I respond to a stimulating post by Francis Huang with respectful disagreement
in part.

When you obsessively scratch the artistic itch the result is often likely to be
relevant to others. Carl Jung said the product may be powerful art if you are
expressing the collective UNconscious - producing material that balances and
opposes and possibly heals the dominant pathologies of the time in which you
live. I refer you to his essay on Psychology and Literature in "Modern Man In
Search Of A Soul."

In my not so humble opinion, artistic reflections of the collective
CONsciousness, are a less potent and less beneficial form of art. They are less
likely to touch deep currents in the audience.

This is where I agree with you about Google's "Live Query." (It is an
observation of reality on the net without any transforming artistic purpose -
closest to a constant live-camera broadcast from a single location.)

Artists who work with an awareness of the possibility of tapping into something
much bigger than their personal obsessions can be modest and arrogant at the
same time. They can be modest in claiming
to speak only for themselves and arrogant in believing that, if they speak
truly for themselves, it may well be relevant to others. The work may be
produced pursuant to personal fascination and obsession. But then may come a
time of recognition, when the artist realizes that the work goes deeper than
originally thought and is worthy of further dissemination.

I work in the belief that, if I reach a certain depth or hit a certain note
I must also be expressing the shared unconscious impulses or reactions of a
large number of people. This is the best justification for art as a human
necessity.

This process of artistic transmission of material from the collective
unconscious is not subject to the control of the artist, (no matter
what the artist may think), its impact is not predictable nor is it
necessarily material that is morally good. On the latter point I refer you
to Spott's newly published "Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics" (Overlook
2003) in which some of Hitler's artistic obsessions are persuasively
documented.

But, morally good or bad or unclassifiable, deep art is always relevant when
it is a true personal reaction to surrounding conditions. You think you are
scratching your personal itch but it turns out to be a collective itch - and
unconscious to boot!

Then, if you are feel you have found something important to communicate to
others, the work of injecting it into the society becomes part of your
artistic work. And the exploration of how that can be done is also
fascinating and useful.

Daniel Young