You could write this video off just as some wacky fella from Belgium. Do that aswell if you like, but it makes you think about sincerity. Note, assuming this is for real and not a joke.
Sincerity I think is key to art. If someone is saying something that they feel sincere about, from a sociological angle we can use it to futher our understanding about the human endeavour. With this fella for example, he is obsessed with marbles. Bit odd, you might say, but it is an obsession nonetheless. If he was equally obsessed with something a little more usual, perhaps his body, working out, then we may not question it or write it off.
This leads us to ask, why is it usual to be obsessed with your body/looks rather than something like marbles? They are both passions. Both worthless in the end, so why do we do them? Why do they make us happy & keep us compelled? Is it to be wrapped up in something that is the draw?
Anywho, hope I haven't lost you. But to turn back to sincerity. I find sincerity is key in art. Sincerity is the departure point from the audience to the work, from the audience to the soul of humanity itself. It is the departure point, meaning without that truthfulness & earnestness imbedded compounding every word, brush stroke, movement, how can we trust it?
Sincerity is key. Even if there ideal they are presenting is (perceived by you) wrong, sincerity enables you to trace it - where they coming from? At which point did there feeling become broken off from you're own, their eyes blemished & haized in this way? Trace that vein to the big human heart (we all want happiness, we all want to avoid suffering, we all live we all die). You can forgive innocence, you can accept a different opinion to your own if struck with conviction, you can emphasise - admire, pity, be GLAD for naivety etc etc.
E.G the songwriter Elliot Smith. After listening to his album a few times I got bored of the whiny broken heartedness of it all. But that aint an act, it isnt something masqueraded or suggested by the record company. He's broke & sounds broke. He's sincere about it. This is the problem with people on X-Factor & modern pop music in general. They are told to 'sing joyful' or sing 'poignantly tragically' etc, but it ain't the truth of how they're feeling, there's nothing beneath the big bellyful singing.
Another example is the futurist art movement. I feel very little in common with the futurists, infact they are quite counter to my feeling about the world. They were people around the turn of the last century obsessed with what was going on around them & the optimism that bloomed from it - motor cars, big great feat's of architecture etc. They were wide-eyed at the new capabilities of man and heralded this new mechanical world they saw growing around them. They believed in a loss of humanity in the shadow of the machine. Marinetti, the leader of the movement, held great revolutionary opinions like "…destroy the museums, the libraries, every type of academy… …the great crowds, shaken by work, by pleasure or by rioting”… …We will glorify war – the world’s only hygiene – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.". I don't agree with this, but sincerity lets me see what led him to this point.
Art to me is all about unrolling the endless truth of humanity. It's expression of everything in ways that words cannot suffice. As Bukowski put it "An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way." Without sincerity we ain't saying nothing atall, just treading dead water.
