musical pieces. Uniting with the audience is breaking the class barrier between the audience and the performer. However, a traditional view on art would question who the artist is if you give audience more credit than traditionally.
William Burough's using the cut-up technique and his vision
about literature is driving him in that direction. His work is arising other questions like "wouldn't cut up technique plagiarising other peoples' work?" "who is the artist?" These are the questions that are threatening the contemporary art. These are questions that can hinder someone in breaking free from the shackles. However, artists like Jason Freeman see this as an opportunity to shape the future of what we consider as an art work. Jason Freeman, he combines both ideas on the technological platform by letting his audience / viewers to participate into and be part of the art work. Freeman has been making use of technology in his creative process (symbiosis).He is sort of introducing do-it-yourself vision into the visual arts. Flou for instance, which is designed so delicately that allows the viewer to hear what s/he choses to while exploring an artificial space.My favorite work of his was the iTunes Signature maker which made a mix of all music on my library.
These artist are aware of the fact that crativity requires less structure. And less structure can only be achieved by trial and error and vision. That's why when Apple computers were introduced in 1984, it became big. Macintosh computers were basically providing Graphical User Interface which didn't require DOS Commands or Programming. Eliminating the role Commands played, made computers more than a big calculator or a word processing device but something that we can use to draw pictures, conncect to internet and organize our lives (with programs like Microsoft Outlook etc.) The "augmentation" argument of Douglas Engelbart on machines making us smarter has thus been justified and utilized.
What do these three men have in common in answering that question? Is the role of audience in danger?
Their works are radical, improvised, most of the time spontenous and are considered chaotic. Sounds familliar? Yes. I would say that the artists are trying to take us out of our own constructed chaos and put us into another self-constructed chaos, during the process in which we find meaning in the piece. The participation of the audience is crucial in their works because a chaos on its own, is not a chaos unless there are people who'd perceive and define it that way. Flock for instance, reminded me of this. Watching the video where all participants are encouraged to move collectively reminded me of how our daily lives are. And then, when individuals started to move on their own the rhythm changed. It's just like the system that we are living in. You get out of the line, laws will get you. Whereas, by participating into Jason Freeman's work, you are able to experience what it may feel to be an individual without any dangers ahead of you and act with your free will. I had observed the same ideas over Merlijn Twaalfhoven's collaborative work with La Vie Sur Terre. A similar work he had performed was called Entrèe Unextracted and it was a musical piece controlled by the audience which made concept of "time" part of the performance. Since it was performed in an experimental way, there are no recordings or photos available of this performance. Just like John Cage's 4'33'' performance.However, here are some examples of their other work which utilized the audience in taking part in the piece that was being performed...
Symphony for all:
La vie n'est pas un chocolat
Are they rebels, then? Are they re-defining Art?
Yes and No. They are simply breaking the traditions that seem too structured to express self and contemporary world. Their works should be seen in another framwork. Their work should be seen as a fusion of different parts to create links between two unrelated parts to bring about different meanings. So I would say, Jason Freeman is not re-defining what art is. He is basically allowing the space for his audience to derive another meaning from his work. This is like a separate school of thought on art. The language we spoke has evolved over the time, the houses that we live in changed, the problems that we worry about has changed over the years and it is time that we get brave enough to let more pioneers to express themselves and us, the souls willing to experience something new and taking part in it.
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