I just had a chat with Thomas Kondilas, a chat of unparalleled philosophical depth, rivaling our previous eight years' discourse and correspondence combined, with allusions running the gamut from the intentions and goals of calculus; to the concepts behind the photoelectric effect, quantum mechanics, and the superstring theory; to elementary French; to Ohio Valley history; to the aesthetic & ontological philosophies of Messrs. Wittgenstein, Descartes, and Plato; to psychoanalysis; to the below-mentioned literary works of Bukowski and Thompson, specifically the very idea of "turdness". I could very well describe this conversation in terms in which you may pretend to understand, dearest bloggee.
But I will not, for Tom and I decided that his picture is worth much LESS than a thousand words. Take a look at the picture right now, and you'll see the catalyst for Tom's blog entry, this my present blog entry, and the pursuit of the aesthetic which may be said/written to describe the body of LESS Productions' work past, present, future, and inchoate. In writing a description of the doctored photograph, one may get glimpses of the catalyst but not of the phenomenon itself.
This photo represents the Bukowskian "turd" (where'd that YouTube link go?) for Tom and myself and (we hope) you and anyone else who should deem to care. I, perhaps, can claim partial ownership of the photograph as I contribued to Tom's wardrobe the flag which he is wrapping about his shoulders. That flag was featured in a little absurdist play that Tom first heard back in summer '07 called "Dubait". The flag was the titular bait wielded about by candidates as they spoke echoing lines of equal parts meaninglessness and American patriotism (an oxymoron, that?) while "fishing" for votes. The play was performed twice in 2008 in different stages of the most recent American Revolution/election. Tom wears it well, fashionistically and philosophically, in that photograph and the blog entry below, respectively.But the very ideas of the Enlightenment which this country and its supposed-Dream was founded on are inherently abstract-- that's why we're the nation without a nationality. In order to order these ideals, one must take them out of context, as lack-of-context is their original context, much like Tom's "New Obstruction". In teaching about the modern world for the past two years to high schoolers, I have seen the rise and fall of these ideals many times over, so positivistically-applied by inhabitants of the last century that "progress" nearly ended the world entire. Once "this" is institutionalized (even if that institution be language), "this" is no longer what inspired the "this", but rather a "thisness".
Therefore, how can one write about the flag, the photograph, the play, a piece of digital media, anything that is viewed so symbolically and subjectively? Very simply: by giving in to symbolism and subjectivity, and pursuing "this" anyway. That's why I'm writing this in "anarchic" words and not "ordered" binary code. For example, I cannot write of the beer can in Mr. K's right hand without being reminded of a line from a play of his I saw in 2003 in which Miller High Life is referred to as a drink for old females.
All I can write affirmatively for Tom (and you) is that I eagerly look forward to his next play, his next film, his next project, his next line to get stuck in my head and re-form the way I view beer cans, American flags, lens flares, or anything else which may be experienced and transmitted through dialogue, pixels, and neurons. From what I gather from his previous post, this is not a retrospective here's-what-I'm-all-about statement but rather an aesthetic landmark that will admittedly shift in future to encompass new lack-of-definitions and extrapolations of "this".
Through the latter end of our convo in Gfield, I was coughing quite a bit, and as I rode home, I spit out what felt like a small rock that was stuck in my sinuses. That very conversation, this very blog entry, and my previous near-decade with Mr. K are quite similar to that sinus-turd-- I stepped back and admired the work, but admired equally that it was a nice little mess of entropy that could and should be torn apart all over again. This LESS is a mess of thisness. Please, TK &co., I want some more.
- post by Matt Greenfield
As an independent media producer I am constantly struggling to describe my aesthetic or style to friends, family, potential clients...etc.
From the professional standpoint, the goal is to come up with a universal style that can be utilized by a wide customer-base. But as an artist the objective is to push a medium to its limits, sometimes despite the audience, to build on the freedom of expression. These perspectives often seem at odds with each other. On May 21, 2008 I tried to define the effort to split the difference between the objectives of a professional with the objectives of an artist as The New Obstruction. At the time, my thinking was that The New Obstruction was a term that was beyond definition, that The New Obstruction would always be a means of alluding to the specific feature of a thing that was missed in all other explanations. I liken this to Bukowski's notion of specialness. Or the concept of "suchness," as a friend Neil explained, which is less special than "special" but unexplained as such. All of these terms seem to get at the theme that there is a connection between the utility of expression and an intangible freedom to it that goes beyond definition. Perhaps, I heard Hunter S. Thompson's voice in my head, but today, it just clicked. The American Dream, is the perfect, intuitively understood example of this type of linked dichotomy: a single unachievable objective that could translate to an infinite number of practical outcomes without really defining the romantic lure it often represents. It defines professional and artistic objectives. It can represent great success or great failure and it can be applied to concepts/trends that aren't even American. Yet we are left to wonder...uh, what is the American Dream? Defining the American Dream is the same thing to me as defining what you want to be when you grow up and what your style is. It is the ultimate declaration of self expression within a global context. In this blog I will try to show the American Dream with inspired content from myself and others that pushes the envelope and gives us some new ideas about what the American Dream has become, where it's going and how we can make better use of it right now.
- post by Tom Kondilas
