you ever wondered why people listen to music?
what is music anyway?
how can you... define an art form.
(sorry, i'm in a very surreal mood. bear with me.)
art, by its very nature, resists constraint.

imagine a.... toilet bowl in the middle of an office corridor.
is it art?
it depends.
it all depends on perspective.
you cannot define art universally.
art is whatever you make of it.
so in short, art is anything that inspires emotion or stimulates thinking.

hence for some people everything is art.
and for some people.
nay, troglodytes.
for them the concept of art is whatever people label as art.

back to the above concept.
toilet bowl in the middle of an office corridor.
how would you interpret it?
you could interpret it as a commentary on how people virtually live in their office cubicles.
the toilet would then represent a removal of the need to venture beyond it.
or you could interpret it as something else.
its really up to you.

ever stopped and peered really closely at a really mundane object?
try it.
stop and put your nose right to a wall.
enter a new world.
you'll notice details you've never noticed.
texture.
smells.
the way light falls across it at different angles.

of course, if i ever did this in front of people they'd think me crazy.
personally i don't mind, but it gets irritating.
anyway, think about this.
sanity, just like artistic value. is relative.
most people would think me crazy, just like i'd find myself perfectly sane and them the crazy ones.

i prefer to think of myself as having an expanded consciousness.
i open my mind.
to see.
to feel.
or not to see or feel.
to open my mind's door and fall into the dark abyss that is... everything. and nothing.

that, mein freund.
is the problem with people nowadays.
they see.
but they not perceive.
they hear.
but they do not listen.

listen to 4:33, by john cage.
just sit alone with your eyes shut for 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
keep quiet.
is that... music?
that is the sound of everything around you.
things you have never noticed before.
the whirring of machinery.
your breathing.
that too, is art.

these kind of noises tell us...
the impossibility of silence.
the impossibility of ever being truly alone.
we will never be... free.
whatever we wont be free of?
its up to you.

art is a mere medium.
the mona lisa (which i don't really like, anyway. nor understand.)
is but some oil on a wooden framed canvas.
the statue of david (which i like, on the other hand.) is a fucking block of stone.
(oh and btw i see the statue of david much like the vitruvian man. an expression of anatomical ideals. the ideal man. again the classical greek perception of virility and masculinity, but then i digress.)
you art the art.
art is only as big as you define it.

music is...
not dictated by society's mores.
indeed much of the most interesting art has been made not to make money, but for artistic value.
jimi hendrix's improvised guitar solos.
didn't make it to the top of the pops. but great nonetheless.
the whole genres of ambient music.
drone music.
you get my drift, i hope.
if not i pray for the future of art.

self expression isn't dead.
its just regularly sold in uniform sizes and labels.
"i'm different, so i dress just like every1 else."
alternative culture is the new oxymoron.
its alternative, just like every1 else.
so i'd like to end with a quote instead, by a street artist.
and no, street art isn't just graffiti.
contrary to what our dear mtv generation believes.

If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you've made your own sculpture.
—Banksy