"what Is Art?" - Neurotic Questions Served!

[Patrique]

Greetings from Sweden. Hi!

I'll get straight into it. I had ambitions to become a film director since i was 10 years old. Massive anxiety and shit has made me question that ambition and my motivations behind it. So maybe my questions here is more of a mental masturbation procrastination type that just gets me stuck, but i'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this. The last 5 years i've been wondering quite a lot if art is a moral thing to do. Let me explain:

I'll agree that the artists job is to glorify reality. But what the low conscious people like myself gets from it is not what Leo talks about from my experience.

Introducing; "The Disney lie!". A collection name from the glorified version of the romantic monogamic love i was brought up with. "If i just rescue my damsel in distress, i would live happily ever after". It all looked so compelling to me with all the violin music in the background and birds singing. But then i grow up and realize that i can't find this version of love anywhere. "My relationship is shit compare to the one in this rom com". I feel betrayed. How can Disney brainwash me as a child to form this delusional view on love. 

This same disappointment happens let say if someone wanna see the Great pyramids of Giza. They'll open up their travel magazine and see this beautiful picture of the pyramids with an crisp wide angled lens. The colors has been enhanced. The sky is replaced. All the fat german tourist has been photoshopped out of it. It looks fucking epic. Then you go there, and gets disappointed because this glorified picture of reality makes the "real" reality looks so much more shitty.

Same goes with pictures of the apartment you were interested in. All the photoshopping that is going on in the model industry. "Well, we're just glorifying reality a little bit, thinner waist, bigger boobs, no zits, smooth skin, that's how we all WANT to look, and this can be a motivation to strive to that! :)".

But that's not how most people experience it is it. Higher conscious people are maybe able to separate glorified versions of reality and be amazed by how we're able to glorify this shit so hard. But the wast majority of us, i would argue, gets bummed out because we can't look like that model in that magazine. We can't separate the glorification of reality from reality, we expect reality to correspond to what we've seen on our screens. But it fails every time and reality just looks like a shittier version of the glorified version. 

Even if i could separate the glorified illusion from this illusion, my experience is still that our reality doesn't get elevated by art. It stays the same, only now i've something unreachable i can't get to.

Further more, (I should stress before i write this that this is only my experience of art, i'm not claiming either or, but i realize if i want to create powerful art, i need to change this limiting beliefs somehow, i don't have the motivation to create powerful as long as i feel like art can't change anything, or even is destructive to humanity). The guy who puts up a dead bird in a museum maybe thinks all kinds of pretentious things about his art, as Leo said, "it reflects life and death yada yada. I'ts super important stuff". But really, if you want to create positive change in the world, is this stuff really changing anything? I want to create nonsensical humor skits on YouTube for example, that's what i want. But i can't help to feel how irresponsible that is to a dying world. How can i morally defend that to myself?

 

Conclusion, I want to create art, but i don't see the value in art, i don't experience the value of art. Art for me is a distraction from engaging in the "real world". It creates a fake version of reality that confuses people. It's an temporal escape from pain at best.

I want to have noble ambitions, as long as i see art in this manner i can't be doing art, all the passion is lost if i feel like what i'm doing is making the world suck more.

Edited August 18, 2017 by Patrique

[ajasatya]

@Patrique so, tell me more. what's not part of the real world? how can you be so sure about your definition of reality?

haven't you seen those wonderful paintings made by enlightened zen masters? do you think they want to deceive people?

art touches me deeply. it makes me experience some rare feelings. i am grateful for the work those artists. i am even going to marry an artist!

if you have an investigative psychedelic experience someday, you'll know better what you should mean by the word "real"

[Preetom]

@Patrique Hey man.
I think the level of consciousness determines everything. This phenomenal world has no power in itself. But it appears to be all powerful and tantalizing. Only the Essence/Self exists. "to whom does it appear?" . THAT holds everything and is beyond everything. But our normal perception is literally the inverse of the truth. Unaware of the Self and lost in the appearance of phenomenal world. Such magnanimous is the illusion. 

A personal experience:
When I'm in the monkey mode, driven by all the conditioned patterns and neurosis, no words of wisdom/love feels good. It feels like torture. I just wouldn't listen.
But when the mind is still, all my pomp and folly have been exhausted, just a breath feels tremendously fulfilling.

Literally everything in life (including art) falls into this category. In low consciousness, no shit can serve you. In high consciousness, even shit turns into diamond (just a figure of speech)

So in a sense it's rather futile to analyze, conceptualize the infinite stuff of phenomenal world, their tastes, advantages, disadvantages etc. Because it all boils down to the level of consciousness with which you are perceiving that particular perception at that moment. That's why it's also futile to make art or trying to please for other people because it's all gonna be perceived by their level of consciousness.

Art is in the phenomenal world. Same art is perceived in infinite ways according to the infinite expressions of consciousness.

"To whom does it arise?"
"Who is the perceiver?"
 Without the "I AM", there is no perception nor any quality of the phenomenal world.

[Leo Gura]

  On 8/18/2017 at 10:31 AM, Patrique said:

Conclusion, I want to create art, but i don't see the value in art

What???

Why do you want to create something which has no value in your eyes?

Remember, value is always a projection of the human mind. Nothing actually has value. Including gold, money, family, love, business, science, enlightenment, or anything else. The question of value always just boils down to what you enjoy and want for its own sake.

If you enjoy art, make it.

If you don't enjoy art, don't.

People who become artists simply enjoy the process of making their art. It's really that simple. Of course that doesn't mean it's easy.

[Extreme Z7]

@Patrique  I noticed that most (actually, all) of your expectations of how art should shape the world is shallow and materialistic. Caring more about gross obvious traits of reality and not able to tap into more subtle nuanced parts of it like philosophical aspects or existential parts that art can bring to the forefront of human consciousness. If it were the case that realism was all that mattered, Picasso and others like him would have been homeless.

It's up to you to really shape yourself to desire the subtle. Stop normalizing your self-identity that you are a low-consciousness human being especially if you're aware of these concepts. You ain't gonna get better if you keep normalizing low-consciousness in your life. Have the desire and do some real effort to pursue high-consciousness living. You're like a self-aware donkey that chooses to remain a self-aware donkey because "donkey's gonna do what a donkey's gonna do. That's just life!".

 

  On 8/18/2017 at 10:31 AM, Patrique said:

It creates a fake version of reality that confuses people. It's an temporal escape from pain at best

LOL. You know artwork that showcases pain and suffering exists right?

[Epiphany_Inspired]

to photoshop, or not to photoshop....it's a choice....as a filmmaker you'd have the rare and glorious opportunity to share whichever version of a given reality that you choose to project....and it would be viewed differently by each set of lenses that each viewer wears....in an industry where anything is possible, imposing perceived limitations is likely futile  

[Patrique]

  On 8/18/2017 at 10:42 AM, ajasatya said:

@Patrique so, tell me more. what's not part of the real world? how can you be so sure about your definition of reality?

haven't you seen those wonderful paintings made by enlightened zen masters? do you think they want to deceive people?

art touches me deeply. it makes me experience some rare feelings. i am grateful for the work those artists. i am even going to marry an artist!

if you have an investigative psychedelic experience someday, you'll know better what you should mean by the word "real"

I'm not sure at all about reality. My formulations are maybe clumsy. It's not about how things are or are not, but more about how i experience it and people like me.

I don't think they want to deceive people at all.

That's wonderful!

I've an ayahuasca retreat booked a week from now with 5-me0 DMT as a finally! ^^ Hopefully something can come out that.

[Patrique]

  On 8/18/2017 at 11:55 AM, Preetom said:

@Patrique Hey man.
I think the level of consciousness determines everything. This phenomenal world has no power in itself. But it appears to be all powerful and tantalizing. Only the Essence/Self exists. "to whom does it appear?" . THAT holds everything and is beyond everything. But our normal perception is literally the inverse of the truth. Unaware of the Self and lost in the appearance of phenomenal world. Such magnanimous is the illusion. 

A personal experience:
When I'm in the monkey mode, driven by all the conditioned patterns and neurosis, no words of wisdom/love feels good. It feels like torture. I just wouldn't listen.
But when the mind is still, all my pomp and folly have been exhausted, just a breath feels tremendously fulfilling.

Literally everything in life (including art) falls into this category. In low consciousness, no shit can serve you. In high consciousness, even shit turns into diamond (just a figure of speech)

So in a sense it's rather futile to analyze, conceptualize the infinite stuff of phenomenal world, their tastes, advantages, disadvantages etc. Because it all boils down to the level of consciousness with which you are perceiving that particular perception at that moment. That's why it's also futile to make art or trying to please for other people because it's all gonna be perceived by their level of consciousness.

Art is in the phenomenal world. Same art is perceived in infinite ways according to the infinite expressions of consciousness.

"To whom does it arise?"
"Who is the perceiver?"
 Without the "I AM", there is no perception nor any quality of the phenomenal world.

Exactly!

That's my experience too. Unfortunately i'm in monkey mode 99,9% percent of the time.

My issue is that i thought art could change people. Make them see beauty, or get value insights, regardless of state. I'm not saying it can't. But my story goes something like this: I felt my life purpose from a young age was to create art that could change the world. That would make peoples life better. I made a lot of films that were very appreciated. But around my 20's anxiety took a good grip of my life, and art either had no effect on me (as you talked about) or really negative ones. I started to look back and realized that the art/media that i had consumed from a very young age also had formed a lot of very weird beliefs in me, especially about love. Art wasn't what i though, i thought. I'm enough self aware to not make this a truth claim. But is was, and still am, my experience of art. And i don't want to create art that has that same effect on other people as it had on me, so my fears about that totally ruins my creativity as you can imaging.

And that hits the nail on the head maybe. And is what i suspected in some ways all along. It's me who has to work on myself, it's not art that is the problem. If i get to the state that i feel that art can richen my self in any way again, i'll gladly do art again i feel like.

I recognize also that in the beginning I didn't do art for any one else but me, because i loved it. But i formed this "change the world" thing in a response to my very moralistic mothers expectations of me, i think, or society or whatever. It would be irresponsible for me do something just because i loved it. I had to be a good boy and help the world. And that is still something i can't wrap my head around in all honesty, even though i've seen Leos videos on morality for example. I feel it's irresponsible of me doing something i love, only because i love it. i NEED it to be about something greater to feel that i'm justified in doing it. And why do i feel that i need to be justified? Because otherwise i feel like an asshole who didn't do anything in my life to try to make the world a better place. And i want to try to make the world a better place. And actually all the talk about great ambitions, life purpose and higher values that Leo talks about confuses me even more in this. Something in me wants to try to make the world a better place, and i love(d) making art. But in my neurotic world view they don't blend very well.

Please note that i'm not trying to state anything here about anything really. I only express my experience is.

 

[Patrique]

  On 8/20/2017 at 0:44 PM, Leo Gura said:

What???

Why do you want to create something which has no value in your eyes?

Remember, value is always a projection of the human mind. Nothing actually has value. Including gold, money, family, love, business, science, enlightenment, or anything else. The question of value always just boils down to what you enjoy and want for its own sake.

If you enjoy art, make it.

If you don't enjoy art, don't.

People who become artists simply enjoy the process of making their art. It's really that simple. Of course that doesn't mean it's easy.

Because it hasn't always been like this.

As i wrote in an earlier response, i loved making art, the value in the beginning was that it was fun as hell. Later it had to do with the positive impact it could have, it was also fun too at this point.

Now it's a mess between that it isn't enjoyable anymore at all, and the feeling i've that i'm doing the world a disservice by doing art, even if i would have enjoyed it, since i don't see the value in it. "I want to help create a better world, but art doesn't seem to do the trick."

I want to come back to the feeling i had before. Maybe i just need to work on myself and stop trying to morally justify shit i don't understand. I know making movies is my call, i still think about it 24/7 all the time, but anxiety gets the best of me.

[Patrique]

  On 8/20/2017 at 3:36 PM, Extreme Z7 said:

@Patrique  I noticed that most (actually, all) of your expectations of how art should shape the world is shallow and materialistic. Caring more about gross obvious traits of reality and not able to tap into more subtle nuanced parts of it like philosophical aspects or existential parts that art can bring to the forefront of human consciousness. If it were the case that realism was all that mattered, Picasso and others like him would have been homeless.

It's up to you to really shape yourself to desire the subtle. Stop normalizing your self-identity that you are a low-consciousness human being especially if you're aware of these concepts. You ain't gonna get better if you keep normalizing low-consciousness in your life. Have the desire and do some real effort to pursue high-consciousness living. You're like a self-aware donkey that chooses to remain a self-aware donkey because "donkey's gonna do what a donkey's gonna do. That's just life!".

 

LOL. You know artwork that showcases pain and suffering exists right?

I think my concern is more directed to what this glorification of the world does to every day people, like my donkey-self. I don't deny the philosophical aspects or existential parts that art can bring to human consciousness. That's all wonderful, but what about that girl who gets anorexia because of glorified pictures of the women's body? Should we deny these consequences of glorification because some of us can see the subtle nuances. Maybe i make myself more stupid than i need to now, but this is how i feel.

I agree with you, the reason i wrote that is because these concepts only resonate with me on an intellectual level so far. I don't feel or experience it at all (working on it though!). I've no plan continuing being a donkey but i must say i feel kind of donkeyish in my life at this point.

 

Yes of course it does, it can still present the world in a manner that confuses people or make them see the world in a destructive way. The glorification of suffering has created self pitying emo's for generations.

 

[Extreme Z7]

@Patrique Stop focusing on those dumb corporate ads as your main source of art.

I mean c'mon, have you visited art galleries often enough? Have an account on Deviantart.com? Have any good artist friends? Read or watched various content on the lives of famous artists?

Have a pretty broad experience of art first and then we'll talk. Right now, you are like one of those blind men in the Indian fable   below who only knows part of the elephant yet thinks he can make a statement of the entire thing.

  Quote

Blind Men and the Elephant – A Poem by John Godfrey Saxe
Here is John Godfrey Saxe’s (1816-1887) version of Blind Men and the Elephant:

It was six men of Indostan,
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear,
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approach'd the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," -quoth he- "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," -quoth he,-
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said- "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," -quoth he,- "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL,

So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean;
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

 

Edited August 23, 2017 by Extreme Z7

[Visitor]

  On 8/23/2017 at 10:56 AM, Patrique said:

..."I want to help create a better world, but art doesn't seem to do the trick."...

Why not use your art to depict what a better world would be in your mind?

[Scholar]

You seem to have a narrow understanding of "art". Your seemingly fundamental motivation for life, to "better the world", comes from art. Where do you think have you learned to be motivated to be good, to make the world a better place? Where does the desire come from?

 

A world without art lacks beauty and meaning, including every beauty and every meaning. Do you understand that civilization would not exist without art? And you understand that art is the very essence of what motivates civilization? Striving for any higher value that goes beyond our primal desires requires meaning, and the creation of meaning is art. Virtue is art. Honor is art. Selflessness is art. This is why from the perspective of human beings it can vary so widely. What meant the world to a Samurai who committed hara-kiri seems to us completely nuts. But this is the beauty of art. It creates meaning where there has previously been none. A simple statue can become the symbol of an entire nation. The Statue of Liberty is an inherently meaningless object that makes human beings strive for freedom, justice and equality. The very ideas of freedom, justice and equality are nothing but art. That we value these ideas, that we consider them to be meaningful, is the very result of art.

This is why if you destroy culture a nation inevitably fails to survive. This is precisely what is happening the US. Because people do not agree on ideas anymore, because they do not value the same idealogies, the actions taken by the nation become unstructured and self-destructive. It's like as if you couldn't decide if you wanted to become a couch potatoe or a martial artist. If you value both ideas equally, or worse, if none of them really have meaning to you, you will not take actions to accomplish any of them. You will not enjoy being a couch potatoe, and you will not be able to become a good martial artist. Your motivation for taking action will be disjointed, there will be one side of you that will value the comfort of sitting on a couch and being lazy, and there will be another side of you that will want to be the greatest martial artist in the world.

What art can do is give one thing meaning over the other. This is the power of art. Infact, without it you will fail either way. You will not take any action, because you will value nothing in life. You will be nothing but an animal with rationality.

If you want to take a good example for how to handle this, look at China. Why do you think is China so desperately protecting their own culture? They are simply wise enough to know that if their population does not agree on what is valuable, it will be very difficult to take the actions that will lead China to become the most powerful country in the world. If suddenly half of China's population became hedonistic, you'd quickly see the same problems developing in China as they do in the US.

 

If you think about it this way, stories are what created civilization. Because we as human beings were able to agree on imaginary figures, determining imaginary laws and moral rules, we were able to work together and actualize all those laws and rules. If we wouldn't have agreed on art, we would still stumble through forests hunting and gathering our food on a daily basis. Art does not just initiate laws and morals, it keeps them alive aswell. What can hold an idea better than an object? Why do you think we even create objects and call it art? It reminds us of what we are supposed to find meaningful. Do you think greek and roman culture would exist without their art? The art is what reminded them of their values, of who and what they are.

Now look back at all the movies you have consumed and think about how they have shaped your personality, your intellect and your morals. Think about how much they actually influenced you, and what kind of human being you'd be without them. Art is the only difference between a jihadist terrorist and the person who is sitting at the computer and reading this post. Everything around you, from the device you are using to the thoughts swimming in your mind were shaped by the art you have consumed in your life. 

 

It's very interesting  how similar collectives and individuals actually function.

Imagine a country without culture, imagine how it would act and what it would strive for?

And then imagine a person without meaning in life, how it would act and what it would strive for?

 

Then imagine the opposite, a country with unified and strong culture would act, where everyone agrees on what is valuable?

And imagine a person who is very clear about their meaning in life, with the ability to suppress any desire but the desire to accomplish his goal?

 

The person who is clear about their meaning of life will sacrifice comfort for the goal they want to reach, much like a country with unified culture will do the same with it's population. Yes, in short term perspective it feels horrible to sacrifice comfort or the happiness of your population, but if you reach the goal it seems to be worth it, doesn't it? You just have to be careful that you don't get too uncomfortable, or your population too unhappy, so that you, or the population, do not rebell against you.

[Patrique]

  On 8/23/2017 at 11:04 PM, Extreme Z7 said:

@Patrique Stop focusing on those dumb corporate ads as your main source of art.

I mean c'mon, have you visited art galleries often enough? Have an account on Deviantart.com? Have any good artist friends? Read or watched various content on the lives of famous artists?

Have a pretty broad experience of art first and then we'll talk. Right now, you are like one of those blind men in the Indian fable   below who only knows part of the elephant yet thinks he can make a statement of the entire thing.

 

I wrote those examples because that was the type of work I enjoyed doing myself in Photoshop (until i got disgusted by it).