24-Rage Against the Art Machine
Challenge 24 – Due 25/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
Today I’m taking you on some philosophical musings… I don’t know where they will lead any of us! Exciting stuff!
So, as you’ve gathered, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of whether art should be truthful, or indeed should attempt at representing truth (or perhaps it does so inherently), and if it does, why? And what does it even mean to be truthful? Perhaps it’s all nonsensical.
The clichéd artist in a film or modern novel always seems to be obsessed with this idea of finding a truth. But is that just becoming boring? Should we look at pastures anew? On top of that, it’s that idea of art trying to get closer and closer to being truthful that has led to naturalism and potentially to snuff (If one wants to call that art… which I’m sure there are some ‘ones’ that do) (And llet’s not argue about whether snuff is indeed a direct result. I’m just putting it out there as an argument).
So I wonder, why are we so concerned with this idea of truth? And more importantly, what would happen if we stop?
The philosophical argument is concerned with the question of whether one can derive knowledge from art (as Truth is a criteria for Knowledge).
In the Republic, Plato declared that an artist is “an imitator of images and is very far removed from the truth”. And seeing as several arguments (namely the Epistemic and the Aesthetic) claim that artists are incapable of showing truth anyway, it does make one wonder if art even needs to reflect truth at all. And besides… who gave the artists the right to claim they are able to comment on any truth to begin with? And if I may generalise slightly more, should art even have any purpose whatsoever?
Well, how does any of that lend itself to theatre? That’s a very good question.
If I bring this directly into theatre and the current trends of uber-naturalism, it makes me wonder if watching a well-executed naturalist piece of theatre isn’t a bit like watching a beautiful Trompe L’oeil painting – which certainly requires highly impressive skills (the making it, not the observing it) – because it fools you into believing that it’s real, but at the end of the day, what does it add to our life experience that watching a ‘real’ version of it wouldn’t have added? So why favour that which is naturalistic over the real? Particularly when art can do such greater things and take us to completely new places, that we wouldn’t be able to see in the real world. In the same way, I would ask what the point is of watching a verbatim piece of theatre (particularly one of those that uses fed-recordings) if we can just watch a documentary or just look outside our window?
“Sebastian! What’s the frigging challenge?”
oh… uhm… I have no idea!
Good luck!!!
For more thoughts and perhaps inspiration (or lack thereof), feel free to read this page: https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/art-truth
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