Last week's Time Out New York ran a piece about criticism. Its a fun little number that takes a look at the current and future states of criticism, what with all the blogs and the everyone's-a-critic and such. Some big names in print and blogging (or both) weigh in on the issue, with varying degrees of consideration. It doesn't really try to draw any conclusions, which is good because why would you do that? The piece begins chronicling a happening in New York theatre criticism that was similar to something I posted on not too long ago, wherein a critic's criticism becomes fodder for more criticism. Not that that couldn't have happened before the advent of blogs, of course, but with the instant, easy ability to react, I feel like these debates are more fiery, more personal. The piece then goes on to get some authoritative opinions on the matter of criticism through a series of questions. Its important to investigate criticism. I also think, however, that the situation has implications for the art being criticized. I'm going to investigate two of the potential effects, one negative and one positive.
The first lies in a possible change in how people approach art. I see it happening all around. Perhaps it is unrelated to the dramatic rise in blogs and faux-criticism, but it feels like we are becoming an overly critical culture. I surmise (on grounds of only my own nature) that members of the public who regularly contribute to blogs and e-zines and the like (meaning not already-established and paid critics) are looking to immediately put experiences with a work of art into words. They are approaching the work with the prospect of criticism at the forefront of their brain, thereby neglecting the openness it takes, I think, to be a good critic. This is bad. It prevents the viewer/listener/what-have-you from having a genuine experience, as pure as possible. It's impersonal. Not only that, but it also is very hard to get excited in that state. (Lack of excitement, as far as I'm concerned, is a plague on my generation and I'll probably be exploring it later.) This mindset drives a huge divide between audience and art, changing the nature of the work itself.
I should take a moment to point out that I think critical eyes are good things. But they should be thoughtful and learned.
I will write about the second of the major implications that I see tomorrow. And I will call it "Adorno's World." I am very excited.
mark.
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3 comments:
Hi Mark:
Talking about this the other night, I'm going to quote some of your stuff, if you don't mind, just as reference:
..."are looking to immediately put experiences with a work of art into words. They are approaching the work with the prospect of criticism at the forefront of their brain, thereby neglecting the openness it takes, I think, to be a good critic.”
There are two things going on there for me that are troubling. As far as being an “overly critical culture,” I do think that plays some into it, but moreso I think it is a uniquely American corporate-influenced culture of competition that leads to such immediate criticism. One watches, in certain ways, with an eye out for things that they could do better, accomplish better, etc. What ways would I have done it that were not considered? And how are they better? --- versus: Why was this choice made? What does it mean, and how does it relate to the rest of the piece as whole? I think those questions get skipped over in favor of immediate, non-constructive, competitive criticism when a relationship between said choice and said rest of the piece is not immediately apparent and satisfyingly logical, clear, and/or clever.
Secondly, playing into the competition angle, people often go in (unwittingly and surely understandably) with their own preconceptions and hopes for the piece. When those are not confirmed – and especially when those aren’t confirmed in a logical, step-by-step reveal – there’s not a lot of room to remain open to the rest of the piece. This is a bad thing, but it’s the nature of a culture of instant gratification and self-centeredness, and a society that values opinion/self-expression/self-representation (and its more-often-than-not inherent laziness) at least as much as it acknowledges fact and active objectivity.
“This is bad. It prevents the viewer/listener/what-have-you from having a genuine experience, as pure as possible. It's impersonal.”
I don’t know that it’s “impersonal.” I think, actually, it’s the worst kind of personal. It’s selfish. It’s denying that the experience is simultaneously personal AND communal. This is undoubtedly a pervasive effect of recorded and electronic media in our culture. You sit together in a movie theater, but your experience (at least the one designed and offered by the filmmaker) is not unique, it is the same experience offered to every customer. You watch television and listen to music, often alone, but these are products that are offered to any and all consumers as the exact same experience. Same thing online, anything that’s transmitted non-physically, non-personally (not directly by another human being). From this you get people demanding the “best” seats in a theater performance; you get plays staged uninterestingly and obviously in order to provide the best sightlines and to offer an experience as similar, as fair and equal, as possible. And just as bland, in a lot of cases.
Maybe this is art meeting democracy. Maybe it’s all moving toward an equal experience – or, to put it negatively, an equal-opportunity experience. I think it’s a result of consumerism, that each of us can buy the experience for ourselves, and that a certain kind of experience is guaranteed for everyone.
I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, if people take it beyond that and discuss their personal and unique feelings beyond what was handed to everyone. This results in sentences that begin with “Well, I felt that…”, “Well, I liked…,” “I didn’t like…”, etc. That’s okay, when you start with the same product.
Physical art that is directly transmitted person to person will not and should not be the same product offered to everyone. Each person’s physical experience in real time should be unique. This puts people in an uncomfortable place, I think, physically and spiritually; it asks people for the two hours you are watching this play to recognize that it’s not only about ME, it’s about all of us. “…It prevents the viewer/listener/what-have-you from having a genuine experience, as pure as possible…” I think the purity you seek is located in that transmittal, and in the difficulty and commitment asked of each participant to accept the piece, to come to it, to hunger for it, to need it – and to SHARE IT.
“This mindset drives a huge divide between audience and art, changing the nature of the work itself.”
I think what you see when people are walking straight out of a performance talking about it are people who are confusing and/or conflating recorded/electronic art with physical art. (I don’t know that recorded or electronic media is art, but that’s another debate.) They are approaching what they saw as a flat, shiny product and their reaction is the experience, as it is in fact the only thing that they can take away with them. Unlike your CD, your DVD, etc. Real, physical art re-orients your opinion, your reaction, your experience in the non-tangible, ephemeral, eternal present that was those two hours you spent in a room – whether it was half an hour ago, a week ago, a month ago, or years and years ago. I think the “divide” you aim at is this denial that one’s opinion/reaction isn’t a product, a souvenir. It is also NOT the experience; whereas consumer media defines itself physically as a product that can presumably replicate exactly an experience over and over again.
This conflation of art and media/entertainment thus often gives into the pervasiveness of the latter in our lives. This “divide” is an oft-unwitting and violent, unconscious reaction to the very different and ambiguous demands that an art experience places upon us. In my opinion, it doesn’t “change the nature of the work itself” – it denies it.
WOAH. Sorry! Bored at work. Let’s continue this discussion, but not all in one response.
One additional thing:
The "active objectivity" to me is real criticism -- constructive, discussive criticism that is an active and engaged activity. This is more obviously appropriate to a physical art experience.
The like/dislike, thumbs up/thumbs down approach is completely RE-active, lazy, and self-centered. And it is, no question, the de facto kind of criticism expected by electronic media, as there's no one actually there to engage on the other side of the HDTV-plasma screen-"fourth wall". In a lot of ways, electronic media art (again, up for debate) is designed to predict an entire spectrum of such criticism and works its hardest and damndest to evade any such reactions (witness the rise of PR, test screenings, politically correct "responsibility" in the media, and most entertainingly, Oscar "buzz.")
Great. Lots to parse here, and little time left to do it. But we'll start...
In defense of electronic art (again), the disparity between it and what you call physical has nothing to do with the media itself, but the ease with which it can be "co-opted by the status quo" and exploited. The way forms like this exist in our culture of consumption, we are encouraged not to take them personally. Ultimately, the only interaction that matters at this level is the financial transaction. But it doesn't have to be this way and, (I touch on it in the second "on criticism" post) we (the public, the democracy) are beginning to have the ability to change that. We have the ability to make in personal at every level. It takes effort. That "purity" I mentioned takes effort on the part of the participant, as you call it(that phrase itself implies that). Perhaps it is because we are American that it is viewed as "effort."
You have given, it feels, a fairly pessimistic take on all this, yes? I think it is less difficult for people to make the leap from electronic to physical than you seem to. Also, and more importantly I think, for them to distinguish between consumer product and art.
We're not done here.
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