Re: definition of ABSTRACT..........was: Re: conceptual art andimprovisation

[Tom Ritchford <tom@swirly.com>]

At 5:54 PM -0700 9/23/01, Rick Walker \(loop.pool\) wrote:
>Great, tom,  I think I'll go put on my abstract Britney Spears album ;-)

The music in a Britney Spears album is completely abstract.

It isn't trying to represent anything, it's just an
abstract thing.  Her music isn't trying to sound like
fire engines, or bird song, or rain, or marching feet,
it's "just music".  It is abstract.

Does this bother you?


>Ask anyone on the street if P-Diddy is abstract and they are going to say
>"No".  They'd say Missy Elliot is abstact.  Having just played the
>Woodstockhause 2001 Experimental Music Festival (where I was one of the 
>more
>'inside' acts) I would say she is not.  You see what I am saying?

Not at all!

We are supposed to rob words of meaning because people use them
wrongly?  I don't think so.

Abstract:         does not picture anything.
Representational: does picture something.

Very clear to me.   Very clear to people since Plato(!)
who was the one to introduce this distinction.

If you want to create some new term, be my guest.
Many art terms are critically flawed:  this is not
one of them.

If you want "abstract" to mean "weird to the average
guy on the street" and "non-abstract" to mean
"having vocals" that's fine, but don't expect me
to remember you have this weird definition.

        /t


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