Sustain Ability: A Fine Art

Dear Graham,

If you were to write a play on
Sustainability—so as to turn
UP the sustainability concern: get
people thinking and talking about
sustainability: dramatize (the play’s
the thing) sustainability across the
curriculum….

How would you proceed?

Is this a stupid question?
Or smart?
Academic?

Does IT work this way in Fine Arts:
going from a popular theme or topic
to a production? Like having a clear
thesis: saying what your going to say,
saying it and then saying what you said
as we like it in Humanities.

Art Art Art Art Art Art Art

* inert art on the one hand
* ert art on the other hand.

Is this distinction clear? Worth
polarizing so as to relate?

Inert art is “symbolical” in the original
sense: to throw IT together, get IT together,
reinforcing the ethos & demonstrating the
traditions.

Inertia (literally: un-art) sustainability as we
know it inside traditions and systems and
status quotidian.System homeostatic
self-correcting cruise control kind
of art. Ouch, ooo, damn--whenever
a tolerance is crossed.

Ert art is “dia-bolical” in the original
sense: to throw IT across and apart—
reconfiguring recalibration of tolerances,
demoralization of course (ooo myyy
gawd) and any system will resist Ert Art
like anything, naturally. You can’t blame
anyone for putting up a defense..

The question: how to distinguish sustainability
that is unsustainable from unsustainable
unsustainability that is unsustainable:
while working inside the inert
naturally self-preserving
convention? Where is
the ground for
leverage?

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to frame
this question but it swallows my own tail
& I feel like Epimenides trying to disconnect
from Crete and make wise loving
remarks, too.

It calls for a very fine artist.

But what I’m asking: how do you DO this?
Be a Cretan and Not a Cretan Too? Like
being a monkey and a Jane Goodall TOO.
Bite the very hand that feeds you and
have them love you too? Good Dog!
Good Dog!

This is Fine Art territory. You can do it better.
You guys north of the gazebo have
responsibilities we can’t imagine
south of the border.

Can we at least talk about IT?
(IT, I said: do I have to keep
spelling IT out?)

Or is IT one of those deals where
talking about it just confuses
the issue? Stirrs IT all up.

xxxooo, Sam—Humanist among
the Jensensualists