Art Imitates Art: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai
After the reading discussion, I went into a deep thinking about the state of art, and more specifically a new saying: art imitates art. This saying is very much how I feel about art right now. Nothing is original. But to some extent, this is completely okay. I mean our humanity holds us back from truly creating something new every time, and surely, this also means that there is a limit to how many new things we can truly create. 
If this is true, then that would mean that a web of the already created genres and mediums and formats also exists, and this web keeps expanding, creating small pockets of sub-genres, which create even more pockets of sub-genres. To me, this is originality, pushing the envelope to more pockets, to more sub-genres, to new ideas that merge with other already created ideas. This is the peak of human intellect.
In Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, there are various parts that seem to appeal to Western Culture, and I think that it's perfect, obviously in the context of time. If we look at our contemporaries, we might not understand a lot of the things that are currently going on, and that is okay. Art is not to be understood right away. It is this opinion that leads me to believe that Art will never work under capitalism. At its core, and under this machine, Art will never truly show expression, but rather a mask of such concept, the very top layer.
We are creatures meant to create, not to consume, that is the curse we're under.
Furthermore, I'd like to talk about sampling in music. You interpolate parts of different music into a beat to create a new song. Once again, this is peak human intellect. It is using what we have to create more, and as the world soars through globalization, this will keep happening. In my opinion, it isn't colonizing or gentrifying or appropriation, it is art, simple as that. If the art does not resonate with you, then leave it. However, It must also be understood that you shouldn't just grab a Miles Davis song and call it your own. We must learn to pay our respects to the art.
But this is increasingly hard with the internet. I mean, I can go on YouTube right now and find millions of "Sample Packs", which feature hundreds of artists of many ethnicities. The internet makes it so easy to find inspiration, yet this facility makes it so hard to truly appreciate what you find.
I feel like this will be a very prominent issue within the art community in a couple of year, how do we truly pay our respects?
Billy- I think your comment about sampling in music is very interesting. I think that your take on art is similar to some people's take on comedy in that if you don't find it funny or even if a person may find it offensive a person can argue "then don't laugh and move on". I think this works fine with are and resonating with a person because in some ways I think that even being offensive can sometimes be a conscious goal in art.
ReplyDeleteThere are people who seem to create entirely without precedent. I think that Nam June Paik is one of these people. It is not an accident that he was not working within an art form that has a commercial imperative. Bollywood, Hollywood and Nollywood all operate with the commercial imperative to make money so repitition is inescapable. I think that is why many artists and scholars look to non-commercial art to discover true innovation.
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