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A Play, Maybe
Allen stares at a brick wall. Maybe he is introspective--maybe he lost a job, a boyfriend, a scholarship, but none of that matters. Probably an art student, given his dress.
A: What are you really?
(He could be distraught. Maybe looking at a shard of mirror on the ground)
A: I’ll ask again, who are you really?
B: That wasn’t what you asked--oh, there it is.
A: There what is?
B: My existence. Your examination of the vacuum has brought about a significant amount of presence onto my very being.
A: That is preposterous. Existence isn’t qualified by words on a page. If thoughts were to remain inside one's head it does not result in creative preponderance of material. Breathless, overwrought, pensive self-deliberation doesn’t lead one out of the darkness of zero.
B. Neither does fanciful prose or self-indulgent argumentative musings.
A: Are you challenging my intellectual---?
B: No, in fact I am not pointedly trying to be led on down a debate specifically structured to point out my fallacies and ineptitude for high-brow though, but rather a tilling of the low earth. Too often is the “high-tower of thought” been brought about as an erected monument for justification of creative thinking.
A: But this level of thinking, critical thinking, is far and beyond superior to any other method in its ability to provide analysis and further critique on works of art, literature, performance--even thought itself. Do you deny such basic presumptions? Human ability to defy and conflict is what makes discussion and progress possible? We are the fissures in the tectonic plates, bottomless gaps of knowledge possible only because of titanic, contrary forces.
B: No, to deny this would be silly.
A: For our discussion it’s important for you to disagree with me on principle, or submit to my valid thesis.
B: No, to accept that would be silly. And before you go on, I’ll tell you the reasoning for this paradox. I can create in-the-between. Those gaps are bottomless. But without conflict the cracks would still be there. It is the very notion that once there is thought there must be conflict that creates conflict. Contemporary is a term often used in tandem with competitor, but they mean very different things. Conflict can inspire, there is no argument against that, but haven’t we moved beyond the alchemic notion that every actions creates an opposite and equal reaction? The critic pulls, and according to you, the artist must be pulled with him--the artist, the creator. A blank canvas is nothing without the paint. Yet you created me--the entire notion was altogether in your head.
A: Some sort of impetus was required. Some sort of skill involved.
B: Ah, but was there? Or does that fact that it is difficult to form my words somehow lead you to believe that there is some great resource bundled away in your head? The resource is your head. The thought and senses that provide thought are enough to form something--even an argument--though no conflict is necessary. Difficulty and skill have nothing to do with an end result. Even a critic would say that the creator ‘knows neither the origin of his deeds nor their result,’ but it does not make them sad or dull, it merely speaks to their ability to create. The ability to critique is optional, not greater. Just because we have the ability to observe and become critical doesn’t always mean those observations are applicable.
A: That’s preposterous that you would invalidate my opinion on this matter--a figment cannot battle with it’s creator.
B: That’s true, it does seem presumptuous of me to know your intentions, and then try to convey them to some fictitious audience. Our even your emotions. Because it isn’t a conveyance, it is an expression of your impression, correct? But then where does the critic leave? The critic denies the reality of events, what an object really is, for their own vanity and consumption. Anything will serve the critic’s purpose. Then why use art? Why use anything? This implies that the critic’s feeling need no material. Then that leads to a disconnection between the critic and the medium they are observing that cannot be linked because of the isolated profundity. They exist on the same plane, but one necessary for the other or else like the chicken and the egg neither would begin.
A: I disagree wholeheartedly.
B: And yet we both exist.
I am in awe that you attempted to write your review in the form of a dialogue. I think it was a bold move and one I thought of doing but then abandoned immediately. (It seems like no one else tried to write the review in that format either.)
ReplyDeleteThat being said, your argument was a bit hard to follow. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but you are still writing to a modern day audience. That being said, I think you make a good point.