found an interesting interview with Brian Eno and found this part of particular interest: MUSICIAN: Why are the ideas of newness and innovation so valued in art? ENO: They're overvalued really. Or, I should say that they're valued to the point where they become a target for people to aim at and that's a self-defeating proposal. It's like calling someone up and saying, "Look, next Friday we're going to get together and have a really interesting conversation. Really brilliant now, we're going to think some really new things!" Then you call a few days later and say, "Don't forget Friday, this conversation is going to be really interesting." You build this up and by the time Friday comes of course you're tongue tied because you daren't say anything that's clumsy or familiar. You daren't do any of the things that are likely to open you up into a new area. New ideas are nearly always slight shifts of things that are already very familiar to you. MUSICIAN: Then the reverence for originality is the very thing that prohibits its surfacing too frequently? ENO: Definitely. One of the things that's interesting about nearly all ethnic music is that it doesn't have that idea. In reggae you hear the same riffs year after year in a shifting context. The idea there is to use a thing for as long as it still means something. The idea in the fine art culture is to drop something as soon as you can no longer claim it as only yours. As soon as other people are onto it you have to drop it and go elsewhere--and that's such a stupidly childish attitude. MEK
