Competitions in reality show programs have become one of the favorite entertainment in the last decade. Baking, frying, cooking, setting up restaurants, building houses, looking after gardens - the number of human actions that can be played in the program "ten people enter, only one is left in the end" seems endless. The fact that Netflix has recently appeared on a program of competing glass blowing specialists only seems to confirm this fact. However, Blown Away takes us to a strange somewhat alternative world, where the rules of competition are the same, but the subject of this action is already taken from a completely different, artistic order.
Some time ago, when I wondered why such unusual popularity of programs with the competition of chefs and bakers, I came to the conclusion that this is due to the specific status of cooking. In my opinion, this interest is due to the fact that cooking at a certain level is such a close creative activity. On the one hand, it requires tremendous reactivity and artistic skills to some extent, on the other it seems more accessible, closer and easier to evaluate. Art that you can physically try and apply to it quite well-known ways of measuring quality (sweet, salty, well-fried, badly fried, good texture, bad texture, raw, cooked, etc.) allows you to evaluate creative competition using criteria that are well known to everyone. Criteria that we somehow consider to be at least partially objective. In addition, there is some closeness in this cooking, even from the top shelf, because we usually know the taste of at least one ingredient among many of the dishes prepared. Competition, on the one hand, has the thrill of meeting different creative accomplishments of the same task, on the other, we can trust that it can be "honestly" assessed. What's more, some viewers can find themselves in such a program because they cook and prepare a version of the dishes presented in the competition. You don't have to make the same cake as the participants of "Great British Bake Off" but you can assume that you have some insight in making cakes or bread. Cooking is in some aspects one of the most democratic creative activities we know. Everyone can have their own recipe, their own idea for a given dish. Of course there are people who don't cook, but still - we have more people cooking than painters.
Blown Away takes the basic form of competition organization from culinary shows or other such entertainment. Every episode, participants receive a task that they must complete using familiar skills and techniques. The tasks are quite general, more than "make a flower" we find here "let your composition be inspired by botany", although there are also very specific challenges such as asking for a useful wine carafe. Participants get several hours to prepare, with the help of assistants, their ideas for the task. They have complete freedom in the size, technique or color of their work. All they have to do is fit in time. After the end of their struggles, they are judged by two judges - Katherine Gray, an artist and professor at the arts department and one judge who appears as a guest in the episode. They are very different people - from those associated with the world of art and design to, for example, a sommelier who assessed the previously mentioned decanters. After each episode, one person drops out, one is awarded as the best (although without a prize). The final prize in the competition is 60,000 dollars and own exhibition at the Corning Museum of Glass.
And here comes what is most interesting in the entire program, although the concept itself is taken from a simple reality show, the subject of competition leads us to completely new areas. Not because blowing glass is quite an unknown activity and most of us do not have tools not only to assess the performance of subsequent tasks but also to fully understand the process that the creators are going through (the program explains a lot about blowing glass, begins from the tools and techniques that they use - after ten episodes, you feel as if you voluntarily watched the tutorial "delight everyone with your knowledge about blown glass"). What makes Blown Away special is the fact that it's really a reality show for artists. The creators who take part in it come from different life paths, have different concepts, not only how to accomplish the task but in general what glass blowing should be. When it comes to evaluating their ideas, we listen to the opinion of a professor working at an art university and someone who often professionally deals with the evaluation of works of art. And here we enter interesting areas, where the subject of television competition becomes nothing but artistic creativity, and the prize is nothing but a permanent exhibition at a recognized museum.
Here comes the question that we probably have to ask ourselves as spectators but also, probably in some cases as artists. Is this a good direction. On the one hand, there is no doubt that glass blowing has become incomparably more popular than before thanks to this program. One of the program participants, who organizes classes for people interested in learning this technique, admitted that after broadcasting the program they had to open new classes. The production itself also contributed to the strengthening of some changes in the environment related to glass blowing, something that was associated with typically male activities, while the competition was equally between men and women. You can not hide that as part of the reality show format we sell viewers an encounter with art. The final evaluation of the items made takes place at a small exhibition, at the end of each episode, which means that everything participants did was presented as exhibits at an exhibition or in a museum. In this aspect, one can praise such a program for introducing art, including often abstract or conceptual art, under roofs - allowing viewers to see how artists approach different topics differently, how they use different techniques, and how to conceptualize their vision.
On the other hand - it is another manifestation of squeezing human activity into the framework of simply understood competition. Someone has to do something worse so that someone can do something better. So art becomes a competition. While it is possible to adopt some selected legitimate criteria, i.e. when participants are to make a carafe or glass that fulfills a selected task, when they meet with more abstract tasks - it is not easy to answer the question - what is really good and what is bad. Of course - some of the things are better made technically, some more creative, but sometimes you can watch the program to conclude that not necessarily every human action should be a simple competition. Ultimately, too - it all comes down to the taste of judges, who, for example, may prefer one way of using glass in artistic vision over another. At the same time it is a remark, which is not any opposition to "Blown Away" (which, moreover, I saw in one evening), but rather a question about the limits of competition understood in this way. Personally, I have the impression that this can be a dangerous path, where at the end art gives way to some calculation. Anyway, there is such a good moment in this program when judges criticize colours one sculpture. The program participant says to the camera "If you can tell the artist what color to use, it is out of place". And indeed - if you can tell someone that a carrot does not match the radish (set from the head), then in the case of colors we are dealing with something so subjective that the author cannot use color wrong if he had such and no other vision. This is the element that seems fascinating to me - especially if we think about what may become the subject of this type of competition.
There is also one more element here, which is obligatory - in the end we are in the world of reality show, dramatizing the creative process. The camera necessarily raids every broken glass, builds tension whenever someone opens a cold store, moves a work of art or tries to connect two glass elements. In addition, we are reminded of the time limit every now and then. All these elements - copied from the world of competition of chefs or bakers, are inseparable elements of such productions. And at the same time, if we think about it - hardly anyone creates art on time in an atmosphere of such tension. A little for entertainment, we force errors and deficiencies here, we are looking for a dramatic side of the creative process. And even if the greatest "drama" takes place in the minds of our creators, we must, pay attention to the technical side, because it is visible and spectacular. Again, you may wonder if we accidentally do the same harm to artistic activities, putting the emphasis not necessarily on what determines whether the final result will be good or bad. While rushing chefs still seems so logical - especially since there are places where you need to cook on time (like some restaurants), rushing artists would only make sense in the case of the reality show "deadline" where you give writers a year and then observe them for the last month of writing books are trying to make up for lost time at all costs. Besides, art rarely requires you to download over time. And rushing creators seems a bit pointless. Rather, no one carves in glass on time.
However, my comments and reservations do not affect the fact that Blown Away seemed to me a really nice entertainment and a certain liberation from watching programs that you already know. Especially since we have interesting participants here with very different creative visions and characters. So there is this element of the reality show, which means that all episodes lasting less than half an hour can be absorbed at one time, and by the way choose your favourite competitor along the way. It cannot be concealed that maybe my critical questions and reflections are secondary to what production has done for glass blowers around the world. Although I have to admit that watching the production I was amazed how many facts about blowing glass I remembered from my trip to the glassworks. I did it in the second grade of primary school. I clearly have several things in common with an elephant, and the fact that I don't forget is one of them. Anyway, if you want to watch a reality show which, somewhere in the margins will force you to reflect on whether everything should be a competition, I wholeheartedly recommend Blown Away.
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