Jose' Luis Diaz: Blog

7-26-2010

I whirled like a dervish across the world-wide-web. When I finally slowed down enough to catch a breath, I found my handful of mailboxes filling up with correspondence. Some was generated by AI and were notifications of activity. Others were sparks of conversation from friends, fans, family, and other artist. Then of course there were the e-mails that wanted to help me with anything from my car insurance to things way too personal to divulge here.

  When I open a mailbox and see over four-thousand unread items the first thing that goes thru my mind is ‘great!’, and ‘let’s network!’ I feel giddy as I jump off into the unknown and start filtering things. The luster quickly wears off though and soon I have a thousand pieces of junk in the trash can.

  The real gems come thru though. Be they friends, family, fans, artists, or affiliates of A.O.G. Media, I enjoy communicating back and forth, and one good interaction can make any artists day.

  About this ‘whirling’ thing, I shot off in a few hundred different directions and signed onto as many websites as I could. That alone really got my material out there. The downside was of course the rapidly filling mailboxes and the chinks in my security software caused by so much ‘gallivanting’ about the ‘www’. There are many attempts that I can easily thwart by simply recognizing the address on the unopened item. There are however, many more items that show up coming from deviously ingenious malcontents.

  The real world and the cyber world are two distinct worlds that co-exist beside one another. They frequently intertwine in their day to day activities and each has a direct effect on the other. Both are playgrounds with profound consequences for anyone lacking the ability to safeguard their personal information. If you’re planning on spreading out across the web with whatever it is you may do, plan on spending the effort to maintain a solid defense against attack. Not all cyber attacks come from the cyber world and not all real world attacks come from the real world. As I said before, the two worlds interact, and often. Keep your bearings at all times.

7-27-2010

  Creative lulls are the respite of artists. When the juices don’t flow some react to the lack of creativity with increased tension or frustration. Anger is just a stone’s throw away or closer. Hope maybe beyond the horizon and out of mind or it may have its warm tendrils gently wrapped about our shoulders like a comforting shawl.

  What do you do when the notes, hues, textures, words, or moves don’t materialize? This is the playground of forebode. Apprehension flowers in abundance and we reach desperately into the ether where there is nothing to latch onto. Emotions lock into a nauseating spiral and something that’s not quite vertigo pounds our thoughts into dull discombobulated heaps.

  Like many other human experiences creativity blocks foster a retinue of emotional stages. Death comes to mind, in all its profundity. Unlike that dark specter, we mostly survive to see another day.

  Once our minds, and souls, have run that gamut of disaster we re-set our mental shoulders and pull our brows back down. We get a reign back into our teeth and start a focused chorus of kicking and spurring. Though nothing may come of our exertions just yet, we forge ahead. Dismay is never far away from the thought processes of an artist.

  Wallowing in the funk of a creativity blockage can go on for nanoseconds, or for many years. The artists’ own personality will dictate the length of time it takes to restart the engines of imagination.

 As long as there are dreams to dream and thoughts to think, muses will dance out their mysterious steps of inspiration. Their pleasures are the flows of creativity they inspire. In that regard, they are always insatiable.

7-27-2010-B

  Following tried and truly tested formulas is one way to produce something entertaining. Diving down a steep staircase, so to speak, is also another. Either technique can be employed on its own or in some hybrid mixture along with the other. Whatever you end up with should be something that has never existed before, or at least a portion of it should be.

 Audiences have needed to be entertained throughout the ages. From the first vocalizations of early humans beneath the stars, to the hallowed spaces of sold out arenas filled with musical thunder, the human race has a knack for taking things ‘to the next level’.

  Our minds are programmed for music. Music is a part of the hard wiring that completes our brains. Even though not all of us are musically inclined, most can hum a bar or two. Nowadays we have many, many cool tools at our disposal with which to entertain ourselves.

  With all forms of artistic expression there is the mystique of the performance. Be it a gallery showing, on-site erection, daredevil stunt, or any number of public or private displays, if there is enough uniqueness to the act people are willing to be the audience.

  So, what might the next level be in the world of music? For that matter, what might it be for film, art, or any other form of entertainment? We get bored with things being ‘just so’ for too long. We begin to crave more. We want more volume. We want brighter colors. We want more chapters, episodes, bigger and bigger productions. We don’t want those who bring us these things in every way shape or form to get comfortable with what they are doing. We force them to go beyond what they have ever done in the past. In all of this cacophonous and symphonic attack on our senses it seems few purveyors can actually keep up, save for advertising agencies.

  The human voice has come from a series of grunts in the wilderness to beautifully songbird-like styling that crosses multiple octaves. Audience’s preferences run the gamut from silky smooth soft emotional to guttural low register screaming. None of the range of the human voice has been left untouched by the artists of today. Likewise, no form of artistic expression has been left to languish in its form for too long. Once the crowd gets bored it’s well past the time to go out on a limb and try something different, new, and fresh.

  Look for unique parings in the future of things which would seem ‘un-mixable’. Different forms of art will soon merge together in far more expressive ways than ever before. The psychedelic backdrop projections of the sixties and seventies will pale beside walls of hi-def screens and realistic graphics. Holograms and other smoke and mirrors will become deeper integrations. You may find yourself interacting with the artists themselves thru digital proxy, or mechanical tele-presence. Technology has the lead and has kicked up a rooster-tail between the constellations. It’s up to the artists to throttle-up and thread the right pylons.