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toolboxby
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| Viewed: | 17 times |
| Added: | 2 years, 6 months ago |
| " | Looking at my last journal, I kind of have to post another. I really prefer writing within my submissions, rather than in the journal section. This isn't LiveJournal; who fucking cares, right. |
| " | Right, so, recent events have made me decide I should start making music again. And I use the term "music" loosely. But if I say "sound art", I doubt others would understand. Well, lack of understanding is the unfortunate expectation anyway, but there's no need to exacerbate the issue. Tangent. |
| " | This should be contrasted with "product" - that is, something that is made to be consumed by others. Generally, good products are bad art and vice versa. This is because art is exclusive and products are inclusive; art is difficult for large audiences to appreciate and products are easy for large audiences to appreciate. |
| " | I know I wish to be understood. Very badly. Am I an artist? Unsure, but I intend on using the process to navigate some of my obstacles. Whether it succeeds, maybe I will know by the end of this year. |
| " | Artists can be very frustrating to talk to about art. Probably since, if they could simply talk about such things, then why are they even making art? I don't think this is a determining factor. Just a thing I have noticed while trying to understand artists. |
| " | I kinda dig it. Not sure if you know Silent Hill 1, but it describes well what you said. |
| " | I try to make a compromise between both. I draw for myself, usually, only stuff that I would personally enjoy. But some of the pictures I do in that vein interest others and turn out to be quite popular. It's worth noticing that some mediums are more popular than others, such is the case of comics. |
| " | Because of that, very often artists are in disagreement about a lot of things art-related... |
| " | Ahh, Akira Yamaoka, I think that was the name of that guy? He's actually a big inspiration for me. I've tried to listen to a lot of his stuff. Not like, a regular listening kind of thing, but his stuff really sticks in my head. |
| " | When I hear one of his songs, I feel a gentler kind of sadness, or the kind of tranquility that comes out of misery. Feelings I appreciate, but wouldn't know how to express. |
| " | I've been slowly looking through your submissions. You have a lot to go through. Did you delete some of your older stuff? I see you've been around on this site at least as long as I have, but I'm not recognizing any submissions so far. (I mostly just pay attention to music here.) |
| " | Also, I'll take this opportunity to ask you, but you take commissions regularly, right? I saw on one of your music submissions that you do music commissions, so surely you're doing art commissions as well. There are two questions I have for you from there. |
| " | 1) You have to shift towards product when doing a commission, right? It seems necessary, but maybe you found a way to avoid it. |
| " | 2) How does music commissions work..? I don't even understand how a person would make the request of you. Do they come with details about keys and genres and arrangements? Or is it as simple as describing some piece of story and letting you interpret as you wish? |
| " | In my only successful music commission work, the commissioner just gave me examples of songs he liked and told me to compose something like those. It was for his game. |
| " | How so? o.o |
| " | I used to delete an entire page of my submission gallery every October 14th, in order to only keep the most recent stuff. I no longer do that, tho, and only delete anything if my submission counter exceeds 1000. I have been submitting less stuff as of late, so that is unlikely to happen his year. |
| " | I used to. Currently, I'm legally unable to do commissions due to a law in my state that says I can't profit from private activity if I have a job in the state machine. Since my new job is a class of public servant, I can no longer do commissions. |
| " | Mmm, thinking how to elaborate. Okay. So, the basis of a commission is that you are making something for someone else (in exchange for cash, most often). And, I guess..it seems like "pure" art is made more selfishly - made for the artist's sake. This might be wrong. And of course I don't know your clients well, so maybe they give you a lot of freedom in commissions. To make art for another person, at the specific request of the other person...that is kind of like pulling out your feelings on command, which seems unnatural or at least very difficult. So my assumption is that, instead, an artist making a commission will lean a little more towards "product" - that is, they don't put so much of themselves into it (maybe 70% personal instead of 100%). |
| " | I also don't know how much of yourself you normally put into your art. Perhaps no one could say. If you were normally only putting in a little bit of yourself, there might not be any difference at all to fulfill a request. There is also a skill issue, ironically. If your skill gets so high that you can thoughtlessly make a piece in a few minutes, then I don't know if that can be called art anymore. |
| " | These sorts of abstract questions might seem pointless to other people, but I have found myself in a position where I require answers. |
| " | Ahh, I want to elaborate on an earlier part. About art being selfish. The idea came from talking to someone years ago, about how motivation shapes the piece. Every artist probably asks themself this in some form eventually: who am I making this for? I have seen many good talents online give up because they seemed to not cross that bridge. If you are publishing and no one notices or gives feedback, the only way to push forward is to do it for yourself. If you get hung up on the silence, on having no views - if these things make you give up, you were probably doing it for other people. There is a fine line, though. The artist wishes to have their work appreciated, so of course any artist should feel at least a little sad in the face of silence. |
| " | I put all that I have. Even when I work with ideas given by others. |
| " | Because art is expression too, like I said. Nobody enjoys talking to a wall... There should be a compromise. |
| " | Ah, that! Well, it depends on what you call true art. I learned that art is a work of human artifice with a primary aim of causing aesthetic pleasure. |
| " | Would it be easy for you to notice if you did not give 100%? If you wanted to for some reason, would you be able to put in only half? |
| " | It makes sense. I will have to see if others do something similar. I have only been making these sorts of inquiries since this year, and I seem to be mired in Discord most of the time, so most responses have been unhelpful. ...So I appreciate you bothering to engage at all. Anyway, if I'm interpreting what you've said correctly, you put all of yourself into even your training works - would this not also be self-expression, even if it's not the intention? I'm unsure how much it matters whether an artist wants to express themselves, if the things they make count as self-expression anyway. |
| " | Would. Tracks in which I don't put my 100% usually are ones I like the less. Many of my bosses wanted peppy, cheerful, childish music. I don't do that and, if I do, I'm not doing it for me, but for someone else and I'm probably hating it as much as my boss is. |
| " | When doing something for someone, then it's not really self-expression. So, when doing stuff for others, I am looking to improve myself the most, not really expressing anything that comes from me. After all, I'm working with an idea that was given by someone else. |
| " | I see. Even outside of what your regular audience seems to be, music to impart positive and happy feelings is really desirable. I remember I used to seek that kind of thing out. Eventually I turned around and went the other way. But I agree with the idea there, that if you force yourself and do something fake that you are unhappy with, that both the audience and artist are going to be unhappy. Or, that's the way it ought to be. I wonder about the exceptions. |
| " | To be clear...you are not saying that none of your "free music" is self-expression, right? The way I understood that pool was that you made it all as attempted music commissions, meaning that you were doing all of it for someone else. ..But maybe that's not right. I think at least a few of them were stated to be tests of new techniques/ideas. If none of that pool is self-expression, then it puts me in an awkward position. |
| " | That aside, I want to put forward what I think is an exception: unsolicited gift art. If you can somehow channel your feelings for another person while making art with the intention of giving it to them, that should be an exception. I have not actually done this, but I've seen people act like it is a thing that can happen. The closest I ever got was deciding to make a gift and then just using that as motivation to make something - this should not count, but other people couldn't seem to tell. Nagging suspicion that maybe that happens more often than people admit. |
| " | Defining "art" really is a sticky matter. I barely understand the foundations. What you say here reminds me of something, though. What would you call something that has sort of an opposite aim? Like, making the audience experience negative things. It was something I used to joke about with my last mate, that one could make a "weapon to send everyone to hell" and it would merely be a carefully crafted album of music or song. Aesthetics is a bit tricky to define too, now that I think of it. I'll go around it for now. Feedback is necessary to figure out how other people feel about your art, yet you can't really force feedback to happen - worse still, you can't force useful feedback (I'm sure you are aware of this). I guess I've gone back to the artist focusing on their own self-satisfaction. |
| " | Where should one start, in the attempt at learning what is aesthetically pleasurable (in practice)? Is it not always based on personal preference? It seems simple, put like this, but I don't want to jump to conclusions. And then, if aesthetics are subjective like that, where is the line seperating it from self-expression? Like, ah, with the music I make, I know nothing of composition or arrangement, etc. I basically listen on loop for hours while making adjustments until I decide I am done. I assume that means I'm satisfying my own aesthetic, but feedback has indicated that it does not satisfy the aesthetic of others. What should I make of that? I know you are familiar with people taking your works with a..strong negativity. Not exactly my experience, but it seems related. Can this be a part of aesthetic conflict as well? Or maybe content should be seperated from aesthetic, like one could seperate aesthetic from genre. |
| " | Well, if you can't have the feedback you want, self-satisfaction at least makes you feel like your work is not as bad as you think. When I began drawing, in 2009, I knew fully well that my art sucked a lot of ass. But I also felt that, if the connection to art is something personal, someone, someday, would be attached to such scribbles. In the mean time, provided I did not stop, I would get better with practice. I was right, it seems! |
| " | You see, the connection to art is totally personal. There are things that make such connection easier, which makes something appeal to more people. But, even when you don't use any of those things, you can still appeal to a niche. And why is that? Because the effect of something in an audience aesthetic reception is virtually unpredictable. Someone could argue that skill and a message can make art receive more attention, but that is not always true: a lot of artists, both painters and musicians, have great skill and stuff beautiful and thought-provoking ideas in their works, but that doesn't guarantee universal appreciation. Some people are bored by those things. It's because, even if beauty can be construed as universal, personal taste absolutely can not. Something can be beautiful and yet not appeal to me, even if I recognize the beauty, skill and motive involved. 'Wow, that's cool, but not my kind of thing." |
| " | Unfortunately, if you don't know the audience, finding what is aesthetically pleasant to them is trial and error. I would suggest doing stuff that pleases you and leave it around for people to see and let a niche form around you. I did that. Doesn't always work, but worked for me. What you make pleases me. Then again, just look at the kind of stuff I listen to. Perhaps it is already working for you. Also, I don't know much about those things either, for I have no formal training. Ever since 2010, I just jam out what comes to mind. |
| " | I see a lot of artists struggle even with that point. I wish I had advice to give them. The way I see it, what you did is one of the few ways an artist can really stick with art. Perhaps it is something they must figure out on their own. I can't really say I've done that myself, haha. |
| " | Mm, yeah, I agree. I learned that from watching what was popular on furry art sites. Certain ideas and techniques float to the top, even if the results are hollow. Artists sometimes discarded their own ideas and techniques to get a taste of popularity. It was hard to watch, people losing sight of themselves - or, that's how it looked to me. Maybe a lot of them simply changed as they got older. Well, you put it in better words than me, so I will stop. |
| " | Ahh, I just remembered another matter, very slightly related. What do you think of artistic collaboration? I don't hear about it much, but I know it happens. When a single artist makes a work, it is great, of course. But the potential of multiple artists combined is..should be much more than great. I wonder how the matter of differing self-expressions is handled. In a professional work, there seems to be some structure or hierarchy to rely on - but I am more interested in the casual art realm. Since I am...out of touch with others, I do not know if artistic collaboration is really even attempted often. Perhaps it takes a certain type of artist to consider it? Or maybe the majority is willing, but waiting for an opportunity to come? |
| " | Can you explain your process for music? It sounds like you understand normal composition and arrangement (even if you haven't studied it). Unless you're using randomizers carefully. I'm also guessing that you are doing it all digitally with a mouse. |
