The Corean Chronicles
Neither Speed Nor Technology Improves Art
A month ago Engelbert Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel opened here in Cedar City, produced by the Southern Utah University Opera Theatre and sung by university students. In the article/review that appeared in the University Journal, a math student was quoted as complaining that she'd forgotten that opera was all sung, and that the opening of the production was slow -- until the witch appeared. There was no mention of the vocal technique, the live symphonic accompaniment, or the actual singing, much of it by students who had previously won state and regional awards.
The reason why I mention this is that it is an example of the impact of the growing pressure to technologize, speed up action, and quantify both the arts and education dealing with the arts, technophilia, if you will, applied to the arts. Motion pictures and television programs are filled with movement and increasingly quick cuts from viewpoint to viewpoint. Songs tend to be shorter and more repetitive. Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Gershwin, and Rodgers and Hammerstein often wrote songs with melodies running 20 bars or more. Today, it's a rare popular song whose melody line exceeds six bars, even with all the technological aids to composition.
More and more, university professors in the arts are judged on how many compositions, performances, and publications they have completed, and how many student credit hours they have produced -- not how good said compositions, performances, or publications might be and not what their students have done after graduation, which is in fact a better indication of the quality of teaching than student "satisfaction" evaluations -- but student evaluations can be computerized and analyzed quickly. Students taking music appreciation find it almost impossible to listen to classical music without watching a video.
Close to twenty years ago, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan made the observation that the arts were one area where technology could not be effectively applied to reduce costs and shorten the time involved. As he noted then, a Mozart string quartet that took twenty minutes to play in 1790 still takes twenty minutes to play, and the musicians still need years of training to play it properly. Moreover, as any number of musicians and music aficionados have noted publicly in recent years, electronic reproduction or amplification of the music, no matter how good, degrades the listening experience, because electronic systems, regardless of what the techo-geeks claim, does not reproduce the full range of harmonics and overtones.
Great art cannot be painted any faster than in the time of Manet and Monet. Admittedly, technology has resulted in a wider range of generally better pigments, but the actual creation process isn’t any faster. Great sculpture still takes time. Great wines still need to be aged, even if technology has resulted in overall cheaper and better common wines. Great cheeses require technique and aging.
So why do we as a society keep buying into the idea that faster and more technologized is better, especially where art is concerned?
The reason why I mention this is that it is an example of the impact of the growing pressure to technologize, speed up action, and quantify both the arts and education dealing with the arts, technophilia, if you will, applied to the arts. Motion pictures and television programs are filled with movement and increasingly quick cuts from viewpoint to viewpoint. Songs tend to be shorter and more repetitive. Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Gershwin, and Rodgers and Hammerstein often wrote songs with melodies running 20 bars or more. Today, it's a rare popular song whose melody line exceeds six bars, even with all the technological aids to composition.
More and more, university professors in the arts are judged on how many compositions, performances, and publications they have completed, and how many student credit hours they have produced -- not how good said compositions, performances, or publications might be and not what their students have done after graduation, which is in fact a better indication of the quality of teaching than student "satisfaction" evaluations -- but student evaluations can be computerized and analyzed quickly. Students taking music appreciation find it almost impossible to listen to classical music without watching a video.
Close to twenty years ago, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan made the observation that the arts were one area where technology could not be effectively applied to reduce costs and shorten the time involved. As he noted then, a Mozart string quartet that took twenty minutes to play in 1790 still takes twenty minutes to play, and the musicians still need years of training to play it properly. Moreover, as any number of musicians and music aficionados have noted publicly in recent years, electronic reproduction or amplification of the music, no matter how good, degrades the listening experience, because electronic systems, regardless of what the techo-geeks claim, does not reproduce the full range of harmonics and overtones.
Great art cannot be painted any faster than in the time of Manet and Monet. Admittedly, technology has resulted in a wider range of generally better pigments, but the actual creation process isn’t any faster. Great sculpture still takes time. Great wines still need to be aged, even if technology has resulted in overall cheaper and better common wines. Great cheeses require technique and aging.
So why do we as a society keep buying into the idea that faster and more technologized is better, especially where art is concerned?
—L.E. Modesitt,
Jr.: 5/12/2007 12:50:00 PM
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I think that music videos are merely the modern reaction to an earlier modernization of the arts. The radio, the phonograph and other recording media have served to separate the listener from the performer. While this trend has brought the art of music to a far wider audience, some of the art is lost.
In its origins, music was both a aural as well as a visual experience. The performers, whether tribal or orchestral, were present when music was presented. Modern times have served to remove the performance from the music experience so thoroughly that it almost seems alien to associate it with anything visual. But the human psyche serves to overcome this trend.
Look at concert films such as Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" or Elvis Presley's "'68 Comeback Special" and how well they sell. Look at the fact that there are no less than five different productions of Wagner's Complete Ring Cycle currently available on DVD at Amazon. Look at how ticket prices to live performances have skyrocketed how larger and larger venues are needed to accommodate people eager to spend sometimes exorbitant sums to view the performers as they perform.
I would argue that the visual aspects of musical performance is something that humans need, if not crave. Music videos are merely a cultural reaction to the loss of the visual art of music, and not necessarily the negative result of technology.
In its origins, music was both a aural as well as a visual experience. The performers, whether tribal or orchestral, were present when music was presented. Modern times have served to remove the performance from the music experience so thoroughly that it almost seems alien to associate it with anything visual. But the human psyche serves to overcome this trend.
Look at concert films such as Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" or Elvis Presley's "'68 Comeback Special" and how well they sell. Look at the fact that there are no less than five different productions of Wagner's Complete Ring Cycle currently available on DVD at Amazon. Look at how ticket prices to live performances have skyrocketed how larger and larger venues are needed to accommodate people eager to spend sometimes exorbitant sums to view the performers as they perform.
I would argue that the visual aspects of musical performance is something that humans need, if not crave. Music videos are merely a cultural reaction to the loss of the visual art of music, and not necessarily the negative result of technology.
Two minor comments :) First, it's my impression that classical music performance has indeed steadily speeded up. I compare the recordings I used to listen to of performers from the 1930s with those from the 1960s, when I was studying, to some of those from today, and the same piece (when the musician is technically expert) is typically played significantly faster. I believe that the cause is valuation of technical brilliance over musicality, and the result is less nuanced or individual interpretations of the music.
Second minor comment: I believe that what degrades the musical experience even more than listening to an electronic reproduction is the over-use of echo. Not only does this homogenize the sound to a certain extent; it also discourages honest feedback during practice. It was fascinating to me, when watching the pianist Emanuel Ax practice, how he deliberately minimized the use of pedal so that mistakes were not hidden and nuances were clearer (go listen to the movie Impromptu, where the first piece is by Ax and the second by pedal-wielding Vladimir Ashkenazy, to hear the difference). I suspect, although I can't prove it, that recording studios and "live" concert recordings prefer echoey environments such as churches in order to make the sound superficially better.
Second minor comment: I believe that what degrades the musical experience even more than listening to an electronic reproduction is the over-use of echo. Not only does this homogenize the sound to a certain extent; it also discourages honest feedback during practice. It was fascinating to me, when watching the pianist Emanuel Ax practice, how he deliberately minimized the use of pedal so that mistakes were not hidden and nuances were clearer (go listen to the movie Impromptu, where the first piece is by Ax and the second by pedal-wielding Vladimir Ashkenazy, to hear the difference). I suspect, although I can't prove it, that recording studios and "live" concert recordings prefer echoey environments such as churches in order to make the sound superficially better.
Apologies, I came across your blog a little late, but I would like to caution against treating "Art" as a single monolithic entity that is bookended by Beethoven and Picasso. The question I would like to pose back is neither "What is Art?", nor "What makes art great?", but specifically "What makes great art, Great Art?"
Take Edvard Munch's "The Scream", for example. If you stop people on the street, you'll have a pretty good chance that you'll attain "oh yeah" image recognition levels at the very least, although I doubt you'll get much further than possibly a title. But while someone like me would start rattling off salient details like "German Expressionist painter who painted literally dozens of Screams, which have been interpreted as an expression of bourgeoise's internal reaction to a period marked by rapid technological advances, unprecendented increases in communication speeds, and warfare". Does the last part sound familiar?
Setting that aside for a moment, and look at Sen. Moynihan... "[he] made the observation that the arts were one area where technology could not be effectively applied to reduce costs and shorten the time involved. As he noted then, a Mozart string quartet that took twenty minutes to play in 1790 still takes twenty minutes to play, and the musicians still need years of training to play it properly."
That's certainly true, but what he, and many others, did not anticipate is that the demand for new recordings of a Mozart string quartet is virtually nil. You can blame the lack of arts education funding, the recording industry, advances in recording technology, the generally decaying moral fiber of the younger generations, or all of the above, but this problem also contains a partial answer to your final question "So why do we as a society keep buying into the idea that faster and more technologized is better, especially where art is concerned?" It may not be "better" from a technical standpoint, but, what it is, more importantly, is that it is relevant. Sometimes you get both better and relevant (DVDs vs VHS), and other times you get worse quality but infinitely more relevant (mp3-iPods vs Super Audio CDs/DVD-As). Part of the problem of the degenerate-young-people-these-days complaint is it oversimplifies the consumption and appreciation of art. I haven't found too many music lovers that solely listen to popular music, or solely listen to Mozart. What I do find instead, is that music lovers listen to both 3.5 minute songs, and 2 hour symphonies. It might sound incongruous, but it's not uncommon to find people who like Mozart, Radiohead, and (probably _very_ secretly) Jordin Sparks. And while a purist may decry the Cliffs Notes version of Mozart, you just have to remember that's just the hook. For some that will be as far as they ever take it, and for others, it's just the beginning of a very long and rich journey that they would not have ever undertaken had it not been for a iPod library swap. Presenting Important Art without properly understanding the audience you're introducing it to is about as effective as the American habit of increasing volume when confronted with a non-English speaker. Yes the great unwashed will fail to appreciate the intricacies that took years to perfect, but to borrow some internet terms, "Every1 starts out as a n00b b4 1337ness." I'm sure Apolo Ono/Julianne Hough just got a younger generation of teens/20somethings interested in ballroom dancing. Does it really matter if they didn't really do a great deal of pure ballroom if it inspires a few hundred thousand kids to take some dance lessons from professionals? Eventually those guys will learn that a) Jessie's Girl is in fact a swing and not a tango b) dancing really is a lot of fun and c) it's also great exercise.
The other part of my answer is simply because that's where contemporary art is right now. Art didn't end with the 1960s, as most textbooks tend to imply by cramming the 60s to the present into about 2 pages before the index. The contemporary art world, like everything else, is adapting to the introduction of new technologies and artists are defining a new vocabularly that harnesses this power. Great artists like Brice Marden, Elizabeth Murray, and Lucien Freud are still turning out great works mainly using tools that would be readily recognizable by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's namesakes, but you start looking at other greats like Cindy Sherman, Richard Serra, Maya Lin, you start drifting away from the old-dead-european-artists hegemony--I bet Diller Scofido + Renfro or Frank Gehry would confound McKim, Meade, and White.
And this brings me to the final point:art has to evolve and move forward. You can certainly devote a lifetime to mastering painting still life #1423416526 Apples in a bowl and a jug by a Window in Ye Olde Rustic setting, but your chances of out-Cezanne-ing Cezanne are fairly slim. There are artists working directly with digital technology like Char Davies (VR), Camille Utterbach (Projection and sensing), Jim Campbell (LED installations). (You've got to actually see this stuff, the overly reductive descriptions do no justice to their work. It's like describing fine wine as "mushed up rotten grapes") They, among many, many others, are working towards making sense of our time period marked by rapid technological advances, unprecendented increases in communication speeds, and warfare. Kind of like Edvard Munch...
At the end of the day, it's really all about zeitgeist.
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Take Edvard Munch's "The Scream", for example. If you stop people on the street, you'll have a pretty good chance that you'll attain "oh yeah" image recognition levels at the very least, although I doubt you'll get much further than possibly a title. But while someone like me would start rattling off salient details like "German Expressionist painter who painted literally dozens of Screams, which have been interpreted as an expression of bourgeoise's internal reaction to a period marked by rapid technological advances, unprecendented increases in communication speeds, and warfare". Does the last part sound familiar?
Setting that aside for a moment, and look at Sen. Moynihan... "[he] made the observation that the arts were one area where technology could not be effectively applied to reduce costs and shorten the time involved. As he noted then, a Mozart string quartet that took twenty minutes to play in 1790 still takes twenty minutes to play, and the musicians still need years of training to play it properly."
That's certainly true, but what he, and many others, did not anticipate is that the demand for new recordings of a Mozart string quartet is virtually nil. You can blame the lack of arts education funding, the recording industry, advances in recording technology, the generally decaying moral fiber of the younger generations, or all of the above, but this problem also contains a partial answer to your final question "So why do we as a society keep buying into the idea that faster and more technologized is better, especially where art is concerned?" It may not be "better" from a technical standpoint, but, what it is, more importantly, is that it is relevant. Sometimes you get both better and relevant (DVDs vs VHS), and other times you get worse quality but infinitely more relevant (mp3-iPods vs Super Audio CDs/DVD-As). Part of the problem of the degenerate-young-people-these-days complaint is it oversimplifies the consumption and appreciation of art. I haven't found too many music lovers that solely listen to popular music, or solely listen to Mozart. What I do find instead, is that music lovers listen to both 3.5 minute songs, and 2 hour symphonies. It might sound incongruous, but it's not uncommon to find people who like Mozart, Radiohead, and (probably _very_ secretly) Jordin Sparks. And while a purist may decry the Cliffs Notes version of Mozart, you just have to remember that's just the hook. For some that will be as far as they ever take it, and for others, it's just the beginning of a very long and rich journey that they would not have ever undertaken had it not been for a iPod library swap. Presenting Important Art without properly understanding the audience you're introducing it to is about as effective as the American habit of increasing volume when confronted with a non-English speaker. Yes the great unwashed will fail to appreciate the intricacies that took years to perfect, but to borrow some internet terms, "Every1 starts out as a n00b b4 1337ness." I'm sure Apolo Ono/Julianne Hough just got a younger generation of teens/20somethings interested in ballroom dancing. Does it really matter if they didn't really do a great deal of pure ballroom if it inspires a few hundred thousand kids to take some dance lessons from professionals? Eventually those guys will learn that a) Jessie's Girl is in fact a swing and not a tango b) dancing really is a lot of fun and c) it's also great exercise.
The other part of my answer is simply because that's where contemporary art is right now. Art didn't end with the 1960s, as most textbooks tend to imply by cramming the 60s to the present into about 2 pages before the index. The contemporary art world, like everything else, is adapting to the introduction of new technologies and artists are defining a new vocabularly that harnesses this power. Great artists like Brice Marden, Elizabeth Murray, and Lucien Freud are still turning out great works mainly using tools that would be readily recognizable by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's namesakes, but you start looking at other greats like Cindy Sherman, Richard Serra, Maya Lin, you start drifting away from the old-dead-european-artists hegemony--I bet Diller Scofido + Renfro or Frank Gehry would confound McKim, Meade, and White.
And this brings me to the final point:art has to evolve and move forward. You can certainly devote a lifetime to mastering painting still life #1423416526 Apples in a bowl and a jug by a Window in Ye Olde Rustic setting, but your chances of out-Cezanne-ing Cezanne are fairly slim. There are artists working directly with digital technology like Char Davies (VR), Camille Utterbach (Projection and sensing), Jim Campbell (LED installations). (You've got to actually see this stuff, the overly reductive descriptions do no justice to their work. It's like describing fine wine as "mushed up rotten grapes") They, among many, many others, are working towards making sense of our time period marked by rapid technological advances, unprecendented increases in communication speeds, and warfare. Kind of like Edvard Munch...
At the end of the day, it's really all about zeitgeist.
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