
Can art still shock? - samclemens
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/23/can-art-still-shock-short-history
======
Humjob
I find the premise of the article rather silly, though I still enjoyed reading
it. From my experience in interacting with college students, media workers and
business executives we're living in an era of hair-trigger shock instincts,
where a sizable minority of the population jumps at the chance to be
'offended' and 'shocked' on behalf of whatever is the oppressed group or
social issue of the week, thereby gaining power for themselves by seizing a
newly constructed moral high ground.

Want to shock the average person who considers himself an 'intellectual' or
'politically enlightened?' Say something inegalitarian (whether it's true or
not doesn't really matter in terms of the emotional impact it will cause)
about a population group other than southern whites.

Other fun hot topics include eugenics/dysgenics and the cultural attitudes and
government policies that drive population quality, the concept of population
quality itself, immigration and whether it should be restricted, whether the
2-parent family unit is important to society's long-run health and how
feminism played a role in its decline, etc.

~~~
rfrey
My wife took a class in "provocation theatre" during her masters degree in
drama. An assignment was to do a "shock piece". There was the usual round-up
of naked people, simulated excrement, etc.

As a trial balloon Heather said she was going to get a pastor from a local
church to come up on stage and sing the Lord's Prayer with his seven-year old
son. The outrage from her classmates and teacher at the mere suggestion of
this was incredible.

The indignation came from two sources - those who claimed they were being
judged for their art and she was trying to redeem them, etc., and those who
thought it was basically child abuse. She was basically told (by her
"provocation theatre" professor) it would be the end of her degree if she
pulled such a stunt.

~~~
67726e
This brought to mind the documentary series Metal Evolution[0] and the episode
on shock rock. The episode progressed from the origins of the genre to what we
have today, from Alice Cooper to Marilyn Manson and to Rammstein. What would
probably be the money quotes come from Alice Cooper and Till Lindemann, of
Rammstein. Everyone was asked the question "what would it take to shock an
audience today" \- Cooper said something along the lines of eating your own
arm. Lindemann said killing oneself on stage might do it. Something that
struck me when I started writing this comment is how I don't even consider
Rammstein's schtick one bit shocking, and considering the finale of the last
concert I attended involved Till riding a giant phallus cannon spraying white
foam on the audience while singing a song titled "Pussy". Seeing that in an
arena with 15,000 other people would probably have been inconceivable just a
generation ago, and makes some of Manson's tearing up a bible look innocent,
which in turn made Cooper's guillotine routine and boa constrictor look quite
quaint.

It seems each generation has become "desensitized" and it would take an act
more shocking than ever before to provoke a reaction. But in an age where you
can pull up the most depraved acts of sex and violence at will, people are
finding themselves (acting?) shocked at something so laughable it seems
unbelievable.

[0] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Evolution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Evolution)

~~~
dagw
If Rammstein really where dedicated to shocking their audience they would,
without any warning, open their next world tour by having Till walk on to an
empty stage lit by a single spotlight, sit on a stool and do a 1 hour, non-
ironic solo acoustic guitar set, and then get up and leave. End of show.

~~~
67726e
What really made me think though, is that I never once thought of them as
"shock rock" and even found their presence on the show, ironically shocking
and misplaced. I'm in my early twenties, so I was a little late to the whole
Marilyn Manson/Columbine show, and Cooper has always been a relic to me, but
seeing a contemporary band I enjoy labelled shocking was rather odd to me. Of
course I'm an American and Rammstein, though popular, was never in the
spotlight so I was also never in a situation to have my parents question my
choice in that particular band so that may factor into my lack of perspective.

The term is really just something for the previous generation to apply to
something they find distasteful or scary. Sitting here writing about it really
made me comprehend that term. I suppose +1 for rubber ducking.

------
jerf
Of course it can. But A: the "masses" have simply become accustomed to the
antics of the shock jockeys, and no, there probably are no longer any depth of
depravity that an artist can sink to that will shock the masses any longer and
B: the philosophical sensibility of modern art is also the philosophical
sensibility of the modern elite.

So, err, who exactly are artists expecting to "shock"? The elite that already
agrees with them, or the masses that have long since stopped paying attention?

You want to shock? You're going to have to attack the dominant philosophical
sensibility, not echo it. I'm not sure the artists have been echoing the
dominant elite sensibility so monolithically at any point in history since the
Enlightenment.

~~~
ANTSANTS
>the "masses" have simply become accustomed to the antics of the shock
jockeys, and no, there probably are no longer any depth of depravity that an
artist can sink to that will shock the masses any longer

Just the other day there was an article on here about some guy outraged about
big breasted women in comic books for adolescent boys, comics about as
wholesome as Family Circus in the grand scheme of things. A certain group
cheered as GTA V was pulled from stores in Australia on account of their
petitions, and they almost got Hatred banned from Steam too. Respected news
organizations like the BBC publish such articles without the faintest hint of
irony: [https://a.pomf.se/odchri.png](https://a.pomf.se/odchri.png)

If common people are actively protesting, petitioning, and colluding to censor
art for portraying elements of the human condition as banal as sexuality and
violence, we still have a long way to go towards mass enlightenment.

That said, if you can name any sacred cows ripe for the slaughter, I'd be
happy to listen.

~~~
maxerickson
You've mischaracterized that article.

(well, if you mean this one: [http://www.itinthed.com/16328/what-taking-my-
daughter-to-a-c...](http://www.itinthed.com/16328/what-taking-my-daughter-to-
a-comic-book-store-taught-me/) )

The author isn't outraged at all. He wants something different for his
daughter than is available at the store, and he tells the tale as if he gained
new perspective, but there is nothing resembling _protesting, petitioning, and
colluding to censor art_ in the article I link.

~~~
ANTSANTS
I was more referring to ancillary incidents like the GTA V recall with the
line about protesting etc, but come on. There has probably never been more
comics available for young girls in history. That article reads as half "I
took my kids to a seedy place because I'm a shitty parent that can't be assed
to do any kind of research, and it's _your_ fault" and half "I'm wildly
exaggerating my experience because it will make for a great piece of anti-sex
feminist agitprop."

> “All their…” …and her voice dropped to a whisper… “boobies are hanging out,
> Dad. These can’t be for kids, and comic books are for kids, and kids aren’t
> supposed to see that. That Wonder Woman looks like she’s in a video, and I
> don’t know who that is, but it’s not Harley Quinn. Harley Quinn wears
> clothes.”

Yeah, I'm sure his kid said this.

EDIT: Damn, random anonymous downvoter on HN, downvoted within less than a
minute of my reply to an article that fell off the front page hours ago. This
is not the first time you've done that, either. Do you just sit there
refreshing the comment pages of "problematic" posters all day? Do you have an
RSS feed of my posts? Did you actually write a downvote bot to police a
glorified reddit clone? I'm flattered to have made your list, but jesus
christ, go outside or something.

~~~
maxerickson
The article is not anti-sex.

Lots of people surf
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments](https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments),
I wouldn't read too much into rapid downvotes.

~~~
ANTSANTS
You're probably right about /newcomments, but it seems uncannily common
recently, even with posts that have nothing to do with politics.

As for the article, I would summarize it like so: "I'm drawing a link between
mild fanservice in superhero comic books and male chauvinism and sexual
harassment in the tech industry, and also think of the childrens." Seems
pretty anti-sex to me.

~~~
DanBC
Downvotes can be accidental; incorrect downvotes are normally corrected pretty
quickly; commenting on your downvotes is risky because that can attract more
downvotes; downvoting for simple disagreement is acceptable on HN.

~~~
ANTSANTS
I'm well aware of all that, but with all of the _intentional_ unjustified
downvoting that goes on around here, I'm happy to burn some meaningless
internet points calling people out on it from time to time.

Downvoting for disagreement is allowed, but I still think it's a dumb policy.
I upvote people I disagree with all the time for moving discussion along with
pointed questions, so it's saddening to see people downvoted or be downvoted
myself merely for holding an opinion contrary to the hivemind. _Not_ because I
give a flying fuck about internet points, but because it reflects poorly on
the community and its capacity for debate. But then again, I think upvote
systems are dumb to begin with.

------
JonnieCache
I think stewart lee managed it with his 2006 show "90s Comedian," mainly for
the last 30 minutes. The subject matter is pretty nasty, I'm not going to
reprint it here for fear of bringing up peoples breakfasts, but the reason it
was shocking was because _there 's no punchline._ He doesn't even look like
he's enjoying himself, he just slogs through this half hour of stomach
churning material, _with no payoff at all._ It's genuinely difficult to deal
with, even if the subject matter doesn't "offend" you.

Lee can sometimes be annoying and pretentious, but that show is a masterclass
in "shock" humor in a way that the likes of Boyle et al can't or won't do.
Johnny Vegas is good at it too.

There's still a thick layer of irony covering it all though. I think the only
way you could make truly shocking art now would be to cut your own throat live
on stage or something.

------
IgorPartola
There are still things that can shock people. Anything can be called art.
Therefore, yes, "art" can still shock people. QED

Here I'll give an example: create a vending machine which only accepts $100
bills. Then instead of vending anything, simply spray the face of the buyer
with cold water. Watch, as they kick the crap out of that vending machine.

To be fair, I am not a fan of modern art. I prefer more quant things that
require more skill. Painting a human face is difficult. Painting it such that
it expresses an emotion that the viewer can recognize and sympathize with is
orders of magnitude more difficult. Throwing feces at a wall or screwing a few
boards together, for the most part, is not difficult or unique. IMO of course.

~~~
dagw
_create a vending machine which only accepts $100 bills. Then instead of
vending anything, simply spray the face of the buyer with cold water. Watch,
as they kick the crap out of that vending machine._

Would that really shock people? It might shock the first person who used it
(although it would probably just anger them), but would it shock the people
watching or someone who just read about it? I very much doubt it. If you read
about the piece you described in a newspaper article about the latest
exhibition at a local museum, would you be shocked? Most people would probably
just roll their eyes at the banality of it.

Shocking or even genuinely and emotionally engaging with an audience at any
real level is really really hard and doing so in a novel way that we haven't
seen dozens of times before is an order of magnitude harder again and that is
where the true challenges of contemporary art lies. And I'll be the first to
admit that most artists fall very very short.

~~~
beobab
Now if the vending machine were to deliver an electric charge sufficient to be
classed as a shock, or injure the buyer sufficiently so that they didn't die
outright, but instead went into shock, then I think it could be classed as art
which shocks.

However, it would obviously also be classed as either dangerous or illegal
(depending on which one you got).

------
GuiA
Can't say too much without giving spoilers, but the British scifi series Black
Mirror touches precisely on this in one of its episodes. It was quite well
done.

~~~
thret
Do you mean the first episode? I think they can be viewed freely online
[http://www.channel4.com/programmes/black-
mirror/](http://www.channel4.com/programmes/black-mirror/)

------
Htsthbjig
When Galileo published "Sidereus Nuncius" it was shocking because if what it
said was true, like it was, the entire social hierarchy built over false
principles would collapse, like it did.

Great artists like Goya, Van Gogh, Renoir wanted to express something that
they felt and they just did not care if it created scandal, but scandal was
not the main objective. For example Goya wanted to express the horror he had
seen in the Spanish independence war against Napoleon, even when some people
suggested him not to do it.

The same happened with Michael Servetus, or Darwin,Voltaire, Freud, all those
people were really shocking, but shock was not what they wanted.

But that great advances are shocking does not mean that anything shocking is
an advance.

Artist started using "shock for profit" with the advent of the media. With
Television and radio just shocking alone could be incredible profitable, and
they started taking advantage of it.

People like Dalí(for me a great artist) started cultivating eccentricities not
just in their art but in their lives because it sold very well(and it let him
life very well doing what he loved to do).

In fact Dalí was very respectful with other people, he lived his life like he
wanted but let other people live the life they wanted too.

But soon it became what everybody did, specially mediocre artist that believed
they were genius for offending other people, and people developed anti bodies
and started just ignoring them.

Just offending someone else does not make you Dalí.

Now evolution and Big Bag are the big dogmas. They are the status quo today.
They are not teached as theories that could be improved or even replaced in
the future with something better, but as what already happened, no doubt about
them. You see people talking about the first femtoseconds of the Universe with
absolute confidence.

~~~
pavlov
_Now evolution and Big Bag are the big dogmas. They are the status quo today.
They are not teached as theories that could be improved or even replaced in
the future with something better, but as what already happened, no doubt about
them. You see people talking about the first femtoseconds of the Universe with
absolute confidence._

How did cosmologists acquire the confidence to speculate about the first
moments of the Universe? By spending a century developing theories that were
continously improved and replaced.

Nobody came down the mountain bearing stone tablets inscribed with the
concepts of red shift, cosmic background radiation or cosmological inflation.
These concepts were radically anti-dogmatic in their time. Today's theories
will probably be overthrown by something similarly radical eventually.

------
bitwize
A more relevant question is "is it supposed to?" Is the standard of Duchamp
the only or highest standard by which we assign artistic value?

The best art, I've found, lifts the soul and can even have a transformative
effect on the observer. This does not preclude shocking art, but can be
achieved even with purely abstract forms without a representative referent,
let alone a shocking one.

I think it's time we open a discussion on what we hope to achieve with art,
one that involves the Katy-Perry-listening, Marvel-movie-watching public and
not just the "art world".

~~~
pfortuny
Exactly: did the author of the "Code of Hammurabi" shock? Did the sculptor of
the see of Tutankhamen shock? Did Michaelangelo "shoc? Did Bach "shock"?

People did not resort to art as a path for shock. Even pornography (as
Herculan and Pompey prove) was not "shocking".

Gore and sex are not important to art. It has other issues more relevant.

The question to me is... Can modern art please? It does not seem to.

~~~
maxerickson
You may be trampling jargon. I find plenty of the art here pleasing:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_art](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_art)

("contemporary" describes art currently being produced in a less ambiguous
way)

------
Kenji
Yes just draw Muhammad.

~~~
commentzorro
Also, yes: 2G1C. (That was supposed to be art, right?)

------
rasz_pl
Yes, and no.

If an artist poops on a bible in a forest and there was no one there to see
it, did it really happen?

The problem is with media shielding public from shocking/provocative/indecent
content in fear of said public switching channel.

Im not even talking "The Aristocrats!" here, something as innocent as a nipple
might shock quite a few people in US.

------
TheSisb2
A lot of 'shock' is taking something considered some form of 'sacred' (like
sex, religion, etc) and making a mockery of that 'sacred' thing or way of
thinking.

As jerf said, people are kind of used to shock-jockeys nowadays by being aware
of that repetitive pattern, but there is still that potential laying all over
the place. If nothing is deemed 'sacred', are we better off?

~~~
theorique
There's a lot of heterogeneity in what people consider sacred nowadays, and
probably less illusion of a shared consensus. For example, the "shocking"
comics in Charlie Hebdo are genuinely religiously offensive in the Moslem
world, intellectually offensive to some liberals in the West who think that
the comics are rude to a religious minority, and not offensive to a great many
secular or otherwise non-Moslem people.

Similarly, art in the West that would have shocked as recently as the 1950s is
now greeted with an eye roll and "this again? Probably just a stunt."

Furthermore, the chance to take offense and be a moral scold seems to have
become equal opportunity - as concepts like feminism and multiculturalism
gained influence over the past few decades, being offensive to left-wing
taboos is increasingly "shocking". Whereas previously, a person might be tried
for "obscenity" (against morality or Christianity or public order), now he
might be tried for "human rights offenses" or "cultural insensitivity".

------
joeyspn
Yes. In one word: BANKSY

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDIz7mEJOeA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDIz7mEJOeA)

------
stefanix
Viennese Actionism could be repeated with a good shock value in many cities
today. It's vile but very effective in breaking tradition and creating a fresh
start.

I am not convinced we have a lack of shock potential. People just seem to have
less need for shock ... and probably too much cable news.

------
mynameishere
Make an art exhibit about how the Holocaust (TM) is a political prop and
you'll see whether art can still shock--in Europe you might see it all the way
to your prison cell. Obviously, contemporary artists are almost top-to-bottom
slaves to the politics of the day.

~~~
quadrangle
There's a distinction between "offend" and "shock".

~~~
girvo
Is there really though? I think not, personally, they seem like synonyms in
practice as far as modern day "offence" and "shock" goes. See: any Twitter
lynch mob.

~~~
dagw
If a Fox News talking head says something mildly islamophobic many people
might be offended, but I doubt anyone will be shocked.

------
carsongross
Sure. It could take all the scorn it's heaped on Christianity for the last
seventy years, and heap it on Islam.

Dare ya.

~~~
IvyMike
Making fun of your own culture is very different than making fun of a
different culture.

------
davidgerard
Answer: "yes, but when it does it's hardly ever elevated to reification as
'art'."

------
ForHackernews
ITT: Neo-reactionaries cutting themselves on their own edginess.

