aeblog

participatory

I have always felt that the listener/viewer/appreciator of art is somehow a part of the art itself. Perhaps it's like quantum theory in that the act of observation changes what you are observing. I'm not sure, but I think that there is a very important and interesting relationship between the people who create stuff and the people who consume those creations. Clearly there is a financial dependency, but I think there also is some kind of emotional symbiosis. I guess I am just recognizing this with my music by actually bringing those listeners into the songs directly. I'm making this dependence more obvious in certain ways.
It always bothers me when artists get all offended and up in arms when it is suggested that they are doing something influenced by someone else or similar to someone else. Sometimes, I think that art, in the broadest most collective sense, is a continuously evolving thing that artists are just glomming onto. It's like a sticky rolling ball that is constantly changing its appearance and trajectory as is progresses, picking up and dropping off little bits along the way. Some little bits cause a significant wobble and others just give it a smooth blob of additional color. Of course, some don't even stick at all.
Every artist, no matter how removed from the rest of the world he or she may be, is directly influenced by prior art, and this is a good thing, I would argue, not something to be embarrassed about or to deny. It's the combination of the prior art with the individual experience and the unique creative energy of the artist that keeps pushing this collective art of human society forward.
Back to my original thoughts. I will admit that I find a lot of 'participatory art' to be crappy and unsuccessful. I'm not quite sure why I think I can make something that isn't this way too, but for some reason I have high hopes. I think that perhaps it is the fact that the participation is all filtered through me in one way or another. Though I insist on using direct expressions of people, they are almost always reading my words or answering my questions and in the process of creating the music, I clearly do a whole bunch of slicing and dicing to suit my needs best. It's like people are my raw material in some ways. People are my instruments and I do what I can to get them to behave in the ways I want, but at the same time relish in the unpredictability and uniqueness of each one. I'll admit to being a control freak, but I'll also take credit for letting my own sticky rolling ball be influenced heavily by my voices.