Monday, February 20, 2006
Meaning
I had a friend named Art. He was from Vermont. I met him when I was 18 and going to film school. He showed me some video stuff he had edited together. Various pieces of footage intercut with words and short phrases. It seemed so deep, so meaningfull, so well thought out. When it was over he told me that he had made the film on the advice of another artist. Art had assembled the video in a completely random, hap-harzard way. The other artist had told him that people would automatically draw thier own connections and meaning from anything, and often the more random things are, the more meaning would be drawn. It worked on me. Maybe because "meaning" in life is what we all strive for, or what we make holy, maybe not, but I thought Art must have spent months editing that flick for sure. Then I came across Cage and started re-thinking the same thoughts and imagining the same process, informed by the above described priniciple.
So, in the end, if this is all true, is it even a good idea to try, on purpose, to create works with deep [meaning]? Is it even possible?
Synonyms of "meaning:"
allusion
bearing
connotation
content
denotation
drift
explanation
heart
implication
interpretation
meat
message
nitty-gritty
nuance
pith
point
significance
subject
tenor
thrust
understanding
upshot
use
value
worth
posted by Ryan Maelhorn
12:45 PM
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