I post here the description of an interesting Facebook group I found (and joined). Much appreciated:
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Are you sick and tired of the public perception that you need to either be drug-addled or a complete lunatic in order to appreciate or understand avant-garde or experimental film, theater, music or art?
To be interested in outre culture does not mean you have to constantly flood your brain with artificial stimulus in the form of drugs and alcohol in order to “get it”. Simply being a creative soul and having an open mind and a means of contextualizing the unusual is all that’s need.
Also, one does not need drugs in order to be create outre art, film or music. Those who are incapable of creativity without the crutch of artificial stimulus probably do not truly know the capacity of their imagination.
This group is not meant to condemn those who are drug users (almost everyone goes through that phase), but rather, to help erode that idea that experimental culture is inseperable from drug culture.
A case in point is Stan Brakhage who was one of the top 5 or so experimental film makers of his generation and was known for creating hallucinogenic, dream like imagery. Yet, he famously was adamantly against drugs. Or in the world of free-thinking popular music, just look at Frank Zappa.
So spread the word: experimental or unusual does not mean drugs. Anyone who thinks otherwise simply does not understand the nature of the avant-garde as a whole.
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