A Reflection on the Relationship between Oral History and Art (Final Fart)

Balance in Effect

Compiled by: Hamid Qazvini
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2024-10-17

People of knowledge consider existence as a product of balance, proportion and harmony in all parts and aspects that everything is in its place and every event takes place in a logical and natural framework and all creatures are placed together in a balanced way and play a role.

Therefore, balance is one of the essentials of creation, and every phenomenon can appear and continue if it has balance in its inherent elements.

This rule also applies to the creation of artwork. Every work can be found and effective if it has balance in all components. Imbalance will damage the structure and message of the work and will lack impact and clear message.

On the other hand, with any level of knowledge, humans recognize the existence or lack of balance when facing the surrounding phenomena. All human beings have had this experience thousands of times during their lives and in dealing with many phenomena, they have recognized the lack of proportion and balance in their components. Therefore, understanding balance is a natural and universal thing and is not specific to a specific spectrum and group, and if the artist does not take responsibility for this, his work will not be welcomed by the audience and viewers. He must be able to create a kind of balance and harmony between the elements of the work to achieve the desired goal. Otherwise, there will be an incomplete or contradictory work that will not be able to present the message.

With this introduction, one should go to oral history and ask if oral history also needs balance, proportion and harmony in all components? How are such works balanced? Basically, what are the characteristics of balance in oral history?

To answer this first question, it should be noted that oral history is not separate from the cycle of the order of existence and without balance, it will be doomed to decline. The production and durability of the work requires a balance in the interview, editing and preparation of the oral history work. The balance in oral history makes the elements of the work to be integrated together and create a coherent whole. In a musical analogy, it should be said that the constituent elements of oral history create a pleasing and soulful song in a kind of harmony resulting from harmony, proportionality and logical balance. Without balance in the constituent elements, it is not possible to achieve an acceptable and appreciable effect. For example, if the questions are off-topic and the answers are short or unrelated to the question and the text lacks uniformity or the volume is far from the audience's expectations and the margins are more than the text, the work lacks balance, harmony and proportion and will not be noticed by the audience and is condemned from the beginning. To fail and be ignored. On the other hand, any work that has harmony and proportion in different parts will steal the lead from others in attracting the audience and conveying the concept. It is in this case that the creator of such a work can be considered as possessing art and adhering to its rules. In other words, the more the work is full of balance and proportion, the more artistic it is.