SELF VS THE WORLD
Art As Social Production
A few weeks ago I saw an extraordinary, profoundly moving performance at the ENO
of Henryk Gorecki’s 3rdSymphony, Sorrowful Songs.
Rooted in the agony of the Third Reich’s war on civilization,
the meditative and almost prayer like music moved me to uncontrollable tears.
Between the staging, the performances and the music
it poetically exposed the seeming endless stupidity, venality and horrors
that our psychopathic brothers and sisters foist upon us.
For what?
Power, fame, wealth or perhaps for revenge and resentment?
And with what consequences?
The unnecessary deaths of millions of innocent people,
the destruction of cities and homes,
the brutal extinction of innocence,
and the everlasting memory of horror.
In the last week I have read a book about photography
and seen a play about a Welsh Miner’s Choir.
They were both entertaining and contained seeds of ideas,
but they irritated me, even in the face of the obvious talents displayed.
I felt uprooted,
as if what I was seeing/reading was not moored
in any meaningful world of experiences.
This was because the ideas, sounds and images presented
were too remote from reality as I understand it.
They were at best, light hearted entertainment, crowd pleasers.
That is, they displayed superficial compromises
to lull the audience into simplistic responses.
It became clear that I resent not being deeply affected.
When I encounter art, I demand to be made angry about the condition of humanity.
I demand to be aroused by the work’s wisdom, truths and beauty.
I demand to rediscover love.
This reflects my belief that beauty only arises out of a work of art
that is capable of relating to audience truths
that are real and central to their needs and wants at that historical moment.
But this is only made clear inside a set of formal structures
that translate the often invisible truths into something capable of touching ones heart.
This is because all of art is in the first place a manifestation of social production.
It arises from the housing estates, the farmer’s fields and the worker’s office,
cabs or warehouse floors.
The last most widespread effervescence of British art
rolled out of working class estates
and lower middle income suburban houses of the 1960s.
The musicians, composers, novelists, poets, photographers, film-makers, and painters tumbled into the mainstream, shaking up the culture and many of its assumptions.
Below, I am quoting myself revealing the recognition I’ve discovered
of the inextricable relationship
between my own voice and my emotional and intellectual concerns
with the reality I was born into.
These things led me to understand that to produce art
is to participate in a form of social production.
That leads to a sense of social responsibility
and a balancing between personal preoccupations and historical reality,
and especially concern for the condition of others.
Perhaps that is what gives birth to both empathy and disappointment.
These are lines from my first novel A FORGETTABLE MAN.
“This is my journey away from ‘doing’ to ‘being’.
This is my passage from caring about reputation, accomplishment, fame, and income - towards grasping for acceptance at the terminal.
Only now can I admit, step-by-step, in this descent,
how I disdained the publishers’ political agenda
to keep their audience inattentive to the underlying truths;
step-by-step how I detested the puppet like editors -
men and women who stood at truth’s door
protesting they were only following orders
and if the job was not done by them,
someone less caring would be in their place;
step-by-step how I wished to love and respect my fellow citizens
but ultimately become disillusioned,
seeing them as an inchoate pack,
bought off by credit, possessions and simplistic ideas,
slowly guided into alienation, bigotry, and emotional dumbness,
barking to every irrational, morally dubious instigation of the media,
accepting opinion as news, and absurdity as fact.
Step-by-step it has become, for me, a descent towards capitulating to the plague
or an ascent towards truth.”
Thank you Tina. The anger comes from having seen and, as all of us, having heard about so much violence, poverty and hatred in the world while we the people who object to the wanton destruction of this good earth are ignored and sidelined by the state and private media corporations, who always function for the wellbeing of the rich and the corporations.
This definitely resonated with me: 'I felt uprooted,
as if what I was seeing/reading was not moored
in any meaningful world of experiences.'
....so much of our world is becoming this superficial layering of things and distractions, purposely designed so that we no longer have to think, question or interact - time fillers without substance.