Musical Gated Communities
If there is indeed intelligent life on some other planet, you’d probably find walls, fences and other boundaries, demarcating territories. Boundaries are an emergent property of life, as they give each person and place unique characteristics (as opposed to being homogeneous, with no unique shape or property.)
The gated community is a good metaphor. It describes the feeling one has when having to peer through iron gates, and wondering what is so special about the people behind the gates. Boundaries such as this indicate that consensus has been established, and part of the consensus is that it is not open to the general public. It's not that what we see beyond the gates is anything special, it's just that it indicates that minds have been made up, and have lost their plasticity for change.
As it relates to music, there has been less and less of 'general public' even amid the panoply of social networking sites catering the the 'generalness' of this new, open culture. It seems people are seeking others of similar persuasion, only to end up in cul-de-sacs of isolation. It is not surprising that 60 years after the same thing happening with the formation of suburbia, people find themselves languishing in these types of communities.
Everywhere I go these days on the Internet, I see more and more gated communities. At first they appear open and accessible, but then you realize the boundaries are there, but virtual. Even if there is no apparent demarcation, one will eventually emerge. Just as movements in art emerge from social conditions, art communities are built--or should I say tribes.
Anthropologist Edward Hall has referred to these types of cultural traditions (tribes) as being 'high context', meaning context is suffused and hidden from view. Tribal customs are an example of a high context system, and the arts seem to fall into these prescribed tribal boundaries. One would think that American culture, with its low context, where everything has to be explained (No, you can't wear the the ball cap and flip flops here) is the model by which the Internet has adopted--couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, the Chinese model of the Internet seems to be the one that is most realistic, and gives further credence to the axiom that I set for the in the first paragraph, i.e. walls will be ubiquitous. The China model is the high context that Hall talks about, which may work for older generation of Chinese, who expect this level of control, but will create frustration for the future of the Internet as we will continue to encounter gated communities.
The gated community is a good metaphor. It describes the feeling one has when having to peer through iron gates, and wondering what is so special about the people behind the gates. Boundaries such as this indicate that consensus has been established, and part of the consensus is that it is not open to the general public. It's not that what we see beyond the gates is anything special, it's just that it indicates that minds have been made up, and have lost their plasticity for change.
As it relates to music, there has been less and less of 'general public' even amid the panoply of social networking sites catering the the 'generalness' of this new, open culture. It seems people are seeking others of similar persuasion, only to end up in cul-de-sacs of isolation. It is not surprising that 60 years after the same thing happening with the formation of suburbia, people find themselves languishing in these types of communities.
Everywhere I go these days on the Internet, I see more and more gated communities. At first they appear open and accessible, but then you realize the boundaries are there, but virtual. Even if there is no apparent demarcation, one will eventually emerge. Just as movements in art emerge from social conditions, art communities are built--or should I say tribes.
Anthropologist Edward Hall has referred to these types of cultural traditions (tribes) as being 'high context', meaning context is suffused and hidden from view. Tribal customs are an example of a high context system, and the arts seem to fall into these prescribed tribal boundaries. One would think that American culture, with its low context, where everything has to be explained (No, you can't wear the the ball cap and flip flops here) is the model by which the Internet has adopted--couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, the Chinese model of the Internet seems to be the one that is most realistic, and gives further credence to the axiom that I set for the in the first paragraph, i.e. walls will be ubiquitous. The China model is the high context that Hall talks about, which may work for older generation of Chinese, who expect this level of control, but will create frustration for the future of the Internet as we will continue to encounter gated communities.
