electrical wrote on Wed, 28 December 2005 21:58 |
I think it's worthwhile to make a distinction between ingenuity (or resourcefulness) and creativity. Creativity (as I see it) is making something utterly new. I don't think engineers do this (or should do this) very often. Engineers must be resourceful and ingenious, otherwise problems (sometimes unique problems) un-dealt-with will derail a session. Creative, no. I think that leads to many wasted hours and ugly impositions.
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electrical wrote on Wed, 28 December 2005 23:31 |
I think it's a choice relating to technique. Choosing whether to paint a duck or a typewriter is a creative choice, but having decided to (rather, having been assigned the task of-) painting a duck, doing it with a brush or a hot dog dipped in paint is a choice of technique. The difference is not subtle in my mind.
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Steve, your girlfriend is a film maker, right? Ask her if she thinks whether or not a photographer is an artist. I do a lot of landscape photography. Does that mean that only Nature is the artist and my decision which film to use, which depth of field to select, which lens type, etc. is merely a choice of technique and is not creative? Last time I checked, phtography is considered 'art'. Look at this picture and tell honestly that nothing creative or artistic went into: a) choosing the location and framing the shot, b) deciding to cross process E6 film, c) deciding how to print the negative, d) cropping the print a particular way, etc.
Now tell me that recording, which I consider to be both science
and art,
just like photography, is purely analytical and empirical, and is not creative or artistic. I could use any combinations of elements and that picture will come out differently. Same thing with recording; the engineer makes a creative decision how best to capture a sonic landscape. And just like photgraphy, some decisions are brilliant and masterful, some are beautiful, some cheesy, some don't suit the music, and some are just plain limited by the experience and ability of the engineer, and might suck for that reason. But regardless of the quality, they are in fact still artistic decisions. One might be the equivalent of a stick figure, and the other might be a Picasso. But does that mean that the 3 year old finger painting stick figures is not doing anything 'creative' or 'artistic'?
Somebody said that deciding to use three mics to record an orchestra is not creative. I say that it most certainly is. Just because they chose a realistic mode of recording instead of a surrealistic or hyperrealistic mode, doesn't mean it's not a creative choice. Is Norman Rockwell's realism less artistic than Picasso's cubism?
Steve, going back to the compression thread where I mentioned
Clarksdale, your decision not to make the drums sound a certain way was not only a technical decision, it was a creative and artistic decision. It changed the outcome and in my case, it changed my perception of the record. Sure, the songwriting and performance had more impact on whether or not I liked the record than whether or not I thought the drum sound was appropriate, but you had a creative impact on the record nonetheless. You are a recording artist in the collaborative effort between musician and engineer, and because of the myriad of techniques and choices for recording a performance, it is simply not possible for the engineer to be completely transparent in the process, whether or not you think he should be. The fact of the matter is that as an engineer, your choices and technique make up a great deal of the final piece of art, and this makes you one of the artists in a collaboration. Rauschenberg uses other people's photos in his collages, and he chooses to put them in a certain array. Just because he didn't create something new out of nothing, I don't think the Smithsonian and the Guggenheim are going to kick him out. Obviously, they felt that he made a creative and artistic decision, no?
I know how intransigent you are, and how unlikely you are to actually come around to my way of thinking on this, but hopefully this persuades you to view your role a little differently. By your logic, the model is the artist and the photographer is not. Think about it. It just doesn't make sense.