[art, video] Fwd: Dancing 2012 (Where the Hell is Matt)

[siderea]

Previously. (Very highly recommended, and it makes the rest better if you start there.)

From Matt's About page: Eventually Matt decided there was one thing left he wanted to say that the other videos hadn't quite said. He knew it was the sort of thing that was going to make a sponsor uneasy, and he kind of wanted to own his work anyway, so he

Comments

[siderea]

That's a good article. But I think it misses something profound to describe the process these videos reveal as merely "growing up", and to situate it within him. These videos both document and consist of a phenomenon I know of, but that English can't describe. What is the transitive of "to grow up"?

You've seen Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk on "genius"? It touches on this. As does All Thing Shining: Perhaps this is a lesson about the sacred that we are now in a position to appreciate: when things are going at their best, when we are the most excellent version of ourselves that we can be, when we are, for the instance, working together with other as one, then our activity seems to be drawn out of us by an external force. These are shining moments in life, wondrous moments that require our gratitude. In those episodes of excellence, no matter the domain, Odysseus's voice should ring through our heads: "Be silent; curb your thoughts; do not ask questions. This is the work of the Olympians."
But neither of those is exactly to my

[mangosteen]

I've found that at a certain point in practice, it's not you doing it, but it doing itself through you.

We can talk all day about the actual mechanics of that, and you probably know many times more about that than I, but that seems like what's going on.

[benndragon]

ron_newman really needs to see this, based on his comment in your "previously" :).

I'm also a huge fan of "practice makes better", particularly paired with "motivation makes practice" (so you will tend to get better at things you're more interested in to begin with, which can mask the practice effect), but I'm very will-oriented so it's not surprising I would think that!

[siderea]

I pointed him at it and the splendid story about getting that footage I'm about to add to the post here.

It's not wrong to think that. It's that there is more going on that than. ETA: metahacker pointed me at an account (I think it's in Art and Fear) of a pottery instructor who ran an experiment with two of his pottery classes running concurrently. One class he told he would grade on the quality of their work, the other on the quantity -- the more pots you threw, the higher your grade, regardless of how good they were. At the end, each student's best pots from both classes were juried, and the "quantity" class was found to be, on average, substantially better than the "quality" class.

[pamelina]

That was what I found compelling in "Outliers."

[boobirdsfly]

A funny fact: I used to be his travel agent. Super nice guy!

[siderea]

WUT NO WAI