[audiobook] Surface Production Operations: Vol 2: Design of Gas-Handling Systems and Facilities by Maurice Stewart at Arts-Photography

Description

Part treatise; part critique; part call to action; Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice is a journey into the uncanny realities revealed to us in the great works of art of the past and present. Received opinion holds that art is culturally-determined and relative. We are told that whether a picture; a movement; a text; or sound qualifies as a "work of art" largely depends on social attitudes and convention. Drawing on examples ranging from Paleolithic cave paintings to modern pop music and building on the ideas of James Joyce; Oscar Wilde; Gilles Deleuze; Carl Jung; and others; J.F. Martel argues that art is an inborn human phenomenon that precedes the formation of culture and even society. Art is free of politics and ideology. Paradoxically; that is what makes it a force of liberation wherever it breaks through the trance of humdrum existence. Like the act of dreaming; artistic creation is fundamentally mysterious. It is a gift from beyond the field of the human; and it connects us with realities that; though normally unseen; are crucial components of a living world. While holding this to be true of authentic art; the author acknowledges the presencemdash;overwhelming in our media-saturated agemdash;of a false art that seeks not to liberate but to manipulate and control. Against this anti-artistic aesthetic force; which finds some of its most virulent manifestations in modern advertising; propaganda; and pornography; true art represents an effective line of defense. Martel argues that preserving artistic expression in the face of our contemporary hyper-aestheticism is essential to our own survival. Art is more than mere ornament or entertainment; it is a way; one leading to what is most profound in us. Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice places art alongside languages and the biosphere as a thing endangered by the onslaught of predatory capitalism; spectacle culture; and myopic technological progress. The book is essential reading for visual artists; musicians; writers; actors; dancers; filmmakers; and poets. It will also interest anyone who has ever been deeply moved by a work of art; and for all who seek a way out of the web of deception and vampiric diversion that the current world order has woven around us.From the Trade Paperback edition.