Gene Youngblood: Part 3

Comic by Gapingvoid.com

There are a number of issues that I need to start addressing if I am going to take my research into Youngblood's work seriously. I come from a background in theatre, and my own work has to date been scorched by the hallmarks of narrativity, drama, and audience manipulation. There are a number of claims which Mr. Youngblood makes that unsettle me. While he does make exceptions - impulsively, I do not want to accept that theatre and narratitivty nor drama and entertainment are indeed entropic and precluded from Art. The suggestion that no new ideas are created in these realms leaves my own work in a much less satisfying light then I prefer. I have no interest in generating further entropy in a media sphere of which I, like Youngblood, am also critical.

The real issue I seem to be grappling with is that I tend to agree with Mr. Youngblood. Yet I want to look forward to creating new works which will share and generate new ideas, feedback into my culture and Noosphere, and escape what Youngblood suggest are the myths of Art and Entertainment. While I am willing to abandon the conventions of theatre which include audience manipulation, drama (as Youngblood understands it), and truly open up my own psychology for the sake of raising the work above entropy; I am not so willing to let go of narativity, live performance, or the audience itself. I know that this is not prerequisite to meet those needs of Art which Mr. Youngblood puts forth, yet there is work yet to do if I am to rise to the challenge of responding to Mr. Youngblood in the creative process which I employ as an artist.

I am currently envisioning a new work, "The Survivor's Way". In this work I have broken my creative process into three sections: process, content, and technology. It is within the process that the content and technology are integrated into a live performance. There are quite a few ramifications Mr. Youngblood's thoughts have on this work as I am now conceiving it.

In my next post here on this subject I will try and elaborate on these haunting questions in relation to my new work. Indeed the chorus of voices grows loud as Mr. Youngbood pushes: Where are the new ideas? Lori Anderson asks me again: Does the world really need another multimedia show? And, the ghosts of my ancestors turn in their graves and ask: Are you just interested in the content of our mannerisms?

In short, for now, I say: good question, it is in the field of performance ethnography that I will begin to find a response in relation to my current process. Yes. And, no.