a fragment

[zerozero]

A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was hauntedI would scour the library as a kid looking for things that fed my appetite for the strange or profound. Often I’d end up confused attempting to read and consume works that were way over my head. The thing that drew me to Coleridge & the rime of the ancient mariner was -

Comments

[oscuridad]

hmm. that web site has cool buttons on it :)

Albatrosses

[tvor]

We were made to memorize a half dozen or so verses from the ancient mariner in school so i'm not predisposed to liking it. I can still remember one about "alone, alone, all all alone, alone on the wide, wide sea; and not a (soul? one?) took pity on my soul in agony". A poem might not be art but that one is damn close to it just the same. Art is so subjective as is love. Same teacher had us in knots one day trying to define love. Same teacher instilled in me my love of history and Shakespeare .. he was one for challenging us and i am grateful for it.

And my favourite colour is RED!

Re: Albatrosses

[zerozero]

it's ontill the end of october at least - you should go?

Re: Albatrosses

[tvor]

Not likely going to be in UK before next year unfortunately. MOre's the pity.

[bohofaery]

(Warning: am drunk/sleepy so forgive if this is incoherent)

Art is one of those concepts that is by its very nature impossible to explain, and when I'm trying to place any kind of definition on it I frequently get lost halfway through when I suddenly forget what I think it is. I found Euphor!um very enjoyable and memorable and I think it forever enhanced my perception of the poem, but I'd hesitate to call it art. I think when something is devoted entirely to the interpretation of an existing piece of art, it has to put a slightly new twist on it, in some way, for it to qualify as art in its own right (rather than just an interpretation or a commentary). There are obviously no hard and fast rules and I certainly don't mean to generalise, but I think that in the end, Euphor!um's take on the Kubla Khan wasn't very different from Coleridge's. It didn't so much re-invent it as translate it. It made it more accessible, and has value as an interpretation - and I absolutely loved it - but I wouldn't think of it as art

[zerozero]

Exactly. However I do wonder how I would feel about it if it were an original piece. We also have Warhol turning the design of a soup can into art - a case could be made for Euphor!um being art in that sense.

I asked yoda - sorry I mean Pt - about it this morning and he said that he thinks whether something is art or not is dependant on the intention of the creator of the work. It would be interesting to know how the people at Euphor!um see it.

Good to see you too, no annoyance at all - I consider myself fortunate to have had two opium goddesses waiting for me at the end of the trip.

[latristesse]

We also have Warhol turning the design of a soup can into art - a case could be made for Euphor!um being art in that sense.

!! That's exactly the example I used when we were debating this yesterday. Well, Warhol, anyway. The difference being that Warhol was creating a never-before-applied technique and fresh ideas?

Sorry for rambling all evening, vodka or no vodka, or at least I would be were I feeling normal. For some reason I woke up in a brilliant mood this morning(!)

[bohofaery]

Yes! We were discussing this all the way from our house to South Kensington last night, if you hadn't already realised ... Came to he same conclusion (wouldn't call it art) but for different reasons. The way I see it is that artists like Warhol who use existing imagery do so in a way that puts an entirely new spin on it. In Warhol's hands, the soup can no longer means what it does on the tin. Euphor!um however does not twist Coleridge's motifs for new or ironic effect - rather it puts the same ideas into new media. Hence my idea of it as a translation.

Perhaps we should ask the Euphor!um people themselves - is there an email address on the website?

(Opium goddesses! We were trying to work out yesterday over dinner which Greek goddesses we'd be, if any ... unfortunately there isn't a goddess of opium, and Morpheus is a bloke, damnit)

coleridge!

[kixie]

Ooh, I've loved Coleridge since I was 15 when I first read a snippet of a poem of his - I'd just been diagnosed and I read Dejection, the bit that goes "a grief without a pang, void dark and drear, a drowsy stifled unimpassioned grief that finds no natural outlet of relief in word, sigh or tear" which was the first thing that I read that honestly put its finger on exactly how I'd been feeling. Of course Coleridge was quite the depressive himself, hence the poem called 'Dejection: An Ode to', but I just gobbled up his other works after I recovered - Kubla Kahn was just one of my favourites. I loved the landscapes it made in my mind, I just got lost in it. Wonderful wonderful poet

Re: coleridge!

[zerozero]

I figured if anyone would like a Coleridge it would be you. (hell you even like Dante!)

Re: coleridge!

[kixie]

Oh shaddup.

I draw the line at Milton.

Re: coleridge!

[latristesse]

Do you really prefer 'The Divine Comedy' to 'Paradise Lost'?! Admittedly I've only read 'Inferno' and bits of 'Purgatory' but Milton's Satan is fantastic!

[chiller]

Another thing just occurred to me, vis your last paragraph. I agree that not all paintings and novels are art. Many are no more than craft (nothing wrong with craft, it is to art what physical existence is to spiritual existence - essential and a positive expression, if a bit "earthy"). But one cannot simply define art with a sweeping statement about a single item / author. Art, for me, is what occurs when someone has crafted something which causes that weird sensation of "blossoming" inside when one looks at the thing which was made. Something inside opens up and speaks back to the picture or the writing, feels it. As such, and as we are all so different, what may not be art to me may well be art to you - simply because you have different things inside you which are true for you. Because of this, anything crafted CAN be art - to someone.

Alas, this means we probably get to keep Tracy Emin.