The Creation Complex

We can be our own supreme beings.  This statement supports the beliefs of experimental filmmaker and artist Maya Deren.  Though she worked in the late 1940s and 50s, her essay "An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film" claims that there was a shift in the artistic ideology of men in the 17th century.

Deren herself claims that to the artist, the ego is the "most precious of man's qualities," (p. 12) and it was the vanity of man's ego that made artists see themselves as creators absolute, their creations serving as extensions of their intelligence and vision.

Once artists began to realize their own power to create, and how this act of creation elevated them to possess a "pride of newfound, individual consciousness" (p. 18), there was a "shift of emphasis from self-expression to self-evaluation." (p. 19)  Deren also argues that this shift was a phenomenon of nature.  Since this ideology spread into form, then, art itself is a form which creates or manifests emotion; rhetorically, this is an emotional sensation.

Artists began to see their craft as more than a reflection of reality and earthly representations, and rather their creations were natural renderings of their own experiences.  Art is not art for art's sake, but art is a form for human synthesis, because it is a creation of man, and man must be revered for his elevated abilities.

Personally, I think that Deren treats this topic with an edge of sarcasm, and rightly so, because why should we as humans begin to value our creations above natural creation?  The point she makes is clear though: artists want to equate their art to any other natural occurrence, since artistic creations are forged from the intellect and will of man.

The universal motivation for all artists remains to recreate experience with originality.  This theme is evident in Deren's experimental films, whose aims are not only to cause viewers to reconsider their relationship to a piece of art in the way they receive it, but also to diversify the subject matter and visuals in film themselves.  In Deren's film "Meshes of the Afternoon" there are various objects/images that may or may not double as symbols; each viewer's individual experience causes them to process the objects/images differently, and they may or may not attach a symbolic meaning to these objects/images.  For example, let's consider the knife and the key.  At points throughout the film they are seen alone, then they interchange.  Is the knife meant to cut bread?  Or does the knife, when it is mirrored as the key, offer something eternal, the very means by which a person receives redemption?

The knife, a key to salvation.  I just made that up.  But my ultimate point is that we as artists cannot deem our work better than this or that piece of art, and rather we should focus on the act of creation and rely more on our audience to attach meaning.  The creation of art can be an isolating experience, but the final product should serve as an experience unto itself.