Cartoon Punk

This is the age of Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Dieselpunk or What-The-Hellpunk, this is the age when people of my generation make toons full of references to our 80's early 90's common past, so should we talk about CartoonPunk?

Maybe not, it is so silly.

But if CartoonPunk existed, I'd like to draw in this style...

Art

Art is a so pretentious word than, to be able to use it as title of this article, I was to put my hipster-glasses on and to throw a charisma dice.

And of course we cannot talk about Art without asking what Art is?

The question comes always back and we want always answer it because we are not comfortable with the so obvious not-answer.

In my opinion, I have always considered “Art” as an emotion-transmission mean among people. Not a mean to inform about emotions, though as corporal or not-corporal language will fit better in this definition: I can show people I am happy, upset or completely screwed. But the emotion will not just transmit itself to people around me by this simple information. If we see someone crying we will not also cry. It may move us to help him, but a deeper emotional reaction must be relied to a previous union, a common-experiences produced empathy. I can cry because seeing my wife or my mother crying, but if I do not know a woman she will not pass on me her sadness.

On the other hand the artist (son of a b…) makes us cry when seeing or reading or listening how a not-real person cries. He is not a relative, he is not a living person either. It is an artificial empathy generated by the artist building a bridge between the work and the spectator and allows him feeling as the artist had planned.

So to me Art was something able to transmit emotions among people and makes people feel as the artist want them to feel.

That was a well-working definition… until it failed to work. It occurred with Duchamp’s The fountain.

The fountain has changed my mind because when I saw it I could not feel anything. Ok, I am not the more sensitive dude in the world, but I can enjoy painting and sculpture, I have some favourite paintings and authors. Of course there are some works I do not like in museums but I always feel something. Not with The Fountain.

Therefore, either I am a heartless droid going through life with an emotion-imitation software, or every Art critic is a dick unable to understand the right sense of the world (that means, mine), or I had a definition problem.

After considering the two first options, which would explain so many things (as Daniel Hirst or the fact I always fail in Captcha), I finally concluded I was wrong.

The mistake was not so complicate. I was not considering the historical context. Some emotional transmission in specific Art works is context-related and not understandable if this context is not present.

Rage is an emotion even when the asshole is gone.

After this internal convulsive mind-changing, and admitting I don’t like The fountain, even though if I understand it, I decided to take no decision. I began to live in a fantasy world where Art had no definition and the country is full of bloomed flowers and George R R Martin has already released Winds of Winters.

Some months ago, being with my parents, the debate about this question arose again. And as usual it was a genial discussion without conclusion.

And then I casually watched again The Cell, by Tarsem Singh, film that I had seen years ago and then I found it not-so-interesting. Maybe it is related to the almost constant presence of Jennifer Lopez and the repetition of the serial-killer topic. But like with Inmortals (or Olympic X Men) by the same director, this films are valuable not because script, story or acting. Photography makes them interesting. Tarsem cannot distingue a good script from a rock (excepting of course The Fall), but nevertheless, he is very aesthetically and emotionally talented.

He can even make sense for one of the most pointless Daniel Hirst’s works: Butcher’s gone hipster… sorry, Mother and child, making this scene one of the must-sees of the film.

And months later, when I had already forgotten the topic, I find this video by Dayo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfNyhtNc8rY

Dayo is one of the so-named “youtubers”. I have not time to edit videos (I barely have time to translate my blog). And if I had it, maybe I would finish one fucking novel.

This video is very good. Is a well explained study focused not only on recognizing videogames as Art, but also on arguing why it would be necessary.

I like videogames, but I am not a Gamer but a simply casual, without enough time to dedicate to it. I would never play on-line, For Heaven Sake, you, Virgin Mary save me from the rat-children.

But this Dayo’s thinking about videogames and Art makes us come back to the terminological question of the beginning. It is more and more accepted comic-book as ninth art and videogame looks for the tenth-art denomination. We are entering the risk to ask the same questions about facebook and twitter conversations.

Before that, the eleventh place will be disputed between cooking and gardening, while prank-stuffing will patiently wait for thirteenth place.

As like we were talking about Pokémon.

I cannot see the point in numbering arts as like they were ingredients from a cooking receipt, because this so-human-classifying need leads into too-limited definitions.

We can say human being does not like abstraction as he should. Abstraction is a great tool making human being able to anticipate reactions or actions which have not yet occurred, looking for multiples solutions to incoming problems and in his purest form produces Art (check it, a new definition from nothing, dammit good I am… ). But on the other hand abstraction is full of uncertain, the bottomless hole which tickles our reptilian brain and makes us come back to the cave’s comfort.

That is the reason we definite, we put limits and barriers… even for that which should not be limited.

Coming back to the video, I agree with almost everything he says, but one detail. I do not consider the whole cinema as Art, as like I don’t consider the whole painting or the whole poetry as Art.

To be Art an effort is necessary. A real effort. Not exactly virtuosity or beauty.

Beauty is not necessary to be Art. Goya’s Saturn is a technical work full of meaning. It is a masterpiece that I will never be bored to watch. It is Art. But beautiful, it is not beautiful. Not.

Then, if virtuosity or beauty are not necessaries to be Art, why the hell Citizen Kane is Art and Critters 3 is not?

Because of the same reasons The magic mountain by Thomas Mann is Art and The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight by R. L. Stine is not Art. Or Casta Diva from Bellini and Romani’s Norma vs Toma mucha fruta by Bom Bom Chip.

There have to be a looking for excellence, where emotion transmission comes into the receptor in a subtle way. As like the author discovers suddenly in notes, or images, or words, a new universal language able to get over the classic communication limits and gets into the real heart of the audience.

Maybe that is the point. It is about heart, about soul.

If we can to make Art we must insufflate a new kind of life to our work, giving it personality, charisma and a spirit able to transform it from a human work to an Art work. In this way, receptor will be able to unite himself to the emotions of the work, empathies to it up to it were so spontaneous and inevitable that it transmit all its emotional energy.

So we cannot classify Arts. We talk about Art do not limited by the mean it comes to us.

The corridor scene of The Shining with Danny riding his tricycle through the hotel until he meets the twins.

The last words from Gabriel Garcia Marquez to Macondo’s inhabitants.

Power and grandiosity felts by listening The Ride of the Valkyries.

All that is Art.

So, how a lovely baked cake making us feel warm and well cannot be Art?

Why a TV series as like True Detective cannot be considered Art? Because it is released episodically? So Anna Karenina and The three musketeers should not be considered Art.

Has not deepness, virtuosity and heart enough Maus, by Spiegelmann?

So, the emptiness and sadness after Klonoa, or the frustration for our revenge and the pain because of the decadence of an ancient age of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, or the voyage through the loss of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Are they not Art? And I do not talk about indie games, with works the more and the more experimental exploring the interactive capacity, as like Letter to Esther or Journey.

And this is another argument against videogame as Art. Is actual artists look for interactivity (for example Marina Abramovich and her performances), how the hell interactivity should decrease the artistic value of a work?

I have begun this long text with no goal and no hope for a conclusion, but finally I found in it a new definition for Art, and I think it will last some time.

I means, I have not a definition about what Art is and what Art is not, but I can say the artistic value of a work cannot be attached to the media. Is the work itself who will be valued independently of the means it is made. At less, in this way the emptiest discussion will be passed away.

And we should have our senses open to discover Art in expected and in unexpected. To let us be touched by emotions we should not feel in other way. Because finally this is the essence of Art, feeling.