The Avant-Garde and declining returns

[Jenne]

Basically, avant-garde is new, experimental, unusual art. Often the people making this art are simply experimental artists, not consciously trying to be at the cutting edge of anything but using the materials at hand with the inspiration that comes to them. There was no avant-garde movement, although there were several movements that can be considered avant-garde for their era.

The best way to think about it is as a literal phrase; disassociate it with the art you've come to think of as examples of avant-garde for their time, and think of it instead as any art that's pioneering, in its own way.

Yeah, I didn't mean the movement as in people who orginated it were part of it, I think there were those who STUDIED the avant-garde artists and decided to become like them...and use it to make statements in their own art for society at large.

But ITAWTC, in any case.

[Jenne]

The problem, I suppose, with the 'modern' age (and the passage of time in general in this context) is that the more you push the boundaries, the further out the boundaries are --

Balls.  That's why art is hard.  If it was easy, anyone could do it.

I'm less prescriptivist about art here, just like I am about language.  I do think that everyone can do art.  GOOD art?  That's always in the eye of the critic.  But I think everyone can produce some.

[Cain]

Good answers everyone.  Still chewing on some of them, so sorry for the lack of feedback.

I should probably explain some of my thinking, though, since it may help.

1) I was working off the (not entirely unreasonable assumption) that certain avant-garde individuals and groups had a methodology similar to some terrorist groups, at least when it came to "shock and awe". The Red Army Faction, IIRC, even made it explicit that their attacks were attempts to "wake up" the public out of a consumerist slumber, in a hail of bullets.  Therefore if the methodology was similar, perhaps it would suffer from similar problems.  Given people are now more terrified of terrorism than ever before, in that they are pissing their pants over a guy who set his underwear on fire, this is probably not true on either front.

2) I find the "shock and awe" method boring, and wondered if many the wikkid smaht people of PD.com could come up with something with more...finesse.

[Salty]

I'm not very famliar with this topic but as far shock and awe being boring...
I agree and suggest:
Instead if being up-front with the shock, jostling people out of their routine, what about methods that seek to take the shape of routines first. Adapt to the way people already think about things, like a gillie-suit. Create subject matter that people will immediately nod their heads to in agreement, but only on the top layer. Then, place the point, the shock, the catalyst, so far beneath that regardless of how much of a shock it is the person is unable to brush it off because they already agreed with it.

Has this been done? Just an idea.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

I'm not very famliar with this topic but as far shock and awe being boring...
Create subject matter that people will immediately nod their heads to in agreement, but only on the top layer. Then, place the point, the shock, the catalyst, so far beneath that regardless of how much of a shock it is the person is unable to brush it off because they already agreed with it.

Has this been done? Just an idea.

There is a chapter on it in Art of Memetics. Maybe two. It's still a damned good idea, IMO. Variants on this theme are fundamental to detournement and particular kinds of marketing.

On a semi-unrelated note, that guy who does the good blog on memetics and advertising (rather than all the bad ones -- I forget his name; he did the mad scientist contest) wrote a blog post a while back about how an image combining recognizable elements of two ffringe subcultures in a striking way will typically spread like wildfire within any intersection of the two fringe subcultures, regardless of whether or not it is useful or meaningful -- his example was a usb port he shooped onto a victorian absynthe spoon (which people then wanted to BUY, despite an absynthe spoon having no conceivable use for a usb port). This could be leveraged mayhaps, though I have no idea how at this point.

The random walk technique for experimental art WORKS, but it requires going through a lot of shit before finding any gold, and typically results in a tendency to mistake particular kinds of shit for gold and mistake particular kinds of gold for shit. It isn't desirable, and does not efficiently generate shock OR awe.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

CAN WE

         Still create original stuff? That's a question which has been around for a while. The 'avant-garde' is not identifiable when it happens, by its nature. It isn't 'shock-art' either, by any necessity. The avant-garde inspires, which is the purest form of art, because it presents a new possibility, or perspective. Possibly it upsets some people, or makes a lot of people go - WTF(?), but to someone it says "fuck yeah". A little later on a genre begins.

ALTHOUGH, YES

         Our "modern" age accesses every excess, that's not to say our spirits aren't striving ever onwards. Or, perhaps, looking around at the wreckage surrounding us, we're searching to find a meaningful creative expression even more. Much of art is a process of self discovery (or recovery). Mostly I think 'art' becomes recognized or important when more than one person gets something out of an action.  

The problem, I suppose, with the 'modern' age (and the passage of time in general in this context) is that the more you push the boundaries, the further out the boundaries are -- the stuff one creates through any given mechanism is less likely to be an experiment per-se because it is more likely to fall under an existing established category (or an existing abandoned category, more often than not, since not only will most of it be shit but most of it will be unoriginal shit).

I could not possibly disagree more. That's like saying that the further we push the boundaries of technology, the more likely new technology is to be unoriginal.

Art is not finite, and the further out the boundaries are pushed, the more tools and inspirations are at our disposal for the creation of original, and even surprising, art.

[Dr. Paes]

I am watching this thread and posting in it so I can find it. 

[Captain Utopia]

There's an interesting National Endowment for the Arts report showing 25 years of public participation in the arts.  TL;DR version: attendances to museums, theatre, galleries, movies, concerts - participation in art of all kinds - is trending on a downward slope.  Whereas interactive forms of entertainment - from video games to the internet (the percentage of interactivity is up for debate), continue to experience growth.

Does art then need to become more interactive to survive?  Of course not.  But art which uses a popular interactive medium has a greater chance/ability to immerse minds which are increasingly rejecting passive forms of media.  In many ways this represents a renaissance of sorts - with shock and awe rendered near-impotent - art of higher quality can compete on merits rather than gimmick.

That said, I think the mass safari/forum-boarding-as-performance-art is (currently) an underused shock and awe tactic which can deliver a statement in an interactive form.  Although, if every group with a message used that tactic, the entire internet would crumble under civil war.

[Triple Zero]

The original avant-garde artist didn't try to do anything but express him/herself.  The movement, however, seeks to educate, with some sort of philosophy behind what they are doing, for some sort of effect on the viewers/audience.  The movement has its limitations just like any other movement would, given it would be tied to the circumstances that created it.

But, correct me if I'm wrong here, their writings seem to suggest otherwise?

At least for some of them, thinking for example of those typographical dada prints and manifestos, most certainly had a couple of "we should overthrow the this or that something" and "calls for the destruction of the dominant whatever" and "to subvert the etc" in it?

Anyway, for the topic of this thread it doesn't really matter if the original avant-garde dada peoples really wanted to effect change upon society.

The point is that we want to.

And I agree with Cain that the "shock and awe" technique that was used (intentionally or not) by the old avant guarde is a littlebit stretched too thin these days.

So what is new?

If the boundaries of art are now wide enough that it takes something truly amazing to get people thinking that it is outside them, then perhaps the importance of pushing them is not that important.  The effect that art can have on social change could be realized within those bounds, or they must be sought through other means. 

In that sense, it seems to me that the impulse of shock that can force social awareness or harness attention was a limited resource (that renews slowly) and perhaps it was frittered away to some extend on simply amusing or superficially interesting images. But if it was desired for social ‘progress’ then perhaps it was not used as effectively as it could have been?

These are two very interesting points.

The first seems to suggest the question of do we really need art to effect social change?

And the second, that if we find a new fuel for social change, given that "shock and awe" is played out, we should be careful in administering it, becausd once it hits up to entertainment-level, the gas runs out.

[Triple Zero]

i think the opposite of shock is being careful with people's feelings.

so you gotta be all condescending on them, all careful like.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Condescending and mediocre? Isn't that the formula for Lifetime Original Movies?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Condescending and mediocre? Isn't that the formula for Lifetime Original Movies?

So all this time, Lifetime has actually been an avant-garde art project?

[Salty]

 

[LMNO]

Condescending and mediocre? Isn't that the formula for Lifetime Original Movies?

So all this time, Lifetime has actually been an avant-garde art project?

That makes a lot more sense than the alternative.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Condescending and mediocre? Isn't that the formula for Lifetime Original Movies?

So all this time, Lifetime has actually been an avant-garde art project?

That makes a lot more sense than the alternative.

Sheer subtle genius.