nothing, and it is essential to maintain a critical attitude towards the formation of cultural cliches particularly when they tend to become accepted slogans. The potentialities for an exciting future of the arts are enormous, but if the capitalistic market will continue to grow according to the trajectory undertaken in the past 20 years, the near future will witness a further expansion of cultural uniformity. This would be the reality of the latest cyberbank marketing 24 hours interest-free music sausages, where engagement is reduced to the finalities of its own consumption. Will these be the cultural models of our future?

By criticising the normalisation of unscrupulous commercial strategies and resulting consumeristic attitudes, I hinted at the role of individual art in an hypothetical global society. It is not the boom of media and high-technology that will create an expanded artistic consciousness, but the attitude of each single person towards the new media: history has it that even in the most unified and standardised social and economic system there is always a local dimension for the spirit of individual thought and creativity. Such a spirit is not only related to the Zeitgeist of an epoch, but is also a mirror of an Ortgeist²⁷

and its idiosyncratic codes. How can we, as artists, remain protagonists of our future? As Wolfgang Rihm has recently asserted, ‘der Autor trägt stets das volle Risiko’²⁸ (the author is responsible for his own work). It is indeed by keeping a critical responsibility towards our own artistic work, our social organisation and the coalition between the two, that we can effectively tackle the disturbing paradoxes of commercial madness. By so doing, we can avoid what Peter Crutwell has recently described as the ‘upcoming of a new global anarchy disguised by the ideological pitfalls of the global village’²⁹ , and continue to formulate positive paradigms of existence which can enable us to celebrate deeper human values and artistic invention.

References

Archibugi, Daniele & Michie, Jonathan: Technology, Globalisation and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Bull, H.: The Anarchical Society. London: Macmillan, 1977.

Cruttwell, P: History out of control: confronting global anarchy. Resurgence Book, 1995.

Eckardt, Hans: Japan – Die Neuzeit, in Außereuropäische Musik in Einzeldarstellungen. dtv – Bärenreiter, Germany, 1980.

Farrell, Gerry: Indian music and the West. Oxford University Press, 1997.

Griffiths, Paul: Modern Music and After. Oxford University Press, 1995.

Iwamoto, Yoshikazu: The Potential of the Shakuhachi in Contemporary Music, in Contemporary Music Review. Vol. 8, Part 2. Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994.

Maconie, Robin: The works of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Oxford University Press, 1990.

Modelski, George: Principles of World Politics. Free Press, New York, 1972.