art and context

well, since this is my personal blog, and I haven't told much anyone about it - I can pretty much write about what I want.

I want to write about art and its context. Its the context that allows people to judge if art is amazing or a piece of crap. They did an experiment where a concert cellist that gets paid big bucks - play for dimes at a subway. The result was that no one paid attention - they just passed by, even though his instrument was worth millions (a rare stradivarius) and he was among the best in the world. And he was playing masterpiece of his genre. This is a guy that gets paid thousands just to perform one night! Concert cellist in a beautiful concert hall - great. The same concert cellist in a subway playing for dimes - bad.

So what i'm getting at is that....IS the internet/myspace a great place to prmote your art and music? Well, if you are serious about it, then your website or myspace better look good. If it looks good, people will judge the art by its context. The bad news is that most myspace pages are so displeasing, shitty looking, asymetrical, and unfunctional that most people would in turn consider your band to be displeasing, shitty, atonal, and unmusical. You can't listen to myspace songs while moving around (at least I don't know how) People don't got all day to sit there. Your stuff should at LEAST compare to the best in the genre (metallica, the beatles, bach, whatever) if you want people to actually sit there and actually listen to it. People have metallica and the beatles on their cds/ipods whatever...so what good reason do people have to listen to "just another myspace band"?

After a while you just don't want to browse myspace anymore for bands. Most of them aren't really worth hearing, and a lot of them have ugly myspace/website designs. Thats not being negative, Thats just being REAL. Of course there are great and upcoming bands on there, and I hope they don't get lost in the mix.

So my point is: the DIY philosophy is great. But only if you know what you're doing. Professionalism is better. There's an art to presentation too. Presentation counts. Get a web designer. A real fucking web designer. You won't get the best if you don't insist on it! I used to be an art major. People who say art is unpractical - THEY DON'T KNOW SHIT. In fact, I would go so far as to say - for all intents and purposes - A good product with shitty presentation is worse than a bad product with immaculate presentation. How are people going to appreciate art if its so discouraging for them to do so?

As machiavelli said - it doesn't neccessarily NEED to be a prince, it just needs to look like one.