Frances to Armando and others... You may be overstating the notion of "safe" for rhetorical artistic purposes here, at least it is hoped so. The architect who said safe in regard to making buildings too close and high meant instrumental and operational safety, about aspects that are say material, technical, mechanical, chemical, electrical, structural, and so on. The term safe was also aligned with the terms sound and sanitary and secure. In other words, the public safety ought not be put at risk by the fabrication of art or nonart. My point further was that there seems to be something sublimely aesthetic and sensually exciting about putting the self in danger, but of course with no risk, like say being shot at in combat without success. In any event, the safety factors of concern to architectures apply equally to sculptures and pictures, as you very well know. To think otherwise is to be childish or foolish.
Armando wrote... Art does not hide behind "Safe". Frances wrote: > Frances belatedly to members... > Allow me to drop this post, because it may be worth some > reflection and comment. An architect recently stated to me that > it is wrong to construct buildings that will be occupied or > inhabited higher than the ground floor or over one storey high, > and bad to build them close to one another, mainly for purposes > of safety. This makes sense to me, but it is an ideal that will > likely never exist. In any event, it occurred to me that normal > mature humans often do dangerous things that are clearly risky > for the sheer fun of it. Sailing at night in dense fog on calm > water into unseen space for example is a sublime exhilarating > experience with strong aesthetic overtones. This feeling of > deliberate excitement for its own sake may very well be > applicable to sailing, but also to building and fighting and > racing and so on. The issue of course remains, which is why > buildings indeed are made close and high, when it is clearly not > safe.
