It might be a good idea to try and avoid going through a single day without gaining a little bit of wisdom or knowledge, may it be about yourself, about the world, a fun fact. It can be something of great importance, to you or to the world, or something extremely insignificant.
What I find incredibly disturbing is that no matter how much I learn about myself, I never change! I still manage to paint myself into the same corners over and over. The only difference is I can feel it happen before I'm even remotely there. I often try to stop myself "don't go there Robin, you'll get fucked, just like last time". Doesn't matter, I do it anyway. It's no doubt annoying, I won't deny that, but there is also something very encouraging about it. I enjoy watching myself cross lines I shouldn't, because the idea of the Freudian "Id" makes me all soft and mooshy inside, it makes me happy! Probably because my "super-ego" is a bit too dominant for my own taste. This is something I'll have to keep fighting foreverandever. That much I've learned.
The world, on the other hand, does definitely change with every new piece of information. It grows, shrinks, tumbles and falls, twists and turns, the only constant being that it's absolutely incomprehensible, impossible to understand, unpredictable, in every way unfit for humans to walk around in, but impossible to avoid.
söndag 13 december 2009
fredag 11 december 2009
How to win a war
...and she looked over her shoulder, and never looked back.
He came from nowhere guns-a-blazing, fists-a-flying like a genuine slinger from an old western film.
- Shoot! she uttered in her sweetest voice, shoot me 'til you can shoot no more, your bullets were not meant for me. And so he shot. Hundreds of times, maybe a thousand. She didn't. THAT'S how you win a war!
Go figure.
He came from nowhere guns-a-blazing, fists-a-flying like a genuine slinger from an old western film.
- Shoot! she uttered in her sweetest voice, shoot me 'til you can shoot no more, your bullets were not meant for me. And so he shot. Hundreds of times, maybe a thousand. She didn't. THAT'S how you win a war!
Go figure.
torsdag 10 december 2009
Art and creation
"To understand the very nature of creation one must acknowledge that there was no light before the Lord said: 'let there be light.' And since there was yet no light, the Lords omniscience embraced a vision of it which only His omnipotence could call forth.
We poor human beings, when we refer to one of the better minds among us as a creator, should never forget what a creator is in reality.
A creator has a vision of something which has not existed before this vision.
And a creator has the power to bring his vision to life, the power to realize it.
In fact, the concept of creator and creation should be formed in harmony with the Divine Model; inspiration and perfection, wish and fulfillment, will and accomplishment coincide spontaneously and simultaneously. In Divine Creation there was no details to be carried out later; 'There was light' at once and in its ultimate perfection.
Alas, human creators, if they be granted a vision, must travel the long path between vision and accomplishment; a hard road where, driven out of Paradise, even geniuses must reap their harvest in the sweat of their brows.
Alas, it is one thing to evision in a creative instant of inspiration and it is another thing to materialize one's vision by painstakingly connecting details until they fuse into a kind of organism.
And alas, suppose it becomes an organism, a homunculus or a robot, and possesses some of the spontaneity of a vision; it remains yet another thing to organize this form so that it becomes a comprehensible message 'to whom it may concern'" - A. Schönberg, 1941
Art is something, a being, created by an artist. This means in extension, that to create a piece of art, we must first acknowledge that we are in fact, artists. This, today, is not an easy first step to take, and very few have the guts to openly and frankly stick this label onto themselves. Partly because, well it is a label, and labels have a tendency to stick. Secondly it has a negative ring to it, it proclaims to the world that you are someone of greater importance. You assume a position of power. With that power comes a responsibility. You must now never create anything that drops below a certain standard of quality, because when a person of power displays weakness, people of less power will inevitably try to overrun you.
That the concept of art is a question of quality is most defininately up for discussion! I know quite a number of creative people, creators of different kinds and of extremely shifting quality. Some of these create things of highest quality, a quality few can match. Far from all of those are in my view "artists" in the true sense of the word. This connects directly to the opening quote of this text. A piece of art must, in my view, originate in this exact way. It has to spring from ONE idea, one central nervous system that in every way is dependant on every limb, every muscle, every nerve that surrounds it. One flash of creation. The ways of working out the details is of no importance. The art is the idea, and the idea is the art. It doesn't need to have deeper meaning, it doesn't have to be well thought through, it doesn't even have to be well executed, it has to exist only because it HAS to exist.
All of that can be interpreted in a very shallow way of course. But it is no question of how long it took for someone to write a song, compose a photograph, paint a picture, write a play or make a film. Those are all ways of realization, and there are probably as many ways of realization as there are creators.
Determining objectively as an observer of a work, if it is a work of mere craftmanship or artistry is impossible. By impossible I mean, it is not at all in any way possible, ever! But there are defining moments in life, when all the pieces of the jigsaw just fall straight into place, when you truly understand that someone's creation is not an extension or augmentation of themselves, not a piece of them up for show, not the insides hanging out, not blood leaking out from the cracks in the wall, not a thought-concept, not a point of view, but an entire organism that wouldn't exist without its creator, who wouldn't exist without it.
We poor human beings, when we refer to one of the better minds among us as a creator, should never forget what a creator is in reality.
A creator has a vision of something which has not existed before this vision.
And a creator has the power to bring his vision to life, the power to realize it.
In fact, the concept of creator and creation should be formed in harmony with the Divine Model; inspiration and perfection, wish and fulfillment, will and accomplishment coincide spontaneously and simultaneously. In Divine Creation there was no details to be carried out later; 'There was light' at once and in its ultimate perfection.
Alas, human creators, if they be granted a vision, must travel the long path between vision and accomplishment; a hard road where, driven out of Paradise, even geniuses must reap their harvest in the sweat of their brows.
Alas, it is one thing to evision in a creative instant of inspiration and it is another thing to materialize one's vision by painstakingly connecting details until they fuse into a kind of organism.
And alas, suppose it becomes an organism, a homunculus or a robot, and possesses some of the spontaneity of a vision; it remains yet another thing to organize this form so that it becomes a comprehensible message 'to whom it may concern'" - A. Schönberg, 1941
Art is something, a being, created by an artist. This means in extension, that to create a piece of art, we must first acknowledge that we are in fact, artists. This, today, is not an easy first step to take, and very few have the guts to openly and frankly stick this label onto themselves. Partly because, well it is a label, and labels have a tendency to stick. Secondly it has a negative ring to it, it proclaims to the world that you are someone of greater importance. You assume a position of power. With that power comes a responsibility. You must now never create anything that drops below a certain standard of quality, because when a person of power displays weakness, people of less power will inevitably try to overrun you.
That the concept of art is a question of quality is most defininately up for discussion! I know quite a number of creative people, creators of different kinds and of extremely shifting quality. Some of these create things of highest quality, a quality few can match. Far from all of those are in my view "artists" in the true sense of the word. This connects directly to the opening quote of this text. A piece of art must, in my view, originate in this exact way. It has to spring from ONE idea, one central nervous system that in every way is dependant on every limb, every muscle, every nerve that surrounds it. One flash of creation. The ways of working out the details is of no importance. The art is the idea, and the idea is the art. It doesn't need to have deeper meaning, it doesn't have to be well thought through, it doesn't even have to be well executed, it has to exist only because it HAS to exist.
All of that can be interpreted in a very shallow way of course. But it is no question of how long it took for someone to write a song, compose a photograph, paint a picture, write a play or make a film. Those are all ways of realization, and there are probably as many ways of realization as there are creators.
Determining objectively as an observer of a work, if it is a work of mere craftmanship or artistry is impossible. By impossible I mean, it is not at all in any way possible, ever! But there are defining moments in life, when all the pieces of the jigsaw just fall straight into place, when you truly understand that someone's creation is not an extension or augmentation of themselves, not a piece of them up for show, not the insides hanging out, not blood leaking out from the cracks in the wall, not a thought-concept, not a point of view, but an entire organism that wouldn't exist without its creator, who wouldn't exist without it.
onsdag 9 december 2009
Regarding dynamics in music
Pop music is seriously flawed. Oh yes it is most certainly! Sometimes verging on retarded in means of expression. And I'm not talking about the popularly supposed forced lack of "dynamics", due to violent mastering, which I personally disagree with. Dynamics in music are about so much more than pp and fff in regards to actual sound pressure level. Dynamics are present in harmonic progressions, in emotional density, in rythmic figures, in melodic lines, virtually every element of a musical piece is capable of displaying dynamics. This is where pop music often fails to deliver. Making all the parts almost equal in volume troughout a 3 minute song is not such a huge sin, considering the other means of dynamics at our disposal. Volume of course is the tool closest at hand, and the most comprehensible one, no doubt, but as musical history has panned out, as society has become less capable of actually taking in sound levels below the sounds of the world (or is it that the sounds of modern day world are really just louder? probably...), it has somewhat lost its meaning. We now have to place the volume dynamics much more narrow, because the upper limit is basically unchanged. That's all fine with me, and quite understandable, to the willing. The answer to this loss of one element of dynamics would naturally be an exploration of the other, currently available elements. But no! Quite the opposite has occured. For the sake of wide understandability, a vicious spiral of simplification. A spiral, because a big part of musical taste, as in all taste, is education. If we were to remove the dynamics of a language, narrow it down to only the most basic words, it would be more easily understandable, superficially. We would get a language, superior of actually deliviering information effectivly. But in my opinion, seriously, the poetry would really suck! Music is an artform, much like poetry, not a means of deliviering information, therefore we want a musical language that's as wide in variety as possible. The musical language taught to our kids today, through radio, TV, and other forced media, is in my opinion way too narrow, too superficial, and too bland. This stands in the way of people actually being able to comprehend, and appreciate more subtle expressions. And please keep in mind, I'm STILL not talking about sound pressure levels! I'm actually not talking down on three chord songs, love songs, or acoustic ballads with nothing but guitar and vocals either. These types of songs have several ways of expressing massive amounts of dynamics. We have successfully removed most of the dynamics in our musical language, narrowed it down to the basic words, and what we have is really an effective way of delivering musical information. But who's listening?
tisdag 8 december 2009
As I'm writing my very first post on this currently desert blog, two things come to mind, one is bleek, the other is a tiny reflection, regarding the mind (that I now hesitate to publish here, because I might come off a bit bleak, which I'm really not). I choose to post them as one, because if this is to be a Robin of Bleek blog, then why not kick it off by tying the two pieces of me together. One has a seemingly loose connection to the other.
(1) Yesterday bleek went on our very first photo-shoot! As every first is accompanied with many a question and just as many a doubt, I am happy to say that things worked out pretty good. As it happens, my friend Emma Hartvig is a fantastic photographer and it just felt like any old day with the band, except it was all captured on camera. Hopefully this will shine through in the pictures.
(2) (a) My memory is made up of fragments, loosely intertwined by smells, sounds and other binding materials, still cryptic to me. However, when any one of these fragments are recalled, the general idea is that the binding materials should engage the other interrelated fragments and thereby re-create a somewhat coherent memory. If I should draw a parallell to music, one chord, or even one note, calls to mind a chorus, a song, a movement, or even an entire symphony or album. Those kinds of connections are real to me, very strong and the musical "binding materials" are frequent and powerful. In other aspects though, they tend to let me down. This brings about a disconnected fragment, very hard to comprehend and to make sense of. This bothers me only because they are very hard to let go of, it is simply hard to find paths away from a disconnected memory fragment. So I get stuck time and time again, in places I quite instantly recognize as isolated. The lack of connections also make those fragments fragile. They are without outer defences and fragments invade eachother, blend together and are finally left unrecognizable.
(b) My life is made up of people, loosely intertwined by places, situations, and other binding materials, still cryptic to me. However, when any one of these people are recalled, the general idea is that the binding materials should engage the other interrelated people, and thereby recreate a somewhat coherent group. So far so good in this semi-believable parallell between mind and reality. In one aspect, they differ so profoundly, that the likenesses mentioned all seem so pathetic. Because a "memory fragment" can never have a profound impact on the actual mind, only the actual incident that printed the fragment in the first place has the ability to really affect ME. The other major difference is that the effect of disconnected people is actually often stronger than in their usual context.
(c) This is where it starts to get interresting, because this enables new connections to be made, multiple connections where (d) 2+2 really CAN equal 5, due to the strengthening of the disconnected pieces. However, in time, as the connections grow stronger, the sum of the elements are weakened, and 2+2 may suddenly not appear as 5 anymore. Keeping the connections weak seems to me the only way to keep the numbers up.
(3) The connections between no. one (1) and no. two (2) may to some of you be all too clear, to some they might feel totally unrelated. Since this is the first ever, I'll actually give you the correct answer, but don't get used to it! The secont part (2) is divided into two kind of equal parts, dealing with memory snippets (a) and friends (b), closed with a small reflective conclusion (c). The first part (1) is unseparated, dealing with the connection of (a) and (b), showing in a real context the power of (d), through example.
(4) Sleep tight my friends, tomorrow is a long time!
(1) Yesterday bleek went on our very first photo-shoot! As every first is accompanied with many a question and just as many a doubt, I am happy to say that things worked out pretty good. As it happens, my friend Emma Hartvig is a fantastic photographer and it just felt like any old day with the band, except it was all captured on camera. Hopefully this will shine through in the pictures.
(2) (a) My memory is made up of fragments, loosely intertwined by smells, sounds and other binding materials, still cryptic to me. However, when any one of these fragments are recalled, the general idea is that the binding materials should engage the other interrelated fragments and thereby re-create a somewhat coherent memory. If I should draw a parallell to music, one chord, or even one note, calls to mind a chorus, a song, a movement, or even an entire symphony or album. Those kinds of connections are real to me, very strong and the musical "binding materials" are frequent and powerful. In other aspects though, they tend to let me down. This brings about a disconnected fragment, very hard to comprehend and to make sense of. This bothers me only because they are very hard to let go of, it is simply hard to find paths away from a disconnected memory fragment. So I get stuck time and time again, in places I quite instantly recognize as isolated. The lack of connections also make those fragments fragile. They are without outer defences and fragments invade eachother, blend together and are finally left unrecognizable.
(b) My life is made up of people, loosely intertwined by places, situations, and other binding materials, still cryptic to me. However, when any one of these people are recalled, the general idea is that the binding materials should engage the other interrelated people, and thereby recreate a somewhat coherent group. So far so good in this semi-believable parallell between mind and reality. In one aspect, they differ so profoundly, that the likenesses mentioned all seem so pathetic. Because a "memory fragment" can never have a profound impact on the actual mind, only the actual incident that printed the fragment in the first place has the ability to really affect ME. The other major difference is that the effect of disconnected people is actually often stronger than in their usual context.
(c) This is where it starts to get interresting, because this enables new connections to be made, multiple connections where (d) 2+2 really CAN equal 5, due to the strengthening of the disconnected pieces. However, in time, as the connections grow stronger, the sum of the elements are weakened, and 2+2 may suddenly not appear as 5 anymore. Keeping the connections weak seems to me the only way to keep the numbers up.
(3) The connections between no. one (1) and no. two (2) may to some of you be all too clear, to some they might feel totally unrelated. Since this is the first ever, I'll actually give you the correct answer, but don't get used to it! The secont part (2) is divided into two kind of equal parts, dealing with memory snippets (a) and friends (b), closed with a small reflective conclusion (c). The first part (1) is unseparated, dealing with the connection of (a) and (b), showing in a real context the power of (d), through example.
(4) Sleep tight my friends, tomorrow is a long time!
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