DISMANTLINGS :: Guenther Rabl

SPLINTERS

It would not be so difficult to convince the proper authorities that new villages have to be built. However, one must realistically figure that Potemkin will once again be awarded the contract.

The judgement of art should neither be left up to the taste of the public nor to the moral values of wheeler-dealers. And it should absolutely not be left up to the moral values of the public and the taste of wheeler-dealers.

The promotion of artists to participate in events which they cannot or will not afford to attend should not exceed a realistically calculated reimbursement for expenses.

If self-praise stinks, what does praise from the media smell like?

The act of creating art does not legitimize itself through a usually mannered relationship between supply and demand and does not define itself according to any type of exchangeable value.

Once the attempt should be made to strip the repertoire of Austrian music – from Viennese classical music, which we so proudly show off to the world, up to today – of all of the works that, as is so beautifully said, were composed ‘for the drawer,’ meaning without external commissions and without any concrete prospect of being performed. We could forget Schubert, Bruckner, Schönberg, Webern, a great deal of Mozart and Beethoven, and, not in the least, the best part of today’s seriously regarded music productions (which we will so proudly show off to the world tomorrow). In view of these trivial facts, grant practices are, to say the least, incomprehensible, due to the fact that creators of music are expected to strive for the short-term utilization before an artistic examination is even begun.

In its essence, the relationship between music creators and music promoters is one of adversaries. It is wonderful if there are common cultural goals and mutual professional appreciation, but that cannot be presumed. We are dealing here with contradictory interests that are as fundamental as those between manufacturers and merchants. This, in itself, is not bad. It is only bad if one ignores these contradictory interests and acts as if everyone more or less wanted the same thing.

The history of contemporary music is a history of artificial flops.

Everywhere we are confronted with views – such as the one that recently appeared in a local weekly newspaper – today one needs “no one anymore who creates an installation to music, because everything is done by the computer.” (And, as is generally known, anyone can buy it in any supermarket).
Naturally, the same foolish truisms are grist for the mills of a generally uncritical belief in technology that is so deeply rooted and is so vehemently nourished by the media that a proper information campaign would already be needed to reach a merely half-way sober understanding for the real possibilities of deployment and the limits of technology. In reality, it is the point at which the opinions divulge, namely, those of the laymen (also those who are employed) from those of the professionals (also the unemployed ones) – the sensual conversion of music in space. Also where the music completely comes ‘out of the computer’ – and especially there – an acoustic spatialization is required: without it, a loudspeaker installation, which can have an orchestral and sculptural character, and a sound direction that represents an individual artistic discipline, even with the most technologically advanced performance, would not top the aesthetic level of a beer tent festival.

Pages could be filled with how today’s musical creation is to be promoted. Arguments can be brought in, good, serious arguments for the cultural importance of contemporary music – not just for musical life itself, but far beyond that. A debate could be led factually as well as polemically, satirically or cynically. One could completely begin ‘at zero’ and throw up the question whether creating art should be promoted at all, and sincerely answer this question once with no, to deduce, step by step and in all modesty, the necessity of nurturing cultural facts to the point that one can presently not avoid: that is, to adequately support the creation of art and, as a consequence, also contemporary music with public means. I only fear that everything would be for nought simply because of a single objection that nullifies any argumentation: We unfortunately don’t have any money for it.

More and more often, creators of art who are reliant on means of production or even means of existence have to yield to this lapidary objection. Often it is the end of an undertaking that is just beginning or the beginning of an exhaustive odyssey in finance management that the creators of art are additionally saddled with as if it were a matter of course. The impression arises that we have really been living in the greatest period of cultural drought as far back as we can remember – The Age of the Austerity Package (formerly Aquarius).
What is amazing about the whole thing is that there currently are cultural monster projects, with and centered on art, costing billions, which are shooting out of the ground like mushrooms. Referring to these projects, however, does very little. On the contrary, these ventures would have devoured so much, that nothing is left over. Incidentally, every single time. Consequently, the only thing remaining for us is the biblical consolation: Those who only reaped the curse because the blessing – rightly or wrongly – was already given away, nevertheless became the bearers of a world culture.

At all times there are forces in music that further its development and counteract manneristic stiffness. Contemporary music – as an experimental music – has always existed, and no serious musical work has ever been created any other way than contemporarily. Contemporary music is no stylistic direction and the listeners of contemporary music are no fan community, as conservative and populist taste demagogues like to depict it. Thus, the ‘target audience’ for contemporary music is actually the potential audience for music and acoustic art altogether.

All creation of music has two roots: improvisation – the finding in the moment – and composition – the joining together of elements outside the flow of time. They are unthinkable without each other. Whoever cannot improvise also cannot compose, and whoever cannot compose, cannot improvise either. It is as simple as that. The question as to which of the two has priority is as idle as the question about the priority of the chicken or the egg. Both improvisation and composition do not correspond to what they are trivially thought to be. Stylistic improvisation, as in traditional jazz and in various ethnic music styles, is crumbled composition. Inspirational composition is broadly trodden improvisation. (Hence, in jazz, only those solos of real masters who also maintain compositional force on their instruments are bearable. Everything else, in contrast, borders on athletics or defecation). In no case, however, is the root of music commercial minstrelsy, as it is currently being propagated by a new populism. Commercial minstrelsy is a fake. Its root is the realization that money can be made with a scam.

Moreover, every creator of music has his personal roots which coincidence has bestowed upon him. For Schubert it may be the world of landlers, for Schönberg it may be a type of ‘Schuhplattler’ that can also still be noticed in the rhythmic structure of his chamber music. For today’s generations of music creators, the roots, in many cases, do not lie at all in any minstrel spheres, but in the spheres of radio and television, and, as of late, in the Internet as well. We have to assume this. This means we have to overcome them if we want to create music. Just as Schubert’s great compositions can be seen as the overcoming of the landler, or Schönberg’s work as the overcoming of the ‘Schuhplattler,’ our current great music is based on the overcoming of radio and network music.

It is nice if a person can dance to music and it is also not to be scorned if one can eat, drink and converse to music. However, music styles that define themselves through attendant circumstances, be it ‘dance music,’ ‘dining music’ or ‘conversational music,’ are definitely not from the dress circle.

New populism likes to invoke a primordial unity of sound and movement, of music and dance, and earns wide approval therewith, just as every plausible triviality does. Of course, such a primordial unity does exist. However, it does not consist of a few people playing music and a few others dancing to it. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that those who are dancing have to pay for it, while those who are playing get money for it (minus the remunerations of the opportunity makers who mediated the deal).

It seems that the ‘first muse’ evidently has to put up with every insinuation. No person seriously expects from a ballet that the people dance to and sing along with it; or from theater that the audience acts along. Certainly there are such forms, but nobody, with the exception of a few fanatics perhaps, would ever have the idea of making a cultural or qualitative criterion for dance and music out of it. In the field of music there is everything – dance music, hiking songs, marching music, love songs, working songs, soft rock, karaoke – and the devil knows what else.

An overabundantly-known phenomenon is the interdisciplinary illiterateness among people occupied with art – those who create, as well as those who mediate. People from the visual arts, from literature or from the theater often have no idea whatsoever about music. Persons who can be counted among the avant-garde of their profession often maintain a trivial and banal taste as regards music or trail behind any type of stylistic trends or mainstreams. Conversely, experts from the field of music frequently haven’t the foggiest notion about the real developments in the other disciplines and draw their external world view from the dubious representations of various mass media. This interdisciplinary illiterateness goes so far that, as a rule, persons who have become stylistically specialized within one of the larger disciplines also only have a vague image of the rest of their field based on false analogies and one-sided media information.
Therefore, it is urgently recommended not to foist important subject areas, in this case, contemporary music from here and now, onto other fields. What emerges out of this are the almost necessarily skewered perspectives for the creators as well as for the public, which, in the long term, will result in a cultural desolation and monotony. Even less often should stylistic or historical specialists overtake responsibility for a whole discipline. It is better not to leave any musical programming up to theater people or dance people; experts from the fields of baroque music or jazz, for example, should not overtake the responsibility for contemporary music.
It would also be vital to pay attention that, in addition to the artistic and crafting disciplines which use music, among other things (and there are many), autonomous music itself does not come up short. The way music is generally dealt with, for example, in film, at the theater or in the media arts branch, is plainly and simply a catastrophe – not only aesthetically, but also concerning its function as well as its integration into the production process.

If a ‘Club of Friends of the May Beetle’, for instance, receives grants for measures aimed at the preservation and protection of the May beetle, then, as a precaution, someone should verify whether their extinction is perhaps not being pursued. The very idea itself is not as devious as it would seem. False declarations in grant applications are the custom in all areas, and the reversal of original goals in organizations and institutions is an everyday practice in cultural politics.

Enthusiasts in an area of art should hold salons, but no public events. In the salon they can indulge in their individual taste (which may also be good), can offer what they want and can invite who they want.
If a salon has a larger cultural significance, then a discussion can by all means take place about a grant with public funds. This would then have to be an individual ‘salon grant,’ which does not touch the means allocated for creating art. Public events would be dealt with differently, insofar as they are not held in a purely commercial form. Here, contextual guidelines and a contextual control, in a single case, as well as with respect to generally agreed goals, have to exist.

Bees are alien to the barbarian. Their diligence, which, in his eyes, borders on stupidity, is deeply mistrusted. He finds them altogether bothersome and threatening. When the honeycomb is finally full, he smokes them out of the hive and takes the honey.

If a needy artist takes up a job in order to survive, for example, as a bookkeeper, then his bookkeeping is not art because of this. Even less is it art if artists overtake creative-cultural tasks from any area because of a lack of commissions in their actual field – not even when they conceive and offer them on their own.

Much has been drivelled on about art by people who are occasionally allowed to look over the fence. However, the most simple and banal aspects are notoriously absent – for instance, these:
#1 The artist is a craftsman who knows himself what he has to do.
#2 Art is a product of nature.

Culture is not created. Culture grows, lives and dies. It can be cared for, promoted, even hindered – but not created. To express it pointedly, culture is when the bread is good and inexpensive.
If culture in this sense is meant, then ‘folk culture’ is a pleonasm: Culture is always ‘folk culture,’ everything else would be cultural dictatorship (we already had it here once). If, however, something such as ‘folk art’ should also be meant, strange thoughts cross my mind: As soon as someone understands more about a cultural discipline, is it then no longer folk art? Will the more knowledgeable one be excluded from the people? Why is the music I create not music of the people??

Tourism is landscape prostitution, as we all know. As opposed to the prostitution of the body, however, the object of prostitution, even in an ideal case, doesn’t belong to those who are offering it for sale. In tourism there is only pimpdom. Tourism has ruined every region culturally, as we also know. To expect a ‘stimulation of the region’ from tourism can hardly be assessed as naivety, but rather, in the best case, as cynicism or as stupidity. Besides that, tourism, as we all should know, is the other side of hostility towards foreigners and xenophobia. There are two types of foreigners: those who pay and those who don’t pay. Those who pay are welcome as ‘tourists,’ those who don’t pay are deported. What’s more, in tourism, hostility towards foreigners (the hostility towards everything ‘foreign’) robs people of their nationality and brings it all to the point: In tourist regions, locals who neither actively nor passively want to be involved in the exploitation are also undesired. They become second degree ‘foreigners.’
There is consequently no reason to continue to promote tourism in any form, and especially not from the cultural and art budget. To expect creative artists of a region to be ‘conducive’ to tourism, as it is occasionally said, would be plainly and simply: infamy.

New Media:
To learn how to play a traditional instrument, no matter which one, you need eight years. To learn to create computer music, no matter with which programs, you need eight years. With every change to new and better programs you suffer a setback of two years. If you only change to new and better programs every two years, you will never learn how to create computer music. Tough luck. The electronic medium (there are no ‘electronic media’) is about 80 years old. It is the same with the ‘new media’ as it is with the ‘new music’: This term was defined in the fifties and since then, and for all eternity, has been deemed as new.

In a small country like Austria, where the arbitrariness and despotism of public officials and functionaries (the monarchistic legacy) can be experienced first hand, one is very easily misled into seeing an individual problem in every case, into identifying various grievances with single persons, and into wasting time with cultural-political banter – as long as one doesn’t have the ambition to garner a small niche for oneself in this system.
Just now, however, at the end of a transitional period in which an older generation of cultural bureaucrats and art mediators is being replaced by a younger one whose ethical and cultural-political irresponsibility is so much more unscrupulous that the chaos of uncontrollable selfishness actually has to take on altogether pluralistic traits, it is surprisingly evident, now more than ever, that the whole matter unmistakeably has a traceable tendency.
That is: this pack of low-minded desperados and apparatchiks, who procure cultural-political influence in any imaginable manner and under all possible pretences, can, in the way it works together, by all means be recognized as a regime.

© Günther Rabl 2001
translated by Brian Dorsey
This text is understood as a literary work of art.
Quoting in context with a reference to the source is allowed until otherwise revoked.