Identifying Good Works

Identifying Good Works

In this post, I want to touch on two separate identifiers that occur when we look at how a Content connects to its Expression: first is noticing a work’s weight and then we will recognize when a work is a good work or bad work?

Where is the weight?

How we present an idea determines where the work’s weight is located, thus shaping the way the work is experienced. Like a balancing scale, a work’s Content on one side and the Expression on the other, as both parts balance each other, the work’s interplaying tension produces a synergizing dynamic. But, if the weight is one sided, the scale is imbalanced, lopsided.

When a work is imbalanced, with a message carrying most of the weight, this is propaganda and propaganda makes us feel like we are “beaten over the head with it,” “crushed by the message.” In propaganda, a message is the primary element of the work, and its expression is not important, or rather the expression used is just enough to get the message out. Nor is vitality put into propaganda. Since the work’s weight is lop-sided, as only message, a sterile message is passed on, which is why it must be repeated over and over and over and over. On the other hand, choreographer, Agnes De Mille (1905-1993) advised the way to communicate a work’s message as an integrated experience: “Great messages are voiced greatly. This is the basis and validity of the art experience.”[i] Propaganda does not voice itself greatly, as that is unnecessary.

If a work’s Expression carries most of its weight, it is an empty form, a shell without anything in it. Hollow ornamental-representations are called “decoration”—an expression without meaning. Like almost every knickknack in thrift stores, the decorative stuff around us has nothing in itself to hold our attention; the items take up space or like wallpaper, remain in the background. Or, they are like One-Liners in stand-up comedy, have enough content for us to identify it, but then we move on because it stays in the background.

Therefore, a Content and its Expression should have a harmonizing symphonic interplay, hopefully at maximum tension. This is the prerequisite before a work can be a “Good” work.

How may we recognize when a work is “good” or “bad”?

It is easier than you think, and it is not opinion or feeling.

Works are equated as “Good” when an Expression (form) aptly fits its Content (the idea). Artists always strive for complete success but may succeed or fail by varying degrees. For a dancer, a choreographer supplies the Content, the dance steps, which may be a waltz, fox trot or salsa, as well as a fully developed choreographed presentation, like a Broadway musical, a ballet or for Hip Hop videos, etc. The Expression of the Content in Dance involves a couple of dynamics. First, the dancer successfully accomplished the steps, this involves technical ability—correct lines expressing the movement, rhythm, keeping the beat, spacing, flow, synchronization with partner(s), etc. Secondly, is the way the dancer channels the dance’s energy (emotion/passion). The dancer unites their energy with the work’s movements, its emotion and syncs with their partner(s) then directs it all towards the audience. If the dancer’s energy is suppressed, they are not channeling their emotion and energy through the work’s passion, therefore the audience cannot connect with the presentation; when this happens, the dancer is only supplying lifeless movements—just some steps. In this way they failed to present the audience with something good.

Similarly, a singer sings a song, a song-writer wrote.[ii] How the singer relays the song’s music and its words has the power to touch the hearer or not. For the singer to touch the hearer, they must forget their life and ego, loosening their self to the song.[iii] A singer not connecting their passion/emotion with the song’s feeling, will not move an audience; in this way, the singer only sings the words not the song.

Bad works do not harmonize a Content with its Expression. If a house’s roof leaks, we do not think this is good, no matter how beautiful or innovative the design/shape is, especially if the drips hit us; all parts are to work as intended. Have you seen a beautifully shaped teapot sitting on a tablecloth with a tea stain under its spout? A well designed and crafted teapot does not have drips off the spout. Everyone has heard poorly remade songs. Everyone watched movies that does not realized its Content’s potential and we see actors miscast in roles frequently. We easily detect works not Expressing an idea well, and may say, “It was a good idea, but they did not pull it off.” We seem to instinctively pinpoint a work’s inappropriateness and label it: “Bad”.

When the Content is Expressed in a way where the ideas’ passion is truly conveyed, we may exclaim, “Oh! That is good!” We often do not have the words to explain why we think it is good, but we know the idea was expressed in the right way.

What works have you had this reaction to?

[i] De Mille, Agnes, Portrait Gallery, p.191

[ii] The song writer and singer may be the same person. First they wrote a song. Then present the song, by singing it.

[iii] Cook, Orlanda, Singing With Your Own Voice, p.171. “Singing is all about forgetting oneself []. Yet consider any truly creative activity: painting a picture, preparing a good meal, designing a boat, planning a festival, or whatever; the action takes you out of yourself, makes you ’forget’ yourself, puts your focus on to something else. So it is with the creative voice in the activity of singing. It means that you are responsive to the present moment, with no other aim than to be fully and sensitive alive and ‘with the music’ of the moment.”