Anyway the phrase that got to me was “Not that this 21-minute, six-song EP is purposeless; it just lacks any apparent direction or palpable momentum”

This made me think of a couple of critiques that I have received about my own work and also got me thinking about the use of the words direction and purpose when it comes to art.

Firstly with my own experiences. The first being the time that I showed a work colleague a song of mine (“I am not a Robot”, from my “Is this ok?” album). Her comment was “It sounds nice, but it doesn’t go anywhere”. To which I answered “where is a song suppose to go?”. I have hear these sorts of comments a lot when referring to music, writing and art. But do people really consider the purpose of a piece of art before they make such comments? It seems to me that some times this comment its self can show a lack of understanding of a piece. For example, I wrote the following poem, a few years back in a creative writing elective, while I was doing my accounting degree.

This is a mundane poem about my life

I wake in the morning, I go to work

The files are in order, I go home

I do the dishes, I go to sleep

I wake in the morning,

Today I’m going to walk into a car.

Why do I work?

I wrote the poem just as a bit of a crack at myself for my pending career at the time and the comment I received from the tutor was. “Mark, for such a short poem, emotive language must be used for it to be effective”. To this I explained that the purpose of the poem was for it to be boring, she found it hard to understand why somebody would write a boring poem, to which I explained that it is a boring poem, about a boring thing. What could be more fitting. In my opinion it achieves its purpose, and I don’t think that I’m about to write an emotive poem about my life in accounting. I agree, this is not an amazing piece of writing. I wouldn’t even describe it as good. Rather I would describe it as fitting. The point that I am getting at is that not even piece of art is intended to be a grand statement and therefore it should not all be judged if it were.

Bringing me back to the lack of apparent direction or palpable momentum. It seems to me that most peoples lives have a lack of apparent direction or palpable momentum. So if art is the expression of feelings and experiences of an artist, isn’t it possible that the direction and momentum was quite apparent. I think that in many cases it is futile to try and comment on the meaning or purpose of a piece of art, because in many cases making such a comment, only highlights our own lack of understanding.

Welcome to the completion of my rant. Please feel free to argue with me. Also if anybody is offended by any spelling or grammatical errors. Feel free to send me corrections. Until next time.

End Transmission.