Hi all,
Ken wrote:
>Most of us knew Satie's work. I'm not sure there is a link between his
ideas and many of the issues we pursued, though -- of course -- the notion
of time and boredom can in part be traced to his work. Dick Higgins was a
talented performer of his music and (I believe) once made a recording of
Satie's piano works.<
I didn't know that Dick Higgins performed Satie...thanks.
Ken wrote:
>Satie's work had no special influence on the concept for which I coined the
term "musicality." The concept of musicality involves applying the idea of
a notational form to art that can then be rendered by any artist as the
performer or realizer of the work. That is the essence of music notation.
It isn't peculiar to Satie. All composers from Monteverdi and Mozart to
Bach and Berlioz used notation.<
I wrote:
> Indeed most of the aspects of Fluxus termed "musicality" could be said to
be coming
from a similar compositional approach to Satie.<
What I was trying to get at was a comparison of Satie's compositional
approach to music and the musical quality of Fluxus events. Perhaps I
shouldn't have used the term "musicality" in that way. I was thinking of the
way in which humour is employed in composition. The way Satie sometimes
added humorous texts to his pieces that were not necessarily connected to
the music itself(e.g Trois Valses ) is very similar to certain event score
work by Fluxus Artists. Dick Higgins' "Danger Music" pieces take a similar
compositional approach I feel. Obviously these do not contain music in the
traditional sense but they are musical and similar to Satie's texts in that
some of them are unperformable yet the text itself has a musical element to
it by virtue of a poetic use of language. Many of Satie's added texts are
not performable either.
Maybe I should've just said that I feel that Satie and Fluxus share a
similar sense of humour, and that their respective creative products are
influenced by that. Obviously Satie is much more than a musician and I think
his works, drawings, scores, performance in everyday life are close to
Fluxus yet pre-date it by about 60 years. According to some writers Satie's
ideas pre-dated Dada so maybe they have even gone from Satie to Dada to late
50's Neo-Dada to Fluxus? Who knows really...I just prefer to keep an open
mind about influence in these cases.
As for musicality I felt that as a term it also encapsulated the musical
quality of Fluxus events - I'm probably wrong here and just reading too much
into it. The fact that Fluxus performances were often approached with the
same seriousness that one would approach a piece of classical music and that
the humour that comes through (i.e. being serious about not being serious)
is a part of that. This is why I see similarities to Satie. Of course these
kind of comparisons are fairly subjective anyway. I was really just trying
to explore the idea of second-hand influences on creative activity.
Ken wrote:
>In the modern era,the era of signed work and originality, one is somehow
obliged to
acknowledge one's sources as best possible. It's odd to borrow on the wide,
common culture while claiming the status of an originator and signatory.<
It is indeed odd but alas not unusual.
Ken wrote:
>Artists don't merely borrow on advertisements and ideas gleaned from the
unsigned street. They read art magazines, art history books, visit
galleries and museums. Prior artists found in these places are sources of
influence who are known to the artists who draw on them, or at least they
should be known.<
I wasn't trying to imply that artists only borrow from advertisements and
other public images but rather using this as an example of how an artist can
come to ideas second-hand and then pass them off as their own original work
without entering a contradictory situation. Yes, there are artists reading
art history etc. and taking ideas without ever acknowledging them but there
are also artists who read next to nothing and just create and these artists
are likely to come under a variety of visual influences which they are
unaware of. I have to say that I'm not sure how much reading of art
literature many artists do anyway apart from something that maybe required
reading during a degree course.
Ken wrote:
>The books of Something Else Press are far more accessible in the US. Press
runs were generally between 1,000 and 3,000 copies, and most exist in
several hundred libraries.
Even in the UK, however, there are enough copies that all SEP titles are
available via interlibrary loan.<
I'm not sure how available these titles are by Inter-Library loan. I was
talking about the books actually being available in UK libraries rather than
by Inter-Library Loan from libraries abroad. Searches for Something Else
Press books via the British Library catalogue, Firstsearch etc. turn up next
to nothing that can actually be sent to you via inter-library loan. If we
compare this difficulty in getting Something Else Press titles to the easy
availability of "In the Spirit of Fluxus" or the Thomas Kellein book then
we can easily see which view of Fluxus will become more prevalent. Of course
I accept the short print run problem too. I often wonder why more Something
Else Press titles haven't been reprinted. I know Atlas reprinted "An
Annecdoted Topography of Chance" relatively recently but what about others?
Ken wrote:
>The Fluxus Reader, for example, was an attempt to overcome narrow readings
of the past while providing a documentary data base for future work.<
I liked the Fluxus Reader a lot and agree that it will do more for a wider
view of Fluxus than its contemporaries however I often wonder if the average
reader will be more attracted to the "glossy photo" Fluxus books instead and
the different viewpoint that goes with them. Hope not.
cheers,
Sol
