The Human Condition: Are circles silly?

By Daniel Schnee on October 6, 2021.

Years ago I attended a composers conference in Athens, and asked to be billeted so as to get a taste of everyday Greek life.

One evening while gathered around the supper table, Amara, the family matron described looking at a bulletin board where samples of the composers’ work were on display. She went into great detail about one particular score, a baffling combination of lines and glyphs which she described as “silly circles.” The passion with which she denounced the score was fascinating, and we listened in rapt attention as she held forth.

Eventually I revealed that it was I who created those silly circles, and she then proceeded with an even more passionate apology. I found the situation rather hilarious and, to Amara’s shock, actually agreed with her on some points.

The works I create are known as graphic scores: musical compositions that use original systems of notation designed by the composers themselves. My scores in particular look like abstract drawings, but are they written music or art? Are they serious or are they silly circles, merely squiggles I call music so I can trick people into thinking I am some kind of creative genius? What is art anyways?

Amara had many valid points for debate. Should the government fund silly circles when we have serious issues to deal with? Should our tax dollars support art? Who gets to decide which circles are silly? Conceptual art is usually the genre in which you find the circles people consider the silliest.

In 1958, a famous artist “exhibited” an empty white room, hailed as both an act of genius and fraud. In another instance an artist taped a banana to a gallery wall, which later sold for $120,000. And a few days ago a Danish museum loaned artist Jens Haaning the equivalent of $106,000, meant to be placed within two large picture frames as a reproduction of one of his earlier works. But when the museum took delivery of the frames they were empty… because Haaning had kept the money as an artistic act commenting on the deeper value of art and labour itself.

Such conceptual works can seem strange, but they get the point across rather effectively, “what if…?”

They challenge and broaden our understanding of the world and each other. Can art just be some sort of way of behaving? Should it always be pleasant and easy to understand? Is it stupid or pointless if it makes us think?

The most common refrain against graphic scores is that they are not like traditional scores; the ‘lines and dots’ kind we are taught to read from left to right. My scores look so much like art they have been exhibited as such internationally: examples of that which is neither art or music yet both, posing an interesting question: where do (or even should) we go from here?

Ultimately what we call art is the essence of our core ability to create: seeing the world through new eyes, providing pleasure, questioning our world through creative means; a conversation we have with the world. It is a painting of a flower, and the word ‘flower’ written on a gallery wall. What is art? We are. Art is us, and you can decide for yourself which circles are silly.

Dr. Daniel Schnee is an anthropologist and internationally recognized graphic score composer

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