creative worship photos
Posted by Paul | Filed under photos
www.paulnorridge.co.uk/cw1 is a set of pictures from a ‘creative worship’ evening. They’ve been on my site for ages, but I don’t think I’ve ever linked to them.
(Interestingly I had the Taschen ‘Jazz Seen’ calendar on my desk a few years ago. I didn’t think it had made that much impact, but when I look at these I can see hints of its influence.)
Tags: photos
modifying symbols
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Another quote from Art & Soul:
We have the dilemma of using a symbol system that was not made for our worldview… I think the thing we’re waiting for is a genius to come forth who can make a new symbol system… or more properly, as symbol systems don’t come overnight, a group of people to modify the symbol systems of our day, so that we can use them for our Christian message without a disadvantage.
Francis Schaeffer
This brings all sorts of things up in my mind. For a start, it bounces interestingly off the posts from a couple of weeks ago (on Engaging Unbelief, etc.) I find the start interesting, but perhaps questionable (questions to follow below!) But I get happier as he refines the comments at the end.
Random thoughts/questions:
Is hoping for a symbol system made for our worldview the right start? Is it even practical? What would a symbol system ‘made for our worldview’ even look like? Perhaps it’s better to think of our worldview being expressed through whatever symbols are available. Maybe that give space for new things we didn’t even know were there to be expressed. If we have something ‘made for our worldview’ it may only let us say things we already know.
It’s really the ‘waiting for a genius’ idea that I have most issue with. (Admittedly he backs off and takes a position that seems far more valid.) Surely art in a Christian view has to be a community activity. And forming symbols can’t just be left to one ‘genius’. This seems to give into the Romantic view of artist as lone hero type view. And again, would producing a new system of symbols get us anywhere? Would it connect with anyone. You are likely to end up with a group of people (or an individual genius!) who can only talk amongst themselves.
It’s when he alters this to ‘a group of people’ who are ‘modifying the symbol systems of our day’ that I think he is on a better track. And now we are getting back to the ‘Engaging Unbelief’-type view: Entering another’s story and retelling. Or subverting the symbols. And there is a useful hint of community, which is surely the way this has to be done. Especially in a post-modern world.
Tags: apologetics, art, L\'Abri/Francis Schaeffer
theme & story
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
is that they love theme
more than story.’
Bart Gavigan (screenwriting teacher)
quoted in Art & Soul, by H. Brand and A. Chaplin
the gospel according to coldplay
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Saw a great presentation on Sunday from Dan: a mix of “Fix you” by Coldplay set against stills from ‘The Passion of the Christ’. It worked really well.
At the risk of pushing things too far, I think it fits in with the “art re-telling stories to an apologetic end”, as discussed in the previous post. Except maybe here it was “re-singing the song” and using images to re-interpret.
Also, although I loved it, I’d be interested to know how much it communicated to those who don’t know the significance of the ‘Passion’ events. That is, how much you had to know already to get the point. (Not saying that was a problem — just interested.) I guess this relates to the need to go right into the story of the people you are trying to talk to; to be fully ‘incarnated’. On the other hand, there are some things that can’t be expressed completely in any language and I guess sometimes you have to let extraordinary events speak for themselves.
Tags: art
a kind of synthesis…
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve been pondering the connection between two of the books I’ve been reading recently — Engaging Unbelief and Bruggemann’s Prophetic Imagination.
Brueggemann describes the prophetic task in two parts: Criticism of the current worldview, primarily by expressing grief where others refuse to see failings and endings; and bringing hope, by describing new beginnings and God’s future. For the second of these the following quote is interesting:
“What a commision it is to express a future that none think imaginable! Of course this cannot be done bu inventing new symbols,for that is wishful thinking. Rather, it means to move back into the deepest memories of this community and activate those very symbols that have always been the basis for contradictig the renant conciousness. Therefore the symbols of hope cannot be general or universal, but must be those that have been known concretely in this particular history.”
Perhaps we can make this connection: Brueggemann’s expressing grief parallels Chang’s entering the story and retelling, showing the plot tensions. Then bringing hope parallels showing how the story fits into God’s bigger story, with tensions resolved.
For both it’s about being incarnational: entering the story and talking on its terms, not just sitting on the outside or bringing in ‘new symbols’. For both it’s about making the problems clear and bringing new hope.
Perhaps, we can drag in another quote and look at impacts on art from a Christian point of view:
“All great Christian art is incarnational because art itself is the act of uniting form and content,drama and idea, the medium and the message. If art is dominated by a moralistic desire to preach at the audience, it will become lifeless and didactic.”
(Gregory Wolf in “It was Good – Making Art to the Glory of God”)
So, art has the potential to do just what apologetics and the prophetic imagination need: getting inside stories and re-telling them in new ways…
[I know, I know, I'm probably stretch the term 'apologetics' to breaking point since it is normally used in the context of a intellectual, reasoned response. I think you get what I'm trying to say.]
Adiella’s toys (part, umm, 3?)
Posted by Paul | Filed under photos
I thought the toys series would be more consistent than this. Anyway, here is an ELC favourite…
Tags: photos
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...