blog 10

Firstly, it was extremely pleasant to be reunited with Derren Brown on Monday. When I was in art school a few years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to him and we were mesmerized by his work. The unfortunate thing is that I had forgotten his name, and have tried on numerous occasions to find clips from this lad to show others. The minute I heard his name in class, it all came back to me. But since this blog is not about what we discussed in class, I will merely attach some of my favorite clips of him below.

As we have been reading about the relationship between creativity, hypnosis, and altered states of consciousness, I began wondering what is it that causes a reaction, or more accurately, a relationship between the viewer and the prescribed art. How are we able to feel anything at all? And why do some cherish one artwork over another? Perhaps, artists have been able to capture a form of subliminal advertising in the work itself. Maybe the concept of “needing” something (much like advertising) is crucial in the marketplace today. What constitutes art to begin with? Comedian Ricky Gervais said on his podcast that perhaps the greatest movement in the art world right now is advertising. It may not be the artwork itself, but the ability to “get away” with it may hold a deeper significant. Take for instance the English artist Damien Hirst. His piece titled, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Seeing” is merely an enormous tank containing a shark floating in formaldehyde. It is residing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC until 2010. Is this merely art because he was able to pull it off? Or does our subconscious actually crave a sea cadaver doused in chemicals?

Chapters 9 and 10 have been incredible to say the least. Hughes’ fills virtually every page with beautiful visual sound bytes that resonant long after putting the book down. “Eccentricity is the acceptable face of the creative. Most societies tolerate eccentrics, and even approve of them, in theory.” Perhaps the relationship between mental disturbances, the author, and the reader play a role that is not too unrelated to the German term: schadenfruede (pleasure devised from the misfortunes of others). Many psychologists argue that, for example, when we view a person surer an injury from say, falling off a ladder that we are not actually laughing at the pain the victim must suffer, but rather sheepishly out of the comfort that they are all right. I know this parallel is not completely accurate, but perhaps we are able to relate to characters and circumstances within fictional tales, most notably anti-heros and villains, because we are able to subconsciously or consciously develop a form of sympathy for them. I’ve also noticed within these chapters the differences of mental instabilities and artists/characters relationships (very similar to the chapter on drugs). For example, Hughes’ description of Kafka reads: “Franz Kafka reflected in his writings the mental difficulties and dislocations he felt himself, not only making them vividly clear as individual experiences but managing in the process to create a compelling portrait of instructional sickness.” For anyone who has read Kafka, (most notably The Metamorphosis or The Trial) it is obvious that the inner demons and paranoia that surround the characters come from a internal disturbance rather than an outward experience. It is possible that our individual subconscious thoughts may not be unlike the ones we are reading, but they have yet to surface.


The relativity of money (one of my favorites)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vz_YTNLn6w
The brilliance of cold reading
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btP_vy5cQq4
Drunk, without drinking (fantastic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zryGzTbU49I