Where is the avant-garde?
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- an expensive car driven by a fool beyond psychedelia corpsey's law dribbled by jeremy lin focus on the nipple it's fucking vr porn it's not fucking vr porn its fucking memes living information please abandon this train of thought now politics is downstream of culture sublime decay the g-o-d function the new gothic the people the plasmate the warrior-philosopher
Ah right. I'm reading the whole thing chronologically so will no doubt get to it soon. I meant to say, the other day, when you were all talking about the left splintering, while the right get solid, it made me think of what he says about conspiracy theorists, how they've split and fractured recently.
entertainment
Well-known member
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
I liked what you said about "Avant Garde" being a category on boomkat.
All the things that the Avant Garde is supposed to be have been assimilated into the consumerist establishment model.
Technology moves so fast now that I don't think artists can keep up or preempt like they used to.
What's more artists like bacon and Joyce lived in a world pre-saturation of media. They could develop hermetic viewpoints and styles. Joyce might not have worked for Google but he'd be a strange(r) man indeed to have the powers of concentration needed to write Ulysses in an era of social media, streaming media, etc.
Importantly, they also had the power to shock. (Here though I find it interesting that Bacon's paintings remain uncanny and disturbing even in an age you might thing they'd have become passé.)
I skimmed that McBride article and I related to what he said about it seeming like there's no need to write in a world where everything is documented, everybody is writing, etc.)
All the things that the Avant Garde is supposed to be have been assimilated into the consumerist establishment model.
Technology moves so fast now that I don't think artists can keep up or preempt like they used to.
What's more artists like bacon and Joyce lived in a world pre-saturation of media. They could develop hermetic viewpoints and styles. Joyce might not have worked for Google but he'd be a strange(r) man indeed to have the powers of concentration needed to write Ulysses in an era of social media, streaming media, etc.
Importantly, they also had the power to shock. (Here though I find it interesting that Bacon's paintings remain uncanny and disturbing even in an age you might thing they'd have become passé.)
I skimmed that McBride article and I related to what he said about it seeming like there's no need to write in a world where everything is documented, everybody is writing, etc.)
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
To expect great things of books in 2020, when they're such a fringe interest by and large, seems unrealistic. Painting too, has become a very fringe activity.
As obscure and poor as Bacon and Joyce might have been during their careers (even if they ended up rich), they were competing in disciplines where ambition seemed warranted.
A lateral link but when I started making music was when dubstep was sort of still in the ascendant, and I was excited by it, and had vague dreams of having a tune played by youngsta or whoever. Then dubstep declined. Occasionally something came along that inspired me again, but I'd notice my passion flagging whenever I thought I'd just be making music for my bedroom which nobody would ever hear. (It would be the same feeling making a jungle pastiche.) Futility.
As obscure and poor as Bacon and Joyce might have been during their careers (even if they ended up rich), they were competing in disciplines where ambition seemed warranted.
A lateral link but when I started making music was when dubstep was sort of still in the ascendant, and I was excited by it, and had vague dreams of having a tune played by youngsta or whoever. Then dubstep declined. Occasionally something came along that inspired me again, but I'd notice my passion flagging whenever I thought I'd just be making music for my bedroom which nobody would ever hear. (It would be the same feeling making a jungle pastiche.) Futility.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
You might say that if novels were today what they were in the 19th century, we'd have our own Dickens, our own George Eliot, etc.
The if we had a Joyce he'd be working for Google thing seems to totally misread both Joyce and what Google does to me - they're not comparable... BUT I do think he's right about the most clever ambitious people not having a reason to want to be novelists now (by and large).
I'd expect the most artistically creative people not to be working for Facebook but possibly writing or directing films/TV shows/video games. And that shapes what they can produce, because none of those mediums resemble books except for at the more superficial levels.
The if we had a Joyce he'd be working for Google thing seems to totally misread both Joyce and what Google does to me - they're not comparable... BUT I do think he's right about the most clever ambitious people not having a reason to want to be novelists now (by and large).
I'd expect the most artistically creative people not to be working for Facebook but possibly writing or directing films/TV shows/video games. And that shapes what they can produce, because none of those mediums resemble books except for at the more superficial levels.
entertainment
Well-known member
Yes that all sounds true. There's also a question about how to shock people when shocking has become the default gesture of art post Duschamp. If everything is shocking then nothing is shocking.
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
Being shocking in the modern way (thinking gaga, die antword, minaj etc) gives you an automatic short shelf life. You have to keep outdoing yourself. Doesn't make for lasting bodies of work that people want to revisit. Not the best comparison to literature, but you know what I mean
We've discussed this before. That you know exactly what you're going to hear when something's described as avant-garde or experimental. It's going to sound like Xenakis or Autechre.
Its 47.3% of the conversation, standard dissensus trope