# Is the artist a sort of medium?



## Guest (May 17, 2014)

In another thread, a member posted that




> the artist is a sort of medium, and what they think or say of a work _is not at all necessarily the truth about the meaning of that work._


What this seems to imply is that a work of art has an existence of its own, independent of the artist (any artists?) and that what eventually emerges into reality through the 'medium' of the composer is not necessarily the true, real, pure work, only an imperfect version. (Isn't this Platonic Realism?)

What do you think? I can't help but offer an absurd example; if this is true, then Mozart failed to convey to us the reality of the _Marriage of Figaro_ - Steve Reich made a much better job, only he called it _Different Trains_!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

That member is confused, probably hopelessly confused. You have illuminated aspects of that confusion very well.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Ukko said:


> That member is confused, probably hopelessly confused. You have illuminated aspects of that confusion very well.


..................................


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> What this seems to imply is that *a work of art has an existence of its own, independent of the artist...*and that what eventually emerges into reality through the 'medium' of the composer is not necessarily the true, real, pure work, only an imperfect version.


To be 'a work of art' it must be produced or deemed as such by an artist. This includes soup cans, bicycle seats, urinals, and concepts.

The "true, real, pure work" means very little, because art does not exist without artist to create it, and audiences to consume it.

A composition is a 'mapping' of the composer's experience on to the listener. There are certain universal, very general, agreed-on or implied meanings and ways of conveying meaning which are common to the language, and of human experience.

The 'true, real, pure work' does not really exist in its full manifestation as art outside of the conveyed experience of it, which requires an artist and an audience.

To the degree that the work conveys its intended (or results in unintended meaning) meaning is the measure of its effectiveness. If the Mona Lisa fell over in the woods, and nobody saw or heard it, it would be incomplete as an art work; it's meaning was not conveyed.

Of course, this is all contingent upon the composer's intent, and his effectiveness in conveying what it is he wishes to convey, and of the listener's ability to read and translate his experience of the work into meaningful experience, whatever meaning that may be. The meaning might be totally abstract, and deal with the literal elements of the art medium, or it may be emotional or narrative.

This splitting of music into a "true, real, pure work" and its 'imperfect manifestation' seems to be unique to music, and comes from our attitude towards The Bible and scripture as either 'literal truth' (the word of God) or 'imperfect' due to human conveyance, translation or interpretation.

The score always was the reference, as a 'pure musical idea,' the thought which exists outside of manifest (spoken) reality, as a 'Platonic perfection' or 'pure idea.' This was necessitated by the complexities of synchronizing over 100 musicians to convey a concise musical idea acting 'as one.' Music is basically a form of speaking.

This whole paradigm of 'idea conveyed by sound' is based on a Western Christian model derived from religion.

"The word made manifest."

"In the beginning was the word."


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## Guest (May 18, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> To be 'a work of art' it must be produced or deemed as such by an artist. This includes soup cans, bicycle seats, urinals, and concepts. [etc, etc]


An interesting collection of thoughts, million. You do like to make the odd leap of logic, though.



millionrainbows said:


> This splitting of music into a "true, real, pure work" and its 'imperfect manifestation' seems to be unique to music, and comes from our attitude towards The Bible


Really?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Yes, and if you pay in american dollars, they will read your future also! Be careful with those charlatans!


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

It's true that an idea exists in a different shape in the mind than it does on paper or in the air, the constraints of each of these media make it so, and there is always something lost in translation to the concrete fact of sound no matter the accuracy of the method of realisation, but the "true, real, pure" work is not the seminal idea, it is the final product.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Crudblud said:


> It's true that an idea exists in a different shape in the mind than it does on paper or in the air, the constraints of each of these media make it so, and there is always something lost in translation to the concrete fact of sound no matter the accuracy of the method of realisation, but the "true, real, pure" work is not the seminal idea, it is the final product.


That reads good, but unfortunately the terms 'true', 'real' and 'pure' all need modifiers in order to mean anything truly true, really real or purely pure. Out in the world, 'pure' music _can_ mean music without words. OK as far as it goes, but does that definition mean that _"Amazing Grace"_ is impure music?

Nearly all concepts have boundaries.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I believe the OP completely misinterpreted a statement by PetrB from another thread. Perhaps PetrB will correct me if I am wrong, but what I suspect he was getting at is that after a work is created, the author's statements about that work should not be taken as a definitive interpretation of the work or to reflect the truth about or value of the work. This is so because a composer might intuitively create a beautiful sound structure but be entirely incapable of explaining that structure's aesthetic value, its broader expressive implications (if this applies), or why it is formally coherent. Great composers can be lousy critics, mediocre theorists, and poor or even purposely misleading interpreters of and advocates for their own music.


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## Guest (May 18, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> I believe the OP completely misinterpreted


Not really. I offered _an _interpretation. Whether it was the interpretation intended by PetrB or not, it still stands as a recognised philosophical approach (hence my reference to Plato).

In any case, once a post is made, a poster's statements should not be taken as a definitive interpretation of the post or to reflect the truth about or value of the post.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Crudblud said:


> It's true that an idea exists in a different shape in the mind than it does on paper or in the air, the constraints of each of these media make it so, and there is always something lost in translation to the concrete fact of sound no matter the accuracy of the method of realisation, but the "true, real, pure" work is not the seminal idea, it is the final product.


I dig everything you said except the end. The final product to me is the most untrue. It's the degradable sign pointing back to the place of 'trueness' from which it came.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Not really. I offered _an _interpretation. Whether it was the interpretation intended by PetrB or not, it still stands as a recognised philosophical approach (hence my reference to Plato).
> 
> In any case, once a post is made, a poster's statements should not be taken as a definitive interpretation of the post or to reflect the truth about or value of the post.


Plato was a fascist nutjob. Other than that, no complaints.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Vesuvius said:


> I dig everything you said except the end. The final product to me is the most untrue. It's the degradable sign pointing back to the place of 'trueness' from which it came.


As Niels Bohr once said: "The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth."


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Vesuvius said:


> I dig everything you said except the end. The final product to me is the most untrue. It's the degradable sign pointing back to the place of 'trueness' from which it came.


The work as it exists in its final state is the work, for me there is simply no way around that. As Ukko points out, "true, real, pure" can mean so many things that it really means nothing, but if we take it to mean "actual" then, unless I'm missing something, the final product is the most true, real and pure it's going to get.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> * Is the artist a sort of medium?*


a-yep.

"I am the vessel through which _Le Sacre_ passed."

.......~ Igor Stravinsky

"The subconscious is the best friend a composer has."

"'In the end […] the work of art is unpredictable and creates its own laws. When it's complete, then there is nothing to add, nothing to take away. When the work is performed, I'm always full of admiration for it. I ask: How is it possible for this to be born? I am not able to make anything like that. It must have been somewhere, somehow in existence even before I found it. I'm not really mother or father but the midwife. I am just a nourishing medium for it."

.......~ Einojuhani Rautavaara


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Crudblud said:


> The work as it exists in its final state is the work, for me there is simply no way around that. As Ukko points out, "true, real, pure" can mean so many things that it really means nothing, but if we take it to mean "actual" then, unless I'm missing something, the final product is the most true, real and pure it's going to get.


I see what you're saying, but the final physical manifestation of the idea is always the most restricted and the first to decay. Although I do love the quote Blancrocher posted... Which I've found to point to that the 'final work' is sort of a collective of the gathered intentions coming from the individual, so it is sort of the first crystalized "road-map." However limited it may be...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Crudblud said:


> The work as it exists in its final state is the work, for me there is simply no way around that. As Ukko points out, "true, real, pure" can mean so many things that it really means nothing, but if we take it to mean "actual" then, unless I'm missing something, the final product is the most true, real and pure it's going to get.


The trouble is that in music as traditionally composed and performed there is no final product - or, more precisely, no single final product. Music is not final until it is performed and heard; the score as left by the composer is only a set of more or less incomplete directions for the performer. The composer gives these directions with the hope that the performer will convey what he intends, even as he knows, expects, and in fact hopes, that every performer will add her own ideas to "fill in the gaps" in what he has asked for. Every performance is a different "final product," and although all performances point back to the composer's conception which underlies the directions he has given, none can represent that conception exactly.

What then is the "true work"? Is it the composer's mental conception, the score in which he imperfectly encodes this conception, or the work as actually performed and heard? I'm inclined to say that the "true work" is none of these, and does not exist. It is a concept without a specific referent, a verbal fiction, a Platonic phantasm.

Of course the traditional way of composing and performing music is not the only way. Conceivably a composer could sit down at a synthesizer, play some sounds into a recording device, and declare the result to be the finished, definitive, one and only true work, exactly the thing he conceived and intended.

Personally, I'm glad we have centuries' worth of musical works which can never be "true" or "finished." That makes them images of life.


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## Guest (May 19, 2014)

PetrB said:


> a-yep.
> 
> "I am the vessel through which _Le Sacre_ passed."
> 
> ...


Artists often write about their work as if it isn't they didn't create it, and I understand why. But that's not the same as the Platonic, is it?



> Platonic form can be illustrated by contrasting a material triangle with an ideal triangle. The Platonic form is the ideal triangle - a figure with perfectly drawn lines whose angles add to 180 degrees. Any form of triangle that we experience will be an imperfect representation of the ideal triangle. Regardless of how precise your measuring and drawing tools you will never be able to recreate this perfect shape. Even drawn to the point where our senses cannot perceive a defect, in its essence the shape will still be imperfect; forever unable to match the ideal triangle.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_realism


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Your platonic interpretation is extreme, MacLeod. I don't think anybody is saying that a work of art has a separate objective existence (from the ontological point of view) in some kind of ideal world of pieces and that the composer just makes an (imperfect) copy of it in our reality. That's silly. 

You didn't quote the most relevant part in PetrB's post: "The subconscious is the best friend a composer has." 

The composer is a vessel for his subconscious level, his musical intuition, which operates in a more basic realm than reason (when we understand music as an abstract language with its own syntaxis).

I think that's clear enough.


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## Guest (May 19, 2014)

aleazk said:


> Your platonic interpretation is extreme, MacLeod. I don't think anybody is saying that a work of art has a separate objective existence (from the ontological point of view) in some kind of ideal world of pieces and that the composer just makes an (imperfect) copy of it in our reality. That's silly.
> 
> You didn't quote the most relevant part in PetrB's post: "The subconscious is the best friend a composer has."
> 
> ...


I don't believe in the Platonic myself, and I'm fairly sure that PetrB doesn't either - though I'm just checking. But someone else here might. Why is it silly to ask?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> I don't believe in the Platonic myself, and I'm fairly sure that PetrB doesn't either - though I'm just checking. But someone else here might. Why is it silly to ask?


I think it's silly because it's a quite uninteresting and useless idea... what kind of discussion were you expecting with it?


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## Guest (May 19, 2014)

aleazk said:


> I think it's silly because it's a quite uninteresting and useless idea... what kind of discussion were you expecting with it?


One that engaged anyone who was interested in it...


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> One that engaged anyone who was interested in it...


Well, certainly not me. So good bye. :tiphat:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

It has engaged me. I think that all souls - pieces of music - artwork - languages - forms of beauty - have their beginning and their continued existence in the mind of God. But that's just my personal opinion.

'Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.' - Michelangelo
The artist has a concept in his mind and reproduces it or conveys it as perfectly as possible. Even if s/he doesn't manage very well, the concept is still there in his or her mind & others may be able to get a glimmer of it. And it remains 'out there' in recorded All-Time - or in theoretical All-Time - according to your own personal opinions. 

But leaving Platonic forms out of it, there is still an interesting thread here, and thank you, MacLeod, :tiphat: about how we apprehend 'the pure meaning' of a piece - or if we ever can. 

I agree with PetrB's original statement alluded to in the OP & Crudblud's & EdwardBast's posts above (#s 7 & 9). All we have to go on is the final work, and if a listener or analyst can make a good case for something being there that was not, supposedly, in the mind of its composer, then that is valid. 

The same point is now accepted for literature. When I was at university, I always looked for 'the author's intentions', but a few years later this became 'the intentional fallacy'. I still prefer to consider the world-view of the author of the work & its original 'audience', but it is a valid exercise to read in new meanings, since, as others have said, the unconscious mind latches on to things that we consciously are not aware of.


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## StevenOBrien (Jun 27, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> That this seems to imply is that a work of art has an existence of its own, independent of the artist (any artists?) and that what eventually emerges into reality through the 'medium' of the composer is not necessarily the true, real, pure work, only an imperfect version. (Isn't this Platonic Realism?)
> 
> What do you think? I can't help but offer an absurd example; if this is true, then Mozart failed to convey to us the reality of the _Marriage of Figaro_ - Steve Reich made a much better job, only he called it _Different Trains_!


It does sometimes feel like different works can be perceived as expressing the same "abstract". For instance, Chopin's Piano Trio could be perceived as drawing from the same "abstract" as Mozart's Piano Quartet. I say this because I often feel (perhaps irrationally) like it's a waste of time to listen to Chopin's work when I could be listening to Mozart's (I love both composers, don't get me wrong). I'd be interested in figuring out why this happens.

I don't have any evidence for this of course, so I can't assert that's it true. It's also entirely possible that the example I provided may simply be a case of association based on key and instrumentation.

As for supernatural elements that "medium" suggests, I really don't buy that. As a composer, for me, it often does feel like you are simply drawing from a completed work that's already somewhere beyond your mind, but I've come to disregard this idea, personally. I prefer to think of the process as if you have bits of material floating around your head drawn from all the music you've ever listened to, and you simply know from experience which bit to use in a particular place, which sometimes can make the whole process feel like the work is already written for you. In other words, it's an illusion.

I do like the idea that a work becomes independent of the composer once they decide that it's finished.

As much as we respect composers and happily associate them with the works they produce, if Mozart came back to life today and decided that he wanted to amend Figaro to include more modern techniques or something, I can easily imagine there being uproar, and I can easily imagine opera companies refusing to use the new version, even though it came directly from Mozart himself. He might get away with releasing it as a new version, but I doubt even he would ever be allowed to replace the old versions in favor of something new. I think people would agree with me on this, which suggests that art is much more independent from its artist than we generally seem to assume.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

We seem to be hovering perilously close to literary deconstructionism, in which authorial intent in not necessarily a principal focus of understanding a work of art --which I personally find extreme. 

But my flip answer to the original question (Is the artist a sort of medium?) would be, Only a mediocre (I.e. "medium") artist.


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## Svelte Silhouette (Nov 7, 2013)

Is there anybody there?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

PoisonIV said:


> Is there anybody there?


The lights are on, but nobody's home.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Is the artist a sort of medium? Yes ... and no.

First, let's clarify the issue of "artist" since we can speak of a primary artist and a secondary artist. The creator of the work (the poet, the painter, the composer) is a primary artist. Sometimes the primary artist's work is complete as a form (a photograph, a painting, a poem, a novel) and other times the primary artist's work is only a sort of "blueprint" for a larger, cooperative venture of completion (a play, an opera, a song, a musical work) which relies upon secondary artists (performers) to realize. These secondary artists are much like mediums (middle men) in that they serve as interpretive vessels to communicate the primary artist's intention, ideally, though in most cases secondary artists can achieve only limited success in such a realization, for a number of reasons. And occasionally the secondary artist (the interpreting performer) totally misses the mark -- whether intentionally or unintentionally -- of what the primary artist intended. In most cases the secondary artist cannot know exactly what the full intentions of the primary artist are since that primary artist, the creator, is deceased and hasn't left any detailed discussion of the work of art. Many creative artists believe the work of art speaks for itself. It does and does not, but that is an issue for later pursuit. (Intriguingly, if another sort of medium were consulted, perhaps the interpretive artist could get the fuller picture of a work of art from a dead creative artist, but of course that would mean the psychic business was real, and it's not -- it's all a bunch of hokey baloney.)

So, the interpretive artist definitely serves as a medium -- an intermediate between the primary artist (the playwright, the composer, the song writer, the choreographer) and the audience.

Now ... is the primary artist a medium? That is a more debateable topic, perhaps. The primary artist creates a work inspired from some inner resource of mind, experience, imagination, and ... who knows what else? Inspiration? Whatever. In any case, unless one wishes to assert that the primary artist, the creator of the work of art is an intermediary between his own creative impulse (!) and the finished work of art, I suppose the argument of the creative artist being a medium has merit. Yet, I prefer to think otherwise about the primary artist since I see him/her as the initial point of the creation -- I don't separate the artist's mind from his/her physical being.

Of course, in the case of a primary artist (say a playwright) taking an actual happening, a news story for instance, and translating it into a work for the stage, one could possibly argue that the artist served as a "medium" between the incident and the final manifestation of the art work -- but that might be stretching the point, too.

Still, it seems easier, I think, to see how an interpretive artist (actor, dancer, singer, musician) can be a medium than to see the same thing from the primary artist.

At least this is one way to look at the topic. Give it what consideration you will. As you deliberate upon this issue you'll begin to see more and more how the lines blur and the definitions expand and lead to further possibilities.

By the way, I pen this response from the perspective of having been largely, for most of my career, a primary artist rather than an interpretive artist. (Sure, I have experience on the performing level, but it was never my forte and I find that the creating of art, collaborative art, is more suited to my nature than is the performing of art, the role of the medium, so to speak.) As a creative artist I have great respect for the mediums out there who translate my work into a real substance for consumption by an audience. I depend upon them to fulfill the blueprint of my art. In this respect, as the generator of the blueprint, I don't see myself as a medium at all. Like a lot of artists, I'm not sure where many of my ideas come from. Which is why I can grasp onto the reality of "inspiration" -- a numinous, unaccountable, mysterious working of the mind, no doubt, but nothing associated with anything "medium" oriented as far as I'm concerned.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Thank you, Sonnet. That essay has, beside its primary thrust, embryonic threads sticking out all over it. I was struck by its resemblance to a sprouting potato.

Having been a writer (not author) rather than creative artist or medium, I am among the uninitiated - unwashed, so can add nothing germane to the subject matter. Still, for whatever it is worth, thanks.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Ukko said:


> Thank you, Sonnet. That essay has, beside its primary thrust, embryonic threads sticking out all over it. I was struck by its resemblance to a sprouting potato.
> 
> Having been a writer (not author) rather than creative artist or medium, I am among the uninitiated - unwashed, so can add nothing germane to the subject matter. Still, for whatever it is worth, thanks.


A potato? Of course, the potato is a tuber. A stem tuber, to be more precise. The tuber serves as a storage mechanism -- nutrients for the plant -- and is a sort of "medium" between the roots and the leaves of the plant.

I'm impressed by your use of this metaphor -- a medium-type plant referenced for a post about the artist as a medium.

And of course you have something to add to this conversation. And you did. Thank you, in turn.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

SONNET CLV said:


> A potato? Of course, the potato is a tuber. A stem tuber, to be more precise. The tuber serves as a storage mechanism -- nutrients for the plant -- and is a sort of "medium" between the roots and the leaves of the plant.
> 
> I'm impressed by your use of this metaphor -- a medium-type plant referenced for a post about the artist as a medium.
> 
> And of course you have something to add to this conversation. And you did. Thank you, in turn.


Hah! Excellent response, though maybe you misread my intent.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

What happened to McLeod? Did he get bored with us?



MacLeod said:


> In another thread, a member posted that
> What this seems to imply is that a work of art has an existence of its own, independent of the artist...
> 
> Yes, this could be true if a new paradigm of the art is emerging, and would be put into existence regardless of the individual artist...this would be called *historical determinism.
> ...


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## Guest (Jun 3, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> What happened to McLeod? Did he get bored with us?


No, but I could see that the question I asked was not going to be discussed. In fact, it was flatly rejected as a silly question by aleazk. That's not a problem, as it still prompted a discussion on a slightly different tack that others were happy to continue. As I've said before, the OP doesn't own the thread, and there is no compulsion on the OP to keep things going or declare the discussion ended.

Carry on...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> In another thread, a member posted that
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I am not sure what the question is if it isn't what has been discussed, but I'll go ahead and take a stab at it to see if I can contribute to anyone's satisfaction....

It's complicated.

A first approximation is that one person thinks up a work of art and then people perform or interpret it. If the performers are different people than the original creator, then it seems obvious to me that in some sense the performers are a medium.

(This applies in an obvious sense to music and theater, and with written literature the reader is always and inevitably a performer/interpreter. But also with painting or sculpture, or just about anything, when you take into account that the artist is unlikely to have complete control over how the work of art is going to be displayed. For example, Da Vinci probably didn't intend La Gioconda to occupy a room of a museum, but someone somewhere made the decision to "perform" it that way, and that's the only way you or I are ever going to see it. Even if the person who makes those decisions really tries to honor the creators' intentions, inevitably that person has to make some choices along the way, since reality is too complicated for a creator to describe every aspect of everything.)

But there are complications. One that has been explored already is that creators sometimes experience the process of creation as a sort of possession experience - as if some higher, supernatural being is revealing the art to them. I'd say that's just a psychological phenomenon, and probably very dependent on cultural contexts, and I'd say anyone who takes such experiences as literally happening has a heavy burden of proof. But that gets too far from music for this thread or forum.

A more significant, for me, complication is that works of art often seem to the creators to have a "logic" of their own. What makes this interesting to me is that later creators (or the same creator at a later date) can create a variation of the original work, exploring its "logic" further. This might be easiest to see in literature and theater, where stories are told and retold endlessly.

As an example, Bram Stoker's _Dracula_ has a lot of virtues to recommend it, and it inspired a lot of creative people to think about his story and recreate it, sometimes exploring the "logic" of it - things like the power or vulnerability of the female characters, especially in their sexuality, the animality of the vampire, the unreliability of the various "narrators," the theme of insanity - in ways that Stoker didn't. If you've seen the movies, you might know that Werner Herzog and James Hart both completely transformed some aspects of the story, and IMO Dracula can never be told the same way again (think about how the ending of Herzog's version influenced Hart, who then reinterpreted the origin of Dracula's attraction to the Mina ["Lucy" for Herzog] character). None of this is illegitimate, and it leads to a very real sense that the Dracula story is far more than just Bram Stoker's creation, as if he just began to explore a set of narrative elements that other people have been able to explore further. Dracula is a tradition of which even Bram Stoker is a medium - the most important one, perhaps, but among many others at least.

That kind of intertextuality is most obvious in jazz and pop music, where the original creator(s) of a song are often almost unknown; in classical music the composer is closer to a god and his (or her) intentions are usually understood as something like sacrosanct. "Variations on a theme of X" are about as intertextual as we allow ourselves to get without discomfort. Transcriptions are inherently suspicious; an interpreter like Pogorelich is dubious; Tomita is treated as a sideshow. But this tells us something about the culture of "classical" music rather than about music or art in general. In many of the world's musical traditions, the original creators are either unknown or semi-mythological. A performer performs a work the way he or she thinks it should be performed, period.

I think this intertextual idea gets to something real - archetypes, even. My mind is different than yours in a bajillion ways that we'll never be able to identify or classify, but our minds are actually pretty similar too. If I create something, you will probably find some latent possibilities in my creation, and in a world without copyrights (or the classical music culture) you would explore them yourself.

So in that sense we (as creators and/or performers) are ultimately all "mediums" exploring the human experience, whether that's the experience of sound, of color, of physical structure, of love and loss, whatever.

So this question has been answered; we should now discuss Cage and Babbitt.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> No, but I could see that the question I asked was not going to be discussed. In fact, it was flatly rejected as a silly question by aleazk.


Well, the reason I didn't answer the question is because I see it as flawed. If the artist is a conduit, that doesn't require that the art itself is imperfect or removed, because art reflects human experience.

"...this seems to imply is that a work of art has an existence of its own, independent of the artist..."

That's a misleading way of saying that art reflects universal elements of human experience, without necessarily being the sole expression of a lone individual. No man is an island.

"...and that what eventually emerges into reality through the 'medium' of the composer is not necessarily the true, real, pure work, only an imperfect version..."

That's a flawed leap of logic. You should look at some Chinese art, the individual means much less; or forget it and go back to wagner.


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## Guest (Jun 3, 2014)

Posters have offered some interesting insights into the idea that art(efacts) may well have been created as a result of a mediated process - from composer, through performer, into performance, for example, or from writer through adapter and director to film etc.

What has been noted is that that mediated process can impact on the artefact in ways that may not have been intended by the originator/creator, and that such impacts may be negative or positive, acceptable or unacceptable - to the creator at least, though not necessarily the audience.

I'm assuming that this is more broadly what PetrB intended in his post, which I referenced in my OP. However, that was not my question, and I think that I've not made my question plain enough, and I don't understand Plato well enough to make it plainer. (btw, I had no thought, when using the word 'medium' of any connection with the supernatural/spiritual!)

Those of you who've read this far and still think this is a silly or flawed question, look away now, as I'm going to have a go at explaining what I was asking. I'm very happy for those who wish to stick with it to tell me that Platonic Realism is daft, but if I don't ask the question, how will I know the answer??

Platonic realism, according to wiki, looks like this...



> In Platonic realism, _universals_ do not exist in the way that ordinary physical objects exist, even though Plato metaphorically referred to such objects to explain his concepts. [...] Platonic realism holds that _universals_ do exist in a broad, abstract sense, although not at any spatial or temporal distance from people's bodies. Thus, people cannot see or otherwise come into sensory contact with universals, but in order to conceive of universals, one must be able to conceive of these abstract forms.


and



> Plato's interpretation of universals is linked to his _Theory of Forms_ [...]. Forms are mind independent abstract objects or paradigms [...] of which particular objects and the properties and relations present in them are copies. Form is inherent in the particulars and these are said to _participate in_ the form. [...] Platonic form can be illustrated by contrasting a material triangle with an ideal triangle. The Platonic form is the ideal triangle - a figure with perfectly drawn lines whose angles add to 180 degrees. Any form of triangle that we experience will be an imperfect representation of the ideal triangle. Regardless of how precise your measuring and drawing tools you will never be able to recreate this perfect shape. Even drawn to the point where our senses cannot perceive a defect, in its essence the shape will still be imperfect; forever unable to match the ideal triangle.


So, my question was, could this apply to a piece of art, and if so, does the artist act like a medium, able to produce the copy (albeit an imperfect one) from the universal form (the perfect one). It was prompted by PetrB's suggestion that the artist is not a reliable commentator on the truth of the work he produces. Hence my silly and extreme idea that the perfect form of _Marriage of Figaro_ is not like the copy that Mozart put in front of us; _Different Trains_ is a better copy of the universal _MoF

_It's a joke, really. I'm not expecting any laughs though!


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I edited this post because MacLeod just answered my question it in the post above (which I didn't see before posting this).


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod, for me personally Platonism is too big a topic to explore here. I have worked on it a bit in my time, and my conclusion is that it is both intellectually compelling and wrong.

A few of the things in my long post can look like the beginnings of Platonism - "archetype" is basically a New Agey word for "form" - but the way I explain them, in terms of similarities between human minds, is not Platonic.

Just in case you really want to get into Platonism and figure out what it's all about, I don't think art is the right entryway. You'll want to begin by trying to imagine how the world looked to his near contemporaries, the pre-Socratic philosophers. They struggled mightily with questions like, "What are things, really?" and, "What is really happening when things change?" The theory of forms originates as an attempt to answer questions like that. Once he's got it, he applies it to art and everything else as well.

As fascinating as the ancient Greek intellectual world is, I would recommend that you look into the Medieval philosophers as well, since they're the ones who decided Plato was wrong, and for the most part we've inherited their beliefs.

But actually reading all these guys is way too much work. The internet is full of good stuff - wikipedia, the Stanford Encyclopedia - but what I really wouldn't want to be without is Copleston's _History of Philosophy_. A phenomenal work; every page I've read is clear, straightforward, charitable to the philosophers in question, and as far as I know accurate. He's really great on the stuff we're discussing now, especially in his third volume. I'd say, begin with Copleston and other sources like that, and then, if you really want to, move on to primary sources.


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## Guest (Jun 4, 2014)

Thanks science.

I actually came across this idea - of universal forms - when reading EM Forster and the background to Modernism, which threw up the philosopher GE Moore. It's a very long time since I did this, but I recall thinking that even in the early part of the 20thC, Plato's ideas were alive and kicking out at those who would criticise them!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Thanks science.
> 
> I actually came across this idea - of universal forms - when reading EM Forster and the background to Modernism, which threw up the philosopher GE Moore. It's a very long time since I did this, but I recall thinking that even in the early part of the 20thC, Plato's ideas were alive and kicking out at those who would criticise them!


Within philosophy and especially theology departments, they definitely still are; but culturally at large, I don't think they are.

In fact, in a world of constant technological innovation, it takes some imagination to be a Platonist!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Posters have offered some interesting insights into the idea that art(efacts) may well have been created as a result of a mediated process - from composer, through performer, into performance, for example, or from writer through adapter and director to film etc.
> 
> What has been noted is that that mediated process can impact on the artefact in ways that may not have been intended by the originator/creator, and that such impacts may be negative or positive, acceptable or unacceptable - to the creator at least, though not necessarily the audience.
> 
> ...


Platonic ideas are really not that complicated when you think of them as abstractions, and Plato was thinking of the ideal geometric forms this way.

For example, the idea of "two-ness" is represented by the number 2. This could be any two real things: two apples, two lemons, etc.

I think this abstraction process begins to break down and show its limitations when we try to apply it to more complex and 'realised' art forms.

Schoenberg did say once that musical ideas came to him fully formed, 'at once' instantaneously, and then all he had to do was 'flesh them out' and make them real.

In this case, Schoenberg was a consummate craftsman, so he could translate ideas like this into sound very well; but no language is perfect, and no language exists which can keep up with pure thought. Additionally, I think Schoenberg was speaking generally.

Even consummate improvisors, like Charlie Parker or John Coltrane, cannot do this perfectly. But they have mastered the limitations of their translating devices (the saxophone), and thus the impression is of "thought instantly translated into sound."

This is really a question of semiotics, or language...I don't think that "perfect" abstractions exist except as applied to relatively simple abstractions, such as circles, lines, points, and numbers.

For example, the "Platonic" idea of a chair does not refer to any one specific chair; "chair" is simply a generalized abstraction of a type of object, which could manifest in any number of forms; additionally, limitations would eventually have to be put into place which defined the range of possibilities; for example, if I sit on a rock, is this to be considered a "chair"or not?

I do know that Schoenberg had a very analytical mind, as John Cage related in his story. He presented a problem, and asked for all possible solutions. After all possible solutions had been presented, he said, "Now what is the underlying principle behind all these solutions?"

Those are the kinds of "abstractions" we need to deal with; abstractions which have to do with thought process and language, instead of 'fantasizing' some sort of perfection which doesn't exist.

That's why I think this whole question is flawed; I think you're giving too much power to generalized notions of the "ideal," and not enough power to "this is the best of all possible worlds."


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## Guest (Jun 4, 2014)

I don't see how a question can be flawed. A question is a question.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

I think the member who posted the original post in the other thread had a bit too much to drink


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> I don't see how a question can be flawed. A question is a question.


Uh...which tastes more like liver, white bread or whole wheat?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> I don't see how a question can be flawed. A question is a question.


I agree. Even if it's the wrong question it is a step toward the right question. Don't let the haters getchah down!


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