i360.com | karakuri babble | 2010-06-04 00:33:22

we make our own art, and we live it.

Time once again for me to gesture at Penny-Arcade and say "um. . . what he said." You know, sometimes they're just right.

Tycho writes:

For me the best kinds of stories feature defined regions of white space. There isn't much I like more than the feeling of "collaborating" with the creator of a work I enjoy, and the margins of the defined account are where I tend to engage them. I like all the elements in a kind of superposition, hung in some whirling system, and this whirling creates tremendous energy. I understand that this is a localized phenomenon, though. These missing or intentionally obfuscated regions don't create the same pleasure in every organism.

What with the new Eva movie, this seems like an appropriate time to revisit that old debate -- should we put up with work that requires this kind of investment from the viewer? I do -- I do it gladly -- but I've come to sympathize with the opposite position a bit more. Sometimes it's hard to reach out to a work. When you're doing that, you're vulnerable -- if something goes wrong, or strikes a false note, it just takes you right out, and it's very hard to get that back. Damages the entire experience.

What I'm saying is that true art isn't necessarily incomprehensible, as TV tropes might say, and the mere fact that people don't like something doesn't make you (or me) more perceptive for liking it. It's just a different approach.

There are lots of things I've wanted to like, but not been able to. I know, it's hard to imagine I say that as a devoted Utena fan, but it's true. Evangelion's like that for some people, and I can understand their position -- sometimes it seems overblown and melodramatic, sometimes arbitrary and needlessly complex, sometimes just silly. And I shrug and comment that I watched it when I was young, and I can enjoy it even with its flaws.

And I do. Kind of obessively, at this point.

words from chris, 2010-06-04 00:33:22, los angeles