Emyln's Post Response

Today as i was searching through my google reader subscriptions and checking out what other people were blogging about, i found a lot of cool posts. One of the in praticular peaked my interest. It was Emlyn's blog on march 1st. It really got me thinking and wondering several different things.

I've learned a lot about the dada movement over the years. Last year, i saw Ryan and Emylns documentary of manray. And this year we learned about the purpose of it, and how exactly it was implemented. I also was chosen to peer critique Emyln's critques on Duchamp (which i found very interesting, especially his negative review). He did a really good job of speaking about the importance of the movement, but he was also able to putforth the negative aspects of it (even if he didn't truely believe them himself).

Dadaism is an extemely facsinating ideolgy. It's suggesting that by creating anti-art, to match their anti-war ideas. As i have learned, the world often can be reflected through the art of its time. Dada art was made in response to the monstrousity of world war one. They believed that by destroying art, they could destroy the war driven ideas of society.

Emyln later goes on to question todays art. At the time Dadaism was so insane, so bizzare and shocking that it had an amazing impact on art culture. And it really pissed a lot of people off. Emyln wonders (and so do i) if theres anything left that could possibly be that shocking in our modern society.

To answer this question, i really think one has to look at the evolution of art. Throughout the history of mankind, we have been creating art. Whether it be for spiritual, cultural, or personal expression purposes, we have been doing it. Much of the art that we see from the past was created for spiritual purposes. The reason for that is because religion was often put at the top of a civilization and regarded with highest importance. The entrance into the afterlife of was often dependent on the honoring of the god(s). Art was mainly only practiced (or hired) by the higher levels of civilization because they had more money and were able to have the materials. In Egypt, the art they created was to honor the gods and allow a smooth entrance into the afterlife. In ancient Greece, much of the art was for religous purposes, but there were also other purposes like to show beauty. When catholicism came along, art became much more religous again. Slowly, artists started to expiriment with secular art. It was often for portraits of families or scenery. In the 19th and 20th century, art became much more popular and was spread across the classes. The limitations of the previous times became extinct and it was possible for almost anyone to create art.

After almost two hundred years of the modern period in art, it seems almost everything has been expiremented with. It seems that there is no true extreme left to explore. Surrealism has taken the subconcious, dadaism the bizzare. The most complex, random creations are common.

What is there possibly left to explore. My answer: different mediums. Creating art that stimulates different senses. 99% of the art that i have talked about so far has been visual, but what about something that incorperates multiple senses? What if there was a way to have someone understand everything that you wanted? I'm confident that with the availibilty of new technologies, new art will be produced. Taking advantage of the gifts of modern society is a must though. I mean, if the ancient civilizations had all these amazing technoligies as a canvas, im sure as hell they would use them.