Tuesday 21 April 2009

It's strange, so it must be art?

In the square below my apartment there's a closed, locked, shipping container. There's a fireworks display going off inside it. No, really. I am not making this up.

There is a small crowd of people watching it, in the square and on balconies in the building. What we can see is: smoke leaking from the edges of the container. A very few flashes of light and coloured sparks squeezing out below the doors. What we can hear is: bangs of various sizes and tenors.

It's finished now. Applause. We drift away. It's cold tonight.

Apparently this is art. I think I am a fogey. It doesn't make me think or feel anything in particular... and it's not beautiful. So is it art, just because an official artist made it?

Although, I guess, it did make me blog.

2 comments:

Morgan said...

It's art if it's art.

If the crowd at ground level applauded, perhaps you missed something.

Has it gone off before? Is it regular? Let me know, I'll come down and we can watch it from street level.

Carolyn said...

I guess. I don't think the crowd in the square saw anything I didn't - I'm not that high up. I applauded too - ain't social pressure great?

Maybe if I had a Masters' in Semiotics I'd have got more out of it.

It's on again tonight, but I can't be there (it's the last night of my Meteorology course tonight). 7pm in the square.