“What is it about this world that demands an image?”

Austerby

Austerby

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So asked Keith Jarrett last night during his concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London, angry that someone in the audience had the temerity to take his photograph - despite plenty of instructions that photography during the concert was not permitted by both him and the venue.

He's entitled to protect his professional image and is clearly sensitive to distractions (we also got told off by him for coughing during his wonderful performance of solo piano improvisations).

How should we respond to his question - What is it about this world that demands an image?

(note, it wasn't me who took the photo - I didn't have a camera with me :angel:).
 
Piffle. He is a product that is trying to protect it's value. Which is his right. But there is no great philosophical point here.
 
He shouldn't give any concert if he is so distracted even by coughing. I see no professional artist here, just a diva.

Prohibiting photographs at a live concert is not so uncommon.
 
What's so special about a live concert? Buy a recording. With a good sound system you'll save all the hassles of getting there, the price of the tickets, dealing with uppity performers. You'll save a bundle of money too.

From the performers point of view, though, the clacking of SLR's, the whirring of motor drives, and the bright flashes can be disturbing to everyone there. Not everybody shoots available light with an M Leica.
 
Keith Jarrett used to cough, stomp his feet, hum and otherwise make lots of noise during his performances. But for his solo piano improvs he always insists on classical venues with classical mores. Now, Jerry Garcia, another consummate improvisationist, was the total opposite. You could do just about anything while Jerry was busy playing. As a result, his performances became sub-culture happenings.

Nobody is answering austerby's original question. I'll take a stab: in order to have an image, you have to have a frame. No image without a frame. So the real question is, what in the world calls for framing? It's a little bit like asking why do humans like to make a clearing in the woods?
 
There are a variety of reasons for taking photos at a concert. Just like there are so many reasons for photographing street, architecture, landscape, family, crisis, .....
Every person who takes photos has his reasons and satisfies some demand (internal or external).
 
"What is it about this world that demands an image?"
Click to expand...

I don't know. Humans seem to like to see, hear, and read about things which interest them. It may constitute a 'need' in the literal sense - it would appear that humans first expressed ideas to each other in pictorial form in the very early part of our development. This need has continued to the present day - when we send an exploration vehicle to Mars, for example, we include a camera.

Our need to see a visual representation of the things which interest us range from the ridiculous to the sublime. We have images of eerie deep-ocean creatures and the insides of people's bodies. The moment of birth, and the moment of death (in natural forms as well as otherwise). We have photographs of great world leaders giving famous speeches, and we have photos of pop stars dangling their babies out of hotel windows and getting out of sports cars sans undergarments.

The world's demand for images is all-encompassing, unceasing, and indiscriminate.

Is that for good or ill? I cannot say. I can only say that it appears to be part of woof and warp of the human condition.

We want to know - and an essential part of knowing is seeing, ever since we first learned to scratch game animals on cave walls.

Keith Jarrett may not accept this when the image-taking is done outside of the framework he envisions - and as others have said, he is certainly within his rights to demand that no photos of him be taken in a private venue. He might do well to reflect that his albums are advertised and sold as much by images as by sound. We are more visually stimulated than we are by sound; it is simply more convenient. That's why musical events are advertised by photo or artwork prints on posters, in newspapers and magazines, and subway walls. He criticizes the very medium that helps to provide his sustenance. His right - but a trifle hypocritical.
 
Images are important to us because we have evolved as creatures who depend upon and get most of our information through our eyes. The mere act of standing upright (which is the defining characteristic of homo erectus) gives our sense of vision enormous advantages over all the other animals that are bound to the earth by four legs. Taken a step further, the mundane act of seeing is further enhanced when the image has an aesthetic resonance.
 
There are lot's of reasons the world demands an image :

1. money, money, money - you can sell it because curious masses want to see it and pay for it in form of TV, newpapers, magazines etc.
2. sometimes a picture tells more than a thousand words
3. human memory is not archival proof, it keeps fading and a picture helps keep it fresh. They are a back-up for memories that become so countless nowadays that your biological terrabytes are at their limits of overflow.

The reason for Keith Jarrett to be upset might not be commercial as his pictures are not really hot stuff on the front pages... but more the disturbance aspect of some jerks that can not resist to take their flash camera out and bust a moment of concentration for the artist and the rest of the audience. That's just an enormous lack of respect. Being annoyed by that if it happens over and over again doesn't have anything to do with Diva attiude.
 
icebear said:
...but more the disturbance aspect of some jerks that can not resist to take their flash camera out and bust a moment of concentration for the artist and the rest of the audience. That's just an enormous lack of respect. Being annoyed by that if it happens over and over again doesn't have anything to do with Diva attiude.
Click to expand...

I agree that the people who took the photos should not have done so. The artist has the right to allow or deny photography in a private venue, as do the managers of that venue. Absolutely.

On the other hand, having read the Wikipedia entry on said performer, it appears that he is indeed a bit precious, having previously demanded the the audience not cough during his performance, walking off stage because he did not like the piano he was provided, and so on. Quite entertaining, and I suppose a mark of his abilities, if he can insult people as he appears to do and still be popular. I understand Bobby Fischer was like that as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Jarrett
 
Fred, I'm curious to know why would anybody have to know Breathless, the movie, as it is a rather bland and almost insulting copy of the original by Goddard.

You meant A bout de souffle or we're you serious about Breathless, the bland copy?
 
Not everyone knows everybody, sure.
A couple of weeks ago I listened to a conversation a cashier had with a young barista (at LePain Quotidien, not Starbuck's mind you :p) and he didn't know Bob Dylan. I asked her how anyone could not know him, she just raised her shoulders and said , he's twenty... we both smiled.
 
I had my faith restored recently by being able to discuss the joys and advantages of 5x4 film with the young sales girl (about nineteen) at the local Kodak one hour.

After that I wouldn't care if she didn't know who Bob Dylan was! :p
 
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