About art and meaning
Lauri Levanto
He claimed that to render a grape one needs to learn
say five keys of grapecity. That makes the *observer* see
a grape in the painting. (In fact I believe that a good
cartoonist needs no more than one and half :-)
The fact that he could not name any of these keys, or even
ascertain the number of them, left a ligering doubt about
substance behind his claim. Was it only an abstract construct
derived from a general linguistical theory of meaning.
My next question is: what is the meaning of an artwork?
An essay sure has a meaning. It is a good guess that a poem
has a meaning, too. Why then, for any significant poem the scholars
spend years arguing what that meaning is. A poem is built
more on rhytm and allegories than dictionary definitions
of words. Much of the esthetics of a poems seems to
reside outside meaning. That is why poems are
extremely difficult to translate to another language.
Does the esthetic value of visual arts as well lie
outside the meaning? I'll take it to ad absurdum.
Are there meaningless esthetical values?
Look at a sunset. Most western people regard it beautifull
and enjoyable. What is the *meaning* of a sunset.
It has none. However it arouses an esthetic experience.
The flowers seem to be crosscultural objects of
esthetic valuation. (to be honest, I could not spot
any reference to floral beauty among eskimoes. The only eskimo
I have met, loved flowers. Living in Aarhus, Denmark she
might, however, be indoctrinated by European tradition.)
Thus I assume we have a direct sense of esthetics. The stimuli of
esthetic reaction seems to reside - or at least extend to -
outside the meaning. What is said, does not count
as much as how it is said.
In regard to meaning, abstract expressionism may be
an empty token, but is it the point?
What _art_ is, is definitely western and cultural question.
Many languages do well without such concept.
Among us it has layers of meanings, dozens of denotations.
Some explicitely exclude esthetic values. Others
just challenge our esthetic judgements.
- lauri
--
Why a rudimentary drama turns into art when it is called
performance.
lake
Erik's "five keys to grapecity" (or was it grapicity?) had plenty of
substance behind them. In fact I'm sure he could name twelve keys right
off the top of his head. Though as you say, a good cartoonist can do it
with less than five, that doesn't change the principle involved. The
question is, what does a grape's recognizability have to do with its
meaning? Could a grape have any meaning apart from its recognizability?
For a work of art to have meaning, it needn't be limited to "a" meaning.
The best art has multiple layers of meaning. That's why it's called
"deep" - because the viewer can dive into its meanings and take a while
to find bottom.
Sometimes a good essay has only one meaning. Not often. But a good poem
ALWAYS has many many meanings. Rhythm, allegory and etymology are but
three of poetry's multitudinous and multifarious resources. But you're
right, it's usually very hard, and often impossible to translate a poem
into a foreign language.
Because it's a translation, like hearing a Mahler symphony through a
faulty headset. A listener must be primed for cues, before he can make
any sense out of it at all. In such a case, the cues themselves can
easily override the meanings. Et voila, the importance of culture!
Language and culture and meaning are all of a piece, like an embryo.
Certainly there are meaningful cross-cultural values. But I don't think
they are to be found in sunsets or flowers. Nor (listen up, Alison!) in
daisies and ideals of peace and love.
What is said cannot be separated from how it is said. There is no "how"
without a what, and there is no "what" without a how. Our culture has a
dualistic bias which tends to obscure this important fact.
Abstract Expressionism was not an empty token in regards to meaning! On
the contrary, AE was a serious attempt to analyse meaning in it's
relation to process and gesture. It was an entirely logical extension
of Zen philosophy and calligraphy.
All cultures have layers of meanings embedded in their rituals. We are
not unique in that. But it would be a drastic mistake to abandon or
denegrate our own rituals, simply because they are not unique.
- Lake
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Stephen Morgana
Lauri Levanto <lauri....@nokia.com> wrote:
<snip>
> My next question is: what is the meaning of an artwork?
>
> An essay sure has a meaning. It is a good guess that a poem
> has a meaning, too. Why then, for any significant poem the scholars
> spend years arguing what that meaning is. A poem is built
> more on rhytm and allegories than dictionary definitions
> of words. Much of the esthetics of a poems seems to
> reside outside meaning. That is why poems are
> extremely difficult to translate to another language.
>
> Does the esthetic value of visual arts as well lie
> outside the meaning? I'll take it to ad absurdum.
> Are there meaningless esthetical values?
>
> Look at a sunset. Most western people regard it beautifull
> and enjoyable. What is the *meaning* of a sunset.
> It has none. However it arouses an esthetic experience.
> The flowers seem to be crosscultural objects of
> esthetic valuation. (to be honest, I could not spot
> any reference to floral beauty among eskimoes. The only eskimo
> I have met, loved flowers. Living in Aarhus, Denmark she
> might, however, be indoctrinated by European tradition.)
>
I realize that your ad absurdum is exploring the separate nature of
esthetic and meaning. However, your two examples of esthetic without
meaning, have meaning to me.
I am not a linguistic nor artistic expert, but I have an opinion for
what it is worth:
The meaning of an external thing is internal to an observer. True,
there are many things who's internal meanings are shared among
individuals (communication depends on this), but we all know there are
many cases where the same external thing has entirely different
meanings in different individuals. A sequence of sounds can lead to a
common meaning in individuals who share a lanugage, but may lead to no
meaning in individuals who share another language.
All of the previous is to set the stage to let me say that the
perception of a sunset leads to a meaning in me. The meaning is
something like: relax and be soothed. I would use the image of a sunset
in a painting to communicate that meaning to other individuals. A more
mundane meaning of the sunset is: the day is ending or ended. (sunset
scenes are commonly used in films to communicate exactly that meaning
to the viewers)
I will proceed to say that, to me, the meaning of the image of a flower
is: growth into beauty. I will accept the fact that few, if any,
others share that meaning. I am allowed to have a personal language,
it just may not be useful, or may be counter-productive for
communication to other individuals.
All that said, I will attempt to elaborate the concept: a thing having
esthetic without meaning. That would be a thing (natural nor human-
made) that presents no symbol to an observer, and that the observer
deems to have esthetic value. Notice that this "definition" allows for
your statement that sunsets have no meaning, and my statement that
sunsets do have meaning to be true at the same time. A more stringent
definition could be: a thing that has estetic value to all observers
and is meaningless to all observers. Neither sunsets nor flowers fit
this definition since both you and I exist.
Things that fit either definition are probably hard to come by, and
their meaningless state are probably short lived, since humans being
what they are, will soon ascribe meanings to them.
You might be thinking, "Stephen, you are just pretending that sunsets
and flowers have meaning", but trust me, if you had said "Scatterings
of pebbles in the sand have esthetic but no meaning" I could not have
replied to your post since I agree with that statement. (note that
this invites a reply from someone else who finds meaning in pebbles and
sand :)
But finally, to answer your question: "Yes, I think there are things
that have esthetic without meaning". Certainly by my first definition,
we have 3 examples, but by my second definition we have no examples.
I reiterrate that this is an opinion of someone who only has a passing
understanding of some of the many fields that the answer to your
question crosses. In particular I am aware that some might claim that
some things have instrinsic meaning and/or intrinsic esthetic. But
that does not address your question nor my claim that sunsets and
flowers have meaning.
I hope that someone more expert will answer too. :)
--
Stephen
Construct my e-mail address as follows:
On a standard US keyboard,
type my first name followed by the character under
the greater than character, followed by my last name
followed by the character above the 2 character,
followed by the gee, tee and eee characters,
followed by the character below the greater than
character, followed by the word ten spelled
backwards. In the end you will have
somethin...@like.this :-) :-)
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Before you buy.
Stephen Morgana
Stephen Morgana <scm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> esthetic without meaning. That would be a thing (natural nor human-
> made)
What a goof! that should be "natural OR human-made"
Maurice Lamouroux
Lauri Levanto <lauri....@nokia.com> a écrit dans le message :
3930F8CE...@nokia.com...
> What _art_ is, is definitely western and cultural question.
> Many languages do well without such concept.
> Among us it has layers of meanings, dozens of denotations.
> Some explicitely exclude esthetic values. Others
> just challenge our esthetic judgements.
>
> - lauri
>
> --
> Why a rudimentary drama turns into art when it is called
> performance.
It is hard for me to think in English I apologise by advance
You ask a true question and I like the way you say it.
I can answer : "a rudimentary drama turns into art" when the artist has a
"charism" .
And charism is a matter of being gifted and sometimes implies a hard work
to reach it..
And -it is a matter of faith- I beleive a spirit is working behind all this.
A spirit of praise creation and life.
all
the best Maurice
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/maurice.lamouroux
Peter H.M. Brooks
Stephen Morgana <scm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <8gso9q$lfn$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Stephen Morgana <scm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > esthetic without meaning. That would be a thing (natural nor human-
> > made)
>
> What a goof! that should be "natural OR human-made"
>
beings are natural, human made artifacts are natural too. I think that
artificial, or man made, is best contrasted with not man made.
--
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder
respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
George Orwell "Politics and the English Language"
Stephen Morgana
Peter H.M. Brooks <pe...@psyche.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <8gspdh$m8e$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Stephen Morgana <scm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > In article <8gso9q$lfn$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> > Stephen Morgana <scm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >
> > > esthetic without meaning. That would be a thing (natural nor
human-
> > > made)
> >
> > What a goof! that should be "natural OR human-made"
> >
> Only a small typo. Anyway, there is the argument that, since human
> beings are natural, human made artifacts are natural too. I think that
> artificial, or man made, is best contrasted with not man made.
>
accident of nature. (human-made or not-human-made) is also valid
though, thanks.
> --
> Peter H.M. Brooks
> "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder
> respectable,
> and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
> George Orwell "Politics and the English Language"
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
--
Stephen
Construct my e-mail address as follows:
On a standard US keyboard,
type my first name followed by the character under
the greater than character, followed by my last name
followed by the character above the 2 character,
followed by the gee, tee and eee characters,
followed by the character below the greater than
character, followed by the word ten spelled
backwards. In the end you will have
somethin...@like.this :-) :-)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Erik A. Mattila
> Not so long ago Erik was pondering representational art.
> He claimed that to render a grape one needs to learn
> say five keys of grapecity. That makes the *observer* see
> a grape in the painting. (In fact I believe that a good
> cartoonist needs no more than one and half :-)
>
> The fact that he could not name any of these keys, or even
> ascertain the number of them, left a ligering doubt about
> substance behind his claim. Was it only an abstract construct
> derived from a general linguistical theory of meaning.
> My next question is: what is the meaning of an artwork?
Well, you know. Lauri, it seemed so obvious to me that I didn't see any
point in thinking it through and actually naming 'five keys.' In fact I
just picked the number at random because it really had no bearing on the
point I was making, and that was that there is a lowest common
denominator of correspondence between and object and a representation
which allows the representation 'mean' the object. But since you raise
the question, I would say an oval, a color, a highlight, an internal
shadow, and a figure/field shadow could yield a tromple l. oeil grape,
and that happens to add up to five. You could do it with two, but that
would be overtly reduced, cartoonish, so the fact of it being a cartoon,
sketch, etc. would add yet another dimension of 'meaning.'
You're really raising questions about the corespondence between the
'seme' which is the lowest unit of meaning in languages and the
'pictine' which is the correspondent unit in a system such as Randall
Mackay's 'pictict analysis.' (Which he applies to comics, as a matter
of fact, in his "Comics: Communication to the Quick." )
What I think you are misapprehending is the idea of 'meaning' itself.
In visual representations, 'meaning' may be no more than an acknowledged
correspondence - i.e. a picture composed of an oval, a color, a
hightlight etc. 'means' "grape." It's not terribly profound, in my
view, but rather says that when people, generally, see these five things
in a visual repressentation they think 'grape.' We know, in reality,
that they are just various marks on a piece of paper of canvas. On the
other hand, a visual representation which shows, on a much more complex
level, human beings in law enforcement cloghing clubbing human beings in
work clothing, there is some meaning there that might be about labor
movements, union strikes etc.
> An essay sure has a meaning. It is a good guess that a poem
> has a meaning, too. Why then, for any significant poem the scholars
> spend years arguing what that meaning is. A poem is built
> more on rhytm and allegories than dictionary definitions
> of words. Much of the esthetics of a poems seems to
> reside outside meaning. That is why poems are
> extremely difficult to translate to another language.
But Lauri, do you know how a lexicographer does his/lher work? I saw a
wonderful documentary about a chap that worked for years for OED, for
example, -- he was the grand master lexicographer of that organization.
New meanings published in the updates of this mighty dictionary were
found by reading poetry and literature - not software manuals. So
ultimately it is the artistic users of language who create meaning that
lands up on the page of a dictionary as a definition. As far as
translation goes, everything if fine as long as 'fish' and 'fisk' both
mean those scaly creatures in the sea, but when some poet comes along
and writes 'you are fishing for compliments' it starts getting
troublsome unless the other language also uses the same distortion of
meaning of the term.
>
> Does the esthetic value of visual arts as well lie
> outside the meaning? I'll take it to ad absurdum.
> Are there meaningless esthetical values?
No
>
> Look at a sunset. Most western people regard it beautifull
> and enjoyable. What is the *meaning* of a sunset.
> It has none. However it arouses an esthetic experience.
> The flowers seem to be crosscultural objects of
> esthetic valuation. (to be honest, I could not spot
> any reference to floral beauty among eskimoes. The only eskimo
> I have met, loved flowers. Living in Aarhus, Denmark she
> might, however, be indoctrinated by European tradition.)
The meaning of a sunset in nature can be a lot of things - air
pollution, a volcanic dust cloud, the rotation of the earth, the voyage
of the sun god into the underworld and so on. The meaning of a visual
representation of a sunset, say in a Turner painting, is 'sunset,' and
after that level, it can mean all that the sunset in nature can mean.
> Thus I assume we have a direct sense of esthetics. The stimuli of
> esthetic reaction seems to reside - or at least extend to -
> outside the meaning. What is said, does not count
> as much as how it is said.
I actually agree with you, Lauri. I think the color red can be
appreciated on it's own grounds, or any color combination can be
appreciated the same way. Yet people habitually interpret 'red' in say,
"primitive" art to 'mean' blood, sacred this or that, and in modern art
to mean 'war' 'agression' and so on. So this tells us about something
that people do with art - i.e. they use it to produce meaning, often on
a very personal level, but when we take into account the whole of the
art industry in culture 'meaning' is often produced on a much grander,
social level. It's quite fascinating to study, but because this happens
all the time doesn't mean that 'red' can't be enjoyed because it is a
pretty color. I think where we get messed-up is in claiming one
approach is better or more 'true' than the other.
> In regard to meaning, abstract expressionism may be
> an empty token, but is it the point?
I missed your meaning here.
> What _art_ is, is definitely western and cultural question.
> Many languages do well without such concept.
> Among us it has layers of meanings, dozens of denotations.
> Some explicitely exclude esthetic values. Others
> just challenge our esthetic judgements.
I don't think it's definitely western and cultural question. I can give
you an Aztec poem which ponders this question if you would like. I'm
sure that other cultures have produced similar questions.
>
> - lauri
>
> --
> Why a rudimentary drama turns into art when it is called
> performance.
We've gone through this several time on RAF. Art is usualy that which
makes the claim of art. The rest of the story is that some of will say
it isn't art, and others will say that it is. You just can't settle the
question without being totalitarian and autocratic, and stepping on
someone elses 'right' to thing something is art. We don't want to be
art cops, do we?
Best, Erik
Peter H.M. Brooks
Stephen Morgana <scm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > Only a small typo. Anyway, there is the argument that, since human
> > beings are natural, human made artifacts are natural too. I think
that
> > artificial, or man made, is best contrasted with not man made.
> >
> I was trying to capture the difference between human-made and random
> accident of nature. (human-made or not-human-made) is also valid
> though, thanks.
>
artifact, and not 'random' - in the sense that it is designed to hold
termites. A pebble worn smooth by the tide, however, is formed by
non-live 'random' nature (though, of course, one can argue that, in this
case, the action of the moon on the earth, not being random, that causes
the tides means that the smoothing of the pebble is not random either -
if the pebble were a few feet higher up the beach, it probably wouldn't
have been smoothed.
So, when it comes to 'random' objects, one may only have radioactive
substances that can be shown to be emitting radiation as a result of
random quantum processes.
Stephen Morgana
not human made) is best for what I meant. Thank you for helping me
think.
After reading this last reply from you, pondering randomness only
brought me further from what I meant.
To give you a flavor for where it lead me, I wound up thinking that
everthing that has not been influenced by radioatctive decay in the
past is predetermined. Relating this to my own creative output, I am
left thinking it is either predetermined or the result of some
radioactive decay in the past. Neither one is too appealing. I would
have to add in influences from outside of the physical world to feel
better again.
--
Stephen
Construct my e-mail address as follows:
On a standard US keyboard,
type my first name followed by the character under
the greater than character, followed by my last name
followed by the character above the 2 character,
followed by the gee, tee and eee characters,
followed by the character below the greater than
character, followed by the word ten spelled
backwards. In the end you will have
somethin...@like.this :-) :-)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Peter H.M. Brooks
Stephen Morgana <scm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> You know what? I am going to backup one step and say (human made or
> not human made) is best for what I meant. Thank you for helping me
> think.
> After reading this last reply from you, pondering randomness only
> brought me further from what I meant.
>
lend itself to an obvious understanding, but, as soon as you start
thinking about what it really means, this understanding starts to
evaporate.
>
> To give you a flavor for where it lead me, I wound up thinking that
> everthing that has not been influenced by radioatctive decay in the
> past is predetermined. Relating this to my own creative output, I am
> left thinking it is either predetermined or the result of some
> radioactive decay in the past. Neither one is too appealing. I would
> have to add in influences from outside of the physical world to feel
> better again.
>
was 'predetermined' [it isn't clear quite what this would mean as there
are so many unique genes in all but identical twins and even identical
twins have such different environmental influences on their brain
development], it is still so complex that it wouldn't be possible easily
to predict what it was going to produce.
In short, our brains are so complex that, for a least the next few
decades, we can treat them as if they have free will. Later, if we are
still around to worry about it, even if we prove not to have free will,
it won't really matter to anything that we do. Creativity is clearly
constrained, but the constraints are so wide that it is foolish to lose
any sleep over them.
lake
meaning. Surely Erik, you didn't mean to imply that a painting of a
labor protest has more meaning than a painting of a grape.
The elementary "keys" of painting determine recognizeability - a
correspondance of intention in relation to a conventional "reality" -
and this is one aspect of "meaning": the recognition, and predictable
interpretation of certain signs.
But meaning has another level beyond simple recognition. Many of our
more complex signal-systems, like music and painting, allow for a more
subtle and inclusive interaction between sender and reciever. On this
level of meaning, both the grape and the labor strike share a
dislocation of their primary identity. They become vehicles for a WAY
OF PERCIEVING. So the "meaning" of the grape, or the strike, gets
shifted from its primary identity - to an analysis of the WAY in which
it is percieved.
To Laurie's question "are there meaningless aesthetic values?" you
answered a very flat "No." I'm not sure I can agree with that totally.
I think that aesthetic values can PRECEDE meaning, and even DETERMINE
meaning. Though they are always linked in some way to meaning they can
often appear for a while to be quite meaningless.
I disagree with you also when you say "the color red can be appreciated
on its own grounds". There is no such thing as "red", apart from the
various things in which we percieve redness. Color is associative, not
absolute.
Erik A. Mattila
"Philosophy of Symbolic Form" series. The little list is the 'types' of
meaning he sees. But notice in the quotes below he uses the term "intuitive
reality." He makes this distinction because his grand argument in this work is
that the reality of nature is unknowable directly, and that we depend on an
interface which represents reality to us. Since he divides "symbolic form"
into categoriess, language, myth, art, etc. each species has it's own sort of
reality. So 'intuitive reality' is that sort that associates with myth.
syntactic
objective
linguistic
intrinsic
pure
symbolic
mathetical
transcendent
physical
"Every single factor in intuitive reality has magical traits and connections;
every occurrence, however ephermeal, has its magical-mythical "meaning".
"A whispering or rustling in the woods, a shadow darting over the ground, a
light flickering on the water : all these are demonic in their nature and
origin; but only very gradually does this pandemonium divide into separate and
clearly distinguishable figures, into personal spirits and gods. All intuitive
reality is surrounded by a breath of magic, bathed in a magical mist; but
precisely this common atmosphere in which it is and lives prevents its
individual particularity from manifesting itself and fully unfolding.
Everything is connected with everything else by invisible threads; and this
connection, this universal sympathy, itself preserves a hovering, strangely
impersonal character."
Anyway, I think is a very lovely passage. Ernst Cassirer is a very analytic
philosopher, and it's in passages like this that he provides room in his
theories for art to thrive.
lake wrote:
> Of course "meaning" is one of those words which has a very slippery
> meaning. Surely Erik, you didn't mean to imply that a painting of a
> labor protest has more meaning than a painting of a grape.
In someways I would say yes, but it's hard for me to imagine 'meaning' in
quantitative terms. The difference in meaning in the representations of grapes
and labor movements is just that the latter is broader in references in ways
that interest human beings (you could always get into the sub-atomic grape and
equal any quantitive ideas that labor protest may have.
> The elementary "keys" of painting determine recognizeability - a
> correspondance of intention in relation to a conventional "reality" -
> and this is one aspect of "meaning": the recognition, and predictable
> interpretation of certain signs.
Good paragraph. I agree. However, I think signs yield predictable
interpretations generally, but we should leave room for chance. A shizophrenic
is liable to see a grape as the sign of the planet Jupiter, for example. The
'poetic' function in a given society could very well be a matter of pushing the
envelop of signs into new meanings. I'm using 'poetic' as in "poetics,' or how
meanings evolve and change in literature, art, music etc.
> But meaning has another level beyond simple recognition. Many of our
> more complex signal-systems, like music and painting, allow for a more
> subtle and inclusive interaction between sender and reciever. On this
> level of meaning, both the grape and the labor strike share a
> dislocation of their primary identity. They become vehicles for a WAY
> OF PERCIEVING. So the "meaning" of the grape, or the strike, gets
> shifted from its primary identity - to an analysis of the WAY in which
> it is percieved.
There's some technical language here that's a little confusing to me. Signal
theory deals with a stimulus triggering a determined response. When the alarm
goes off, you get off. When Dr. Pavlov reaches his hand into a bag, his dogs
slaver. There's a very good chapter on this in Umberto Eco's "Theory of
Semiotics." The trouble i see with what you've written is that in signal
systems, the role of the sender and receiver is absolutely explicit. In
semiosis, it is never explicit. You're sort of describing viewing art, or
listening to music, as a spectator sport. I don't think it works this way.
The viewer or listener is very busy in the production of meaning via the
experience of art. Often this 'meaning' is not what was intended by the
author. (So we can appreciate cave man art or African masks without any idea
of how these were perceived or what they meant to their orignal authors.) Now
this would be a good basis for a critique of Norman Rockwell's work. It is
full of 'over-determined' meanings, leaving the viewer without any room to
participate in the production of meaning.
> To Laurie's question "are there meaningless aesthetic values?" you
> answered a very flat "No." I'm not sure I can agree with that totally.
> I think that aesthetic values can PRECEDE meaning, and even DETERMINE
> meaning. Though they are always linked in some way to meaning they can
> often appear for a while to be quite meaningless.
Well, I have to say 'no' because I can't distinguish "aesthetics" from
"meaning." Aesthetics is meaning. Maybe the best way to expresss this is by
opposites. If I were asked to describe a world without meaning, my first
impulse would to create a list of terms that would all fall under the umbrella
of 'aesthetics.' A boring world, empty, cold, dull, not worth it - and so
on.
> I disagree with you also when you say "the color red can be appreciated
> on its own grounds". There is no such thing as "red", apart from the
> various things in which we percieve redness. Color is associative, not
> absolute.
Really? I don't think this disagrees with what I was saying. Human beings
experience a color regardlesss of it's physics and psychology. I'm just saying
that a color could have an aesthetic value (meaning) without any cultural
narratives attached. It's kind of a theoretical statement, actually, since we
may never experience a color without it's many stories, so how would we know?
I guess I'm just making a "faith statement".
Erik
>
Peter H.M. Brooks
emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
>
> > To Laurie's question "are there meaningless aesthetic values?" you
> > answered a very flat "No." I'm not sure I can agree with that
totally.
> > I think that aesthetic values can PRECEDE meaning, and even
DETERMINE
> > meaning. Though they are always linked in some way to meaning they
can
> > often appear for a while to be quite meaningless.
>
> Well, I have to say 'no' because I can't distinguish "aesthetics" from
> "meaning." Aesthetics is meaning. Maybe the best way to expresss
this is by
> opposites. If I were asked to describe a world without meaning, my
first
> impulse would to create a list of terms that would all fall under the
umbrella
> of 'aesthetics.' A boring world, empty, cold, dull, not worth it -
and so
> on.
>
'aesthetics'. If they were the same, then there would only be one word,
wouldn't there?
You appear to be meaning 'the meaning of life' by 'meaning'. If you are,
then your paragraph makes a little more sense - you would then be saying
that, without aesthetic experiences life would not be so
interesting/exciting/worthwhile/important or some such word.
This may be true, but, by saying that, you are actually showing that
meaning comes before, or encompasses, aesthetics. If you can't see (if
you are blind, for example), you can't see the meaning of a street sign
(that it is a sign), and, because of that, you can't see its aesthetic,
or non-aesthetic design.
>
> > I disagree with you also when you say "the color red can be
appreciated
> > on its own grounds". There is no such thing as "red", apart from the
> > various things in which we percieve redness. Color is associative,
not
> > absolute.
>
> Really? I don't think this disagrees with what I was saying. Human
beings
> experience a color regardlesss of it's physics and psychology. I'm
just saying
> that a color could have an aesthetic value (meaning) without any
cultural
> narratives attached. It's kind of a theoretical statement, actually,
since we
> may never experience a color without it's many stories, so how would
we know?
> I guess I'm just making a "faith statement".
>
This is easily disproved, by one counter example. To the western eye,
red is associated with danger - traffic lights are red, blood is red and
so forth. To the eastern eye, red is associated with luck, the morning
sunrise is red with promise for the new day. So red, the mental label
for the physiological reaction to the red cones in the eye being
stimulated by wavelengths in the right part of the spectrum, does not
have a aesthetic interpretation without first having a meaning.
Lauri Levanto
Therefore mo responses are delayed, and may touch
topics answerd better already.
I also write this offline, therefore reduced retyping of quotes to
minimum.
lauri:
- Yes, I am questioning the the coorespondence between 'seme' the
language
equvalence of a bit and 'pictine', the visual bit.
Erik:> You are misapprehending the idea of meaning itself.
> in Visual representations meaning may be no more than an
> acknowledged correspondence, i.e. picture 'means' "grape".
lauri: Exactly this was my point when I said that a sunset carries no
given meaning. ( If we exclude a notion that there is a God
who paints the sunsets and flowers)
It may have 'importance' anyway like
Stephen: < The meaning is something like: relax and be soothed.
lauri: I join to your digression to lexicography.
When, two centuries ago, Martti Rautiainen wanted to translate The
Lord's Prayer
to Okawango, he met a problem. He had no word for our daily
bread. So he baked one and asked the natives "What you call this?"
he got an answer, and only years later discovered that
the word refers to "a turtle".
Erik: > As far as translation goes, everything goes fine as long as
'fish'
and 'fisk' refer to sama marine creatures.
lauri: but not in poetry. The Czech 'ryba' is a two syllable word.
The rhytm and metrics have to be extensively reworked.
That's why I claim that the esthetics of poems reside
or at least extend outside the meaning. If a translator
keeps the vebatim meaning but destroys the poetic structure,
it is no longer a poem.
The poetic
That was my point. Also an artwork can have importance that is
not carried by the 'pictines'. Even if in Turner's work
we may have difficulties to extract the pictines that discriminate
it from a sunrise. That is not the point. The sunset had such an
impact to Turner, he made an effort to make a painting.
To us this painting can mean whatever our experiences of
sunset have been.
Once on Tioman island, Malaysia, my son went out
to take the classical photo:
The beach, a couple of palms and the sun setting into the sea.
I was too tired to join him.
After a few moments he returnd and told:
There was too much haze in the horizon, I could not
see the sun plummeting into the ocean,
- but you should have heard the hell of a splash!
Some time ago you Erik, claimed that Abstract expressionism
is a Barthesian myth. The pictines refer to nothing but
abstract expressionism. It is no longer a symbol but a mere sign.
I have no objection. I think it linguistically self-referential, too.
Sometimes, however, a piece has importance to me.
Just like a sunset.
- lauri
lake
marvelous.
In fact, my ignorance of recent literature and terminology is a
hinderance to communication with you in general. For example, I used
the term "signal-system" incorrectly. I just made that word up, I
didn't know it already had a meaning! I didn't even know there was such
a thing as "signal theory". Though I'm not surprised that there is.
Certainly, art is not a spectator sport! I agree 100% that meaning is a
collaboration between sender and sendee.
But I'm more interested in painting than in semiotics or signal theory.
And when you say that an art viewer often produces meaning not intended
by the artist, I would have to dissagree. The viewer may distort an
artist's intention to a certain degree, but he is incapeable of
producing meaning on his own. The African masks that inspired Picasso
for example - they were not mere blanks for the Europeans to fill in
with imagination. The intentions of their authors was indellibly
inscribed in the essence of those masks. That's what makes them so good.
We arrive again at the idea of intention, which is inseperable from
meaning. We may not be able to percieve specifically what these masks
"meant" to their makers, from a sociological standpoint - yet somehow,
mysteriously we are able to percieve their intention. A filtered
intention no doubt, and re-interpreted, yes - but diluted, or
essentially changed, no.
When you criticize Rockwell's work for being over-full with
pre-determined meanings, you're dead-on the money. The intention of
Rockwell's work (and it was almost pure) was to create meaning. I think
Norman will live on to posterity, if for no other reason than being
such a flawless example of what NOT to do. In discussions about
meaning, people will be referring to him for centuries to come.
I may have been wrong about red. Color is very mysterious, and very
emotional. After working with it for thirty-odd years, I still don't
really know what it means.
Keith O'Connor
Art and meaning: Otto Dix, condemned as
a degenerate German painter because,
some of his ww1 paintings made war look
like hell, which undermined the German
peoples belief in the nobleness of the
German Military.
Art has a unique meaning for every
viewer - beauty exists in the eye of the
beholder.
keith
Lauri Levanto wrote:
>
> Not so long ago Erik was pondering representational art.
> He claimed that to render a grape one needs to learn
> say five keys of grapecity. That makes the *observer* see
> a grape in the painting. (In fact I believe that a good
> cartoonist needs no more than one and half :-)
>
> The fact that he could not name any of these keys, or even
> ascertain the number of them, left a ligering doubt about
> substance behind his claim. Was it only an abstract construct
> derived from a general linguistical theory of meaning.
> My next question is: what is the meaning of an artwork?
>
> An essay sure has a meaning. It is a good guess that a poem
> has a meaning, too. Why then, for any significant poem the scholars
> spend years arguing what that meaning is. A poem is built
> more on rhytm and allegories than dictionary definitions
> of words. Much of the esthetics of a poems seems to
> reside outside meaning. That is why poems are
> extremely difficult to translate to another language.
>
> Does the esthetic value of visual arts as well lie
> outside the meaning? I'll take it to ad absurdum.
> Are there meaningless esthetical values?
>
> Look at a sunset. Most western people regard it beautifull
> and enjoyable. What is the *meaning* of a sunset.
> It has none. However it arouses an esthetic experience.
> The flowers seem to be crosscultural objects of
> esthetic valuation. (to be honest, I could not spot
> any reference to floral beauty among eskimoes. The only eskimo
> I have met, loved flowers. Living in Aarhus, Denmark she
> might, however, be indoctrinated by European tradition.)
>
> Thus I assume we have a direct sense of esthetics. The stimuli of
> esthetic reaction seems to reside - or at least extend to -
> outside the meaning. What is said, does not count
> as much as how it is said.
>
> In regard to meaning, abstract expressionism may be
> an empty token, but is it the point?
>
> What _art_ is, is definitely western and cultural question.
> Many languages do well without such concept.
> Among us it has layers of meanings, dozens of denotations.
> Some explicitely exclude esthetic values. Others
> just challenge our esthetic judgements.
>
Erik A. Mattila
lake wrote:
> I wish I'd read Cassirer - I haven't. I shall. That brief quotation was
> marvelous.
>
> In fact, my ignorance of recent literature and terminology is a
> hinderance to communication with you in general. For example, I used
> the term "signal-system" incorrectly. I just made that word up, I
> didn't know it already had a meaning! I didn't even know there was such
> a thing as "signal theory". Though I'm not surprised that there is.
> Certainly, art is not a spectator sport! I agree 100% that meaning is a
> collaboration between sender and sendee.
>
> But I'm more interested in painting than in semiotics or signal theory.
> And when you say that an art viewer often produces meaning not intended
> by the artist, I would have to dissagree. The viewer may distort an
> artist's intention to a certain degree, but he is incapeable of
> producing meaning on his own. The African masks that inspired Picasso
> for example - they were not mere blanks for the Europeans to fill in
> with imagination. The intentions of their authors was indellibly
> inscribed in the essence of those masks. That's what makes them so good.
I had the opportunity to study African Art with Daniel Crowley (Crowley is an
interesting character - he's in Guiness records as the most extensively travel
wheelchair guy of all time. He told me once that he was broke down in the
middle of the Sahara - and wheelchairs don't do well in sand). Anyway, the
courses and seminars I took with Dan were interesting and full of surprises.
One was that the masks are 'throw-away' items, as no organic material lasts
long in West Africa. They are made for a dance, and discarded afterwards. But
since the French decided these masks were 'art' a new industry emerged - you
guessed it, mask making for tourists. The French liked ebony to be black, so
the Africans use shoe polish to make the brown ebony black. And it goes on and
on. Another interesting thing was that "African Art" did not become a art
history category until 1961 (no doubt responding to the Civil Rights movement.)
The thing is, Lake, is that if the 'intentions of the authors were indellibly
inscribed in the essence of those masks,' we would regard them in the same way
as Africans, it would seem. For starters, they wouldn't be collected as
"object d' art," since they were never collected as such in Africa (except as
inventory for modern tourist trade.) As for their aesthetic merit, being
traditional forms, they are copied from generation to generation. So if I am
an artist who copies Henry Moore's work with each project, society won't call
me an artist at all, but a poser, imposture, or copyist. But I'm not saying
the masks are not beautiful - but rather that they are beautiful to me for
different reasons than they are beautiful to Africans - in fact, Africans may
not see them as beaufiful at all, for all I know. They may see some as
threatening and frightening and hideously ugly, depending on the needs of the
ceremonial use.
> We arrive again at the idea of intention, which is inseperable from
> meaning. We may not be able to percieve specifically what these masks
> "meant" to their makers, from a sociological standpoint - yet somehow,
> mysteriously we are able to percieve their intention. A filtered
> intention no doubt, and re-interpreted, yes - but diluted, or
> essentially changed, no.
We don't know what the 'meant' from an aesthetic standpoint, Lake. We have
tons of info what they mean from a sociological viewpoint, in fact. The reason
that we don't know the 'aesthetics' is that 'aesthetics' can't cross
hermeneutic borders without completely distorting meaning. This problem is
well-studied in philosophy.
> When you criticize Rockwell's work for being over-full with
> pre-determined meanings, you're dead-on the money. The intention of
> Rockwell's work (and it was almost pure) was to create meaning. I think
> Norman will live on to posterity, if for no other reason than being
> such a flawless example of what NOT to do. In discussions about
> meaning, people will be referring to him for centuries to come.
>
> I may have been wrong about red. Color is very mysterious, and very
> emotional. After working with it for thirty-odd years, I still don't
> really know what it means.
You know, the reason I choose 'red' as an example is because of all the
literature I've read on Native American Art. Each time an investigator
encountered a red object (hematite) there would follow a long paragraph of the
significance of 'red' -- blood, precious liquid, mystical this or that and so
on, all pouring forth from the imagination of the aurthor, not the original
artist. So I thought "why couldn't Indian artists just like the color 'red'
because it looks good, like several other colors. Then I ran across a paper in
"Anthropology Today" where the author argued that the beautiful cave paintings
in Europe didn't have any special signifance other than they looked good -
caveman art for art's sake theory.'
Erik
lake
red, mainly because it looked good. Same reason our moderns do it.
Painters, whether aboriginal or modern, rarely have a handle on the
meaning of what they do - but their audience sure does.
When a painter chooses a color or makes a mark "because it looks good",
s/he is doing something infinitely more complex than the simple phrase
would indicate. Whether s/he knows it or not, s/he is participating in
an ancient and highly sacred ritual. And a very powerful one, at that.
It is not merely an accident of the marketplace that places the value
of a Van Gogh at 53 million dollars. It is power.
I'm not the least bit surprised that Crowley found African masks to be
"throw-away" items. In a well-balanced society, all art would be
"throw-away". The fact that art is given a monetary, and temporal value
in our society is only due to the fact that our society is absolutely
nuts. Bad religion, among other things.
However, my statement about the value of the original artists'
intentions still holds. It's the reason we like those masks. It doesn't
change. It's an absolute. It's a lodestone we can use to judge many
other and far remote ideas about art. The intention is there. It's very
clear! We don't need to regard those masks the same way as the original
audience, to appreciate their power. In a sense, it's better we don't.
We don't need sociological explanations, to SEE the intention of the
artist!!!
When you say that ancient Africans may not have seen those masks as
beautiful at all, but rather as frightening or hideous, you are merely
playing with words. The point is, that those masks have ALWAYS been
seen as SACRED, and POWERFUL, no matter whether their specific
attributes were benign or malignant.
You say that aesthetics can't cross hermeneutic borders without
completely distorting meaning - and I say, hogwash! I say, aesthetics
exists always and only ON hermeneutic borders, and that by doing so
successfully, it CREATES meaning. So there.
Erik A. Mattila
> Your last paragraph, I agree 100% - aboriginal artists painted with
> red, mainly because it looked good. Same reason our moderns do it.
> Painters, whether aboriginal or modern, rarely have a handle on the
> meaning of what they do - but their audience sure does.
Then by 'intention' you must mean something explicitly unknown.
> When a painter chooses a color or makes a mark "because it looks good",
> s/he is doing something infinitely more complex than the simple phrase
> would indicate. Whether s/he knows it or not, s/he is participating in
> an ancient and highly sacred ritual. And a very powerful one, at that.
> It is not merely an accident of the marketplace that places the value
> of a Van Gogh at 53 million dollars. It is power.
Why does it have to be complex? It seems like a pretty simple thing. I guess
you can read profundity into anything. I think the 'sacred ritual' part is,
well, a bit of an overstatement, at least by my experience.
> I'm not the least bit surprised that Crowley found African masks to be
> "throw-away" items. In a well-balanced society, all art would be
> "throw-away". The fact that art is given a monetary, and temporal value
> in our society is only due to the fact that our society is absolutely
> nuts. Bad religion, among other things.
The 'throw-away' is anthropology, not necesarily Crowley's idea. But in
Western society, art is not a 'throw-away' thing (with exceptions, of course).
Read Walter Benjamin for ideas on the 'aura' of the original work of art
(Europe).
> However, my statement about the value of the original artists'
> intentions still holds. It's the reason we like those masks. It doesn't
> change. It's an absolute. It's a lodestone we can use to judge many
> other and far remote ideas about art. The intention is there. It's very
> clear! We don't need to regard those masks the same way as the original
> audience, to appreciate their power. In a sense, it's better we don't.
> We don't need sociological explanations, to SEE the intention of the
> artist!!!
But Lake, most 'art' of foreign cultures is rejected by westerners, for one
reason or another. What we know of as "African" "Oceanic" "Mesoamerican" etc.
art is that which has been selected as 'art' by historians and anthropologists
etc. So there's a bit of a projection going on -- i.e. those forms which don't
fit the investigators concept of 'art' are never mentioned. What's afoot here
is the grandaddy of logical errors of judgement - the 'like begets like
inference.'
> When you say that ancient Africans may not have seen those masks as
> beautiful at all, but rather as frightening or hideous, you are merely
> playing with words. The point is, that those masks have ALWAYS been
> seen as SACRED, and POWERFUL, no matter whether their specific
> attributes were benign or malignant.
But that's just it. Many are not thought of as sacred or powerful in their
original context. No more so that you might think you're blue suede shoes are
sacred and powerful as you dress for the disco. The 'profundity' of all this
has entered the discourse via the imagination of the ethnologists who have
interpreted African cultures for us, because it is something that Westerners
are interested in.
>
> You say that aesthetics can't cross hermeneutic borders without
> completely distorting meaning - and I say, hogwash! I say, aesthetics
> exists always and only ON hermeneutic borders, and that by doing so
> successfully, it CREATES meaning. So there.
Well, while you're uttering 'hogwash' how about some factual material to back
up your disclaimer. To help you prepare, here's a very nice essay on
hermeneutics I found on the web (I'll copy the abstract here):
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Cult/CultSamp.htm
The Hermeneutic Conception of Culture
Rui Sampaio
University of Azores
sam...@alf.uac.pt
ABSTRACT: Heidegger, the founder of the hermeneutic paradigm, rejected the
traditional account of
cultural activity as a search for universally valid foundations for human
action and knowledge. His main
work, Sein und Zeit (1927), develops a holistic epistemology according to which
all meaning is
context-dependent and permanently anticipated from a particular horizon,
perspective or background of
intelligibility. The result is a powerful critique directed against the ideal
of objectivity. Gadamer shares with
Heidegger the hermeneutic reflections developed in Sein und Zeit and the
critique of objectivity,
describing the cultural activity as an endless process of "fusions of
horizons." On the one hand, this is an
echo of the Heideggerian holism, namely, of the thesis that all meaning depends
on a particular
interpretative context. On the other hand, however, this concept is an attempt
to cope with the relativity of
human existence and to avoid the dangers of a radical relativism. In fact,
through an endless, free and
unpredictable process of fusions of horizons, our personal horizon is gradually
expanded and deprived of
its distorting prejudices in such a way that the educative process (Bildung)
consists in this multiplication
of hermeneutic experiences. Gadamer succeeds therefore in presenting a
non-foundationalist and
non-teleological theory of culture.
You can also search under "ethnocriticism' which is the fledgling study of many
of these issues raised by philosophy.
lake
to study & digest it before I reply. You've stopped me dead in my
tracks, but not for long.
lake
language of that article. The basic point seems to be "all meaning is
context-related and therefor unstable". In other words, that there is
no absolute meaning for anything, that meaning is relative to culture.
I agree, up to a point. But Heidegger's "merging of horizons" is the
key to this whole concept, and that's exactly what I'm talking about.
Where horizons merge, where one set of meanings begins to blur into the
unknown, is precisely the place where great art occurs.
"Our access to reality is always mediated by a linguistic and
conceptual grid". Mediated, yes - determined, no. Some people ( the
less artistic) are more mediated than others.
When I called painting a "sacred ritual", it was, yes perhaps an
overstatement, by most people's experience. It was more of a personal
opinion, than a fact. However, the Zen master calligraphers would agree
with me. And painting might be "a pretty simple thing", but brilliant
people have devoted lifetimes to it.
Ethnologists have no monopoly to define profundity. My blue suede shoes
(I like it Erik, it's almost as good as grapecity) might very well be
sacred and powerful, in a given socio-historical context. Just like
Stag-o-Lee's John B. Stetson hat. You give too much credit to
ethnologists.
Now by "intention" I do not mean something which is explicitly unknown.
I mean something which is IMPLICITLY unknown. Intention is the precise
intersection of action and desire. It is a very physical thing. Since
the actor can hardly be aware of ALL the empirical factors involved in
any given gesture, nor of ALL the psycho-personal ones, his intention
must remain to a large extent, mysterious - even to himself.
Sorry about saying "hogwash". I got carried away.
Erik A. Mattila
lake wrote:
> It took me less time than I anticipated to penetrate the obtuse
> language of that article. The basic point seems to be "all meaning is
> context-related and therefor unstable". In other words, that there is
> no absolute meaning for anything, that meaning is relative to culture.
>
> I agree, up to a point. But Heidegger's "merging of horizons" is the
> key to this whole concept, and that's exactly what I'm talking about.
> Where horizons merge, where one set of meanings begins to blur into the
> unknown, is precisely the place where great art occurs.
Arnold Krupat, in his book "Ethnocriticism" describes the place of cultural
exchanges as a 'frontier zone' which resembles "merging of horizons' in many
ways. But it's important to acknowledge that the material that is made
comprehensibe to members of either culture engaged in the exchange is no longer
in it's original form.
You know, one way to think about this is by considering Pop Art. I wouldn't go
so far as to say that Pop Art pushed conceptual material across cultural
borders, but it certainly pushed conceptual material across some important
internal borders of Western Industrialized cultures. So consider what happened
to the 'meaning' of a soup can, car crash photo, or {vinyl) hot dog when they
left their original context and ended up in an art museum.
> "Our access to reality is always mediated by a linguistic and
> conceptual grid". Mediated, yes - determined, no. Some people ( the
> less artistic) are more mediated than others.
This is where Cassirer's "symbolic forms" apply -- there can be 'conceptual
grids' other than language. But 'mediated' implys that something stand stands
between two things, so there is certainly a degree of determining involved.
Going back to the Pop Art metaphor, commercialism mediates between the viewer
in the soup can in the supermarket, while the gallery mediates between the
viewer and the soup can in the art gallery. Of course the original soup can
and the art soup can share an affinity, but the differences in the mediator
creates an entirely different meaning structure.
>
> When I called painting a "sacred ritual", it was, yes perhaps an
> overstatement, by most people's experience. It was more of a personal
> opinion, than a fact. However, the Zen master calligraphers would agree
> with me. And painting might be "a pretty simple thing", but brilliant
> people have devoted lifetimes to it.
Walter Benjamin also called painting (art) sacred with a ritual value, when
describing art as it was (is?) without the impact of mass reproduction. I knew
a Zen Master myself (Gia Fu Feng) who told me that a daily bowel movement is a
daily ritual. I'm not trying to be a smart aleck, mind you. One 'ritual' I've
practiced over the years is 'cleaning the studio' especically when everything I
made seemed dull and redundant. It was a refreshing practice -- renewal. But
the point here is that it's probably very important for us to 'sacralize' the
things that are important to us in our personal lives.
On the other hand, I see sacralizing anything as a form of authorship. I think
I would argue against the idea that something is 'sacred' on it's own, i.e.
without being treated as sacred by a human agent.
> Ethnologists have no monopoly to define profundity. My blue suede shoes
> (I like it Erik, it's almost as good as grapecity) might very well be
> sacred and powerful, in a given socio-historical context. Just like
> Stag-o-Lee's John B. Stetson hat. You give too much credit to
> ethnologists.
Hey, one of my favorite all-time songs. But yes, I can see Blue Suede Shoes as
holy relics. But think of what fun ethnologists would have with the thought.
> Now by "intention" I do not mean something which is explicitly unknown.
> I mean something which is IMPLICITLY unknown. Intention is the precise
> intersection of action and desire. It is a very physical thing. Since
> the actor can hardly be aware of ALL the empirical factors involved in
> any given gesture, nor of ALL the psycho-personal ones, his intention
> must remain to a large extent, mysterious - even to himself.
Well, yeah, but...I had a friend once who used to say all the time "if it was
meant to happen, it will happen." Of course everything that happened was
therefore 'meant to happen.' So I argued with him that if he had made a
different decision about something a whole new chain of events would transpire,
that were also 'meant to happen' yet hadn't happened.
> Sorry about saying "hogwash". I got carried away.
It's a good term. I've read it frequently in theory and criticism, as a matter
of fact.
lake
to some extent determines. But not to forget, the forms THEMSELVES are
expressions of intention. Nothing is ever in its original form,
everything changes.
Referring to your example of Pop Art, the soup-can never had any
artistic intention to begin with - nor did the car-crash photo, the
Marilyn images, etc. They had meaning, yes........in the sense that
they were elementary signs, like a stop-sign, or a skull&crossbones
poison sign - but they were signs that were utterly devoid of artistic
intention. True,they were highly refined, from a technological
standpoint - but they had no humanistic or spiritual significance at
all. When the Pop Artists put them in a fine-art context, various
meanings emerged. But only because of the artists' intention.
I agree, that for something to be sacred, it needs to have the human
participation. This is at the core of Buddhism. Even so. certain things
are sacred, almost universally. Birth is one, death is another.
Painting....well....not quite, but almost. Eating and crapping I do not
think are quite on the same level - but then again, I do not practice
Zen.
Pop Art showed how our environment is conditioned by, and in fact
largely composed of signs. Implicitly, they posed the question: is
there anything to our environment BUT signs? I'm back to Heidegger here.
A different meaning structure for Campbells, yes. But what about
intention? Perhaps a different meaning BECAUSE a different intention?
Erik A. Mattila
lake wrote:
> Cassirer's "symbolic forms" do indeed apply - anything that mediates,
> to some extent determines. But not to forget, the forms THEMSELVES are
> expressions of intention. Nothing is ever in its original form,
> everything changes.
Our world is about to be severely rocked, Lake. I just read an article the
other night about some scientists accelerating particles 600 times the speed of
light. They are about to publish in "Nature" and it will set off a great
controversy, of course. For one thing, it shatteres Einstein's Relativity.
According to Relativity, two things can't exist it two places at once, but this
new experiment did just that, the same light at the source and at the target
existed simultaneously. It boggles the mind.
> Referring to your example of Pop Art, the soup-can never had any
> artistic intention to begin with - nor did the car-crash photo, the
> Marilyn images, etc. They had meaning, yes........in the sense that
> they were elementary signs, like a stop-sign, or a skull&crossbones
> poison sign - but they were signs that were utterly devoid of artistic
> intention. True,they were highly refined, from a technological
> standpoint - but they had no humanistic or spiritual significance at
> all. When the Pop Artists put them in a fine-art context, various
> meanings emerged. But only because of the artists' intention.
I agree wholeheatedly. Take the 'artistic intention' as the new 'meaning' and
you can see how everything changes. This is what Guy DeBord called
'detournement.' But I don't know if they gained any spiritual significance
when appearing in a gallery. I think there was a lot of social significance
(especially in examining what the 'art world' was).
> I agree, that for something to be sacred, it needs to have the human
> participation. This is at the core of Buddhism. Even so. certain things
> are sacred, almost universally. Birth is one, death is another.
> Painting....well....not quite, but almost. Eating and crapping I do not
> think are quite on the same level - but then again, I do not practice
> Zen.
Well, look at all the Fakirs on the banks of the Ganges in Benares who drag
rags through their nostrils and throats in their daily cleaning yoga.
Seriously, 'care of the self' becomes a very important part of the spiritual
practice, often to the point (from the perspectives of others) of a strange
obsession. I read once that an Alchemical exercise for the neophyte was to
spend weeks grinding two compounds and then heating them in a crucible.
Nothing would happen, but you would have to repeat this, sometimes for years,
until something did happen. Just think what was happening to the mind during
the course of the long, drawn out monotonmy.
> Pop Art showed how our environment is conditioned by, and in fact
> largely composed of signs. Implicitly, they posed the question: is
> there anything to our environment BUT signs? I'm back to Heidegger here.
A good place to be. I think you've put your finger on the significance of Pop
Art, at any rate. I think it was a very important event in art history,
personally, not that it ever had any lasting power. (what does, these days?)
It's almost horrible to do the counting -- I mean start adding up the
statistics on how much time each citizen today spends in front of visual
representations -- tv, magazines, films, even 'art.' We see more of a world
that has been modulated by human hands today than we see of nature. There has
to be something significant about that.
> A different meaning structure for Campbells, yes. But what about
> intention? Perhaps a different meaning BECAUSE a different intention?
Well, I've had trouble agreeing with your notion of intention, but I can agree
with it as you've used it in this post.