October 25, 2025

The Arresting Time

— J. Chr. de Vries

Interview

Nico ten Broddels, or Cornelis de Bondt?

“Ah, that kind of interview — a question disguised as a short statement. Always appreciated.”

Instead of meeting in his lovely garden in the Dordogne, I meet De Bondt through a video connection. At his request. After our first meeting in 2023, when he had offered to provide additional comments by email, he now, almost two years later, asked for a follow-up interview. Well then, let’s get on with it; I’m not one to make a fuss.

He sat outside behind his laptop, under the familiar red parasol. A cigar in his hand, a glass of white wine half visible at the edge of the frame. The weather was gloomy — not unusual for the season — in fact, it looked rather like our own cold little country. I also noticed a book beside him; I couldn’t read the title, but I suspect it was The Time That Remains by Giorgio Agamben, since that was to be a key topic of our conversation. I had the same text open on my laptop. The discussion would revolve around chapter 2, ‘The Second Day’ — Klētos.

A week earlier, De Bondt had called me unexpectedly. His voice sounded animated, which surprised me — I was used to the old curmudgeon. “I’ve discovered something,” he said. “It’s about the notion of calling. We need to talk about it — a sequel to our previous interview.” I wasn’t particularly eager; I felt I’d heard it all before. But his enthusiasm was infectious enough to convince me. Fortunately, I wouldn’t have to travel.

De Bondt was (and still is) working on a diary titled 1953, after his birth year. He also calls it a noctuary, since many of his texts stem from dreams. At one point he wrote about his profession as a composer and called it a calling, immediately followed by the question whether it really was a calling — or just a passing fancy. A few days later he decided to explore that question and found his way to the aforementioned text by Agamben; Klētos is the Greek word for ‘called’. In that text, Agamben refers to the Lutheran concept Beruf, which means both profession and calling.

Could you give a brief summary of Agamben’s text? I find it rather cryptic.

“Or poetic — that’s the positive term.”

Right, here we go again… always those defensive evasions. And I thought I was being considerate! A subjectwise approach, what more could the old goat want? If I’d said the text is cryptic… well. I decided not to press the point — I wanted to keep this conversation as short as possible — and simply repeated my question with a friendly look.

“Brief? Sure enough…” De Bondt took another drag from his cigar, then, thankfully, began.

“In the book as a whole, Giorgio Agamben examines the first ten words of Paul’s Letter to the Romans, in Latin transliteration: 

paulos doulos christou iesou, kletos apostolos aphorismenos eis euaggelion theou.

This means, literally: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. The second chapter concerns the fifth word — Klētos.

This Greek term klētos means ‘called’ or ‘to be called’. A related word is klēsis — ‘calling’ or ‘profession’. Agamben explores the meaning of these words in relation to messianic life. The term ‘called’ also appears in the First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 7, verse 22: For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant. He then derives the (previously mentioned) word klēsis, which appears in verse 20: Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. In Greek (via Latin transliteration): en tē klēsei he eklēthē. Agamben also refers to verse 19 of Paul’s letter: Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. That ‘nothing’ points to a kind of nullification. Why should one ‘abide in the calling wherein one was called’? That ‘abiding’ is not a form of passivity; rather, it signifies the immovable, self-reflective gesture of the messianic calling. Thus there ultimately occurs a nullification (or revocation) of the notion of calling itself — a calling of the calling. This nullification suspends conditionality and radically calls it into question in the very act of abiding within it.”

I decided to interrupt De Bondt — this explanation was, if anything, even more cryptic than the original. I told him so, as diplomatically as I could, and suggested we approach the conversation differently: I would mention specific points from Agamben’s text and we would examine them one by one. But he wasn’t interested. He wanted something else.

“I didn’t ask for this follow-up interview to give a lecture on The Time That Remains,” he said, lighting another cigar. “It’s about something else. First and foremost, it’s about the question of the meaning of art. And from that follows, inevitably, the question of what this means for my ‘profession’.” He made air quotes with his fingers at the word profession. “It was through that concept that I arrived at Agamben’s chapter on calling.”

But isn’t an introduction to that text necessary? Otherwise it remains ‘poetic’.
 (To tactfully avoid the word ‘cryptic’.)

“The poetic is unavoidable when we speak of complex matters such as the meaning of art, life and death, and the phenomenon of time. But whenever you feel it gets too cryptic, you can stop me and ask further.”

Art — a matter of life or death?

“Of life and death. But also of time. For music, that last one is self-evident.”

But the subject is broader than music alone, if I’ve understood you correctly.

“Yes, because it’s about that concept of calling, and through it, about my profession.”

Then I suggest you start there — and I’ll see where that leads us.

“Then I’ll begin with the question of the meaning of art in our time.” He launched into an elaborate, partly historical argument.

— The Social Meaning of Art

“In recent times — in fact, since the end of the last century, but in recent years at an even more extreme level — the social significance of art has corroded enormously. Especially in the field of the classical arts.

“Visual art, music, literature — they’re perceived as irrelevant. Nobody knows the works of the great artists anymore: who Bach was, or Monteverdi, Kafka, Shakespeare, Raphael, Mondriaan… Rembrandt, perhaps — everyone knows The Night Watch; that’s what draws all the tourists. [Dutch] Writers from the late twentieth century — Hermans, Reve, Mulisch, to name the best-known — or composers like Peter Schat, Jan van Vlijmen, Ton de Leeuw, Otto Ketting — the so-called ‘man in the street’ has no idea who they were.

“At this moment, roughly speaking, there are three camps: first, the camp of the admirers of the classical arts — small, but outspoken. Second, the camp that acknowledges art only when it’s appreciated by large audiences. In their eyes, artists are famous, and they become famous when their work is frequently performed, seen, or read. The ‘great’ writers are the thriller authors whose books sell well. The musicians and composers come from pop and rock. And nowadays, also from the watered-down variants of minimal music and pseudo-classical crossover. Most of pop music exists through recordings and online channels, or in sold-out football stadiums. In the pseudo-classical realm, people like ‘lying-down concerts’ and dreamy, new-age-like settings. And then there’s the third camp — a small group of artists who know and appreciate the classics, but consider the ‘great masters’ to be exponents of a bourgeois, colonial culture. They were (or rather became) famous within a domain of power that granted them their place for political reasons. Their artistic significance is acknowledged — partly — but also experienced as an obstacle to their own work.

“I’ll now describe these three camps in more detail. The First Camp includes both professional artists and enthusiasts. The first group is, of course, technically competent — their judgment and appreciation of classical art is based on expertise. Among the enthusiasts that’s not always the case; they often admire the canonical works precisely because they are canonical, and thus familiar. It’s a form of nostalgia. As my incomparable theory teacher Hein Kien once said in an analysis class, while we were studying sonata form: ‘Most listeners don’t understand what’s going on in the development section, and impatiently wait for the first theme to return.’ For many, classical music is a celebration of recognition. In popular arrangements — like the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven by the band Ekseption, or Mozart’s G minor Symphony by Waldo de los Rios — the development section is omitted for exactly that reason. The professional musicians, of course, know what happens in the development; they experience its tension and understand its importance.

“Despite their expertise, the professionals and connoisseurs cannot give an adequate analysis of the importance of those arts; their defense lacks proper criteria for artistic judgment. Their argumentation stalls in emotional, nostalgic, and circular reasoning. Beethoven is a genius because he is a genius. Just listen to his work. If you understand, feel, or appreciate it, you’ll hear why. And if you don’t — well, then you’re not musical enough, or poorly educated.”

“The Second Camp has no need for artistic justification at all — only personal feeling decides what counts as ‘good’ art. It must be ‘beautiful’, ‘express a passion’, ‘touch someone’, and other such irrelevant characterisations. For what, after all, does ‘beauty’, ‘passion’, or ‘being moved’ mean? In the end, the arguments are not based on artistic grounds but on numbers: the position on the charts, the number of fans, the sales of recordings, books, or tickets, the price tag of a painting, or the size of a celebrity’s contract.

“The politicians (and civil servants!) who determine cultural policy cannot afford to ignore this camp. The right-wing parties advocate abolishing arts subsidies altogether: art should be able to support itself. The (centre-)left parties are less receptive to such arguments, but they too believe that a price must be paid — that art must demonstrate its ‘social relevance’. Partly through generating its own income — ‘entrepreneurship’ — and partly through ‘cultural governance’ and fulfilling demands concerning ‘inclusion’, ‘diversity’, ‘gender’, and other social criteria.

“From 2005 — when Medy van der Laan, as State Secretary, ruled over cultural policy in the Balkenende IV Cabinet — until the time when the Rutte I Cabinet came to power in 2010, I examined the arts sections of party manifestos, as well as relevant newspaper articles. The superficiality and indifference within politics turned out to be worse than I had imagined. Among the right-wing parties there was outright hostility; among centrist parties such as the CDA, petty-minded provincialism; and among the left, at best a benevolent attitude, but without any profound analysis of why cultural policy matters. Here is a selection of those policy statements, in alphabetical order:

CDA [centre-right]:
 In the long term it is desirable to move partly from the current supply-side funding model (with its associated advisory structure) towards a demand-driven model. This means that the government co-finances an institution only when there are also other sources of funding. [Election programme 2002–2006, §2.10.2]

Art and culture should not be for the elite but for everyone. Art and culture can lead to greater mutual understanding, and thus to more social cohesion. Singing in an organised setting, for instance, is the most popular hobby in the Netherlands, yet receives no political attention. The cultural sector with a capital C stands too far apart from the sector with a small c. Greater cooperation between the two could prove highly fruitful. [Member of Parliament Wim van de Camp, in the debate on cultural policy, 25 November 2005]
D66 [centre-left liberals] — Medy van der Laan: 
We subsidise art so that beautiful works can come into being that would otherwise never see the light of day. In my view, the legitimacy of public funding for the arts lies primarily in supporting stylised vulnerability that benefits society as a whole.

Other forms of legitimacy, such as promoting cultural diversity or encouraging regional distribution, are certainly also relevant and may complement the first. That does not mean, however, that there should not be other sources of funding besides the government.

‘That the state does not judge the content of artworks is undisputed. Over time, Thorbecke’s adage, to the dismay of many, has acquired a far broader meaning than merely respecting artistic freedom. Behind Thorbecke’s broad back, the cultural debate has fallen silent,’ as I wrote in my memorandum ‘Opmaat’ — on the revision of the cultural policy system. [Policy paper Meer dan de som, 2005]
GroenLinks [left]:
GroenLinks wants the richly variegated artistic landscape in the Netherlands. [Sic.] This can be achieved through an active cultural policy aimed at stimulating creativity, variety, openness, and curiosity. GroenLinks advocates a stimulating policy for artists focused on good education, facilities, and working conditions. A flourishing artistic climate contributes to a creative society and economy.
LPF [Pim Fortuyn, right-wing populist party]:
 Receiving a subsidy once does not mean receiving it forever. [Election programme 2002]
PvdA [social-democrats]: 
Art and culture add value to society. They are essential for the quality of existence. They serve as a source of inspiration for society. Inspiration is fragile, and this immaterial value must be protected by the government. [Election programme]

Is art entertainment or edification? [Wouter Bos, parliamentary leader]
PVV [Geert Wilders, extreme-populist]:
In one of his court cases, Wilders argued for the superiority of Western culture over Islam, citing Mozart as an example — while at the same time dismissing the orchestras that play his music as ‘trombone clubs’ and calling art itself ‘a leftist hobby’. [First trial: 2010–2011; second: 2014]
VVD [right-wing conservatives]: 
How does the choice between dining at home for five euros per person, or in a restaurant for fifty, differ from the choice between listening to a CD at home or attending a live performance of Mozart in a concert hall?

Why should the assessment of quality and funding for a music or theatre company rest in the hands of a select group of experts rather than the public?

Even if no one came to see The Night Watch or a Roman drinking vessel, it would still be defensible for the government to ensure that such works are preserved for future generations.

Thorbecke once said: ‘The Government is not a judge of science and art’. In our view, the government does have a role, but one that urgently needs redefinition. Administrative reform in the arts means that the state must clarify where its added value lies: in education, in accessibility for young people and those with modest means, and in cultural preservation — not in influencing how independent citizens choose to spend their leisure time. [Article by Stef Blok and colleagues in De Volkskrant, 4 October 2004]

“Blok was one of the architects of Rutte I, the far-right coalition government of the CDA and VVD tolerated by Wilders’ party, which cut the national arts budget by twenty percent. He sat at the negotiation table. For musicians and performing artists, the financial damage was considerably greater than those twenty percent. In no time, most contemporary-music ensembles were dumped from multi-year funding. Orchestra musicians — those not dismissed — were reduced to temporary contracts.

“Of course, this is old news now; we are ten years on. Yet the circumstances for the arts have only worsened, partly due to COVID-19, which cost even more artists their livelihood. Appreciation for the arts is lower today than ever — not only in our country, but also in Trump’s America, in the European nations governed by populists, and even among our southern neighbours, where a coalition of the left and populist right has turned the arts into a battlefield — especially under Prime Minister Bart De Wever.

“The Third Camp, broadly speaking, supports public funding for the arts. Art is considered essential to society. Government funding should focus primarily on living artists; the ‘classical masters’ have had more than enough attention, and thus stand in the way of new creation. Judgments about art are, first and foremost, political, not artistic. A universal judgment is rejected: every aesthetic judgment is normative, determined not only by personal taste but especially by political and social interests. In that sense there is overlap with the Second Camp — only the conclusions regarding the need for arts subsidies are diametrically opposed.

And which camp do you belong to?

“I belong to the Fourth Camp — a kind of Église Métropolitaine d’Art de Messias-Conducteur.”

You feel called by Satie…

“Satie is interesting in this regard; he fits into all three camps. In the first, as part of the classical canon; in the second, through the aestheticisation of his music and its absorption into the New Age camp; in the third, through his rejection of the canon and resistance to the status quo.”

‘Messias-Conducteur’ rather than ‘Jésus-Conducteur’? A subtle joke?

“I’ll come back to that. Agamben’s text, after all, concerns messianism.

“It isn’t meant as a joke, though. It’s dead serious. Satie carries an air — or rather, a scent — of irony, mockery, self-mockery, and absurdity. Let’s call it satiery, to make a lame pun — one he might have appreciated.

“But the question is how accurate that image really is. Behind that ‘satierical’ façade, I think, hides an utterly earnest search for truth. He wears a mask, but not to conceal anything — rather as an instrument to expose the world of art (and the world as a whole). To me, that suggests a ‘calling’, perhaps even in the messianic sense. In a letter to a friend he writes: I wonder whether I am serious or not… but I think I am, for I suffer greatly. It sounds aphoristic, yet I believe it must be taken at face value. To his friend Contamine de Latour he writes (in 1895): I love poverty, not out of taste, but out of dignity. And so we could go on; all his statements point to a tightly choreographed form of irony — an irony that self-nullifies.

“This brings me, by a short detour, to his colleague and friend Claude Debussy. I recently read an essay from his collection Monsieur Croche antidilettante: ‘Du goût’. There he laments the disappearance of taste. Taste, he writes, has become an empty word.

“The parallel with today is obvious. He writes: ‘While in the last century taste was still a pleasant means of expressing one’s opinion, today it has become so elastic a notion that it can serve any purpose — little more than a platitude’. He refers to the ‘geniuses’ Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. Of the last he says: ‘[…] to whom composers ought to pray before they begin their work, that they may be spared from mediocrity’.

“And further, on Bach: ‘In vain will you search through his countless works for a single lapse of taste; time and again you find something that could have been written yesterday — and to this day we have found nothing better to set beside it’.”

“This fits neatly into the laments of the First Camp: the loss of good taste, once safely in the hands of the old masters. But then the tone shifts — he distances himself from the European canon and praises Javanese music to the skies, especially for its use of counterpoint, compared to which Palestrina’s is ‘child’s play’. Even a waltz, ‘even one from a café-concert’, he says, often shows more taste than ‘the symphony that barely manages to conceal its mediocrity beneath a heap of grandiloquence’. In the end, Monsieur Croche pleads for mystery in music. He turns against the composers of the academic–formalistic schools. I suspect he was thinking of Vincent d’Indy and César Franck. In this, Debussy seems to align himself with the Third Camp. The comparison between his time and ours may be debatable, but the recurrence of the theme is unmistakable. The main difference, of course, is that what I now call the Second Camp did not yet exist. Debussy’s criticism is aimed at academism — that is presumably why he mentions Palestrina, whose work stood at the core of contrapuntal training. The true ‘masters’ escaped this ‘sad little game of building blocks’.

“This lament can be traced further back still. Think of Friedrich Schiller’s cri de cœur in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man: ‘In our own times, however, need rules supreme, and the fallen human race bends beneath its tyrannical yoke. Utility is the great idol of our age, to which all powers do homage and all talents must pay tribute. On this coarse balance, the spiritual merit of art counts for nothing; bereft of all encouragement, it disappears from the noisy marketplace of our century’.

“And further back yet: the controversy between Claudio Monteverdi and Giovanni Artusi, around 1600. Artusi attacked Monteverdi for his allegedly frivolous use of dissonance. Across all the differences — and the parallels — between such controversies and laments, one constant stands out: the lack of a sound artistic judgment. Even Monsieur Croche relies on platitudes like ‘good taste’, ‘the genial masters’, and ‘the mystery’. In that, he does not differ much from today’s camps. If we want to respond adequately to the current squandering of the arts — especially by the right-wing hordes who seek to dismantle them — we must be able to articulate a sound artistic judgment about the works we admire, or reject. And not, as I often hear, because I naively believe that I might thereby convince the right-wing barbarians. That will never happen. But rather for ourselves — for those who hold the arts dear. We must first, for ourselves, be able to formulate universal criteria by which our work can be measured. Not as justification or legitimation, but purely as a necessary critique of the essence of our praxis and our work.”

Where has Satie gone in the meantime?

“That’s precisely where I wanted to return.”

Does that have to do with that judgment?

“Indeed, the two are closely connected.”

I can’t help but feel that this ‘universal’ artistic judgment of yours will provoke resistance.

“It does. Especially from the Third Camp. The First generally accepts its universal character, but doesn’t consider it crucial, believing that musical talent itself should suffice to form judgment. The Second Camp couldn’t care less. But the artistic judgment does not stand on its own.

“What matters to me is the ‘calling’. And that, of course, is where Satie comes in.”

Let’s start with the artistic judgment, then.

— The Artistic Judgment

“Not long ago, I wrote an extensive essay on the artistic judgment, which I won’t repeat here. I’m still awaiting comments from a few Facebook friends before publishing it on my website. The essence of it is that I believe it is possible to pronounce a universal artistic judgment — one that nevertheless includes personal, that is to say, subjective elements. My argument is a response to Kant’s ‘Antinomy of Taste’ — that is, the judgment of the beautiful. The antinomy arises because this judgment of taste is subjective, while at the same time claiming universal validity. The resolution of this antinomy lies in the fact that the judgment of taste is not based on determinate concepts, but on an indeterminate one: that of the ‘supersensible substratum of appearances’ — the ‘appearances’ we cannot know, since they are ‘supersensible’, yet must assume to rest upon something.

“I had to find an answer to this antinomy. First, I situated the Judgment of Taste regarding the Beautiful partly within that of the Pleasant, for in practice this is already the case. I know hardly anyone in any of the three camps who does not consider taste a normative given — except perhaps a few die-hard adherents of the classical repertoire. But in all cases, the argument concerning artistic judgment fails. My second move was to situate this modified Judgment of the Pleasant within one of the three perspectives of the Objective Analytic Judgment, namely that of ‘context’ (the other two being ‘concept’ and ‘consistency’). This aspect indeed carries a subjective charge, but its place within the Analytic Judgment remains nonetheless an objectively verifiable perspective. One can name it for what it is, while at the same time delineating its boundaries, both with respect to taste and to the various interests involved. The third move was to treat the remaining part of the artistic judgment of beauty separately within the Reflective Judgment. For in art, there is in fact a play of concepts, and thus it can appeal to universal validity, since we can indicate the conditions (by means of the perspectives) necessary for this form of aesthetic judgment. The totality of both judgments — the synthesis, in other words — is then, despite its subjective aspects, as a whole objective and pure. In this way I partly abandon Kant’s conception of the beautiful, but the gain is considerable: we can relate the aesthetic judgment of the beautiful to concepts after all, and thereby make it universally valid without recourse to Kant’s artifice of antinomy.”

Quite a mouthful… 
De Bondt did not look at me; he ignored my barely veiled ‘satierism’ and went on, undeterred.

“We need not grasp the quintessence of my essay in detail here, nor criticise it — that can be done elsewhere. What matters now is only that we — I will put it cautiously — assume as a working hypothesis that a universal artistic judgment is, in some way, conceivable. With that judgment at hand, we can then turn to the question of the ‘calling’. As I said before, the two — judgment and calling — are interwoven, and can teach us something about our ‘profession’. What matters now is to understand the connection between these aspects; the one cannot be understood apart from the other.”

Is that not a circular argument — the ‘calling’ that teaches us something about our ‘profession’? That is twice ‘klētos’, it seems to me.

“Yes, and that is precisely the core of the concept. Agamben speaks of ‘the calling of the calling’. Naturally, he refers to the messianic calling. The circular motion is an essential element of that messianism. It is all, in the end, bound up with the Greek notion of the ‘time brought to rest’, namely Kairos. As you surely know, this stands in contrast — or perhaps in parallel — to Chronos: sequential time, the time of the clock, the seasons, the earth’s orbit around the sun, and so forth. I quoted earlier from verse 20 of that same chapter — the exhortation to ‘abide in that calling’. That is kairos. Agamben also refers to verses 29 through 32 of the same seventh chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians:

Brethren, the time is come to rest;  what remaineth is, that they which have wives be as though they had none;  and they that weep, as though they wept not;  and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;  and they that use this world, as though they used it not.  For the fashion of this world passeth away.  But I would have you without care.

“In most translations I have read, verse 29 is rendered as ‘the time is short’. Agamben translates the Greek fragment thus (in the English edition I have): ‘time contracted itself’. The Greek words quite literally mean this: ‘time contracted is’. This contraction indeed implies shortness, but what matters for Agamben is the process itself, not the result.”

I suspect we are about to speak of Satie again, for he seems to fit seamlessly into that messianic notion of ‘calling’.

— Messianic Calling

“Indeed — but with a few qualifications. On the one hand, there appears to be a religious dimension to Satie: his (albeit brief) membership of a Rosicrucian order around 1891, the Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal, points in that direction. This also connects him to messianism. And yet, I do not believe that Satie possessed any truly experienced religious feeling. His attraction to the mystical, in my view, has a different source. It concerns an ‘inner’ mysticism — one oriented toward asceticism, sobriety, and precision — all embedded within that already mentioned detached form of irony that cancels itself out. Precisely in the manner Agamben describes through the messianic formula of the as_not, the hōs mē.

“This formula appears in the text from the First Epistle to the Corinthians quoted earlier. ‘To weep as not weeping’ should not be read as ‘to weep as-if not-weeping’, but rather as ‘to weep as_not weeping’. It is not a comparison between weeping and not-weeping; the as_not [hōs mē] is a messianic formula in which weeping is suspended into its opposite, as time contracts, dissolves, or comes to rest. The ‘time that remaineth to us’ does not, in the messianic conception, refer to ‘the end of times’, that is, to what will happen then, as in the conventional Christian understanding, but to the end of time itself — time ‘brought to rest’. The notion of the as_not is crucial both for grasping the fundamental artistic question of what ‘contemporary’ or ‘modern’ means, and for our understanding of ‘calling’ and ‘profession’.

“I am not in search of a religious meaning; in that sense, messianism does not interest me. What concerns me is its profane significance — how ‘calling’ and ‘profession’ tell us something about art, and thereby about ourselves as human beings. Perhaps in the sense Kafka seems to suggest in his Blue Octavo Notebooks: ‘The Messiah will come only when he is no longer needed; he will come only one day after his arrival; he will not come on the last day, but on the very last’.

“Mañana! as the Spanish-speaking are wont to say. The Messiah — and thus redemption — beyond itself.”

Is that not religion as_not religion?

“If you wish. In the end, we might call everything that cannot be reduced to a mathematical formula a form of religion.” 

Shall we pick up the thread?

“As long as it’s not already hanging by one.” He grinned; I kept silent.

“The examples I am about to give will be drawn from my own field, but they can easily be transposed to other artistic disciplines.

“I distinguish two domains in artistic practice: first, the maker at work within his workspace; and second, the presentation of the work to an audience. The maker in the workspace often consists of a single person — the composer, painter, writer, and so on. But it may also involve several people, for instance a rehearsal of an ensemble or a theatre or dance group. In that case, I mean the individual artist who forms part of that collective. The first case unfolds within private space; the second within public space. It is a juridical distinction: the artwork created in the private sphere is not tied to any public interest. So long as no law is broken, no one but the artist has any business in that space. The second domain, however, clearly involves public interest.

“I will leave aside all conceivable hybrid forms; of course, there may be public interests at stake within the private sphere — rent, mortgage, heating, electricity, taxes, and so on. But to me, those are separate from the artwork as such. In the public presentation, by contrast, there are indeed public interests involved in the artwork. Where public funding is concerned, certain conditions will have been set that may directly or indirectly affect artistic choices.

“To give a few arbitrary examples: when children are involved in a performance — for instance, the boys’ choir in the St. Matthew Passion — there are legal restrictions on the hours and durations of rehearsal and performance. The artists must abide by those laws. In the visual arts and in theatre productions, safety regulations apply — for example concerning potentially toxic substances. If a director were to wish an actor’s face to be covered in gold paint, this would be a problem, for gold paint is poisonous. An alternative material must then be found, and that may entail artistic consequences.

“Years ago, for the performance of my piece Karkas, I wanted an anatomical dissection to take place on stage — a corpse to be opened by a pathologist. This was forbidden. So something else had to be devised. That, too, is an artistic consequence.

“Let us now turn to the first domain: the maker in his private space. What act takes place there? I shall take myself as an example, though I am quite certain that every artist will recognise themselves in this — (Schmitt’s ‘exception’ aside).

“When I am writing, I cease to exist, the world ceases to exist, time ceases to exist — only the question of whether it should be a B or a B-flat remains, was the lowest note on the clarinet a D or a C-sharp, or was that the alto sax? And: is it all too comfortable, does it mean anything? That climax really sounds magnificent, but why at that moment, who or what decides those moments? Where the hell did I put my pencil sharpener?

“And then things get far more complicated, interesting, fundamental above all. Not for a moment do I think about whether it is ‘inclusive’, or whether what I am writing can be ‘marketed’; only when I return to the world do I know it is time to stop. But by then it is actually too late; it is better to stop earlier, in the flow of the work, for then the next day you can easily reconnect with it. But that is damn difficult.

“Let’s be frank: I don’t give a damn whether anyone finds the piece I am writing valuable, good, or God forbid ‘nice’ or ‘fun’. The piece imposes itself on me; it writes itself in an inimitable way. Okay, sure, I am there too, but what does that actually mean? That I have ‘taste’?

“A former student of mine, Jeremiah, once told me during a car ride what he understood by the term ‘orchestra’: ‘An orchestra is a group of at least two musicians who rehearse and perform pieces as well as they can, whether they find those pieces pleasant or good or not. It is primarily about playing together’. Playing together is the essence. That is ‘calling’.”

What is the difference in ‘calling’ between the two domains, the private and the public?

“Ultimately, calling is a private matter.”

But then why make that distinction between the two?

“Because of the public presentation of the artwork, in the public sphere.

“I will try to clarify further. In Jeremiah’s ‘orchestra’, all individuals find each other through their calling.

“Sharing that calling makes the orchestra an ‘orchestra’. It is then a shared calling. I think you hear it, or experience it, when you listen to that orchestra. Even when public interests are involved, that calling, if all goes well, remains untouched, therefore pure. But those public interests form a greater threat to that purity; it is more difficult, more complex, to preserve it. Like the links of a chain. For an individual artist in their own studio, calling is less susceptible to outside influence. The smaller the group, the greater the chance that the calling remains intact. Ultimately, everyone is open to external influence. That is inherent in participating in society.”

So ‘remaining in the calling’, as Paul urges in his letter, is no sinecure; it doesn’t happen automatically.

“No, certainly not. I don’t always succeed either, alone in my studio. Sometimes I get stuck; nothing happens, no ideas come, there is no ‘inspiration’, as they call it. I used to advise my students to keep working nonetheless, but for example, to do ‘chores-like’ work. I would write a computer program for my DOS-Lab, purely technical work. There are always tasks that require no ‘inspiration’. You can never force a new idea. I told my students to keep their window open, for at any moment a ‘roasted chicken might fly in’ (as Louis Andriessen once told me). But not if the window is closed.”

So you can create the conditions for a new idea to arrive.

“Yes, but you cannot force it.

“To sum up, it is sometimes a difficult process; it does not happen automatically. It is best if it unfolds from relaxation; ‘effortless’, as they say in English. You can work toward that state of ease. If you feel you are trying to force it, it’s better to go for a walk or do something else.”

Let me try to summarize the subject of ‘calling’ now, to see if I have understood correctly. We are talking about the ‘messianic calling’, which, by the way, does not concern a ‘religious’ state, but a ‘profane’ one; it is human work. It does not happen automatically; it is not a state you enforce, but one that arises if you are open to it. Furthermore, time in that calling is not experienced as sequential, but as what the Greeks call ‘kairos’.

“The Greek word for ‘time’ that Paul uses in that letter to the Corinthians is indeed kairos,” De Bondt adds.

Good. But how does this work? Who qualifies for this calling? Anyone open to it?

“In the case of art, a specific talent is obviously necessary. Someone who is not musical will not find a musical calling. The question is, however, how much talent is required. I am certain that I do not have as much musical talent as Mozart or Bach. For example, I was an average student in solfège. I had to practice a lot.

“But I could compensate for this ‘lesser’ talent with an enormous capacity for perseverance and concentration. And I still have an unbridled imagination. And I can also reason logically at above-average levels. That helps. I think the primary requirement is the will to do it. Jacques Rancière writes about this in The Ignorant Schoolmaster. He argues that there is no difference in intelligence, that anyone can learn anything if they set their mind to it. That may be boldly stated, but from an emancipatory perspective, I understand it. In recent years, I doubted my choice of ‘profession’; after the enormous, disastrous attack on our music culture, I no longer knew whether I would have made that choice again, if that were even possible. At one point I even thought I would have been better off studying law.

“By the way, this ‘calling’ can be found in any profession; it does not have to be in the arts. A baker who inhabits that calling bakes far better bread than one who does not. Pirsig gives a fine example in his inimitable Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance of a mechanic who either repairs your engine well or not. You want the mechanic who inhabits his calling. In fact, all these kinds of books are about this matter.”

But then it is no longer specifically about art? That was the topic: the meaning of art.

“Yes, but the fact that ‘calling’ can apply to other aspects of life does not prevent that.”

— Heritage

Let us return to our earlier topic, the societal significance of art. You have mentioned two starting points: the ‘artistic judgment’ and the ‘calling’. According to you, these are essential for understanding the meaning of art. Let us assume that a ‘pure artistic judgment’ is possible, and that your description of the ‘calling’ is valid — do you think the populists of the ‘Second Camp’ will be impressed? That you could thereby establish a renewed art policy aligned with your artistic principles?

“No, of course not. My argument about the essence of art is not a justification or legitimization, as I have already stated. Populists like De Wever and Wilders et al. do not understand the concept of ‘calling’ at all. Everything is about the market and popularity, what is ‘objectwise’. ‘Calling’ is ‘subjectwise’. Any strategy to counter the populist view of art would require engaging in that same objectwise discourse. That is, by definition, a lost cause. That is not what I am concerned with, as I have already indicated. It is about ourselves, the artists and the enthusiasts who hold art dear, not out of mere fondness, but because art can tell us something fundamental about life, about death, and about living together.”

Let me phrase the question differently: What if art were to disappear entirely? What consequences would that have for society?

“Is that even a legitimate question? is my first thought. Let me try to answer the counter-question first. At first glance, it seems not, because you can withdraw public funding, but that does not eliminate art.”

I understand that; blood will creep where it will. I mean, of course, what are the consequences for art if those public funds vanish? Which art would disappear, and which would remain or take its place?

“It is, for now, a theoretical question; I do not believe that subsidies for the arts will be entirely abolished in the short term. But as a thought model, I would say that all institutions unable to sustain themselves commercially would disappear. That means orchestras and ensembles, museums, theatre and dance companies, but also educational institutions such as music schools, conservatories, and art academies. And that concerns only the directly involved. In addition, there will be enormous losses for all sorts of indirectly involved businesses — restaurants, cafés, catering companies, technical firms, recording studios, transport services, tourism, hotels, and so on.

“Very well, that was the financial aspect. Now, concerning the artistic-content aspect: all the art provided by these (large) institutions would become inaccessible. You could no longer admire that Beethoven symphony, the St. Matthew Passion, the Night Watch, the Mondriaans and Vermeers, in the flesh. That is what concerns heritage. But it is far worse, because that heritage means nothing if no living, new art is being created alongside it, if every historical connection is destroyed. What would remain, of course, is commercial art. Pop music will still be performed — live; pseudo-classical music will sound in New Age settings; and new Hollywood films will be shown.

“And yes, most people in our country couldn’t care less. Although they might miss the ‘Night Watch’…”

Can you say more about the relationship between that heritage and new art? You suggest that it is fundamental.

“Let me begin with music, because it is the clearest example. Musical heritage is not made up of objects in the same way as in the visual arts. There are paintings, sculptures, buildings, costumes, jewelry, antique vases — and scores; those scores are objects in themselves, but they do not mean as much as one might think. They are tools for bringing the actual work to life in the hall. That is the artwork; it vanishes in space and time. How messianic do you want it?

“Musical heritage is a praxis. Much has been learned in the past century about so-called Historically Informed Performance. Scores up to the 18th and early 19th centuries provide only partial information on how and what exactly should be played. For instance, Bach’s scores lack dynamic markings (such as forte or piano), and indications for articulation, tempo, vibrato, or accelerando/ritardando. These must be obtained from secondary sources, which themselves cannot escape subjective interpretation.

“And then I have yet to mention the various tunings: the Pythagorean tuning of the Middle Ages is completely different from the various meantone tunings of the Baroque. We do have theoretical treatises from the time, illustrations of how people held their instruments, from which we can learn something, but no sound recordings. Musical heritage is preserved and maintained by performing it.

“Furthermore, there is the question of the meaning of that heritage in its own time, when it was not yet ‘heritage’.”

“Here, to illustrate, a quote from Music in our Lives by conductor and musician Nikolaus Harnoncourt, a specialist in historical performance practice:

‘Since music is no longer found at the center of our lives, all this has changed: now that it is regarded as an ornament, it is felt that music should first and foremost be ‘beautiful’. Under no circumstances should it be allowed to disturb or startle us. The music of the present cannot fulfill this requirement because at the very least, like all art, it reflects the spiritual and intellectual situation of its time, and this is true of our present time as well. Yet honestly coming to terms with our spiritual and intellectual situation cannot be merely beautiful: it has an impact on our very lives and is therefore disturbing to us. This has resulted in the paradoxical situation that people have turned away from contemporary art because it is disturbing, perhaps necessarily so. Rather than confrontation, we sought only beauty, to help us to overcome the banality of everyday life. Thus art in general, and music in particular, became simply ornamental and people turned to historical art and to old music, for here they could find the beauty and harmony that they sought.’

“Some twenty years ago, my work The Broken Ear was performed by an English ensemble. In the piece, there are passages written using the so-called hoquetus technique, alternating note by note in a rapid melody. In the Netherlands, ensembles had experience with this, but the English ensemble did not, and they were clearly uncomfortable with it.

“The tragic conclusion of all this is that if you dismantle a particular musical practice, as happened in the Netherlands, you also dismantle the musical heritage. And the politicians who caused all of this, for instance Stef Blok with his foolish, ignorant statement about heritage, have no idea what they have unleashed. It is primarily that stupidity that is so shockingly appalling.”

De Bondt saw that I wanted to say something, but he anticipated me, raised his hand, and continued undaunted.

“One more thing, then you may speak again; I first want to finish my argument. As I indicated, art will undoubtedly continue to be created, even if it is not funded by the government. Perhaps through support from private sources, for example via crowdfunding or something similar. Let us consider what kind of music this will produce, because public funding is, one way or another, linked to some interest. Artists will take that into account, and it will have consequences for the artistic choices they make. We have already seen this happen over the past decades: young composers consider it a great honor to write for a symphony orchestra, while the adventure of writing for ensembles has significantly diminished; much less experimentation takes place. The result is, broadly speaking, the creation of pastiche — skillfully made, yes, but it does not blow me away, while that should ultimately be the goal in my view (see Harnoncourt). Furthermore, the influence of applied music will continue to increase, particularly film music. I will give an example, and I hope it does not become too technical…

“I recently watched the series Black Rabbit on Netflix. I find it an excellent series, with truly well-written music beneath it. The series is about two brothers, owners of a successful nightclub in New York. One of the brothers owes money to the mafia and must do everything to escape that fate. Meanwhile, everyone is hiding things from one another. The accompanying music is multilayered, so you hear different tracks playing simultaneously — for example, a percussion layer, a melody fragment, a singer, all sorts of elements, mostly electronically processed or synthesized sounds. The piece ‘You Can Now’ accompanies the escape of one of the two brothers. It works extraordinarily well, greatly heightening the tension. You hear an intro based on a long saxophone note; a second note enters, with some additional sounds, leading to a simple motif consisting of the notes A, C, and B, in a slow tempo, repeated several times throughout the fragment. Beneath that melody is a simple bass line, also slow, forming a third interval relationship with the melody. This bass line is then reinforced by doubling it an octave (or two) lower. This whole structure repeats, as mentioned, gradually thinning until only the three-note motif remains, in a sound somewhere between guitar and marimba. The entire fragment consists of an introduction, repetition of a short motif, and a conclusion.

“You can also listen to this music separately on a website called Black Rabbit | Official Soundtrack. And then you experience what happens when the images are removed: the music stands alone, fully exposed. That has consequences.”

“Purely musically, the music falls short; it cannot stand on its own, because something is built up that ultimately leads nowhere. It sounds, it is repeated, and then it disappears again. The same applies to Ennio Morricone’s magnificent film score for Once Upon a Time in the West. That three-note harmonica motif — a brilliant invention! — cannot stand on its own either.”

Is that a problem? And is it even accurate?  
I decided to intervene now, otherwise the old goat would just keep going.

“Of course it is not a problem; the music is exemplary as film music. That is not my point at all. But if this starts to influence music that is intended to stand on its own, then we have a problem. That leads to a flattening of that music. And you can already hear it happening, and it will only get worse.”

How so ‘worse’? One could also say it changes — I don’t understand that value judgment. Perhaps you’re just an old dino?

“Yes, undoubtedly, but that does not change the fact that flattening is indeed happening. And ‘flattening’ is not the same as ‘impoverishment’. Satie’s music is ‘impoverished’, but decidedly not ‘flattened’! I recall a discussion in my aesthetics class, The Technique of Beauty, about a piece for four electric guitars where all the strings were tuned to something around the note E. Twenty minutes of something E-like, and that was it. I gave Ravel’s Boléro as an example; there too, there is no modulation, you hear the same tune constantly, until right before the end, when a brief excursion to a mediant key occurs, then back again.

“That modulation — Ravel was proud of it, and rightly so — makes clear what the Boléro is not: it is not a Beethoven symphony. A similar approach can be observed in Debussy’s Preludes. ‘Des pas sur la neige’, like ‘You Can Now’, consists of multiple layers, where certain fragments are repeated, with an almost continuously applied short motif, a triplet figure over the notes D, E, and F. But in the end, something more is going on, through a subtle intervention just before the end. The piece is in the Aeolian mode, because of the C used (instead of C#), which is replaced by a C# just before the end, turning the key into ‘harmonic minor’. This note had previously been used in sections as part of a dominant seventh chord on that note. The tension between that C# (occasionally notated as Db) and the home key of D minor is ultimately ‘resolved’. Thus, the form of this prelude relates to sonata form.”

But one could still say that your way of listening is ‘old school’.

“Perhaps, but that ‘old school’ is being dismantled, and the issue at hand is (musical) heritage. That is being dismantled.”

That applies to all of human history.

“But then do not speak of ‘heritage’ anymore; it apparently no longer matters. That means we no longer see our future in relation to our past — at most as a mere anecdote, a decoration of a meaningless existence. That seems to me a form of fascism. The past exists solely as a form of propaganda, but is essentially destroyed.”

You have a fine command of exaggeration. Did your students find that piece for guitars problematic as well?”

“No, not at all. For them, ‘harmony was simply not a parameter’. Something is missing, without it being clear why. That ‘nothing’ is apparently unproblematic, and I find that highly problematic. Pure criticism becomes irrelevant, because criticism without a past is impossible; it is living in a throwaway society — not only in terms of plastic waste, but also regarding critical thinking. It is nihilism in optima forma. And the most astonishing thing is that this way of life is not based on an actual, conscious choice. It is something that happens to us. There is only one word for it: simpleton.”

Not everything has to be immediately clear; new forms of critical thinking can be found, new ways of engaging with our past. You yourself said: art will always be made, there will always be people who create things that matter. Perhaps not in the form you are used to, but in other, new forms. You could also embrace the adventure, instead of choosing this defensive stance. Or is that not a choice?”

“It is not a defensive stance. If we indiscriminately pluck from the pantry of possibilities offered to us, without basing it on a critical choice, then whatever we take no longer matters; we only taste whether we like it at that moment, and next time we see, then we just knock that aside and pick something else.”

— Postmodernism

Is this the essence of “postmodernism”?

“Oh, we are being served a new little label, the ultimate explanation of everything. That helps…”

Now you’re being cynical. The question is serious: there are thinkers who believe that dialectical-critical thinking is a thing of the past.

“Yes, that could very well be, or not, it depends on how you look at it. Even so, it is not said that postmodernism is the salvific alternative to that dialectical thinking. One could coexist alongside the other perfectly well.

“I am not an academic, as you know, so I do not have a ready-made definition or description of ‘postmodernism’. I can, however, give an example of something that could perhaps be considered a form of postmodernism in art, namely the free application of different styles in a work of art. I have written several pieces in which I do this, for instance in my cycle Het Gebroken Oor. In De Deuren Gesloten I use fragments from the ‘Marcia funebre’ of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, and from the aria ‘When I am laid in earth’ from Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas. And a few other loose fragments from various other works. One could jokingly say that I did not invent a single note myself.

“But of course that is not true. I deconstructed those fragments according to a strict principle, and then reassembled them. This means I am not literally quoting, but constructing a kind of pseudo-quotation. Be that as it may, I make use of existing styles and create something new with them. Style becomes a useful tool, a form of material.

“An interesting question now is whether this really constitutes ‘postmodernism’, because the techniques I use are ‘synthetic’, and thus dialectical. I make use of sequences, number structures, comparable to techniques from ‘modernism’. And going back to techniques from the (medieval) Ars Nova, the so-called ‘isorhythm’. The choices I make are not arbitrary; they serve the concept of the work. So if you consider ‘postmodernism’ as a form of laissez-faire, you will be disappointed with me.”

So postmodernism as a form of modernism?

“Or vice versa. All these labels do not matter to me; I call that objectwise thinking.”

— Summary

Let us now attempt to summarize this entire argument, and perhaps arrive at a conclusion about the societal significance of art in our — whether or not — ‘postmodernist’ world. I’ll begin, so we can check if I have understood everything.  

The societal significance of (classical) art has declined sharply over the past decades. The reasons for this, as we partly established in our previous interview, have to do with neoliberalism, the individualization of our society, the fragmentation of the traditional ideological blocks (for example in religion and politics), and certainly also the enormous, rapid developments in technology. All these factors are interconnected; they influence and affect one another.  

You distinguish three ‘Camps’ in the societal significance of art: the ‘old guard’ (to put it rather irreverently), the modern, perhaps ‘hedonistically’ inclined person, and a small group of artists and enthusiasts who are critical of ‘classical’ art.

“The term ‘hedonistic’ I did not use; I do not know if it is the all-explaining term for what I called the ‘Second Camp’, but hedonism undoubtedly plays a role. The role of technology, in my view, is very great, and it is not psychological in nature; it is a factual change in the world. The world has become ‘small’, and at the same time no more comprehensible, which might seem obvious. The more we see, simultaneously, the more complex it becomes.”

Let us return to this later; we already see how significant the influence of technology has become and how quickly it is developing further, especially through the use of artificial intelligence. But for now, let me finish my summary.

  It seems unnecessary to describe those three camps again; what matters here is your response to them, through what you — jokingly or not — called the ‘Fourth Camp’. To understand the consequences of the changing societal significance of art, you proposed two concepts necessary for a critical analysis: the ‘artistic judgement’, and the ‘messianic calling’.

  Both are not meant as a response to the Second Camp; this camp will never be convinced by your analysis. First and foremost, that analysis is intended for the artists and art lovers, i.e., essentially for the First and Third Camp.

  Incidentally, the Second Camp is by far the majority. So the analysis will likely have little impact on political art policy. And furthermore, it is still uncertain to what extent the other two camps are interested in your analysis.

“Well, the Fourth Camp for the time being consists of one member. Before I respond to your previous remark, let me, perhaps redundantly, emphasize once again that I do not conceive of that ‘messianic calling’ in a religious sense; my concern is with a profane starting point.

“You are right that I should expect little approval from any camp. At best, a few may find it ‘interesting’. A ‘calling’, in my view, has no need for justification, no legitimation, and certainly not the aim of ‘winning souls’. This is also intrinsic to messianism, and to Judaism as a whole; unlike Christianity, that religion is more about discussion and different interpretations than convincing someone of the necessity to convert. Agamben points in this context to the concept of ‘exigency’. (In Ducth this could be understood as ‘need’, ‘urgency’, or ‘necessity’.) He writes: Exigency does not properly concern that which has not been remembered; it concerns that which remains unforgettable. In other words, the ‘calling’ is not so much something we must first remember, but something that lingers, something that presents itself as a necessity, even if we were to (want to) forget it; it signifies something that we cannot fully reduce to mere memory. Forgetting has a force and a way of operating that cannot be measured in the same terms as those of conscious memory, nor can it be accumulated like knowledge. Somehow, this ‘unforgettable’ remains in us necessarily, just as time [kairos] remains within us. This is the ultimate consequence of the as_not.”

May I translate this in plain language as follows: You are essentially uninterested in whether your ideas and analyses have consequences for art policy. Just as you have not endeavored to make your compositions widely known. You have no interest in fame, attention, or being widely performed. Perhaps this is the underlying reason that your compositions are rather impractical; there are many obstacles to performing them, for example regarding instrumentation, required technology, and the demanded effort from the musicians. Consider, for this last point, ‘Grand Hotel’, which, apart from Gerard Bouwhuis, who spent two years rehearsing it, no one else would likely do. From this follows that the decision to remove all your work from the public eye was a less dramatic gesture than it seemed to outsiders. It is almost a logical consequence of your ‘calling’, apart from your legal intentions in these actions. Am I correct in seeing it that way?

“That could be, but certainly not consciously, in the sense that I thought: ‘Well, let me write a piece that will hardly be performed, because my calling requires it’. It is a consequence of that calling, without any deliberate intent. In my view, that is the essence of a ‘calling’. I have only ever written pieces that I felt had to be written. As if they were handed to me. Composing was, for me, essentially a search for the work; I only had to find it. Stockhausen uses the metaphor of ‘Sirius’ several times for this, that is where his pieces came from.”

“With Dick Raaijmakers, you could observe a similar attitude. A piece like Grafische Methode 2 — Fiets [Graphical Methode 2 — Bike] was originally intended to be performed just once. He says somewhere in an interview — I’ve forgotten where it was published — that at the end of his life he wanted to ‘dismantle all his pieces, pack them neatly, and put them away’. A form of ‘remaining unforgettable’, in other words. Incidentally, Fiets was still performed once or twice two decades after its premiere.”

Is that in conflict with the idea of a calling?

“No, not necessarily. Otherwise, I would be against any form of musical heritage. It stands or falls with the way a work is performed anew. That performance, like any performance, is ideally also an articulation of a calling. A renewed performance should never be taken for granted; it must always be based on an artistic conception, and not on anecdotal reasons, such as the composer’s birthday. The conditions and perspectives I discuss regarding artistic judgement apply equally to every performance.”

Your solitude is not intentional. It is a, perhaps unintended, consequence of that calling. But one should not hasten one’s fate. That has a tragic dimension, or am I mistaken? When you called me, your voice sounded cheerful, even relieved.

“You heard that correctly. For years I experienced it as tragic, but in the past few weeks that has changed. This had to do with the answer I believed I had found regarding the societal significance of art. I reread that chapter by Agamben on the calling, and then I grasped the ‘quinte’s essence’.” I raised my eyebrows, and he grinned.

— Conclusion

Can we now arrive at something resembling a conclusion? Perhaps in relation to the issue of advancing technology?

“Yes, I will attempt that. The societal significance of art is in a poor state. And it does not seem likely that this will change soon. It would, moreover, be a serious mistake to hope for, let alone expect, or even strive for, a return to the old situation. Art is going to change profoundly, and now we come to that subject you mentioned: technology. We are already seeing which changes are possible at this moment.

“There are already examples of AI-composed musical pieces; for professional musicians, these sound clumsy, but the vast majority of the Second Camp will not notice that. Refinements in tempo, subtle variations therein, slight deviations in rhythm compared to rigid MIDI renditions, fluctuations in intonation, will eventually make it indistinguishable from recorded performances.

“The same goes for photos and videos. The film industry is already making use of this, for example in scenes with many characters, like battlefields. Film producers will include in actors’ contracts that AI technology may be used if an actor cannot complete their role, for instance due to illness or an accident. Likewise for stunts and possibly sex scenes, AI will be seen as a solution. AI could also enable actors to speak any desired language.

“Texts are relatively simpler; an AI program can already conceive a story with an interesting plot and develop it in a specific style.

“This change does not necessarily have to be fundamental, in the sense that I cannot imagine the element of ‘calling’ disappearing. Technology is the ‘skin’, as Raaijmakers might say, or the ‘mantle’ of that calling.

“This technology will very rapidly become infinitely more subtle than it currently is. The question is how artists should deal with it. The answer is already obvious — sorry, I can’t help it: the artistic judgement and the calling. As for the first, AI may perhaps handle it. But as for the second, that remains highly questionable. Can an AI device have a ‘calling’? That is the fundamental question we must ask.

How would Satie relate to Artificial Intelligence? An impossible question, for how could we know? His ‘musique d’ameublement’ would fit quite well in this phenomenon, but the aspect of the ‘calling’ would still be missing. Something would be lacking.

“I suddenly realize that those first slow pieces I showed in my entrance exam and during my first lesson with Van Vlijmen were very close to Satie’s slow pieces. One might almost think I am a kind of clone of him. But I do not believe in ‘past lives’ or ‘reincarnation’. Any similarities between Satie and me ‘are purely coincidental’.

“Finally, a ‘calling’ rests on time coming to a standstill, on the power of forgetting, on the unremembered ‘unforgettable’. And that, precisely, is AI’s weak point. Computers, however ingeniously constructed — forgetting isn’t exactly in their repertoire.”

— Bonnemort, 25 October 2025