Positive / Negative
"Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said", Mel Brooks
I was invited to participate in an improvisation with eight musicians. While they were playing, I wrote their names on a big screen and made a list of positive and negative characteristics about each of them.
Some ideas:
Many people believe that negative criticism is something unproductive and resentful that is not helpful for anyone ("if you have nothing good to say about it, then you better don't say anything.") When it comes to the improvised music scene (and art in general), I noticed in the last years a tendency towards avoiding negative criticism for the sake of politeness. Moreover, most of the reviews I read contain either positive statements or just descriptive information about the art works they speak about. Artists themselves often avoid criticizing other artists, at least openly. I believe this happens, among other things, because of the increasing professionalism in the art and music world, which forces artists to be extremely polite since they have to take care of their own careers and reputation.
It seems that, as a result, a lot of artists end up having a deluded conception about their own work because no one dears to publicly say anything negative about them. I believe this situation became very harmful for art productions.
The aim of the "Positive / Negative" idea is not to state comprehensive criticism about the musicians of the ensemble. The positive and negative sentences used should also not be taken as true statements. They were taken from general opinions that are repeatedly heard within the musicians' community, but not always said directly to the person in question. The "Positive / Negative" intervention attempted to confront the ubiquitous hypocrisy present nowadays in the art and music scene.
Ensemble:
Jean-Luc Guionnet - alto saxophone
Seijiro Murayama - percussion
Alexandre Babel - percussion
Diego Chamy - visuals
Clare Cooper - guzheng
Robin Hayward - tuba
Christof Kurzmann - electronics
Andrea Neumann - inside piano (left the stage without playing)
Clayton Thomas - double bass
Live at Ausland, Berlin, during the second edition of the series called "Nine Lives", June 10, 2009.