Excellent list of reflections. I am writing a book that could be labeled as autofiction. I don’t if it will be released in the or not, but I feel, as you say, the aesthetic need of doing it. I read you as saying this (maybe putting my thoughts here): you can see the line, it’s there; you have to take risks and know that overstepping might have consequences. You can also be as close as you can to it and play there. It’s not absolutely clear where art starts to lose and life to win. That’s, precisely, the art of it. But the line is there. You’re silly (and maybe not a complete artist) if you can’t see it.
Agree with all of this except for the throwaway comment about immersive theater and performance art. Idk much about performance art, but for me the difference between great immersive theater and not-so-great is about framing in much the way you describe elsewhere here. For instance, the distinct masks audience members wear when attending Sleep No More or Life and Trust mark the selves that we are in those theatrical spaces as not "us" but as ghosts of those particular fictive realms; the use of mime and choreography on the part of the players introduces deliberately composed symbolism into their actions even when they can be viewed from multiple angles.
Fantastic, Sam, especially the last one. I have a handful of stories that I’ve buried for the reasons you mention in the last point—either because they’re unfairly mean to someone I care about, or share a side of me that I’d rather not share.
Larson and Celine (Cecile? Fancy C-word) Ng have been made permanent cunts in the bad sense of the word by their own actions. Their victim/scapegoat didn’t deserve any of their mean-girl mob-righteousness. They’re hateful, they deserve to be known for that, and I don’t wanna remember her name at all. I want her to have a happy, anonymous life, and write under her own pseudonym if it brings her joy and work.
I would only say that I don't agree that "Art is basically the subconscious'" That would assume that an artist, in the act of creation, can separate his/her conscious and unconscious mind. From personal experience, and from the work of writers like Brecht and Beckett, it really instead reflects,to my mind, a battle between the public and the private, the conscious and the unconscious. It's like intellect and feeling, which I also don't think are separate but rather part of the same process. And I have also argued that art is not-political, even when motivated by politics, because at the moment of creation, of true feeling, everything comes into play, but the dominant (or domineering) force is that of pure creativity, no matter the origins of the work. Otherwise things become hopeless didactic in a material way, when the truth is that that didacticism should really represent the (endless) arguments that persist between those two states.
I draw on my own life experiences (with those in my orbit), even in my genre fiction. And auto-fiction, memoir, is a minefield, but I wade in, compelled to purge myself of the old hurt. I write now because of the girlfriend who 'was a bitch,' or the sibling who was insensitive, or the parent who was distant. This is my furnace. Take 'This Boy's Life' by Tobias Wolff. Young Toby would never have gone on to write so vividly if not for Dwight. Toby would never have left the town of Cement if not for Dwight. If he'd had a different step father, a more balance one, there would never have been 'This Boy's Life.' Toby would have settled down and went to work in the factory or the lumber mill. Apologies to Tobias Wolff if I get any of this wrong, but to write his memoir, Wolff needed releases from the people he wrote about. And he would never get a release from Dwight. He had to wail till Dwight was no more. One way around this, however, is to just change the names and places, etc.
The world foreclosed on the possibility of a satire that could cold stop depraved determined monomaniacs. 'Never met the man that my spirit could kill' said Steppenwolf. Does not work at a societal level, remains to be written if satire works among our friends. Seems to be the necessary act of bravery if you are delighted with the verisimilitude of your person on paper that you reach for the memory or the feeling that they have reactions all unknown to you. Then exaggeration can enter back in, like the commenter says ' there are rules'. For instance Zarathustra does not come across as a person, but it seemed as if N. wished us to receive him as a person made monstruous by disappointment. Bloom as Ravelstein takes some persuasive power from the similar situation of being the bearer of big news. He had friends so powerful noone could slow him down. The winners writing our history is a pill . Every daily we wish for people the freedom of their privacy.
This dovetails nicely with some of my own thoughts on artistic ethics; your concept of the "frame" really sums it up well, almost as if art is an inverted form of the "safe space" that's annoyingly invoked so often.
I will print this one out and think on it further. Thank you!
Children's art, the old saw goes, has no ethics. That was why we say it was not art. Avida Dollars aka Salvator Dali sought to place himself at war with the squares, does he get a pass for claiming paranoid pscyzoid? He might be in the category of married collaborative artists whose work ought to be considered as it represents the dignity of the partners. Compare to the novels of the married collaboration of Carolyn See. Soviet realism has no conscience. In times of war and stress, the art that protests stays ethical by being both rhetorical and bloody minded. In other words that nobody wants all you have to give. Your gift there in protest was in announcing that there will be the black of night to retreat to, and so it will be unethical to either give your self away or to take no obvious position. Mosby Woods and myself believe you are ethical in announcing the scale of your sybject. In that way, often in the title, the public is forewarned.
Excellent list of reflections. I am writing a book that could be labeled as autofiction. I don’t if it will be released in the or not, but I feel, as you say, the aesthetic need of doing it. I read you as saying this (maybe putting my thoughts here): you can see the line, it’s there; you have to take risks and know that overstepping might have consequences. You can also be as close as you can to it and play there. It’s not absolutely clear where art starts to lose and life to win. That’s, precisely, the art of it. But the line is there. You’re silly (and maybe not a complete artist) if you can’t see it.
Agree with all of this except for the throwaway comment about immersive theater and performance art. Idk much about performance art, but for me the difference between great immersive theater and not-so-great is about framing in much the way you describe elsewhere here. For instance, the distinct masks audience members wear when attending Sleep No More or Life and Trust mark the selves that we are in those theatrical spaces as not "us" but as ghosts of those particular fictive realms; the use of mime and choreography on the part of the players introduces deliberately composed symbolism into their actions even when they can be viewed from multiple angles.
Fantastic, Sam, especially the last one. I have a handful of stories that I’ve buried for the reasons you mention in the last point—either because they’re unfairly mean to someone I care about, or share a side of me that I’d rather not share.
And, I read that Larson/Dorland story: powerful stuff.
Larson and Celine (Cecile? Fancy C-word) Ng have been made permanent cunts in the bad sense of the word by their own actions. Their victim/scapegoat didn’t deserve any of their mean-girl mob-righteousness. They’re hateful, they deserve to be known for that, and I don’t wanna remember her name at all. I want her to have a happy, anonymous life, and write under her own pseudonym if it brings her joy and work.
Wow, this means a lot to you it seems! It’s a freaking terrible story.
Art it the subconscious with rules.
I would only say that I don't agree that "Art is basically the subconscious'" That would assume that an artist, in the act of creation, can separate his/her conscious and unconscious mind. From personal experience, and from the work of writers like Brecht and Beckett, it really instead reflects,to my mind, a battle between the public and the private, the conscious and the unconscious. It's like intellect and feeling, which I also don't think are separate but rather part of the same process. And I have also argued that art is not-political, even when motivated by politics, because at the moment of creation, of true feeling, everything comes into play, but the dominant (or domineering) force is that of pure creativity, no matter the origins of the work. Otherwise things become hopeless didactic in a material way, when the truth is that that didacticism should really represent the (endless) arguments that persist between those two states.
I draw on my own life experiences (with those in my orbit), even in my genre fiction. And auto-fiction, memoir, is a minefield, but I wade in, compelled to purge myself of the old hurt. I write now because of the girlfriend who 'was a bitch,' or the sibling who was insensitive, or the parent who was distant. This is my furnace. Take 'This Boy's Life' by Tobias Wolff. Young Toby would never have gone on to write so vividly if not for Dwight. Toby would never have left the town of Cement if not for Dwight. If he'd had a different step father, a more balance one, there would never have been 'This Boy's Life.' Toby would have settled down and went to work in the factory or the lumber mill. Apologies to Tobias Wolff if I get any of this wrong, but to write his memoir, Wolff needed releases from the people he wrote about. And he would never get a release from Dwight. He had to wail till Dwight was no more. One way around this, however, is to just change the names and places, etc.
Thanks for your article.
The world foreclosed on the possibility of a satire that could cold stop depraved determined monomaniacs. 'Never met the man that my spirit could kill' said Steppenwolf. Does not work at a societal level, remains to be written if satire works among our friends. Seems to be the necessary act of bravery if you are delighted with the verisimilitude of your person on paper that you reach for the memory or the feeling that they have reactions all unknown to you. Then exaggeration can enter back in, like the commenter says ' there are rules'. For instance Zarathustra does not come across as a person, but it seemed as if N. wished us to receive him as a person made monstruous by disappointment. Bloom as Ravelstein takes some persuasive power from the similar situation of being the bearer of big news. He had friends so powerful noone could slow him down. The winners writing our history is a pill . Every daily we wish for people the freedom of their privacy.
This dovetails nicely with some of my own thoughts on artistic ethics; your concept of the "frame" really sums it up well, almost as if art is an inverted form of the "safe space" that's annoyingly invoked so often.
I will print this one out and think on it further. Thank you!
Children's art, the old saw goes, has no ethics. That was why we say it was not art. Avida Dollars aka Salvator Dali sought to place himself at war with the squares, does he get a pass for claiming paranoid pscyzoid? He might be in the category of married collaborative artists whose work ought to be considered as it represents the dignity of the partners. Compare to the novels of the married collaboration of Carolyn See. Soviet realism has no conscience. In times of war and stress, the art that protests stays ethical by being both rhetorical and bloody minded. In other words that nobody wants all you have to give. Your gift there in protest was in announcing that there will be the black of night to retreat to, and so it will be unethical to either give your self away or to take no obvious position. Mosby Woods and myself believe you are ethical in announcing the scale of your sybject. In that way, often in the title, the public is forewarned.