Interdisciplinary Artworks

Interdisciplinary artworks have grown recently in popularity in the artworld. The more one collaborates with other artists the more attention they seem to be given, and this seems right after all, one has much more of a chance of drawing an audience if they are using both dance and the visual arts, as opposed to just one or the other. Attention is not the only impetus though and many artists just like working with other artists in the creation process. The question though here is: Is just simply working with another medium a sufficient condition for a work to be interdisciplinary? The prima facie (on the face of it) answer to this is "Yes." However, there seems to be a problem with this assertion as some of the performing arts will many times include this as part of their art form. The two common instances of this are dance and theater. Each of these, will most of the time include collaboration with different artists. Most dances are set to music, most theater is accompanied by a set designs or costume designs. All of these instances incorporate different artforms or different artists, and it doesn't seem like we want to call them interdisciplinary. Otherwise, every time a choreographer creates to music, they are creating an interdisciplinary work. This seems to me to be a mistake, as people don't generally refer to such works as interdisciplinary works. A possible answer to this is to say that there has to be two artists of different mediums involved in the creation of the work. The problem with this line of argument rests in that even though multiple artists are involved in the creation of an artwork, it still can end up with the same problem as the previous one, in that the other mediums are only there for the purpose of supporting the main medium. In the case of dance, visuals and music can be there to just simply support the dance. Even though different artists may collaborate, the results often end up with one artform being the main medium and the others being supporting or subservient to the main. I have often heard the phrase, "Be careful the projections don't distract from the enjoyment of the dance." This statement underlies my concern. In that, how can an artwork be interdisciplinary if all the disciplines are not as important or close to important to be enjoyed? The importance of multiple disciplines seems to me to be the sufficient condition for an artwork to be considered interdisciplinary. Now, I feel it is time to say what makes a good interdisciplinary artwork as opposed to a bad one. To be clear, I am not talking about the artwork being good. I am talking about how does one determine the goodness or badness of the interdisciplinary aspect of a work of art. So there are two aspects of evaluation I am distinguishing here. I can evaluate a work of art on it being a good work or a bad work. This I can evaluate for any work of art. What I want to focus on here, is how do I determine if the artist(s) who created the work, worked with the different disciplines of art well? This, I think, lies in the idea of emergent properties. So good interdisciplinarianism lies in how the different mediums being used mix and match so that they create something new. The good interdisciplinary artist(s) are ones which create the new work which is not reducible to its individual parts. They complement each other well without either being subservient to the other, and create something new in the process. This is, what I think, makes a good interdisciplinarianism, the ability create a new work of art which is irreducible to the individual mediums. Why is it necessary here to not have one simply subservient to the other medium? After all, it seems like there is more that is added when a dancework has music as opposed to not having music (at least most of the time) so it doesn't appear to be reducible to its individual parts, movement and sound. The reason is simply that it still is dance in this instance. Since the parts are all subservient to the dance, we do not get something that is interdisciplinary, just simply a dance. So the parts, the music and the dance need to work together to create something new. The two forms need to meld and create something anew. That is what makes for good interdisciplinarianism.

The Sublime and the Pantheon

(Sublimity can be defined as a feeling of being in the presence of something great, something greater than one's self)

As I stated in my previous post, I spent about eight days in Rome during the winter break. During that time, I saw pretty much all of the famous and great churches and monuments of Rome. My favorite of all the buildings was the Pantheon. This was due to me experiencing the greatest moment of supreme sublimity when I entered the Pantheon. (This was a consistent experience, I went inside of it at least 5 or 6 times.)  Nowhere else in Rome did I have an experience even close to this, even with St. Peter's Cathedral's dome being only slightly smaller than the Pantheon's. But sublimity was the intention of these baroque architects, constructing these gigantic and ornate churches, so why did I not really receive sublimity from these churches?

I think the answer might have something to do with analogy between how I sit in regards to the church as an institution, and the placement I am in the actual physical church. I should start with my relationship as a human being to the church. I grew up with very little to no knowledge of the Christian faiths and kind of developed my own views that 'God' is not an entity which lives above and beyond us but that nature in and of itself is 'God'. When I think of spirituality, I do not associate it with a relationship to heaven, but with a relationship to nature. Spirituality and faith is a much more immediate thing for me and is not so much longing for some kind of divine worship from above, but a more naturalistic worship from around us. (You can see my influence from people like Thoreau.) So let us analogize this to the Pantheon vs. St. Peter's. The Pantheon is much closer to the Earth. The dome is not something far above us, but is right there. While St. Peter's (and the other gigantic Christian cathedrals) are so far above me, I feel no connection, I don't feel overwhelmed (being overwhelmed is usual prerequisite for sublime beauty), more disinterested. St. Peter's is beautiful and all, but I don't seek for that which is beautiful, I seek for that which is sublime.

So now this comes to my relationship with dance. How in the world do I produce a sublime affect through dance? Most treatises on sublimity actually focus upon literature as a source of sublimity. The reason why I ask this question is because sublimity is really what, for me, makes art worthwhile. I do not really know the answer to this question, and it will probably be the focus for a lot of my next few years. (I think I have always really sought the sublime in dance, I just haven't noticed it until recently.) I am doing some extensive reading upon the sublime and am currently experimenting with my choreography to see if I can produce that result, or a different, more peculiar, form of the sublime within dance itself. But one of my professors told me that Ballet is actually aimed at the sublime, but I quickly pointed out that I do not feel sublimity from ballet. So maybe there is another analogy that we can make from the previous analogy. Maybe I have the same relation to ballet as I do to Christianity or to baroque architecture? I do not know. These are all questions which I will continue to seriously ponder as I go into my future as a choreographer and philosopher.

Expanded Perceptions of Architecture

This winter break, I spent eight days in Rome and then eleven days traveling across the Western Mediterranean. (Spain, Portugal, Morocco) During this time I saw great work of architecture, after great work of architecture, after great work of architecture. The architecture in Europe is just purely outstanding. And then when I returned, I noticed, and still am noticing, my perception and appreciation of architecture has shifted dramatically. No longer do I walk past beautiful pieces of architecture, or even just minimally beautiful pieces, I actually see the architecture. Before I would just vaguely acknowledge the buildings, now I can really perceive them, and appreciate them. What is kind of amazing about this is that I do not have any real tangible knowledge of architecture. I could not really tell you the difference between gothic and Renaissance architecture, and even if I did, these concepts would not increase my appreciation at all. This experience of mine supports a cognitivist conception of the arts. The cognitivists believe that art can non-trivially teach us, not in terms of physical, concrete knowledge, but in terms of understanding and ways of perceiving. (see Gordon Graham)

But what interests me the most about this, is what way/ways of perceiving is essential to the appreciation of dance. It seems as if dance has multiple levels and layers of appreciation. Dance can have musical qualities, visual qualities, kinesthetic qualities (physicality), theatrical qualities, poetic qualities, dramatic qualities, emotional qualities, etc. And while it emphasizes, or at least tries to, the kinesthetic qualities, it is hard to extract the kinesthetic from the other layers. (The three main ones are probably musical, visual, and kinesthetic. The other ones seem as if they might be optional or up to the artistic sensibilities of the choreographer.) Kinesthetic is probably the unique thing about dance and is perhaps what dance is most valuable for in terms of new ways of perceiving. But I wonder if it would be a good idea to add in those other qualities to reach a broader audience, or if we would lose some of dance's teaching abilities by adding in those other, non-kinesthetic qualities.

Why Should Artists Study Aesthetics?

I was quoted this recently from some source unknown to me, "Aesthetics is to the artist as ornithology is to the birds." Implying of course, (disregarding the bad analogy as it is generally accepted that dancers should study kinesiology) that the study of aesthetics have nothing to do with being an artist or creating art. Being someone who wants to find in-roads for philosophy and dance to interact, this was a troubling sentiment to me. So what exactly does the study of aesthetics do for a choreographer? Well, my first reaction, and the one I like to default on, is that the study of different areas brings new ways of thinking and perceiving in the creation of a work of art. However, that does not really answer the question, because the same holds true for the study of any discipline and it says nothing about the content of the field of aesthetics.So let us examine the importance of a specific debate upon an artist, say, the debate between the aesthetic empiricist and the aesthetic contextualist. (We will be skipping the enlightened empiricist position for the sake of simplicity)

Aesthetic empiricism is the idea that the appreciation of art is a matter of a distinct state of mind which allows someone to grasp the formal and expressive qualities of a piece of art. It has been described as a way of seeing or perceiving distinct from ordinary, day-to-day perceptions. Aesthetic contextualism, by contrast, is skeptical of this distinct state of mind and believes that aesthetic appreciation is a result of knowing the context which surrounds the art, along with the artwork itself. They claim that certain works require context in order to appreciate and that you cannot separate the art from its context.

So how does this affect an artist? Why should they care if aesthetic empiricism is right or aesthetic contextualism is right? Well, the answer is, that they do not really need to know if one is right or wrong, what they do need to do is recognize which one they believe in. If I am an aesthetic empiricist (which I am), then this information is vital for how to get my audience to enjoy my work. So I need to be able to communicate the type of mindset or somehow get them prepared to see my show by getting them in the right mindset to appreciate my work. But if I am an aesthetic contextualist, then I need to know what information to communicate to my audience if they are to get my dance.

So the answer to the question: "What does the study of aesthetics do for the artist?" is really quite simple. The study of aesthetics enables an awareness of the audience and how the audience should and should not be perceiving the work of an artist. It allows an artist to be able to avoid the usual answers to the all too much asked question: "What does it mean?" It allows the artist to guide the audience into the appreciation of their artwork, without appeal to artistic virtuosity. (The ability for the artist to create the piece of work, which is usually a quick, but undesirable, in-road to works of art.) Aesthetics is vital for the artist who wants an audience to actually appreciate their work.