Thursday, February 25, 2016

The Artist Who Could Change Time

How forever can art remain? 

I listen to David Bowie’s voice, coded in binary -- a relatively new mathematical language that makes sound, imprints three dimensional structures within my neuronal complex, evokes a four dimensional state of thought. His voice sounds so alive, so vivid and contemporary, that I forget momentarily he, David Bowie - the Blackstar, though "not a wandering star" -- is now a million blessed, if scattered ashes over Bali; and now a voice iconic to the past.

Bowie and his music saddens me at each song's end, when I inevitably coalesce with reality the fact that this brilliant and incredibly beautiful and talented man is no longer living. Bowie’s music leaves me longing in melancholic encumbrance for an impossibility: if only Bowie could create yet another masterpiece.

Is he really gone?

Contemporary art inevitably grows old. But, does new art die with the creator? Or, is Sound and Vision more like DNA that can express its code into actionable events, undergo mutagenic evolution over time and across the contemporary spectrum of our progeny; even begetting new art? The answer must be yes, for there is...there is Confucius...there is Homer...Beowulf...Leonardo da Vinci...King Arthur...Shakespeare and Mozart and Snow White and Orwell and The Beatles and Warhol and Star Trek. Strong evidence supports the theory that art can affect change, inspire interest, and hold meaning no matter how old, and indefinitely.

Art is difficult to destroy.

Even the millions of stories and paintings and creations that have been forgotten; lost art might be rediscovered and find new impact on the contemporary cultures of humanity. Art is designed to remain, even if only symbolic; even if crumbled to ruins or missing arms or pieced together from fragments of burnt scrolls; even if translated from campfire narratives or from worn-down hieroglyphs or left planted on the moon. Art is always contemporary, because it always has the form - the potential energy - to evoke and inspire.

And sometimes, a rare bluebird becomes his art and takes flight over Bali, invoking the human spirit for generations to come.

Bowie's requiem is absolute. Bowie's art is infinite.




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