Ben Dobay: Blog

Anybody who has been to my apartment knows that I collect a lot of books. The shelves on my bookcase warp under the eclectic and disorganized mass. Its not that I go out and look for books specifically because of their
value to any respectable collection. I just have a hard time getting rid of any of them. I seem to have an attachment to my books, as though each is some sort of accomplishment. And in the case of some of my heavier more intimidating volumes, 'accomplishment' is probably an appropriate term, especially when it comes to hours devoted to reading if not comprehension.

I have a book that my father passed on to me called "The Literature of the United States". It has been a presence on my shelf for years. It is a book that I like to pick up every now and then to read randomly chosen essays and passages. It has a nice mix of poetry, prose, drama, and even some criticism. I recently came across an essay by Susan Sontag titled "One Culture and the New Sensibility." There was a passage in particular that I wanted to share:

"The role of the individual artist, in the business of making unique objects for the purpose of giving pleasure and educating conscience and sensibility, has repeatedly been called into question. Some literary
intellectuals and artists have gone so far as to prophesy the ultimate demise of the art-making activity of man. Art, in an automated scientific society, would be unfunctional, useless. But to this conclusion, I should
argue, is plainly unwarranted. Indeed the whole issue seems to me crudely put. For the question of 'the two cultures' [artistic and scientific] assumes that science and technology are changing, in motion, while the
arts are static, fulfilling some perennial generic human function (consolation? edification? diversion?). Only on the basis of this false assumption would anyone reason that the arts might be in danger of becoming obsolete."

My first reaction this was to question Sontag's idea of 'two cultures' as though art and science were contradicting practices, and idea that is to me contrived, a division created by critics. Even if you agree with the
idea that art an science are incompatible, to say so creates a gap, further isolating art from a possible audience. Although I thought upon reading this essay that the idea of separate scientific and artistic cultures was created by criticism, Sontag has another explanation:

"The Conflict between 'the two cultures' is in fact an illusion, a temporary phenomenon born of a period of profound and bewildering change. What we are witnessing is not so much a conflict of cultures as the creation of a new (potentially unitary) kind of sensibility. This new sensibility is rooted, as it must be, in our experience, experiences which are new in the history of humanity--in extreme social and physical mobility; in the crowdedness of the human scene (both people and material commodities multiplying at a dizzying rate); in the availability of new sensations such as speed (physical speed, as in airplane travel; speed of
images, as in the cinema); and in the pan-cultural perspective on the arts that is possible through the mass-reproduction of objects"

So it seems that by 'scientific culture' Sontag is referring to what we would call 'technology' today. She is referring to the pace of technological change, its affect on the way we communicate, and the affect on art. In that sense, it is as though this essay could have been written yesterday. I suppose that what impresses me is that this article remains poignant despite that fact that it was published in 1965. I think of this article often when thinking about the direction, and progress of music. How does such technological progress affect not the music itself, but they way an audience receives it and the way the artist expresses it? If you read the full essay, the ideas that Sontag expresses regarding 'mass-production' can be applied to the advance of computer technology and the internet in todays world. She explains not how the arts will be affected literally by technological change, but how people and artists will adapt to that change. Sontag explains this as a 'sensibility.' I believe that cultural and technological change force an artist to find a new means of expression, and ironically in some cases offering that new means for expression. The internet, and its rise to prominence (a phenomenon that even Sontag could not predict) is a good example. The speed and distance at which information can be shared has forever changed
musical expression. The ability to post videos has inspired artists to create works specifically for use on the internet, while at the same time, especially for some of the more creative musicians, creating an entirely new medium for musical expression.

In the first passage Sontag says that in order to hold the belief that music is becoming obsolete one must believe that "science and technology are changing, in motion, while the arts are static". To me it is clear that music is not at all static. Music incessantly kidnaps ideas from the 'material' world and turns them into new forms of expression. Musicians playing live, acoustic instruments (with or without electronic amplification, live sampling etc.) are always finding ways to adapt their
music. This is why I believe that live acoustic music will always be important. The idea that the technology developed in the studio is making live acoustic instruments obsolete is nonsense.

It is encouraging to think that creativity is the key to keeping an art form, in this case music, alive and vibrant. New compositions can always find a way to express new ideas, take inspiration from its surroundings. It is not pure ability or virtuosity that propels music into new decades and millennia, but composers and improvisers ingenuity and musicality.

BD