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birth of Venus (1989)
pen and ink on paper, detail 4x2in. within 14x14in.

aristocratic distance

(umberto eco)

a musician becomes aware of the crisis of the tonal system the moment he realizes that certain sonic frequencies have so long been identified with particular psychological states that the listener can no longer hear them without instinctively relating them to a particular, moral, ideological, or social reality, to a particular vision of the world. when, in order to escape this dead end, the avant-garde musician founds a new language, a new system of sonic relationships, a new musical form that few people are ready to recognize as such, he condemns himself to non-communication, to some sort of aristocratic distance. but he does it on purpose, to express his refusal of a system of communication that guaranties him an audience if, and only if, he is willing to submit to an obsolete value system.

(umberto eco, the open work: form as social commitment. opera aperta, 1962)

there are ample reasons not to submit to the current value system and to create a new visual language with les poètes des temps futurs

far from creating a new formalism, what these can yield is something far transcending surface values since they not only embody form as beauty, but also form in which intuitions or ideas or conjectures have taken visible substance.
(max bill)

creative commons license jean-pierre hébert contact. (30 Jul 2006)