
Picasso, Schoenberg, Moss: how humans unlock social capital and spark progress - anacleto
https://blog.leonardofederico.com/2020/08/how-humans-unlock-social-capital.html
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splatzone
I might sound naive here, and I'm not an art expert, but I feel like only some
artists are interested in technical innovation and social capital (though I
think it definitely plays a big role.)

Success in art is different for every artist, some musicians want to innovate
and challenge people with new approaches (avant garde composers), others want
to tell stories and spread ideas (hiphop, folk musicians, film and musical
theatre composers), or help people dance and have a good time (EDM), or a
million other reasons.

Maybe I've missed the point of the article, but I think there are so many
reasons why art gets made beyond the artist trying to prove themselves as a
master of the craft

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talkingtab
This is one of those posts that is easy to disagree with and it is easy to
find fault with the some of the arguments. Nevertheless, it is an attempt, an
essay as Paul Graham would say, to understand a thing that is worth exploring.
The concept of "proof of work" is one that is much easier to understand now
that we have bitcoin. If I look at art movements, it is interesting to wonder
if proof of work is mixed in there. Did the collaboration of Gauguin, Van Gogh
and Cezanne involve proof of work?. And social capital or a social currency is
to me worth more thinking.

Thanks for this.

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jancsika
> There wasn't much left to discover.

I'll bite.

Let's take the most banal and fundamental structuring element of common
practice harmony-- the root position triad.

Are you _absolutely certain_ I cannot find a 20th century composer doing
something so innovative with root position triads that no composer before 1900
could even _conceive_ of using them in such a way?

There are probably more examples than the one I'm thinking of, which is
Nancarrow's Study No. 37 for player piano. The thing I love about that example
is that it completely undercuts the serialist argument that tonal tropes
create an inescapable harmonic push-and-pull that ends up structuring the
music, regardless of the composer's will. The rigors of early twelve-tone
music were designed to "liberate" the composer from this seeming
inevitability.

And in Study No. 37 we almost have a kind of Alice in Wonderland response to
that mentality. There are many root position triads. There is a tonal ending
to the piece. There are little tonal segments of melody. We have all the
ingredients necessary for a piece that ought to be chock full of evidence that
the tonal building blocks of the common practice period put the composer in a
kind of structural straight-jacket. Well, just listen to it. It ain't that.

So author-- don't be "that type" who repeats high-fallutin' historical myths
because they happen to fit the pattern you're going for. Besides, even if that
mentality were based in fact it is leads to absolutely insufferable behavior.
Ghost of your futures past: "Ooh, I love that song by [The Beatles, Radiohead,
Otis Redding, etc.]. Too bad it uses a system already completely exhausted a
century earlier. Imagine what it would have sounded like if it hadn't been so
harmonically regressive! Oh, I'm hearing it in my head right now and truly it
is wonderful. Quick, give me your address so I can send you a million slips to
donate to my concert series..."

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bsanr2
While I'm amenable to the thesis, the portion on Picasso is distractingly
inaccurate in its portrayal of art history. Cubism wasn't so much swimming
against the flow as it was riding the wave of non-representational art that
the tumult of the turn of the century and previous experimentation had
triggered (let alone the opening of Western eyes to the artistic traditions of
Africa and East Asia). There's a fairly clear through-line crossing over
Monet, fauvism, negrophilia, perhaps turning at _Fountain_ (what I personally
would have picked to illustrate the author's point), and then continuing
through cubism to modern art. That branch which turned left rather of right at
dada is perhaps then more applicable, as it connects more neatly with
postmodernism and the idea of resetting the social capital game.

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TheOtherHobbes
The portion on Schoenberg isn't much better. Serialism was an _attempt_ at a
new music, but outside of academia it never had the momentum of the classical
mainstream.

There's a niche core of contemporary classical music fans who like serialism
and its descendants (New Complexity, and so on) but there's literally only a
few thousand of these fans worldwide.

The most popular serial piece is Berg's opera Wozzeck, closely followed by
Berg's other opera Lulu. Both are in steady rotation in opera houses. But the
original serial orchestral and piano pieces don't get much air time because
audiences just don't like them much.

Compare with contemporary art which gets plenty of popular interest, even if
it's abstract. In fact abstraction is now so mainstream it's corporate. You
won't find many bank or VC foyers without brightly coloured non-
representational oils on the walls.

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damenut
I think if you look outside mainstream classical music you will see
contemporary classicals influence. Many hollywood movie scores use many of the
techniques created from serialism and onwards. Sampling audio with tape began
in the 60s with Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros at the San Francisco Tape Music
Centre. You can see the influence in Hip Hop and Dance music. Synthesizers
were originally only used by Academics making Contemporary Classical like
Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbit. They have obviously had a huge influence
on pretty much all popular music. So even though the music itself has few fans
its influence is fairly widespread.

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bsanr2
That may be a case of simultaneous but unrelated discovery; audio sampling in
hip-hop was an evolution of DJing techniques that helped to transition between
or embellish songs, with beats or "get downs" being repeated to allow MCs to
maintain a flow while rapping.

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throwandgo
The assumption of progress you claim is a by-product of linear modes of
thinking -- the growth of modernism in art represents a philosophical tendency
in broader culture towards deconstruction and nihilism. Painting is a
reflection of consciousness, not simply a skill or set of techniques that is
developed and innovated on -- as many technologists are wont to believe.

It is true that Picasso broke barriers, but the barriers were broken through a
regression in consciousness.

I really recommend the work "Madness and modernism" by Louis Sass, and Jung's
writings on Picasso. I am a huge fan of Picasso, but Picasso's artwork, as
well as the artwork of Dali -- represents a regression into archaic portions
of the subconscious -- an amalgamation of meaning that leads to meanings
destruction.

This is not a critique of the artists nor the artworks -- they are
phenomenal... but the modes of thinking that led to them should be understood
beyond the techniques being novel, or new. The progression of western art
mirrors the progression of it's consciousness.

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mikorym
> Renaissance, impressionism, pointillism, abstract expressionism, realism,
> etc, were all micro-steps part of the same bigger effort: representing the
> reality for what it is.

> So, we needed a radically new thing. A new greenfield and new proofs of
> concept.

> Introducing cubism.

I think impressionism had the same "radical" property—the colours are not
realistic, but they are emotional. Green smoke; pink haystacks. But perhaps
there is still a stronger link to reality than for cubism. van Gogh's swirls I
would guess are inspired by real things such as vortices in wind or water. In
any case, for me the progression to cubism was linear from impressionism, and
not radical. But I think the author means that you need abrupt changes to reap
social capital, and that I do agree with—but I would maintain it holds for
classicism to impressionism too.

> Shoenberg's twelve tonic technique comes with no musical tonality. All 12
> pitches of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a
> piece of music without emphasis on any specific note. In other words, all 12
> notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids
> being in a key. Consequentially, there can't home base.

> It was a radically new game.

I don't know if I agree with this. The innovation was equal temperament and
the creation of the piano. The key was that you have approximate harmonic
intervals based on the 12th square root of 2: sqrt(2,12)^7 = 1.498 ~= 1.5 =
3/2.

Using chromatic notes is a logical consequence for later composers. In terms
of composition, I would say that _modes_ (think Wicked Game) are rather the
innovation that reaped social capital in more modern times; as well as the
idea of direct repetition (all pop music) rather than themes with developments
on themes.

In any case, I would agree with the author. There is a clear _proof of work_
aspect to social media. Hours spent that would lead to some Instagram picture;
hours spent on some HN post...

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dzink
I would compare art to reinforcement learning rather than social capital. The
artists may or may not strive for social capital, but the branching happens
because of reward and reward comes from consumers who crave and appreciate
something different from the trite, old saturated, predictable forms on the
market. Hollywood of today with its predictable repeatable plot lines is ripe
for this kind of disruption. Creativity and art stands out when it calls out a
truth nobody has noticed before. When it engages your mind far more than
predecessors because it poses more questions than it answers, but it still
makes sense (Game of Thrones was unpredictable, as was Breaking Bad). In
marketing it’s Seth Godwin’s Purple Cow. The craving of a bored/ignored
audience is the spark, but just like fashion, the only guarantee is that the
audience will get bored of you again in time as you may no longer help them
stand out as unique for their early adoption skills, and they need a new flag
to stand out from the crowd in their own pursuit of social status.

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jxramos
I'm not sure I agree about the point of a certain space and endeavor getting
exhausted and the pickings too slim to be elevated upon progress wise.
Essentially this exit from a crowded space into a sparse and less competitive
spaces makes me think about the hyperspecialization in academia. When
everything becomes pretty fragmented everyone can claim to be an expert in
some niche area unmoored from demand and usefulness. But if its fragmented out
to an island no one wants to visit there's little value in that too even if it
has the widest potential for social capital to be mined. That new field
whatever it may be still has to attract enough folks to get a sport going in
the first place, even if it's just reactionary to rally up a revolt and
teardown what came before. At the end what's lacking is that absolute point of
reference.

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jxramos
One of the things which always surprises me is the various permutations of the
burger that exist. I pondered at one point the success of Five Guys. And if
someone pitched to me as an imaginary investor a newcomer to the field would I
buy into it. I had thought my answer being "no, that I can't imagine another
variation of a burger being successful". But man there's still so much of a
parameter space with permutations and combinations I could not imagine myself
that there could still be success in other burger variations. The Habit, The
Counter, Five Guys, Smashburger, ... (sure I'm leaving some out). Wow, it's
been like a burger Renaissance, who'd have thought.

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ksdale
And never mind the fact that just doing things _well_ can be it's own
permutation. Sometimes a field seems played out, and then someone comes along
and knocks it out of the park by just _executing_.

~~~
jxramos
_well_ said!

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falseprofit
I'm not sure I even agree with the claim that Twitter needs to offer social
capital to be a viable business. There are significant other products which
can be offered from a social network, such as entertainment and utility.

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Schiphol
So, made up history or art plus men are geniuses and women are pretty. Gotcha.

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iandanforth
Warning, NSFW image about half way down.

