When is Age Relevant and when Shouldn't it Be?

[Fkemman11]

I tend to wander around the net quite a bit and notice when listening to music, or talking about movies, or just some kind of history or another that some people seem to think in terms of it belonging to a different age- or age group. I just kinda chuckle at this notion. The fact is that all forms of history are relevant in some way to our time regardless of it's age....and the Arts? They are timeless. I suppose the argument can be made that technological progress renders some historical info irrelevant or useless- but does this apply to people as well? Can an old dog learn new tricks? I say they can and do. In fact, knowledge from a bygone time can be uniquely inspiring- if not exactly "useful" in the here and now. How many times have you heard a song covered by someone new or a movie remade and though that the original was better? Was it really? The point I am trying to get to in a rather round-about way is this; when do things or people become obsolete? Why does it really matter how old something or someone is when it comes to the arts? And can knowledge from a bygone age still be useful? Are some secrets lost to time? When something is new, does that typically mean it is better? Opinions? :happy:

[Zaragor]

That's a different way to think about obsolescence. The implication is that all components of a culture has utility. Faux nostalgia, being that they didn't even exist, is a romanticism of that given era or zeitgeist. That's not to say that the enjoyment of those parts of the culture is false. I'm sure they did like the original version of the famous song. However it tends to be the apex crop of those cultures we remember. Great paintings, the fantastic songs, the plays of the bard. People don't remember the inferior works that survived the test of time.

Art is can definitely be practical and utilitarian but it is not exclusively so. Technology replaces older, inferior technology, new scientific knowledge makes previous knowledge obsolete, art however permeates past that in a way due to its subjective nature. Take Van Gogh's work for instance. From a technical standpoint its kind of a nightmare, but his form and style are considered timeless.

In regards to art, new doesn't intrinsically mean "better" because its not about performance, its about appreciation, its about expression.

Art is aesthetics, exploring the ideals of beauty and what it means to us.

[Mudran]

I was that kind of person saying that it doesn't matter, what does matter are different personalities. Only if you are really young or really old you can have that feeling that you don't fit in the middle of the opposite spectrum of age.

 

But now I think about a different angle and that is masses. It is not based on age, more like on what is popular and some people may connect it to age, but I don't think it always is. Some kind of people are more inclined to do what masses do, some other "individualists" are more immune to it and older people having strong connection to a different past may be more immune to it. And what is popular can be manipulated - nowadays to sell product some big corporation want to sell well.

 

Also history does repeat itself, what was popular before will be popular again - some period is more technical, then people would get bored, then some more emotional period will be rediscovered again.

Then the 2 waves when they meet each other - one older, the other younger, can have that feeling that the previous generation was different from the new one, but generally it may not be really new.

 

How it would be really obvious is - if I would meet someone like 5.000 years back who would have perserved body, lets say he would looks like my age - would I feel younger and he older if we would just talk, maybe try to play some music or create some art? Or would that feeling of being old come when he would see all the different civilization?

 

Or is it that everything younger consume what was here before and then create something on the top, so they could understand the old civilizations but someone from old civilization wouldn't be able to understand anything new?

 

Or is it something different - like some people simply do like to live in the past and some do like to live in the future?

[Fkemman11]

I think somehow that being in a place, at a certain time and maybe witnessing certain happenings or events sort of gives a sense of belonging for people. Like you missed the party or something. When someone tells you about it, you just say that you weren't there and have no opinion on it. Or if you try to give an opinion on something about it, then someone can say "How do you know? You weren't there!". So, I think it is more about possessiveness and a sense of belonging than anything else. After all, it was "a" party- and not inherently "owned" by anyone or anything. So you are right in saying it is more about personalities.

[skyquest32]

Find the old in the new and adapt it, make it your own and evolve it, and yourself that way, in desired synthesis...and at the bottom of everything strong Aesthetic principles fully explored in continuation, unfailing discernment/contextual analytic in perception...that and integrity to these principles, is a virtue. In this context, such will save you.

 

Good taste is relative, and in the scheme of things, a relative rarity as well.

 

Don't depend on others to light your world for you, even as in the end, the meaning is owned in alignment with those who share this perception but its not universally shared. Don't see in the passive. For one thing.

 

Do not whine and pull about days gone by, there is no retro, that's a word often use based on a misunderstanding.... used out of context and context and singular/unified perceptual facets are everything.

 

Be yourself like what you like, think for yourself because for human beings when your eyes finally close on this world, even with others beside you are experiencing your death alone...even if other die at the same moment. Death is like birth, for only you may experience yourself being born as you, and you are no other in this context.

 

You live your life among all you know, but as you are yourself, you stand alone always. You can not live your life for/as others and they cannot for you, its an illusion that never lasts.

 

The meaning is what you give it, the aesthetics your inspired creation and discovery. Know yourself, and be as you are and seek to become more truly yourself in evolution of the self. This brings happiness.

 

Your world is what you make it what/who you reinforce it with and experiences as you yourself alone. So make life your own, and find like mined aligned people not worrying about the perceptual worlds of others that are out of aliment they are irreverent to you as you are to them. No healthy basis for interaction as it would serve nether parties. It would just waste energy.

 

For you then there are no universal principles or truths in this context, save one. That is all.

[JimmyRJump]

Art forms, be it painting or sculpting, is ageless. It all comes down to the amount of talent of the artist and the way an artist uses his/her talent on/with the materials at hand. Look at sculptures from the Ancient Greeks, paintings from the Flemish Masters. They all still stand today. A steel chisel is still a steel chisel; ingredients for paint have changed from natural to chemical, but the colours are the same.

 

Music is a different matter. There's a distinction that has to be made between pre-recording times and after we were able to record music. Because, all we have from the great classical composers is sheets of music and interpretations from latter day musicians and their interpretation of the notes. How ever magnificent this or that concerto may sound, we will never know if the way it is played nowadays was how the composer intended it to sound originally.

 

Most people who see something or someone as "old" are usually young themselves. The younger you are, the less knowledge you have about time, because, first of all, lacking the experience of having lived for a long while and thus not grasping the concept of an ageless inner self, let alone grasping that art, in whatever form, is ageless.

 

Movies are quite a different ballgame altogether. First off, moving pictures are relatively new compared to other art forms, but still, it is one of those areas that benefitted the most from technological progress. When looking at stop-motion trickery, for instance, the introduction of computer steered photography and later computer generated images took this artform to a whole new level.

 

In fact, it didn't. Computers made stop-motion obsolete by replacing plasticine with CGI. The only people who still do everything by hand are either piss-poor or Aardman (of Wallace & Gromit fame). Computers made a whole array of techniques and art obsolete. In the "good old days", so-called matte-paintings (painting on glass) were used to alter scenery and if a lot of different things had to be added or give the impression to move, something called a RotoScope was used, a device that could hold up to twenty-four mattes.

 

For movies and especially special effects in movies, computers opened doors that otherwise would have stayed closed forever. Nevertheless there's a lot of -mostly- science fiction movies that have state-of-the-art special effects, in days before the advent of computers. Stanley Kubrick's "2001, A Space Odyssey" (1968) and John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982) are good examples of some excellent special effects that easily stand up against CGI counterparts.

 

In the end, it is not how something sounds or looks, but how we, as individuals, experience what we see. How we interpret something. How we perceive things. Eighty per cent of the population believes something is art because someone else -who is seen as an expert- said so. Not because they themselves see it as art.

 

And are we able to continue learning? Sure. Until the day we die, I suppose. A lot depends on how interested you are in whatever you fancy. A lot of people never gotten the opportunity to get interested in something, because of having to go to work from the age of fourteen until their pension; a lot of them -still today- never reaching that age.

 

The day we stop learning, as an individual or as a species (same thing, really) that's the day our civilisation comes to a halt, so, we better keep on learning, don't we.

[Mudran]

maybe you are right that music is different - when I was a kid I tend to listen to MTV, and it felt like OK, but then later when I was facing different problems it was other music styles which helped me to understand, like it was possible to pass knowledge, experience to others through music. So maybe music is really connected to present generation, their problems and hopes and you can embrace it later, but it will never be the same feeling I guess, so maybe that is why for someone it can feel like ages away.

 

But when it comes to literature - for example the style of 19 sentury is so far away, but I was able to read is as a teenager - now I have no idea how I did it and why it kept me interested. maybe for someone who knew nothing about life it was so interesting to get into another century with different way of thinking and got lost there in their sometimes funny stories - funny to see what was important before, in that strange archaic way. But today I don't really care or I just not able to feel the same. But for example Tolkien - he is an old author, but still I was able to understand more his language. It never felt old.

[Deleted54170User]

There in lies the ID. EDITED :laugh:

[Mudran]

I don't know if I'm stupid so much, but sometimes I feel like I don't get 50% of all comments. Or maybe I just understand my jokes only :tongue: you mean MTV or something completely else?

 

EDIT:

I guess it was something else, but just for the record - ofcourse now I listen to black metal ;-)

Edited April 13, 2018 by Mudran