I've thought fairly frequently about my life as a cultist. Or, at least being cultist in terms of what I digest - what I hold that retains individuality (like those crazy record collectors, except without the records). This means, finding the newest thing as soon as possible, cherishing it like it was my own. And, keeping it to myself. In a lot of ways, a very indie mentality - to maintain that directness that is found with those artists like Jamie Stweart, Phil Elvrum or even Morrissey. Every expression could be self-indulgent, but that's the interesting line - when expressing everything, there's a certain intimacy implied. I search for that intimacy, very similarly to an addiction.
And, when everyone listens to exactly what I listen to (Outkast would be the ultimate culprit of this), how can I think about the relationship between the group and my experience? Or even intimacy. My experience could ultimately be no different from so many others that "the cultural significance" is almost too hard to overcome - this is not a direct experience with me and an artist. Outkast has been the model of what I love, with an innovative group, doing exactly what they want and most-deserving of attention. But I realize the gaze of my attention is different from millions of screaming girls (a la "Hey Ya" quoting ze Beatles) - but how different, and thereby an intimate engagement is lost. Walter Benjamin's "Works of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" might be as important as any work within my interests (as it was discussed in two of my classes yesterday, back-to-back, in quite different situations...my Blake-quoting structuralist VR professor & quasi-hippie New Media professor). But when I think of Benjamin's comments, it becomes a question of intimacy, that a particular artwork can keep now. An intimacy between two, something harmonious like Van Gogh's Pair of Shoes. Direct Link (or some other AIM catch-phrase).
As Benjamin's aura becomes the indefinable, something that allows you to forget about answering - something that questions more than answers (Stankonia's Black and White Flag still questioned deeply). I see the aura as close friends, who are endlessly fascinating, whereas, the rest appear to be "the masses." No real mixture - close or reproduced everywhere. Such is the dichotomy, that distinguishes the personal (and engrossing experiences) from blase. Perhaps the artifice (or acknowledgment of the media) can deter this personalized experience, and thereby defers questions about our interest to merge with the media surroundings. To acknowledge the presence of such a form, retains power and critical distance to the reader. But to inbed into such a form - like watching a brakhage transform a room/like fennesz in the dark - presents a certain refraction of a separate perspective, that convinces and can change what rituals we perform.
So how does this intimacy appear? That refraction - convincing and persuading change (into whatever direction necessary) becomes less immediate with vindication. To vindicate, gives power to a text, and can lose whatever strain of the difference, otherworldliness (see Steven Spielberg/George Lucas) - when something is everywhere, how can this be an interesting dialogue? Who speaks within mega-events - everyone appears to be silent, waiting for Matrix Reloaded to blow them away. I guess, endlessly scavanging through times for an artwork that can absolutely touch me, like a historian I cherish the context of it's birth (and reception). But these are my interpretations of what happened - to fill in gaps where a song could have been displayed in utterly awful circumstances - grouped into categories ("grunge") and made into Clear Channel playlists across the nation.
When the "context" does not include me, I can create it and play around in it, like GI Joes. Stuck in the middle, though, I must bear in all backlash (every new movie trailer/oscar's with "Hey Ya"), and the ensuing hopelessness. So, I avoided
Speakerboxx/The Love Below for a long fucking time, and to be honest with you, it was strange. I wanted to look back, see how it changed a culture (as
Stankonia hinted at) and then finally take it in, like an experiment. The events, the grammy's, etc. etc. become useless baggage, like the zillionth time you heard "Hey Ya" was definitely the last, but not the last, because you knew it would never be - it was/will be remembered from inception to UTTER acceptence for a very long amount of time. This is like a book-end, that I thought "Rosa Parks" would perform for Outkast. But alas, those people that we're
all fascinated by, will be remembered until they're explained. And that explanation is going to be a very very sad in the end, for Outkast and for me. To affect a world so quickly makes you wonder how hot it must burn - and how coolly it will be remembered. Canonization is cruel and defines a generation - who wants to be defined nowadays, everything's defined (retro-retro garage rock, one nice example)
Long live esoteric bullshit! democracy in esoteric bullshit! ha, okay, rant over and out.
