film & music as art

So I just got done watching a movie about 10 minutes ago and I was thinking to myself, how much of an impact media and art have on our culture. Now this is nothing new under the sun, cultures have been captivated by art for centuries. But our 21st Century Western culture has really adopted film and music on a whole other level. Sometimes I find myself getting so excited for a new movie or a new album so much that it consumes my mind. For some movies I have counted down the days till the release and made sure I was at the very first showing of a film at midnight even though I was extremely tired (even after six shots of espresso).

It can get so out of hand that I started to wonder if we can separate some film and music from art. Now I know that it is all a matter of perspective that is dictated by ones taste in film and movie styles and genres, but at what point is it art and at what point is it based around advertising, mass consumption and money? Perhaps this is why over the years I have been drawn to films and music that are done on a more independent level. This is not to say that there isn't good art that is mass produced (I mean I love the Lord of the Rings movies) but sometimes I sense that there is more art in some of the more independently produced material.

I have had more time this week to watch films and listen to music because my wife is currently in Africa and has been for over a week now. And it just now hit me that I spent so much of my free time reading books, watching blu-rays, and listening to itunes that I never really spent much time making art myself. I think that is the danger of how much our culture produces and consumes music/film. Where I like to go to these areas for inspiration, there is so much available and so much advertising that the desire to keep watching and listening can sometimes drain us out from using any of our time to sit down and write words or music or stories...

Perhaps this week I should have turned everything off and wrote like 50 songs.

When is art just art and when is art a product?

-cheers

p.s. Don't watch District 9.....it is a big disappointment.

pixels and plagues

It was a sunny pre-spring evening in downtown. The line was short and when inside, the atmosphere was still. The musician finally took the stage after the opening act--only to have an authentic artist/audience connection (or participation in the art if you will) to be interrupted by 21st century technology that only flooded the room with a plague of digital pixels interruption the artistic moment of the hour. This is what I waited for? I missed my last opportunity (which was for those of a mature age) and so this time I was surrounded by all ages.

So seriously.....when your at a concert (especially David Bazan) please don't whip out your cell phone and start recording. It can be very disrupting and disturbing (especially when 8 are in front of me at once.....no exaggeration). I would prefer watching an authentic concert of the person in front of me, not threw the digital display of someone's cell phone.

Thanks for the consideration my fellow tech frenzy friends.

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music: R.E.M. - Automatic for the People
book: They Like Jesus but Not the Church - Dan Kimball
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