This will be an unusually short post for Exploring-Art because I had an impromptu moment of aesthetic bliss and I wanted to share. My wife and I have been in Vancouver this weekend, and we are preparing to return to the island amid gale force winds. I was sitting in one of the club chairs in our hotel room and was struck by the view on the console table in the entry way. Poetry really is everywhere.
I’m sorry. It was probably wrong of me to publish a new post which was Virtual Novel Writing Studio – Scrivener on the same day that I was planning to participate in the internet blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA. What can I say… I lost track of the details… I missed that this protest and the next blog post were scheduled for the same date.
Apologies aside, I’d like us all to reflect on the fact that freedom of speech, collage, and mashup are central to art, digital art, and cultural discourse. Art, whether it’s a movie, a song, or a book, is not merely a vehicle for collecting wealth, it is also a cultural artefact. That said artists need to make a living. Irrespective of the grey area in my non-expert opinion this proposed legislation has gone much too far. Here’s a great video –
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31100268]If you’d like to know what you can do to join the fight, click the black “Stop Censorship” ribbon in the top right corner of Exploring-Art.com. I am pleased to hear that the largest online protest in history has had some results. As always consider the fight far from over until the legislation is abandoned. Again I’m sorry for the outage but it was important to me.
I have lots of great things planned for Exploring-Art.com, which you will hear about in the near future so stay tuned!
Mac
My interest was sufficiently piqued to watch the first season of Downton Abbey with my wife after reading the fantastic 1000 word essay on the death of the american dream and the denial thereof featured in Esquire this month.
Over a brisk weekend soirée we breezed through the 7 near DVD quality, commercial free episodes via AppleTV. I must say I was impressed. (As an aside please don’t tell my wife. I have painstakingly created the illusion that by me watching the show with her I am doing her a huge favour.)
One theme from season 1 that really resonated with me was that of endeavouring to avoid judging others. It was poetic partially because it was in the context of some very nasty characters and trying circumstances. Alas! In the season 2 premiere, which became available this week, the nonjudgmental poetry and allusion to truth has been shattered. Here’s why ~
During the season 2 premiere a fair amount of effort was put into the redemption of some of the nasty characters from season 1. One character professes that he was picked on because he was different. Another confesses to losing her favourite brother when he was returned to the war front after a spell of shell shock. The direction and writing teams are busy creating excuses for the characters’ nasty behaviour, reasons to excuse them from harsh judgement. Herein lies the problem, this introduction of reasons and excuses misses and more importantly obfuscates the point of being non judgmental. The point is not to make excuses or to accept root causes. It is much less linear than that. It is not about cause and effect, or a mechanical existence where good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, or where bad things have happened to good people which has turned them bad. Not judging others is about transcendence. Sparing people your judgment isn’t about them, it is about you and your acknowledgement and mastery of an autonomous externality. A mastery that can only be pursued through mastery of oneself. That autonomous externality is everyone’s origin and no one’s excuse. Season 1 did a wonderful job alluding to this poetic truth, and sadly season 2 has already undone this meaningful allusion.
Exploring-Art 