Expendable and disposable art

[dead last]

Where do you draw the line?

Sorry, missed your post. Draw the line with what? Novelty in itself is not desirable, so putting out something new cannot be the most important thing. Even from the perspective of it inspiring someone else with actual substantial ideas and the will and skill to translate them to music. Novelty in itself does not inspire. Look at the influences of notable metal acts, it is never just the novel but always the substantial, even if relatively mediocre. It is a matter of priorities, there is no line to draw.

Creative people are never content with just following along. It takes a degree of hubris to look at what has gone before and say: I can do better than that! Try for the best and you will break boundaries anyway, if you succeed.

I was asking where you draw the line between novelty and creativity.

You are just plain wrong there though. If no one is even attempting to mutate a style or technique, there will be no evolution. Evolution does not occur in bursts of brilliance, with art transforming instantaneously from one pure form to another. Your argument reveals an idealistic naivete regarding musical evolution.

"novelty"
1. the quality of being new, original, or unusual:
the novelty of being a married woman wore off
 a new or unfamiliar thing or experience:
in 1914 air travel was still a novelty
 [as modifier] denoting something intended to be amusing as a result of its new or unusual quality:
a novelty teapot
2a.  small and inexpensive toy or ornament:
he bought chocolate novelties to decorate the Christmas tree

[suğrheim]

Where do you draw the line?

Sorry, missed your post. Draw the line with what? Novelty in itself is not desirable, so putting out something new cannot be the most important thing. Even from the perspective of it inspiring someone else with actual substantial ideas and the will and skill to translate them to music. Novelty in itself does not inspire. Look at the influences of notable metal acts, it is never just the novel but always the substantial, even if relatively mediocre. It is a matter of priorities, there is no line to draw.

Creative people are never content with just following along. It takes a degree of hubris to look at what has gone before and say: I can do better than that! Try for the best and you will break boundaries anyway, if you succeed.

I was asking where you draw the line between novelty and creativity.

You are just plain wrong there though. If no one is even attempting to mutate a style or technique, there will be no evolution. Evolution does not occur in bursts of brilliance, with art transforming instantaneously from one pure form to another. Your argument reveals an idealistic naivete regarding musical evolution.

"novelty"
1. the quality of being new, original, or unusual:
the novelty of being a married woman wore off
 a new or unfamiliar thing or experience:
in 1914 air travel was still a novelty
 [as modifier] denoting something intended to be amusing as a result of its new or unusual quality:
a novelty teapot
2a.  small and inexpensive toy or ornament:
he bought chocolate novelties to decorate the Christmas tree

The idea to create something new is different from creating something. Creating something with life, is also different from creating something that is new. To strive to constantly create something that pushes boundaries without pushing conscious artistic creation, is the exact problem we have today in the genre of extreme metal. The "experimental" core trend that has yielded the 0 talent/inspiration noise acts masquerading as black metal, or the pseudo-philosopher transcendentalism that is really just post modernism masquerading as "abstract expressionist art and rebellion" that has plagued death metal bands into pursuing meaningless jargon as concepts backed up by tired melodies and whimsical expressionist cartoon satanism occult 666.

If you study classical art, and higher standard creativity you will find that in almost every finished and released piece (not the private pieces) that the artist did not strive to revolutionize, or destroy boundaries to be the newest thing ever, but rather to honour the concept or divine inspiration with the absolute best of their skill in that moment. It's like that old fenriz video from Transylvanian Hunger: "we were looking to experiment with a new sound, but by actually PLAYING our instruments and not banging on about nothing." With the cover his own adaptation (not an interpretation) of Edward Munsch's (probably spelled that incorrectly) the scream to further capitulate the atmosphere of their conscious creation.

By seeking to always be a novelty or something new, you actually dishonour the act of being inspired by pigeonholing it into a mode of thought/stream of consciousness of fleeting trends and pop culture awareness.

[trystero]

Evolution does not occur in bursts of brilliance, with art transforming instantaneously from one pure form to another. Your argument reveals an idealistic naivete regarding musical evolution.

This is in fact exactly how it occurs, minus the black and white language employed (one pure form to another?). Major development in human endeavours, especially art, occurs in bursts of creativity, made possible by creative individuals. There is a simultanous process of incremental development, but actual major breakthroughs dont occur by a process of gradual evolution. They cant, by definition.

[suğrheim]

Evolution does not occur in bursts of brilliance, with art transforming instantaneously from one pure form to another. Your argument reveals an idealistic naivete regarding musical evolution.

This is in fact exactly how it occurs, minus the black and white language employed (one pure form to another?). Major development in human endeavours, especially art, occurs in bursts of creativity, made possible by creative individuals. There is a simultanous process of incremental development, but actual major breakthroughs dont occur by a process of gradual evolution. They cant, by definition.

You are both right, and wrong in the way that you are postulating that music is a force dictated by only one form of movement.

[trystero]

I do not understand how I am doing that, as I did not postulate this. Breakthroughs + increments. I would stand by the assertion that incremental development (i.e. minus some sort of inspired creativity, this itself can be relatively minor) does not lead to major change or breakthrough and can only be `fine tuning`, if that is what you consider incorrect.

[dead last]

What I am saying is that major breakthroughs in fact do not occur as great leaps and bounrds; however, that is what we see when we study the history of music (or any other art). We mark important steps with milestones and conveniently ignore everything in between, even those those constant and minor spasms of adjustment are what spur change on their own. You remember your life in the same way, segmented memories that illuminate events that seem important to your development as a person, while overlooking 99% of the rest of the things that happened to you (unless you have a rare condition called perfect semantic memory, in which case you can recall with clarity any part of the continuum of memories after infant amnesia).

[trystero]

So that is what we see when we look at history, but its wrong because of some intrinsic human cognitive bias? I guess that is the end of that conversation then!

But to answer your post at least, you have it the wrong way round. It is easy to look upon a creative breakthrough in retrospect as developed from a myriad of little things. Yet it took a creative individual to synthesize them. No one could see it before it was done. That is the essence of genius, you can look behind it but not ahead of it.

[dead last]

i can't help but see that you in fact have it backward but this is evidently my failure. Your first sentence illustrates exactly what I'm trying to say so I know you understand my points. This can only mean that we are both speaking truth so I will try to integrate this.

[trystero]

I was looking for a link I had come across in the forum a couple of years ago and I came across this old thread which is somewhat relevant to the discussion, at least as far as metal is concerned: http://www.deathmetal.org/forum/index.php/topic,5252.0.html

[Annihilation]

Annihiliation:

First, you say that art is essentially a translation of abstract ideas. It begins as a pure idea that is translated and presented in a relatable context. That, I think, is an insightful starting point.

In the translation process, however, there must be "impurities" introduced into the originally pure ideas. This is due to the fact that no two individuals can possibly achieve the same pure understanding on the most basic level (and this is true because, for such a thing to happen, the atomic configuration of your brain would have to be precisely identical to mine, and we know that such a thing does not occur). Therefore, the "art" that we get is really a diluted, impure, and/or mutated form of the original pure idea.

This means, then, that the art, upon creation, becomes an entity of sorts that exists independently of its creator. Whether or not it serves the creator's purpose or function is still relevant at this point, but depending on the depth of abstraction, it is possible that the art will be "misinterpreted" or reveal new ideas to other individuals. Then, those individuals who experience the art not as a direct interpretation of another's ideas, may treat the art as it's own entity that deserves to be nourished and mutated further.

So it seems to me that this is what is happening with death metal currently. The core ideas have already been presented with as much lucidity and clarity as possible by the originators; now, it has been long enough that the ideas (relevant or not) have been diluted as the music itself has passed from mind to mind and been diluted/mutated further.

So, Portal really has nothing worth "saying" in terms of presenting new criticisms of humanity's behavior or suggesting alternate paths for humanity, and they shouldn't need to; "preaching to the choir". Nevertheless, the actual physical mechanisms that the musicians employ are allowed to continue evolving, degenerating, or mutating, because those styles and techniques now exist independently of the original ideologies espoused by originary death metal bands. And, that very manner of treating the musical techniques as worthy of developing on their own, independent of ideology, is how death metal got started in the first place. Therefore, we can expect something new to emerge eventually.

My original question was intended to address the above notion of originality. I think this idea - seemingly implicit to your argument  - is misguided, that those seminal acts of death/black metal were the purest expression of their genres. In brief: I don't fully trust my own (or others') judgment when it comes to artistic quality.

[dead last]

Annihiliation:

First, you say that art is essentially a translation of abstract ideas. It begins as a pure idea that is translated and presented in a relatable context. That, I think, is an insightful starting point.

In the translation process, however, there must be "impurities" introduced into the originally pure ideas. This is due to the fact that no two individuals can possibly achieve the same pure understanding on the most basic level (and this is true because, for such a thing to happen, the atomic configuration of your brain would have to be precisely identical to mine, and we know that such a thing does not occur). Therefore, the "art" that we get is really a diluted, impure, and/or mutated form of the original pure idea.

This means, then, that the art, upon creation, becomes an entity of sorts that exists independently of its creator. Whether or not it serves the creator's purpose or function is still relevant at this point, but depending on the depth of abstraction, it is possible that the art will be "misinterpreted" or reveal new ideas to other individuals. Then, those individuals who experience the art not as a direct interpretation of another's ideas, may treat the art as it's own entity that deserves to be nourished and mutated further.

So it seems to me that this is what is happening with death metal currently. The core ideas have already been presented with as much lucidity and clarity as possible by the originators; now, it has been long enough that the ideas (relevant or not) have been diluted as the music itself has passed from mind to mind and been diluted/mutated further.

So, Portal really has nothing worth "saying" in terms of presenting new criticisms of humanity's behavior or suggesting alternate paths for humanity, and they shouldn't need to; "preaching to the choir". Nevertheless, the actual physical mechanisms that the musicians employ are allowed to continue evolving, degenerating, or mutating, because those styles and techniques now exist independently of the original ideologies espoused by originary death metal bands. And, that very manner of treating the musical techniques as worthy of developing on their own, independent of ideology, is how death metal got started in the first place. Therefore, we can expect something new to emerge eventually.

My original question was intended to address the above notion of originality. I think this idea - seemingly implicit to your argument  - is misguided, that those seminal acts of death/black metal were the purest expression of their genres. In brief: I don't fully trust my own (or others') judgment when it comes to artistic quality.

Welly welly welly well! You should have said so from the get-go and saved my fingers a lot of trouble!.