h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Quite apart from anything else... from the BBC article:

The programme has been attacked by Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, who said: "This programme sounds hideous."

Don't you hate it when they do that? I bet they just went 'round describing the program to well-known figures until they got a quotable response...

My response to the baby-eating... er... 'shrug' about sums it up. It would be ironic if the artist contracted some infectious disease, which is (as far as I'm aware) the root cause of the taboo surrounding cannibalism... but I imagine that's rather unlikely. Not something I'd want to watch.

I hope they repeat it, because it *was* very interesting. There was quite a lot on the city of Beijing (am I spelling it right?) and how the history intertwines with the art. I personally enjoyed it. But that could just be me...

Cannibalism is well overrated as a taboo. I personally wouldn't mind if people ate me after I'm dead. However, I wouldn't be happy with them killing me in order to eat me.

I quite like the idea of all my useful organs going to transplants or medical research, all my muscle being cooked and eaten by relatives and friends, and everything else being donated to art. Seems so much more useful than burying it or burning it.

I don't know what it is, but I'm pretty confident it's not art. The only possible way I can interpret this as art is it you think provocation is art. If I go to the pub and call somebody names until he takes a swing, and then I deck him am I an artist? Or a piss artist? And if it's not art is it only because I wasn't the first to think of it?

This person IS creative, in that he's created controversy, but lots of people do that and nobody think it's art - think of Roy Keane, Michael Barrymore, Jeffrey Archer, Jordan (I'm not talking about their football/comedy/writing/whatever-the-hell-it-is-she-does, just their capacity for controversy).

No, I'm not outraged or shocked - I just think it's pointless and stupid.

The guy should be treated just like those people from mull off kintyre or where it was. If you do a crime, you should not be able to get off by saying it was art. Also, the parents of the baby should have their head examined. I guess we couldn't really charge them with anything though.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm about to get a chainsaw and do a few replicas of greek staues on the people here. All for arts sake of course.

So you all saw the programme then?

Nope, just read the description.

Oh, I haven't looked closer at this but thought I would just throw it in. It's from the Bible:
Lev.26:29 "And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat."

Well I saw the programme!! The artist eating the baby thing was only about 15 minutes of the hour long programme (I know because I missed it)...the whole thing was about the extreme art in Beijing under the Communist rule and the points that they were trying to make. There was a clear division between the performance artists, and others. For example, a big part of Chinese life right now is the modernising of the cities...and the destruction of the old traditions. However, to paraphrase one artist "Half of me is the modern...the future...but the other half is the old traditions which are holding me back"...you often have to take into consideration the whole picture as opposed to the bits scandelised by the press!! What one person may find shocking (and the artist/baby thing got to me I admit) is a miraculaous piece of work for another. I'm sure that you would find the woman who photographed her *monthlies* quite shocking...but I thought it was fantastic...art is fundamentally about the exploration of life...not necessarily about oil on a canvas...

Saturnine - as a writer you dislike it if people write stuff for others to read and pay no attention to structuring their writing or observing proper form. The sorts of things you are talking about (no, I didn't see it, but I've read the descriptions including yours) seem to have no form, no structure, no plan - and no meaning that I can find. They seem designed simply to shock - which in my case they fail to do.

A woman photographing her 'monthlies' doesn't shock me, my reaction is disinterest. It seems to me that it's just a random piece of free-form self-expression - without seeing it I cannot imagine what the woman is trying to express, but I strongly suspect that seeing the piece wouldn't help me. I can't see that this could say anything about life in communist China.

I don't think art is just about oil on a canvas either, but I think it needs to say something or observe something or reflect something about life, otherwise it's just a pretty - or ugly - random image - elevator music for the eyes. What's the point of exploring life if you don't find anything on your exploration? And what's the point of displaying your explorations if the message isn't accessible to the observer?

I'm afraid this sort of thing doesn't say anything at all to me, but if it speaks to you then I guess it has served its purpose.

Well, first off - "I quite like the idea of all my useful organs going to transplants or medical research, all my muscle being cooked and eaten by relatives and friends, and everything else being donated to art. Seems so much more useful than burying it or burning it."

I'd disagree intensly with that sentiment - burying your body would in some way put nutients back into the system. There are bacteria within you that are just itching for the day oxygen becomes unavailable to your cells so they can start breaking you down into useful components.

Also, one of the most important aspects of this debate is that of setting. The audience have come to view a specific event, the nature of which they are informed about. They are also, by definition of their presence, prepared to consider whatever occurs on stage as 'art'.

Consider this, though. An individual has legally procured the corpse of a baby for the purposes of 'performance art', but instead of transmitting his intended message from the stage of pre-booked theatre, he takes a bite out of the dead baby on, say, the karaoke stage of a busy pub.

Would anyone care to guess what state he'd be in by the time the ambulance turned up?

Er... if people eat your body, that's putting nutrients back into the system, too...

People are part of nature, after all.

Kabab (My man! ) the first statement is true. HOWEVER with art, the rules are different methinks. Images are not words, and do not need to be structured per se. Methinks that your problem might be that you cannot put a label on it, and fit it into a box. It is easy to put Michalangelo in one, and Man Ray into another, Botchelli (sp?) over there, and Turner over there. Dali goes here...and so on. What you have to respect, is that a person has a right to create as they see fit. If you start putting limitations onto things, then nothing is achieved. Just because you do not see any point to it (and art has no point but to be symbollic, to be watched/looked at, and to inspire) it doesn't mean to say others can't.

The one comment about art that bothers me is "Is it really art?" What right has anyone to tell someone else, who has taken time, and consideration to create something - be it an atomosphere, a concept, a masterpiece, a wall, a room - that it is irrelevant?

*I* liked the programme (and it seems that I am the only one who watched it) because I found it interesting to see how the work correlated with life...ie : what images life can produce through people.

For your knowledge Cpt. Kebab; there were great changes when Communism revolutionised China. As you probably know, Communism regards both genders equal. The conflict between old (pre-communism, tradition, gender-specific China) and new (futuristic, pop music, business women, secret police, censored communist China) is something that affects artists - especially the women. The female artist that photographed and studied herself whilst she was menstruating, was not only looking at herself, but looking at the place of femininity struggling through from old China to new China. The pictures were very striking...

Of course, you could dismiss that as irrelevant feminism, but I found it interesting. When you look at a picture or a performance piece, you aren't just looking at that one sole thing...you are looking at hundreds of years of history and tradition and revolution and how that particular srtist sees the world.

Before you ask; the whole dead baby/pickled penis/a few other things that didn't delight the media as much, was to do with the confrontation of death...

OK?

I heard a rumour that the whole thing is just a wind-up and that the footage was faked.

Personally, I'd like to see a baby eat an artist. Perhaps that infamous defender of modern art/b*****ks Mark Lawson could be second course. You could take the top off his head and eat him like the boiled egg he resembles.

Yuck!!!

I'm not clear why words must be structured and images not - can one not draw a word image? After all, isn't poetry art? Why can't it be structured or unstructured to express what you want to say in the way that you want to say it? I'm not arguing the point - I'm not a writer nor am I any sort of artist so it's a genuine question.

I'm not too bothered about labels. I do know a little about the revolution in China, but I simply don't see how these images connect with that.

Like I said, it doesn't say anything to me, but it obviously speaks to you at least, Saturnine, so it must be said to work I guess. I would never advocate that anybody should be prevented from expressing themselves in whatever way they wanted providing they're not hurting anybody - these ideas don't offend me. I just find nothing in it - and so for me it doesn't work, and it isn't what I recognise as artistic expression. I don't seek to impose that opinion on anybody else - but it's *my* opinion.

These extreme artists are entitled to create what they create and call it art - if they put it in the public domain then I'm entitled as an observer to appreciate or dismiss it as I see fit.

Freeform poetry still has a structure...honestly!!!

I understand. I find it interesting...maybe art's just not your thing!

I think good art impresses something on you, leaves a memory. Whether it does this by astounding you by its innate beauty, or disgusting you to the point of vomiting is immaterial in my book.

Maybe I have too much of a simplistic view of it, I dunno. In my opinion, many people are too quick to denounce things that don't fit in with their conventional views.

In that case, there is no good or bad art - it's an entirely personal choice..!!!

that's the one, Brown Hat... devotees of pretty oils-on-canvas would do well to remember that perfectly-rendered still life groups of fruit are just 'elevator music for't' eyes.'
(although like life-drawing they are very good practise. And you can sell 'em for far more than you'd pay, to people who Like That Sort o' Thing.)