Gene Youngblood - Preface

There are a few things that I want to touch on in response to this reading. While I can most certainly get behind a concept that suggests progression in communication, it is hard for me to align myself with his suggestions of a better means of living.

Mr. Youngblood brings up a very good point in that we are moving towards a point where self expression is no longer an individual activity, but one that has transformed into a communal activity. It is about communication and what we lack now, we are surely finding new ways to progress in leaps and bounds. He discusses a "point in the evolution of intelligence when the concept of reality no longer will exist... cinema will be one with the life of the mind, and humanity's communications will become increasingly metaphysical." This is something I find very interesting as I believe that all art is simply a means of expressing ourselves in ways that cannot be done in verbal or written ways. A piece of art simply invites viewers outside of the artist's perspective into a collective, observational experience as to further the level of communication that we are able to achieve. I feel that someday that gap will no longer exist, a day when we will be able to transfer an experience, in its entirety, to another individual. So the existence of art in that moment in time will be a source of much curiosity.

As to Mr. Youngblood's opinions on society's "irresponsible attitude" I feel very confused. It seems as though he feels that because he is doing something different from the masses, he is granted the privilege of condemning those who lead "entertaining" lives void of creativity. The level of disgust that he seems to exude towards commercial and mainstream media is on the verge of being scary. He speaks as though individuals who do not participate in "the beginning of creative living for all mankind" might as well not exist. For some, life is already art, but saying that we won't reach that point until every last one of us is participating in this grandiose art scheme is almost the same as existing in any other overly oppressed system.

I might be wrong in interpreting his writing with that tone, but his talk of art versus entertainment seemed more like pretentious gab in an attempt to create heightened value and exclusivity of art and his expanded consciousness. I believe that a true progression will arise when it is no longer up to others to dictate and/or define the value and worth of others. I believe expanded consciousness will be the ability to realize advantages and advancements in all materials and forms of existence. That there will be a time when we transcend petty descriptions and criticisms concerning concepts and ideas that will one day be as anomalous as our existence itself.