Take One (Oct 1976)

seem unlikely, short of disaster, he should have a reasonable profit from most engagements. His problem, however, is that there are so few major films, that he can lose all his gains on a series of secondary pictures that fail to achieve even his house expenditures. These are the risks of a treacherous if fascinating business so utterly dependent upon the vagaries of public taste and approval. FLAMINGO HOURS A New Nostalgia GENE YOUNGBLOOD What’s ultimately most valuable in any work of art is its sensibility: the focus of the observer which determines the significance of that which is observed and thus makes an addition to the theory of reality. The modern sensibility is, of course, the sensibility of alienation with which we’re all familiar: the old identity crisis arising from our inability to see our personal meanings and values reflected in the world around us. We move through an alien environment which alone controls our destiny, an environment in which only one purpose exists and it’s not ours. That the really important art of the twentieth century has articulated the sensibility of alienation is apparent. What’s not so apparent is that this discourse has promoted an epistemological proposition that is the source of the crisis itself, and which must inevitably lead to one of its most interesting consequences. | refer to the notion that objective reality is external to, and independent of, the observer whose very existence points to this reality (the organism “represents” its environment), and for whom truth, meaning, and purpose must also be found in that independent domain. Accordingly, most models of the alienated sensibility have been those either of the heroic rebel for whom continual struggle is the only dignity (John Ford), or of the pathetic loner for whom the only possibility is to endure emptiness (Antonioni), or of the tragic victim incapable of either of those alternatives (Bergman). Not very encouraging models to say the least. Recently, however, certain artists have begun to articulate a different sort of alienated sensibility. | think of it as post-existential and uniquely modern. This new sensibility is cool, detached, transcendental, and completely self-referring. Those who embody it don’t look to the external world as a source of meaning or of truth for themselves. There’s no attempt to “relate to the environment” for validation of experience, for they recognize that reality is a decision, not a distance. Whereas the old alienation focuses on the truth as it is, the new alienation focuses on the truth as we see it. The new sensibility flourishes in the same symbolic discontinuity that traumatizes the old sensibility, finding in this fissure a source of wonder and of nourishment. The new alienation puts everything in conceptual quotes, as though the manmade world were not itself but a symbol of itself. Those who embody the new sensibility are tourists in their own neighborhood, cultural anthropologists inside their own language. This sensibility accounts for the popularity of photography, of documentation art, of portable video. It explains the fascination with such diverse personalities as Warhol and Fassbinder, Bor Gene Youngblood is an author, lecturer, researcher, and teacher specializing in the study of mass communication media, their social implications and uses. He is the author of Expanded Cinema (1970), and of the forthcoming The Videosphere (spring, 1977), a political and philosophical book about the effect of the mass media on human evolution. Mr. Youngblood has received research grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers. Fund. He is a Research Fellow of Buckminster Fuller's Design Science Institute in Washington, D.C., and of Media Study, Inc. in Buffalo, New York. The Canada Council offers to professionals In the arts: Senior Arts Grants for those who have made a significant contribution over a number of years. Worth up to $16,000 to cover living, production and travel costs. Closing dates: October 15, 1976 for all disciplines and April 1,1977 for a second competition in visual arts and writing only. Arts Grants for artists beyond the level of basic training. Worth up to $8,000 pius program costs not exceeding $1,000 and travel allowance, if needed. Closing dates: October 15, 1976 for all disciplines and April 1, 1977 for all disciplines except music. Also, applications are accepted at any time for: Short Term Grants Travel Grants Project Cost Grants Film Production Grants Video Production Grants For further details, consult our A/d to Artists brochure or write to: The Canada Council Arts Awards Service P.O. Box 1047 Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5V8 33