Chapter 5
General conclusions
5.1 The listener/viewer
Maybe the most vulnerable part of art from a dialogical perspective is the fact that the listener/viewer plays a crucial role in art for it to exist. If the artist speaks, the listener/ viewer is invited to connect. But he also needs to be able to connect to himself and deal with the ambiguity of allowing in different or conflicting perspectives. Art promotes inner dialogue but in order to enjoy it, art also requires inner dialogue. For that purpose it helps to be familiar with the conventions and rituals that help understand a tertiary artistic expression. This has consequences for educating an audience but also makes the artist aware that he addresses the viewer/listener. People with a different cultural background might have problems with being familiar enough to the rituals and conventions. Their culture could have their own conventions about how to have dialogue/inner dialogue with its reflection on art.
If the artistic product is genuine, it helps to open up for it. To that purpose the artist has to speak directly, otherwise we might define it as cheap, commercial, cheesy, sugar coated, propaganda, craving for our sympathy, etc. It feels like being tied in the position of listening to a monologue.
Addressing the listener/viewer does not mean the artistic product should be necessarily easy, optimistic, warm, positive, etc. It might be ambiguous in harmony or in representing something. It might even be painful, unpleasant but still trustworthy.
5.2 The artist, personal growth and artistic growth
If we invest in our personal growth, will our artistic growth benefit? From the psychological perspective earlier presented in this thesis, our ability to grow is closely connected to the ability to engage in reciprocal relations. Having a script that is based on reciprocity and dialogue helps to search for a connection to others, that doesn’t take away the connection to ourselves, to our own feelings, needs and desires. For that we need a mature script instead of staying with the reactive script of children. It helps if you don’t feel the need to protect yourself, keeping the others on a distance by pushing them away through arrogance, or by trying to figure out what they want being a pleaser. If you are able to take the risk of allowing the reality from the other in, it might even make you rise above yourself. It helps you to connect to your fellow musicians or to your audience. If they are allowed in, without driving you into coping strategies it can be a valuable experience. It might make you grow as a person as well as in an artistic way.
The part of someone’s script that is based on reciprocity and dialogue also leads to inner dialogue, it helps an artist to have the necessary reflection, where different perspectives from outside connect to perspectives coming from inside in a reciprocal way. Being able to deal with the ambiguity this creates, it might lead to interesting or unexpected creative results. This however takes more than just being expressive.
If a bigger part of our script is based on protecting, it might well be that for that part we are surviving instead of growing. The other will be an object in our needs or in our destructive entitlement. As an artist, turning the audience into a source for your own need for acknowledgement means they cannot connect with the event with their own feelings; needs and desires, there is nothing in it for them. They are not in a free position to also connect to themselves. They might express the disappointment of this awareness at a certain point.
Does an artist have to have mental problems or lead a destructive live in order to be creative? The connection might be less causal than romantic ideas seem to suggest. If you have a complicated background, artistic talent could be an opportunity to express your thoughts and emotions, giving you a special way to speak directly, but from a mature position that requires reflection and inner dialogue.
The ideas presented in this thesis helped me to work with students, starting by being in a dialogical position with them and inviting them to take a bigger picture that could give them more insight in their script from an adult perspective. From that I tried to stimulate them to observe their present connections and experiment with connecting in a different way. By ‘starting from where it works’, they were stimulated to expand these occasions. For many this meant starting with other connections than the ones that were the most stressful and gradually deal with the ones that are directly connected to their dream of becoming an artist. It convinced me that investing in exploring options for growing as a person helped them to also grow an artistic way.