Transcript Hard but not Difficult?

On Difficulty
in poetry
and other arts
George Steiner, On Difficulty
(1978)
A common reaction to poetry: Huh?
Four Difficulties
Contingent
Modal
Tactical (my favorite!)
Ontological
Four Difficulties
Contingent -- a cultural reference that you
might have to "go look up."
Your understanding (and, presumably,
enjoyment) is contingent on knowing some
fact (or tune?)
Jan van Eyck
single candle =
God’s eye
Marriage of
Giovanni Arnolfini
and Giovanna
Cenami, 1434 St Margaret?
crystal prayer beads
oranges = ?
shoes
imported carpet $$$
Fido
Four Difficulties
Modal -- after sincerely trying to engage and
understand the work, you just can't like it
due to fundamental issues of taste or
personal experience.
(Horror films revel in modal difficulty.)
The Slaughtered Ox
1655
Four Difficulties
Tactical -- the artist deliberately gets in your way of
immediately understanding the work's meaning
(Why do this? Which is more enjoyable – the tale
or the telling of the tale?)
 Pulp Fiction
 Speed or overwhelming complexity of music –
bebop
 Insider slang in lyrics
 Ravel’s La Valse
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Woman in Front of a Mirror,
1841
oil on canvas, 33.5 x 26 cm
(13 3/16 x 10 1/4)
Braque,
The
Portuguese,
1911
CUBISM
POP-ART
James Rosenquist
Welcome to the Water
Planet
1987
Hypo Alpe-Adria Center in Klagenfurt, Austria, MAYNE, 2002
Four Difficulties
Ontological -- the artist through the work
challenges the very definition of the genre
or even the idea of art itself
Fountain, 1917
Four Difficulties
Contingent
Modal
Tactical (my favorite!)
Ontological
All together now . . .
HOLBEIN, Hans
The Ambassadors
1533
Oil on wood
207 x 209.5 cm
Attention, shoppers. From within the
inverted
commas of a strambotto, seditious
whispering
watermarks this time of day. Time to get
out
and, as they say, about.
From a poem, “Where Shall I Wander,” by
John Ashbery, 2005
Attention, shoppers. From within the
inverted
commas of a strambotto, seditious
whispering
watermarks this time of day. Time to get
out
and, as they say, about.
contingent
From a poem, “Where Shall I Wander,” by
John Ashbery, pub. 2005
Attention, shoppers. From within the
inverted
commas of a strambotto, seditious
whispering
watermarks this time of day. Time to get
out
and, as they say, about.
tactical
From a poem, “Where Shall I Wander,” by
John Ashbery, pub. 2005
Attention, shoppers. From within the
inverted
commas of a strambotto, seditious
whispering
watermarks this time of day. Time to get
out
and, as they say, about.
ontological
This is a
poem?
From a poem, “Where Shall I Wander,” by
John Ashbery, pub. 2005
in music?
Brian Ferneyhough
Ferneyhough String Trio (1995)
Ontological?
Tactical?
Convention
Expression
John Cage (after McLuhan)
‘music is
information
brushing
against
information’
JOHN ADAMS
Hallelujah Junction
(1996)
for 2 pianos –
rhythmically very tricky
for the performers
Non-ontological directions in new music
rhythmic
developments
timbral
refinement
x
hybrids with
rock, studio
techniques
Me
new
tunings
improv,
especially with
electronics
Sonata Rocinante – a tactical difficulty
an initial idea
developed
as written
Sonata Rocinante
Rocinante – Don Quixote’s horse
4 sections -- Rocinante
• the horse
• the rider
• the writer
• the reader
• as described by Cervantes
(bony, stubborn)
• as imagined by Quixote
• again as described by Cervantes
• as imagined by Quixote –
and the reader?
(computer demo performance)
Sonata Rocinante
the horse
Sonata Rocinante
the rider
Quixote’s POV –
Rocinante as dark,
powerful, muscular
(sort of in the style of
Chopin)
Sonata Rocinante
the writer
the author’s games
(the composer’s games)
horsin’ around
Sonata Rocinante
the reader
the response of the
reader integrating the
effects of the novel
Undercurrent
traditional motific development & expansion
then subjected to various folding, fragmentation and repetition