Alan Greenspan on the "Cross of Gold"

Admittedly, this is a bit of a mixed metaphor.

Alas, poor...

Faces in India Ink

Mechanical Baby

Looking at Art:

When you walk into any art gallery, it is almost guaranteed that you will be essentially treated to several pieces which you believe strongly have absolutely no point, but at the same time, told that you have no right to pass judgment on them. In our culture, we have reached the point where no act to limit or critique art is seen as legitimate; unfortunately, this has extended to eradicate the role of the viewer as an active individual participant in art. Should you not like a piece of art, you simply do not or cannot “understand” it. Perhaps you are insufficiently schooled in the subtleties of process; perhaps you are a capitalist pig, a mere slave to the machine of consumerism. In any case, it is my firm belief that the point of art is, on some level, communication, and for this to be successful, interaction between artist and viewer is absolutely necessary. With the current paradigms by which we look at art in our society, however, this is not possible. So what can be changed in the way we look at art to make it meaningful, and why?

Meaning is created by the right to hold opinions and pass judgments.

So how has this aspect been made so one-sided?

The first issue with art today is the conceptions regarding how it should be created. Often, art is based solely on “process”, with the result being almost an accident. Often, the process is opaque to everyone except for the artist; it is often only discovered when pointed out. Thus, in cases like this, art is focused solely on the artist. The audience, if not nonexistent, is often construed as largely unimportant to the work; they are largely excluded, and, at most, expected to be passive receptors to the artist’s internal processes. Because of this somewhat solipsistic perspective that is offered to the artist, even if “interaction” with the art is intended, it is merely an imposition of the artist, and no actual interaction can take place.

Corollary to this is the role played by the viewer, compared to the role that they should be able to play. As an autonomous entity, with their own background and experience, the viewer brings him or herself to the work; the art is interpreted on an individual basis. It is a fundamental right of the viewer to be able to judge and interpret what they see freely, and it is through the exercise of this right that a rapport between viewer and artist is created. Thus, the person looking at a piece of art can choose whether or not they “like” it, and because of the rationale that art is fundamentally subjective (to be dealt with in more detail in succeeding paragraphs), the viewer is justified, just as much as the artist, in holding ideas and passing judgment on the piece.

Although I see this as an ideal, the current perspective on art only allows for this subjectivity on the part of the artist. Art can be defined by any set of criteria, providing the criteria are those of the artist. This reduces the art’s ability to be grounded in a legitimate participatory nature. Just as in the past, there was an objective value system to define what was and wasn’t art, today we have a system that insists we must recognize everything as art, ironically removing the freedom to be subjective initially enshrined by such a system. As things stand, the viewer is expected to be entirely open to the whims of the artist; because anything can be art, the viewer is forced into the position whereby they accept the misconception that everything is art (as opposed to a perfectly acceptable personal definition, based on the values of the viewer). Although the artist definitely does, and should continue to be viewed as having the role of being a value-definer of art, this right should be extended to the viewer.

As a viewer of art, I would also like to forward my vision of a subjective value-system for art. Ideally, I believe art should be founded in one of two main principles. The first of these is pure aesthetic merit. That is, a piece should be seen as either beautiful, or otherwise possessing of sensory appeal or interest. The second principle is that of art presenting an original “point”, or expressing meaning in a novel or interesting fashion, either in terms of a visible process or end result. The reasons for these criteria reach into the very root of what the fundamental purpose of art is. Essentially, this is, as mentioned previously. Regarding the first, aesthetically pleasing objects fulfill a purpose in making us happy, or providing emotional or sensory stimulation, perhaps allowing us to appreciate or understand our environment in a new way. I believe that this is completely acceptable as an artistic end. Additionally, it follows the idea of artist-viewer interaction, in that the artist is expressing their vision, and we are reacting to it, and this is an integral part of the artwork.

Art need not be aesthetically pleasing, however. This is the primary reason for my second principle. It may be the specific intention of the artist to create something we would commonly construe as ugly or unattractive in order to make a particular point or transmit some sort of message. The only problem with this is that it is, quite frankly, overdone and when it is not original, it loses merit, in that it is not giving anything to the viewer: it does not present anything pleasing, interesting, or seriously thought provoking. This, of course, is a completely subjective definition, and one person stating that they do not feel a piece of art has any value does not absolutely delegitimize a piece of art, but instead, strengthens the value of art on the whole.

So what, in the end, am I advocating? I believe that the role of the viewer in art is essential, and that part of their role that has been neglected by the “art establishment” is that of applying their skills of discretion and making judgements. As a result of current perspectives on art, it has grown increasingly irrelevant as a method of communication or interaction. Common artistic media are very versatile, giving nearly endless opportunities for thought and expression, and by bringing the viewer back into art, it would do much to revitalize art, by creating actual meaning that could be appreciated on individuals’ own terms.

Vancouver Special, or Why “The Best Place on Earth” is so Ugly:

Our cities are under siege.

There is no denial of this fact, that both in terms of residential and commercial architecture, many utterly hideous buildings are being built, and have been built in Vancouver, especially over the past twenty years. The largely placid acceptance of this by residents, not to mention the gall (or simple idiocy) necessary on the part of architects and construction firms to actually go through with such horrible projects, has made, I believe, a strong contribution to the unpleasantness of Vancouver’s architecture today.

What is it that makes these buildings so unappealing? It is a combination of poor design, with a lack of practical considerations regarding the utility of the building, and a choice of materials which are expedient, but often of substandard quality. Current residential aesthetic trends also favour materials for their cleanness of line, and newness; not only does this ensure that buildings in this style do not age well, but also when they are new, gives them an impression of being childish and toy-like. There is an obsessive attention to matching details, often making houses seem unduly fussy in appearance; accentuating the frequent cheapness of the materials. Another trend is the use of bright or jewel tone colours: red, blue, turquoise, and, in previous years, pink. Thus, houses on a given street will rarely match, which, when combined with the frequent selection of “off” colours that do not match the landscape, is a serious eyesore. Houses are also designed to maximize the space allotments for a lot size, resulting in square, bulky buildings, aptly known as “monster homes”, which do not allow for more developed gardens, or a great deal of privacy.

In commercial buildings, specifically towers, we find many problems similar to those of houses, however there are also some significant differences. For example, the material of choice for towers is often glass, leading to a clean aesthetic which, unlike in the case of houses, shows congruence between the nature of the building material, and its use. This, however, often poses practical problems, such as that of cooling the building in summer, which are insufficiently dealt with. Like for houses, the selection of ornamentation, or defining design elements often poses a problem. Trying to create a “distinctive” looking building frequently leads to stylistic clashes with the rest of the city, especially as such purported distinction usually simply means that a tower has the same stylistic flaws as a residence. A prominent international example of this is New York’s AT&T building, which attempts to reference neo-classicism, but does not take the buildings around it into account, and, with its conspicuous smoothness of form, subverts the organization of the cityscape. Equally bad are buildings, all too frequent, whose architects attempt to make use of a gimmick for the purpose of having a noticeable design. Some notable examples of this in Vancouver can be seen on the Downtown side of the Burrard Street Bridge. One of these is the residential tower which uses round windows along one side of a building with otherwise large, square windows. On the other side of the bridge, equally bad, is a building whose roof is dominated by a garish skylight which resembles nothing more than a witches hat. All too frequently, there is also the problem of colours on one edifice that are found nowhere else in a building’s district, thereby often hideously clashing.

A major tenet of modern art is that the creation of beauty is not a valid purpose in creating art. Instead, art must provoke thought and intense deliberation.

Unfortunately, this does not bode equally true for architecture. Unlike pure art, architecture also serves a distinctly practical purpose, and should therefore be designed with the goals in mind of improving both the aesthetic and functional aspects of the community that it exists in.

Although some may say that it is impossible to legislate taste, I would like to argue that the city already exercises strict control over what can be built, and many neighbourhoods in Vancouver already impose strict stylistic restrictions on houses for the sake of consistency. All that is necessary is to ensure that the requirements to be met are actually conducive to less offensive edifices, would be to make tacky ornamentation and ridiculous colour schemes forbidden, and to create some kind of incentive to not build the largest house allowable on a given lot size. Regulations of this sort would not be hard at all to implement, and would go a long way to improving the aesthetic qualities of Vancouver.

The Curse of the Golden Flower and Grindhouse: a Double (er . . . triple) Feature Review

"Grindhouse" is the sort of movie that is bound to make those who grew up in the 1970’s grimace, as they think cheerfully about how bad movies used to be, at the same time that it makes those who grew up more recently think to themselves, “thank God I didn’t grow up in the seventies”. It is a real generation uniter, though not, I believe, in the fashion that Rodriguez and Tarantino intended. This film (or films, as it were) are droll for a while, as cheerfully garish nostalgia. But merely because the basis for their homage is so banal and tacky, the film itself is forced into that same trail of bad taste. Violence is depicted with visceral fascination, with an almost surgical interest in documenting every cut, amputation, and disembowelment. Another problem with the films is that they do not create a cohesive sense of their role as either a serious film or an outright parody. Had the directors taken a bolder step in actually satirizing the genre more clearly, that is, in creating a sense of distance from characters, and taking absolutely none of their characteristics, actions or ambitions seriously, it would have been a much greater success. This was done to a certain degree in "Planet Terror", the initial segment, but did not carry over into Tarantino’s "Death Proof", which, to the viewer, is a first semi-disconnected murder story, and then a highly glorified car chase. As it were, then, this film was interesting for its novelty value, and not something I would generally recommend. My only exception to this would be to purchase a copy of the soundtrack to "Planet Terror".

On the other side of things, "The Curse of the Golden Flower" is a Chinese historical fantasy, based about a decadent and crumbling imperial society, rife with intrigue, incest and megalomania. Like "Grindhouse", "The Curse of the Godlen Flower" is a largely derivative work, although it does work out much better as an individual film; it is possible to enjoy it without constantly referencing the sort of films which have came before it (except for perhaps other films recently directed by Zhang Yimou, such as "Hero", "House of Flying Daggers", etc.). When I was watching this film, I saw the consistent aesthetic echoes of its predecessors, but exaggerated. This artistic vision, however, complements a plot that is equally baroque.

Initially, any connection between "The Curse of the Golden Flower" and "Grindhouse" would seem quite tenuous. Here is one film set in a stylized, quasi-rococo Tang Dynasty, and here is another set in the imagined film grit of the 1970’s, but rife with seemingly anachronistic modernisms, most notably PDA’s and modern cars. Both of them, however, are strikingly similar in their approach to visualizing their respective worlds. Both are characterized by an extreme stylization, exaggerating the conventions upon which they build into a garish aesthetic gestalt. For example, in "The Curse of the Golden Flower", there are many of the elements of the contemporary Chinese martial-arts/history film: multitudes of soldiers, warriors suspended from wires, floating about perpetrating acts of destruction against each other, rebellion against empire, and the ultimate restoration of order to the system. Here, however, this is taken to the most extreme degree, developing what is normally a cold, ascetic visual palette into something both golden and multicoloured, everything aggressively ornamented with reliefs, gilded, and ostentatiously declaring its dramatic intensity. Likewise, "Grindhouse" takes a similar path into the aesthetic qualities of exaggeration and ugliness. Indeed, this is the whole purpose of the film: to represent the grotesqueness and poor taste of the original genre in a (satirical?) send-up. Of course, when the basis for your film has a limited aesthetic quality, and is as awful as that which inspired "Grindhouse", your film itself is bound to be both bad and tasteless.

Grindhouse–**/*****

The Curse of the Golden Flower–**1/2 /*****

Films reviewed by Dancing Turkey Productions.