The Middlebrow

[padraig (u.s.)]

you can make extremely high level, abstract, technical art without creating an artificial dichotomy and shitting on the "middlebrow"

I know this to true because plenty of modernists did just that

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

in re conceptronica, some of its purveyors strike me as shockingly naive - it was 2016 + u just realized the world was on fire? where have u been for the last forever?

but their sincerity or lack thereof is impossible to parse; having an art school education heavy on crit theory + knowing how to write grants pf itself doesn't say anything about motives

the problem with determining middlebrow is by its own definition to you have to prove intent, which is impossible

it's not even useful as a descriptive term, like a genre name; it is only a pejorative term you can use to sneer at something else

it is exactly the worst tendencies and elitism of highbrow art embodied in one word

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

these kinds of discussions often seem to exist in some alternate fantasy world where art has an abstract aesthetic value that can be completely isolated from the rest of its context

 

[luka]

Lol alright Padraig calm down mate! It's useful and necessary and human to sneer and it's good we have words to help us do so.

 

[thirdform]

prog house is objectively middlebrow though padraig. you know it. even in its social context. not weird enough to be avant post-rave, not ecstatic enough to be diva house or hardcore. gat decour - passion. pretty much embodies this uptight british house aesthetic.

 

[thirdform]

it's middlebrow. ideal bbc 6 music dance music. worse than EDM

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

useful and necessary and human to sneer

speak for yourself

 

[thirdform]

you can make extremely high level, abstract, technical art without creating an artificial dichotomy and shitting on the "middlebrow"

I know this to true because plenty of modernists did just that

I think being ideologically opposed to the ignobleness of the middlebrow is a middle class habit. it's like the middle class who fetishise the noble workers because they are a class that has no relevance to history and is destined to disappear hence their transference and projection of feelings, if we're talking psychoanalytically. that's the same with middlebrow. it's nice, so just enjoy it whilst its around, those days when you could work at ford in Australia and buy two homes were nice no doubt even if they made u conservative. no reason to define your ideological identity around it. better to ideologically oppose art entirely.

now this is some scrumptuous delicious middlebrow.

 

[thirdform]

autechre = yobnik trademark, trying to be beatnik and avantyob at the same time. an interesting conundrum. in that sense they are def not highbrow but not quite middlebrow either as they get played in more leftfield club sets and dj their own sets.

Quite interesting that the person who really rates them is not the RA types but Andrew Noz.

 

[luka]

speak for yourself

You're literally worse than Stalin. Determined to steal human joys.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

You're literally worse than Stalin

lmao

same old luka, can dish it out as viciously as you please but can't take even one second of someone holding up a mirror to his endless bullshit

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

what was your sage advice? oh yes - lol alrite calm down mate

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

being ideologically opposed to the ignobleness of the middlebrow is a middle class habit

as a means of distinguishing/distancing oneself - a middle-class desire not to have staid, middle-class tastes

as opposed to the natural ease of inborn nobility, inherited wealth, etc

which comes back to the idea of striving - middlebrow as that which strives to be something it isn't, rather than being confident in what it is

personal-instinctual rather than ideological - kicking out each others' legs so as to climb over the fallen on your way to the top

social climbers are usually the most vicious of snobs, just as adult converts to a religion are often the most zealous

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

when you say "oppose art entirely" I'm assuming you mean the idea-categorization of "art", and not literal opposition of all cultural expression

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

which isn't the worst idea, or a new idea

the idea of anti-art has been around for well over a century, tho that still involves the concept of "art" as separate from other things

Henry Flynt was well onto this tip in the early 60s - demonstrating against MoMA and Stockhausen, and calling for art to become (essentially) synonymous with recreation

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I knew a working artist who had a side gig with an NGO going around to elementary schools and talking to kids about art

she told me she always made it her first point to try to express to them that "art" wasn't just paintings by dead guys in a museum

that their desks, backpacks, the classroom itself, etc were for example all things that had been designed involving some level of human creativity

it seems like an obvious point but I thought it was a really good one, especially for children, because people do so often think of art as just what's in a gallery, museum, etc

which is incomplete in the same way that conceiving of politics as just voting is

personally, I think of "art" as synonymous with potentially any kind of cultural expression - the determining factor of what is and isn't art usually being intent

 

[version]

personally, I think of "art" as synonymous with potentially any kind of cultural expression - the determining factor of what is and isn't art usually being intent

I think I may agree with this, but I'm wary of straying into what DeLillo was talking about in Mao II, the territory of Stockhausen proclaiming 9/11 a work of art.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

sure, there are such things as tact (which Stockhausen famously didn't have), common sense, and knowing your audience

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

in the sense he meant it, (most of) what he said is defensible, although the way he chose to say it is completely indefensible

I still don't agree with him, because there's no way I can ascribe anything I would recognize as artistic intent to the perpetrators of 9/11

he seems to mean an act of creative destruction (as we hear about all the time in a TechCrunchDisrupt sense) driven by human will

I see nothing creative in it at all, just destruction

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

but it is good to think about what the limits of "cultural expression" are

I have to think they're subjective, and without any kind of universal rules

for me, I can't imagine ever viewing non-consensual violence, or non-consensual anything, as art

but there are hazy areas - weapons and armor, for example, have often been imbued with high levels of artistry

can a sword (gun, bomb, whatever) be beautiful in the same sense that a flower (or whatever) can, despite it's ultimate purpose of taking life?

what does it mean to find the design of a weapon aesthetically pleasing?