Re: [microsound] miles of styles of philosophes

[David Powers <cyborgk@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 1/30/07, Ian Reddy <dr144@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I think that in art, emotion is something either projected
> onto the work or it is something acted out by the performer.
> No work of art is a raw emotional outburst - that's impossible
> as art and music are obviously mediated through the intellect
> and already existing cultural forms.

Yes, I was hoping someone would point this out, thank you!

As I have insisted in the past, I  must once again point out how
flawed I think the model of communication is, that implies that a
creator is able to directly insert an emotion into a piece. This is
impossible - emotion is a chemical response in the individual to
various stimuli. The work of art is not a container. If an actor in a
play is angry onstage, and starts screaming, it doesn't make me angry.

Emotion only exists in terms of probability. You can encode a set of
gestures into a piece of music, that (given a culturally homogenous
group with known conditioning) has a high probability of provoking an
emotional response. However, if you played the music for someone who
lacked the relevant cultural context and conditioning, there would be
no emotional response.

Note that attempting to specifically provoke emotional responses is an
aesthetic choice on the part of the creator. Alternately, creator can
design artistic pieces using very minimal grammars and avoiding
linguistic elements that provoke obvious responses. Such artwork may
appear more cerebral to the average observer - though there is still
the possibility that by virtue of its construction and the particular
mindset and manner of observation, the artwork will nevertheless
provoke an emotional response.

Finally, words are intimately connected with power and control. The
level of conditioned response to language is high, so it's likely that
lyric-based music does have a higher probability of provoking an
emotional response in observers that can interpret the linguistic
statements correctly (ie. you must know the language being used).

~David

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