Attuned to Being: Heideggerian Music in Technological Society
Gerry Stahl · boundary 2 · 1976
The hopes and frustrations of technology are revealed in the most advanced works of art. This implication of the Heideggerian standpoint contradicts the popular notion that art steers clear of science. These days, however, where art skirts the realm of industrial technique, it falls prey to the same commercial interests which rule there and which it may have hoped to slip by. Despite itself, the hapless work functions as a commodity to meet the demand for a holiday from commodities. Unfortunately, it necessarily fails to satisfy this real need for long. The partial truth of conventional understanding is that twentieth century art, when it still packs a punch, registers a protest against the present character of technological society. Paradoxically, perhaps, the work of art must embody, no matter how subtly, the state of technology in order to criticize its contemporary social form.