[Marsha] But that is exactly what it is for me. I am manipulating symbols and spinning a story with a brush.
[Arlo] I've used the analogy in one of my classes that "Sculpture" is to "metaphor" what "rotissiere building" is to "literal". Pirsig reminds us that even though its been a while, the latter is a long-long cousin of the former. ""Well, it is art," I say. "This divorce of art from technology is completely unnatural. It’s just that it’s gone on so long you have to be an archeologist to find out where the two separated. Rotisserie assembly is actually a long-lost branch of sculpture, so divorced from its roots by centuries of intellectual wrong turns that just to associate the two sounds ludicrous."" (ZMM) I could say, "This divorce of metaphor from literal is completely unnatural. It’s just that it’s gone on so long you have to be an archeologist to find out where the two separated. Literal language is actually a long-lost branch of metaphor, so divorced from its roots by centuries of intellectual wrong turns that just to associate the two sounds ludicrous." In this sense, please realize, that I use "art" and "metaphor" almost interchangeably. Painting, dance, theatre, literature, poetry, music, sculpture, design, weaving, landscaping, chautauquas, are all "art". But so, too, is tea making, motorcycle maintenance, home building, gardening, brewing, letter writing, cooking, woodworking, etc. This was for me a primary message of ZMM. There are two ways to do anything. A Quality-filled, enthusiastic, artful, Buddha-minded way, and a mundane, uninspired, quality-empty way. The elites have told us that only "High Art" is "art". Pirsig reminds us that fixing our motorcycles is a form of art as well. To your point, I've argued that "art" (or "metaphor") is any act that uses culturally-bound symbols in such a way as to allow those within that culture to see beyond what their symbol-systems afford them to see. In other words, art is the use of symbols to point at meaning that is forever outside its symbol-system... aka Dynamic Quality. Those who listen to Bach's Art of Fugue, and come away amazed at his skillful mastery of contrapunctual composition, have gained appreciation for the "literal", but those who, in engaging with the music, have an "out-of-body" or "other-minded" moment when something inexpressible becomes clear, have touched the "art". I often refer to that "other-mindedness" as "Flow". It can happen during listening to Bach, or listening to Rage Against the Machine. We gauge these on larger cultural scales as what has brought more people to flow over longer periods of time. Or take painting. If someone sees one of Marsha's paintings and is impressed with her use of perspective only sees the literal form, but if in that moment is swept away in a loss of self, then they have experienced "art". Or, the have experienced "Dynamic Quality". moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
