I noticed that Nissan made a funny spoof of this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpXrt5wRPWE

You should check it out!
Nissan had the bright idea participating in this discussion.

Have fun!

Jurgen

And perhaps it could also partly be a result of globalisation and the ease by which information (including art etc) travels across the world these days? Not only are we bombarded by the sheer number of art-in-advertising, but also by a much wider variety of styles now that influences travel across the globe so much more easily than ever before. Perhaps it is becoming that much harder for an art piece to actually stand out, as an individual and original concept? Which again leads to the trend towards shock art - after all, that’s pretty much what it takes to get attention, as per the “monkey sex” example above.

Fascinating. Thanks for the discussion.

I remember seeing the article you reference in the Washington post as well and it wouldn’t surprise me to find that this film is in part inspired by it. Again however, what would have the result been if it had been a different musician playing different music?

In the case of the music played by the violinist in the WP article, it’s largely from the classical western repertoire of great works. In many ways, as beautiful as this music may be in some contexts, we have also become accustomed to ignoring it in others. Light classical music suffers greatly from abuse as muzak in many public spaces. Perhaps painting also suffers from abuse in the hands of advertising - our cities are littered with many static images which function as paintings do. Again, to preserve our mental energy we develop mechanisms to ignore these images when we can. Perhaps we could blame neither the public or the art elite, but the advertising executives for abusing both the creative talent of artists and the attention of the public?

They had a highly-regarded professional musician (violinist) dress down and pretend they were a busker, in a busy subway station in morning peak hour, to see whether people a) seemed to recognise the out-of-place talent, and b) chose to then take the time to stop and listen.

By far the majority of people walked straight past him.

Context is important for any art, and while I find these experiments somewhat interesting/amusing to read about in passing, I think it would be wrong to read too much into them. Anyone who sniffs and says, “Well, these plebs obviously don’t appreciate REAL art”…. jeez, sorry, but I don’t have my art radar on all the time, and even when I do, sometimes I miss stuff (to which my sad attempts at photography will attest). Other times, your “art” just may not be to my tastes.

Link to the original WP article here:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

Your final quote is definitely more accurate…..although I may have added ’self-absorbed, righteous bunch of ….’ but that’s just me;-)

in my opinion, a public walking street was not a good choice.
that kind of pedestrian is very unlikely to notice anything other than a fleeting sexual attraction from the hips of a stranger or perhaps someotherone might notice if their passerby was wearing the same shoes; the use of that particular crack of public space is very defined. so to add to your thought that other media of art would need to be tried too (and this would make the experiment an actual experiment- more scientific-esque), i think other ‘kinds’ of public space would have to inhabit the work.

i mean, we dont answer the phone if we cant be bothered or if we’re in the shower, but it doesnt mean that we dont like to use the phone … no?

peace.