tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post8573094773488842333..comments2023-10-03T11:41:21.191+01:00Comments on The Truth About Lies: Painting the airJim Murdochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-87770355450089731972009-01-07T17:49:00.000+00:002009-01-07T17:49:00.000+00:00Sorry, McGuire, I thought I'd okayed it. Now up.Sorry, <B>McGuire</B>, I thought I'd okayed it. Now up.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-26297318152888737452009-01-07T17:03:00.000+00:002009-01-07T17:03:00.000+00:00I replied to your reply JIm but so far I don't see...I replied to your reply JIm but so far I don't see it up, don't tell me it got snatched by the ether? <BR/><BR/>If so, I'll make a shoter reply, I love your parrot story (a great analogy of meaning and irrational meaning). It almost read as a critique of my poetic self, if I can be selfishly self referencial.<BR/><BR/>The main body of my reponse is rather long winded, littere with error, and making wild claims about politics and surrealist subversion and general 'dada mock cunning', perhaps it is all simply pretentious in the long run (dada and surrealist play), my central interesting in these types of 'art expression' is their imaginative undermining of were we can find, even conjure, meaning.McGuirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03095242258892600138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-27678061216728323122009-01-06T00:25:00.000+00:002009-01-06T00:25:00.000+00:00Haha!Love the parrot story/analogy. A fine analogy...Haha!Love the parrot story/analogy. A fine analogy for meaning and mistaken meaning. <BR/><BR/>My handwriting is quite poor but I don't see it as a problem when I want to write in a 'ridiculous' fashion. I'm still known to write with the pen and diascribe like mad till the cows come page.<BR/><BR/>Re-reading my reponse, I realise it was rather muddy and unclear. Sorry for that. I always like to make things harder for myself. <BR/><BR/>;)McGuirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03095242258892600138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-5737659402575261132009-01-05T22:34:00.000+00:002009-01-05T22:34:00.000+00:00I get what you're saying, McGuire, and I've talked...I get what you're saying, <B>McGuire</B>, and I've talked about it before when I wrote about micropoetry. The bottom line is that we are hard-wired to make sense of things.<BR/><BR/>Carrie and I have a cockatiel. I've made mention of him before. As I'm writing this he's singing his night-night song because its bedtime and he knows he gets sung a song right before the cover gets pulled down. I'll come back to that.<BR/><BR/>What I've learned about him over the years is that he is hard-wired to see the world in certain ways: he sees something to eat, flee from if he can (fight in he can't), mate with or flock with. And that's about it. We got a new cover for our duvet at Xmas and it is covered in white shapes on a black background. When he first saw it the first thing he did was 'wings' assuming that what he saw was a threat and he made himself big to try and scare it off. As that didn't work he flew round the bedroom screaming his head off.<BR/><BR/>When we see letters on a page our gut response is to try and make sense out of them. Our brain tries to organise them into words, the words into sentences which we try and make sense out of. It doesn't make sense to us when words don't make sense. <BR/><BR/>Now back to the bird. In the wild he doesn't get tucked in at night but we've trained him; he responds to routine. Something that initially made no sense to him at all now makes perfect sense. The bird has hard wiring and so do we but there's also learned behaviour. My problem with the surrealist poetry I've come across is that I don't know how to body swerve my hardwiring.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-57382889016252977992009-01-05T21:18:00.000+00:002009-01-05T21:18:00.000+00:00Where to begin? As I see it, surrealism and more p...Where to begin? <BR/><BR/>As I see it, surrealism and more particularly Dada, are concerned (at least in the written form) with the irrational aspects of human nature, <BR/><BR/>Which would generally be listed as: lacking in rationality, intentional incoherence, undermining of logic itself but means of creative nonsense/play and idiocy.<BR/><BR/>Mad with its own creativity. Dare I say or creative with its own madness. I think the surrealists, approach life as absurd, as the most bizzare and insane thing that ever happened. And they work from there own out. <BR/><BR/>The dadaist was a kind of reaction to world war one. The proponents were simply against the world that 'rationalised' such madness, indeed, a world that continues in a more furious fashion to, rationalise the evil world we live in. As such, dada has failed, it could not and did not, reveal the horrible basis of our world, in which would should accept our own irrational, perverse and selfish natures, out in the public domain, so that we could then move on, to a world were people govern themselves. And not a world governed by a human set of social structures, much like the mouse on the spinning wheel. <BR/><BR/>The profundity of realising the need never have been a spinning wheel. Or mice. <BR/><BR/>Ok, I've gone off on a tangent, and have left more question unanswered. But, I hope this splurge of ideas has given you insight into some of the intentions of 'dadaists' but also insight into how I understand it.<BR/><BR/>As for meaning being none existent, I agree. You're observations are entirely accurate. We 'create' meaning, the text is impervious to what it 'means'. At the most simplist level, surrealist writing and dada, are making 'meaning' were we least expect it, in the unusual, the odd, the irrational and the idiotic. <BR/><BR/>Spontaneous nonsense actually has meaning if we embue it with such, if it is our intention to have it 'be made sense of', after the fact.<BR/><BR/>'Does anyone think that, by a minute refinement of logic, he has demonstrated the truth and established the correctness of these opinions?' - Tristan Tzara.<BR/><BR/>It's all about subversion in the artistic domain which demonstrates, in a rather pretentiou manner, that such subversion is lacking in practical reality (i.e. political horror, war, corruption). <BR/><BR/>I do believe that made little sense.McGuirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03095242258892600138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-37921083561325944622009-01-03T09:45:00.000+00:002009-01-03T09:45:00.000+00:00Good point about automatic writing, Glenn. I actua...Good point about automatic writing, <B>Glenn</B>. I actually think that's a wall we all have to break through no matter what kind of writing we're doing, not taking the easy option.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-32154665539519835852009-01-03T05:06:00.000+00:002009-01-03T05:06:00.000+00:00Breton got very persnickety about what was allowed...Breton got very persnickety about what was allowed to be "Surrealism" and was all about exiling from the movement writers who didn't adhere to the right politics. But I still enjoyed the collection of Breton poems that I found translated into English. <BR/><BR/>One of the problems with truly automatic writing is that it's filled with cliches and trite sentiments -- cuz that's what comes up when your mind is idle. You have to work your way around the detritus to find fun stuff.Glenn Ingersollhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10674475308395975995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-64561180787415304002009-01-01T11:10:00.000+00:002009-01-01T11:10:00.000+00:00It's a very educational post Jim, written by a pro...It's a very educational post Jim, written by a pro. Merry Christmas and a happy new year.Jena Islehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16609925272840089993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-40190831688696941772008-12-23T23:23:00.000+00:002008-12-23T23:23:00.000+00:00Ray Johnson sounds like an interesting guy, Brad.<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Johnson" REL="nofollow">Ray Johnson</A> sounds like an interesting guy, <B>Brad</B>.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-78986797992668367412008-12-23T22:09:00.000+00:002008-12-23T22:09:00.000+00:00"How to Draw a Bunny" documents Ray Johnson who po..."How to Draw a Bunny" documents Ray Johnson who postponed product for the process. My favorite critique from the movie was how. ."he lived on the revelatory level of life". . <BR/><BR/>meaning is manure ~ <BR/>In Art the heART is <BR/>ahead of the head <BR/>~ bloomin' culturebrad4dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14880980315149745012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-72568387476490514722008-12-23T20:42:00.000+00:002008-12-23T20:42:00.000+00:00Carrie, so, if it's art, what does it mean?<B>Carrie</B>, so, if it's art, what does it mean?Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-15807086433659979792008-12-23T20:21:00.000+00:002008-12-23T20:21:00.000+00:00I would argue that Jackson Browne's Late for the S...I would argue that Jackson Browne's Late for the Sky album cover is more art than you may have allowed, Jim. The album (an 'autobiography of his young manhood' according to his website) contains the credit, "cover concept Jackson Browne if it's all reet with Magritte." The perfectly stacked collection of tunes is made complete by the album. It means quite a bit to me.Carrie Berryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11200797035059634760noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-48545600775249089602008-12-23T19:45:00.000+00:002008-12-23T19:45:00.000+00:00Thanks for that, Tasha, and I hope you have a nice...Thanks for that, <B>Tasha</B>, and I hope you have a nice Xmas too.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-88468184152972361782008-12-23T18:57:00.000+00:002008-12-23T18:57:00.000+00:00Thanks for all that background, Art, it's hard to ...Thanks for all that background, <B>Art</B>, it's hard to know where to draw a line writing an article like this especially when it's pretty much all new to me too.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-26351298390186630352008-12-23T18:53:00.000+00:002008-12-23T18:53:00.000+00:00I'll come back to read the rest of your post later...I'll come back to read the rest of your post later. However, I buy paintings because they talk to me somehow, in ways that touches me emotionally. Buying an artwork that I like represents what I like in nature or in my surroundings. <BR/><BR/>I'm here mainly to wish you and your family a merry Christmas and a prosperous, happy New Year.<BR/><BR/>Tashatashabudhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17707659728810975773noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-11229207586249514522008-12-22T18:07:00.000+00:002008-12-22T18:07:00.000+00:00Surrealism was the culmination of Romanticism, not...Surrealism was the culmination of Romanticism, not a rejection of it. What was new was the inclusion of unconscious processes and chance. The classic being automatic writing and the game of exquisite corpses. <BR/><BR/>There's a small book published by Shambhala called "A Little Book of Surrealist Games," that is a compendium of Surrealist methods and writings. There are similar compendiums online, of course.<BR/><BR/>Perloff's summation is accurate, I think. Abstraction in language is indeed inherently different than in the other arts, because of the persistence of vision, of habit, of rules. (The Chomskyian idea of inherent deep structure in language has been largely discredited, but there is a tendency in us, it seems, to reinforce habits until they become unconscious grooves, like grooves in a record that the needle must follow under most circumstances.)<BR/><BR/>Dave, I think because the Surrealists were the end of Romanticism, rather than the beginning of Modernism, most of the habits of Romanticism adhere in their work, including pre-Modern use of grammar and syntax regardless of the strangeness of the contents. Perloff makes this point in her second answer, which I think is right on target. I think the Surrealists retained the viewpoint of muc Romanticism, too, in their attitudes that they were hero-artists in opposition to the stultifying and conformist effects of the Industrial Revolution. Hence the stream of multiple manifestoes. But they were also clearly men-of-arts, in the heroic sense, and several of them were interested n the politics of domination rather than absorption; another reason for so many manifestoes, and all the arguments about was a true Surrealists and who wasn't. The cult of personality around the artist was a flowering of Romanticism, and it reached a culmination of sorts in Dali, who was never "off stage." His whole life was a performance. You're right to single him out as the chief influence on popular culture as what to Surrealism is thought of by non-artists; he was a gifted promoter and marketer.<BR/><BR/>Magritte stopped calling himself a Surrealist rather early on. He also didn't call himself a painter, but an explorer of questions about consciousness. In some ways he was a quiet experimentalist with no fixed ideological agenda, who used the lessons of Surrealism and took them much further.<BR/><BR/>Frankly, even though Surrealism began largely with the French (it's been argued it grew out of Mallarmé et al.) and had some wonderful poets come out of the movement in France (René Char being one of the best), I would argue that Surrealism as a method and style reached its greatest flowering in Spain and in Latin America (Xavier Villaruttia, Neruda, Machado, et al.), and with some of the modern Greek poets such as Elytis, Seferis, and others. I've been working on an essay along these lines for some while, but it's not been on the front burner lately because of more urgent matters.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-66835208690358461612008-12-22T16:13:00.000+00:002008-12-22T16:13:00.000+00:00My assumption here, Dave, is that rules of grammar...My assumption here, <B>Dave</B>, is that rules of grammar are so ingrained that we think in them even at speed.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-86870455735533201042008-12-22T11:13:00.000+00:002008-12-22T11:13:00.000+00:00I obviously have not had much exposure to surreali...I obviously have not had much exposure to surrealist poetry, for as I read your post I was beginning towonder whether such a beast could exist in any genuine sense. For example, would the poet not have to emancipate his mind from such matters as syntax? And would there then be sufficient reality for it even to be surreal? Then I got to the passage on <B>air</B> and was won over. I think you must call that surreal. I am still a bit worried by the syntax enigma, though. Even surrealism must have a unifying rule or rules, I think. It cannot be totally random and still be art or poetry.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.com