“They [Artists] are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time”, Shakespeare writes in his play Hamlet. Art is nothing other than a keyhole in the wall which allows us to peep behind the scenes of an era with great effect. In fact, if you look hard enough you can make out social dynamics, political reasonings and misadventures, ideals, every tacit obsession and perversion, the beauty of details, the enchantment of prodigies and social rebels, upsets, hopes and projects for the future. Every single thing can be revealed. Thus artists are unpredictable historians intent on writing their detailed account of the world in which they live. Even if sometimes they do not realize it. Who knows if Leonardo was aware of this, or Michelangelo or Mozart or Beethoven? Bearing in mind the eccentric character of some of these people, I think maybe they were. But what fascinates me most, all things considered, is to imagine them the night they have finished their work, in front of their art, intent on observing it. Do they become aware of the historical importance which this work of art possesses, this unique and unsubstitutable peg (however large or small) that fits into the puzzle of the world and the era in which they live? And now I ask myself about us, are we aware? In a hundred years time, what will people make of the brushstrokes, the verses and the notes of this age? What will this keyhole in the wall reveal?
Obviously, I don’t have an answer. These last few years have flown past and we often found ourselves left to look on without understanding much of what we saw, dizzy with the changes. Fascinated by new technology, slaves to anything new, we flit between devouring anything and everything that speaks of the future and refusing the new for fear of losing our good, old habits. We speak with the whole world and yet avoid each other in the lift. We mark out the positions of a flying squad and yet we kill each other for the right of way. We join the marches in the square to fight for our salaries and yet we burn pirate cd. They are strange times, but they are ours! In this turmoil, art creates mirrors. We can stop and reflect a moment. Art’s direction is the world’s direction. However beautiful or ugly, its contradictory forms are dictated by the space in which it was created. Nevertheless, you can’t ignore the fact that in every work of art there is a hidden ticket for a new and unknown destination, even if only a few manage to see it, and occasionally at that.
If we pause to think, the quick, practical and unbalanced distribution of art (and everything for that matter) speaks clearly about this age. Willpower, practicality and craftiness could do nothing if not generate a virtual interconnection within which we live in a different way, communicate in a different way and love in a different way. Thus internet has become indispensable to our daily lives, annihilating an infinity of procedures and creating direct access to information of every kind including art. So between the creation of an artwork and its distribution there is no longer any gap. Information is direct. The narrow neck of the tight funnel which once every work of art had to pass through to reach the mouth of distribution, widens before our eyes and becomes an enormous tunnel through which everything can flow. Just about everything.
It is no longer necessary, for example, to get up out of your chair, leave your house, take your car, find a parking space, enter a record-shop and wait in a queue at the till to pay, especially since many talented artists have never entered the shop-circuit. The stages of getting up from the chair in front of the computer and paying for the goods have been deleted. A click is enough! (Well, maybe the bit about paying has been overlooked.) So the advantage for an artist is the same as the advantage for the art-lover. They can each reach the other with greater ease and speed. Unfortunately, it is the idiocy which we are capable of which sometimes gets the better of us, and rather than the two sides meeting half way, they steal from the other.
My attempts to propose my own music owe their life to these enormous possibilities and their imbalances. Well aware of my own limits, but not introducing them to my dreams, conscious of the rules and dangers hidden behind every novelty, I would like to make the most of these new forms of distribution, hoping that the signs left in the wake of my work are useful to a future reading of this time.

Leave a comment