A work of art is something that is…
smoked.
mara’s consistency in referring to things she’s watched or played as something she “smoked” is what got me thinking about all this. it’s something that i don’t think i’ve heard anyone else use, yet it makes a lot of sense.
it speaks to the larger metaphor of “art is a drug,” which i think has plenty of meaning in there worth unpacking. it evokes the idea of art as a portal into altered states, and as something that has the potential of rewiring your consciousness. and with how quickly the feeling subsides, relatively speaking, it speaks to the ephemerality of the sensory act of smoking some suda51 or some yoshimura.
so it makes a lot of sense, yet it’s one that i have a hard time buying into to explain my own interactions with art. this could just be a matter of this not intersecting with my own life experience, as i rarely smoke or do drugs in general. it also could be because, well honestly, smoke doesn’t cling to my tongue…
tasted.
i tend to gravitate toward this one, and i figure i’m not alone here – otherwise, why would so many people call it “consuming” content? although, for me, the act is more about the experience of tasting rather than eating or drinking outright. art, then, is something i can put in my mouth. maybe this aligns with my own artistic commitments, since i tend to prioritize the sensory experience over the strictly conceptual. maybe i just have an oral fixation.
i also brought this up when talking to maru recently:
i was actually listening to something earlier today and had the thought that my experience here was akin to drinking a cocktail, since i tend to order cocktails not because i expect to love them but because they seemed interesting to experience (like oh they put pine needles in here? i wonder what that’s like)
lately i’ve been trying to really own the fact that sugar is important to me. i like when the music is poppy and tastes like sugar, and i believe that there is an artistry to crafting sweets which doesn’t get much recognition. just about everything i love has some amount of sugar blended into it, and i’ve taken to referring to these flavors as different kinds of sucre, though i’m not sure why my mind latched onto that word specifically. perhaps it’s because i’ve been listening to a lot of shibuya-kei lately, where just about every other album has a song that’s about eating sweets. perhaps it’s because Sucre. is one of the 200X indie jpop microlabels that i’ve been intrigued enough with to start working my way through. perhaps in a different brainstate i would’ve chosen the word kashi, and now i’m not sure which comparison fits better. is music an assortment of sweet, bite-size morsels? or is music a sugary syrup that coats my tongue and flows down my throat? it’s still somewhat ephemeral like smoke, but my tummy is filled after it’s over.
inhabited.
or “art is a physical location.” this also feels like a common one, both by those who experience art and those who create it (e.g. brian eno’s ambient works – especially those created for art installations).
and this makes a lot of sense to me! music is something that people have traditionally needed to travel to a location to experience, intertwining the material with the venue. games often involve the creation of worlds for the player to inhabit, and the desire to inhabit these worlds more and more fully is why we have vr and such. and even with things like visual art, i believe i’ve read studies that say that the general population is inclined to prefer paintings which feature landscapes – perhaps it’s easier for the viewer to project themselves into the artwork that way just like mario in mario 64.
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/watermoon/in-event-of-moon-disaster-v2/
from back when i used to use em-dashes instead of spaced en-dashes:
or maybe here it’s because i’ve come to realize that all my favorite albums—all my favorite favorite albums—are places more than albums to me. i want to inhabit them, and i want them to envelop me, and i want to stay in them until it’s time for me to go.
and i want to stay here, with the laser lights, with the hundreds of screaming otaku who know all the words, and with miku.
i’d like to live in that atmosphere
fucked.
or “art is something you engage with intimately.”
i’m not sure if i’ve heard other people use this one, and it doesn’t fit well with my own experiences, but this is maybe a more visceral and emotionally-committed extrapolation of the sensory experience.
i think that so far the most fuckable music i’ve listened to (that is, music that can be fucked, not music to fuck to) is my bloody valentine’s… which makes sense; their discography is one of horny kids imbuing more and more horny into their work until by the time of loveless it’s just become a pure treacle of the stuff.
at least, that’s the only way that i can explain why to here knows when feels the way that it feels…