Posts by BenWilson
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Did you ever read the story of the Zen master archer?
Not sure. I was deliberately vague about how one could learn technical abilities. But it seems to be a pretty big part of learning basically everything. I don't know about Zen masters, but there's no intimation that they can learn anything without doing the same hard yards as everyone else, repeating the activity over and over. If they can't explain how it's done, that doesn't necessarily mean it's inexplicable. The archer most likely does actually open one eye or both (or neither, it's possible, I suppose). He probably nocks an arrow and draws the bow, lines it up and releases it. Maybe he breathes in a particular way, concentrates just so. Aren't these techniques? If he does them just right, doesn't he have great technical ability? His own description would surely vary with mine, probably talking mostly about the mystical stuff going on in the mind of the archer, focusing quite carefully on not explicating the minute details. "The arrow shoots itself when it is ready", "the archer becomes one with the target" etc.
This was what I meant when I said art is not about what is done, but how it is done. Yet I don't think I need to buy Zen philosophy wholesale to think this way. You could just call the Zen Master an extremely technically proficient person, so that they do fantastic archery effortlessly. This is also how a great artist in a purely European tradition works. Even if they make attempts to explain their art, that doesn't mean the explanation is sufficient to give one the ability to make similar art.
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Speaker: What PACE actually does, in reply to jessica scott,
I was also told very angrily that I wasn't allowed on the PACE scheme as I didn't have a proven record of working as an artist- I had graduated a few months before hand.
And in Fine Arts! If you can't study that and call yourself an artist...Sounds like you had a real Catch 22 going there.
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Speaker: What PACE actually does, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Yes, sorry for forcing you to have a conversation at knife point. I should really stop doing that.
LOL, no, I'm liking this, but I was worried it was stopping others dead.
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I suspect our thinking is just the opposite here - my feeling is that there is almost nothing we regard more highly as a culture than technical ability.
The degree to which I agree with you will depend on the degree to which you accept that art is a technical ability. Is any ability not technical, really? I'm actually asking your opinion, rather than having a set position in my mind on this. Can you think of an ability that doesn't almost entirely revolve around learning techniques to apply it?
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Speaker: What PACE actually does, in reply to jessica scott,
Getting back to the PACE scheme.
Thank goodness!
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Culturally I think we've tended to homogeneise all contributions, everybody is creative
Maybe that's because it's true? But that doesn't mean some people's efforts don't tower over others - all I'm saying is that some tradespeople tower over others, and this is seldom seen as their artistry. It's like it's an inevitable and easy outcome of appropriate training. Which seems to me about as silly as when Nietzsche claimed that writing great books was easy, you just had to put yourself to the task for 10 odd years, mastering all variety of linguistic traditions, and bingo, you're Shakespeare.
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Muse: TV Review: Good Gods Almighty!, in reply to recordari,
I do...I was just reading about Ragnarök and realized it ends with a big flood too. Doh!
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Muse: TV Review: Good Gods Almighty!, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Does it have to be an either/or deal, though?
No, but it leans away from escapism, I think. Will have to see more episodes to judge.
And what happens to a God when nobody believes in him any more?
A civilized god concedes. The Christian one sends a massive flood to kill everyone.
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Really? I find the opposite. Indeed I wish that the tradesperson mistique were criticised more - but it isn't, which is how Weta gets routinely contracted to produce public art of mind-boggling mediocrity.
So the artists you know actually think tradies do good stuff, then, but you don't? I'm confused.
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I enjoyed it. It's bordering on spoof, but it's clearly going to be a social drama/commentary rather than fantasy escapism. It reminded me a fair bit of Kung Faux, but with more legs. Take the idea of the Norse gods, and work with how they might play out as New Zealanders. Can we end up caring about these people? I think so, I already recognize all of them.
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