catapult magazine

genuine community is difficult to find. community where people can share intimately with one another and hold one another accountable.

because of this lack of “real” community, we, as a society, seem desperate to find it elsewhere. we want to experience things that are real, but don’t know how. we visit places and take pictures to look at later instead of actually enjoying being there because the pictures are “even better than the real thing.” we listen to other people’s music instead of learning how to play an instrument and making our own.

ultimately, we turn to television and “reality” series like survivor, american idol, the real world and the osbournes. we attempt to live our lives through the people on screen, vicariously experiencing the lives we’d really like to be living.

joey horstman, in an article in the other side several years ago, wrote:

what do you think?

Interesting quote and side note. To play devil’s advocate for a bit, should I be reading then? Is reading more practical and true-to-life than T.V.? How about video games? Listening to music? Going to a play?
Does it come down to challenging yourself? What specific challenges then?
I don’t know yet, but I’ll think about it.

Yeah, all of art is based on this concept of living vicariously through other people’s lives. That’s what I love about it. I’m suspicious of the idea that there is some sort of “real” life where people are “really” living and am not sure if I would want to live in real life anyway. But this raises the question I’ve been struggling with for awhile. Is fantasy—the desire not to live in the “real” world—made possible because we live in a world of sin? If so, then is great art—that which allows us to live vicariously through the eyes, ears and experiences of others—only possible in an imperfect world?

isn’t there something to be said for the experience of something, though? i mean, experiencing a van gogh exhibit a few years ago was incredible. i wasn’t living vicariously through his art, imagining myself watching the grain harvesters or taking in a starry night. i was experiencing the beauty of one person’s vision of the world.

i just don’t know how many times i’ve “experienced” TV. does that make any sense?

You’re saying that the VanGogh experience was great because it was a direct experience of his art, rather than of prints or something? Or are you saying you’d be better off being in the landscapes VanGogh depicts? And I would agree with you that many people limit themselves to the experience of television, but it’s still a real experience.

i’m saying the van gogh experience was great because it was a direct experience of his art.

i guess a fundamental question that needs to be answered in this conversation is, is television art? and that, of course, leads to an even more fundamental question, is art entertainment?