Deep Into the Void

This is a clip from a program on the BBC that was filmed in 1997 called, from the best I can gather, Modern Minimalists. In it, Bjork, who hosts the show, talks with Estonian composer Arvo Part about his music and the idea of silence as the tool of the creator.

Now, I'm not saying I do not respond to a sensory overload approach to art; any kind of orgiastic fury of sound, movement, color, sparkle, light, and anything else dazzling, dizzying, or otherwise mind bending and I'm likely won't be complaining. In fact, I'm quite happy having my senses overloaded from time to time. What I do believe, however, is that we live in a time of total sensory overindulgence and the only way to any kind of new idea or progress in a post modern age is to refine, pull back and rely on a new appreciation of silence and restraint. When we have said everything there is to say and still not arrived at a point of awareness the only logical reaction is to stop and synthesize.

Thus is the power of minimalism. It is both a process of creation and synthesis.

A minimalistic approach inherently works in the symbiotic dichotomy and creative powerhouse of the positive/negative relationship. Creating in the negative, the dark empty space of minimalism has an illuminative effect of the positive. An entity hanging in a the harsh background of negative space highlights the gravity of the positive unit. In the interview Part says, "You can kill people with sound, and if you can kill, then maybe there is also the sound that is the opposite of killing." Delving into the silence amplifies the carefully orchestrated and incredibly powerful effect of sound.

Minimalism also grants a greater power to the creator, whose work, balancing on less, therefore must be more clean and pure. Each note (using the example of music, but I think the idea will stand across mediums) stands in greater distance from its companions. It must be stronger and bolder than a note that is lost in a chorus of its symphonic brethren. A masterful artist is able to do more with less while creating a strong statement. This is why minimalism allows the opportunity for the creation of great art, but the reason it is uniquely suited to be a force of new enlightenment and opportunity in the present falls to the viewer. It is an art respectful of the mind taking it in. With less to apprehend, the mind of the listener/viewer/participant becomes more active, filling in the spaces. Instead of a sensory overload, where the information is shoved towards you and almost distracts you into acceptance, minimalism posits and allows for reflection. The artist/viewer dynamic becomes real and alive.
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Perhaps we will be able to approach the world with a better eye for the ebb and flow of sound and silence, space and weight, feeling and reason, tiny illuminated notes in a sea of inky depth. When I approach a crowded world I always return to the best piece of advice I have received, artistic or otherwise-

"Sometimes you have to contemplate the spaces between the words."*

*Thanks Dad!