Technical
Technology
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
TECHNICAL-TECHNIQUE-TECHNOLOGY
TECHNIQUE
TECHNICAL
Buckminster Fuller, 4D Tower: Time Interval 1 Meter, 1928
TECHNOLOGY/TECHNIQUE
TECHNICAL
Buckminster Fuller, 4D Tower: Time Interval 1 Meter, 1928
TECHNOLOGY/TECHNIQUE
songs that don't need theory or criticism
Ideally, it is possible to elude the interpreters in another way, by making works of art whose surface is so unified and clean, whose momentum is so rapid, whose address is so direct that the work can be...just what it is
I know that we have focused on theory/philosophy/criticism's relation to fine art. But when i think of erotics, essences, the ineffable, and things being "what it is" I can't help thinking about records and pop music.
I went to the record store a few weeks ago and found a bunch of records that did not belong in the 50 cent bin. I made out like a bandit and the first chance I got I played them for some friends. Each song was prefaced by information, did you know this track was sampled by so and so, there's a rarer version with a misprinted label, no, yes blah blah blah. Or pointing out unusual or special parts: that beginning is hot, hear that bass boom boom de boom. Then I put on a song that definitely belonged in that bin, a ubiquitous classic. However when played all commentary stopped, there was no all-knowing-secret-info preface (interpretation) and no need to point out sections (formal). But I really love this song and if you asked me why? Her sweet but kind of husky voice? the lalalalalala? the repetitive phone number, namby-pamby, (not so) mystical, mumbo jumbo. no questions remain because it feels right and you just have to hear it!
I know that we have focused on theory/philosophy/criticism's relation to fine art. But when i think of erotics, essences, the ineffable, and things being "what it is" I can't help thinking about records and pop music.
I went to the record store a few weeks ago and found a bunch of records that did not belong in the 50 cent bin. I made out like a bandit and the first chance I got I played them for some friends. Each song was prefaced by information, did you know this track was sampled by so and so, there's a rarer version with a misprinted label, no, yes blah blah blah. Or pointing out unusual or special parts: that beginning is hot, hear that bass boom boom de boom. Then I put on a song that definitely belonged in that bin, a ubiquitous classic. However when played all commentary stopped, there was no all-knowing-secret-info preface (interpretation) and no need to point out sections (formal). But I really love this song and if you asked me why? Her sweet but kind of husky voice? the lalalalalala? the repetitive phone number, namby-pamby, (not so) mystical, mumbo jumbo. no questions remain because it feels right and you just have to hear it!
ok, i promise I won't post anything else after this (i've posted a lot tonight, though mostly in the form of comments on other peoples' posts).
Since I've been trying to catch up by reading the merleau-ponty, a number of things have come to mind. I'm only a few pages in, but I can't help being incredibly excited because of what strikes me as a kind of wondrous optimism. At the same time, I'm skeptical because I've had a number of experiences in my life that, upon reflection, seemed to fall apart. A particular poem by Robert Hass comes to mind:
All the new thinking is about loss.
In this it resembles all the old thinking.
The idea, for example, that each particular erases
the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown-
faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk
of that black birch is, by his presence,
some tragic falling off from a first world
of undivided light. Or the other notion that,
because there is in this world no one thing
to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds,
a word is elegy to what it signifies.
We talked about it late last night and in the voice
of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone
almost querulous. After a while I understood that,
talking this way, everything dissolves: justice,
pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman
I made love to and I remembered how, holding
her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,
I felt a violent wonder at her presence
like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river
with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,
muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish
called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.
Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances. I must have been the same to her.
But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread,
the thing her father said that hurt her, what
she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinous
as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.
Perhaps it partially comes to mind because of the posting of Lacan further down, but for some reason I feel that somewhere in the Merlau-Ponty essay, or in some corner of this neat thing called phenomenology, there might be something redemptive toward experience, something that was lost with analysis.
Since I've been trying to catch up by reading the merleau-ponty, a number of things have come to mind. I'm only a few pages in, but I can't help being incredibly excited because of what strikes me as a kind of wondrous optimism. At the same time, I'm skeptical because I've had a number of experiences in my life that, upon reflection, seemed to fall apart. A particular poem by Robert Hass comes to mind:
All the new thinking is about loss.
In this it resembles all the old thinking.
The idea, for example, that each particular erases
the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown-
faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk
of that black birch is, by his presence,
some tragic falling off from a first world
of undivided light. Or the other notion that,
because there is in this world no one thing
to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds,
a word is elegy to what it signifies.
We talked about it late last night and in the voice
of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone
almost querulous. After a while I understood that,
talking this way, everything dissolves: justice,
pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman
I made love to and I remembered how, holding
her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,
I felt a violent wonder at her presence
like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river
with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,
muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish
called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.
Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances. I must have been the same to her.
But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread,
the thing her father said that hurt her, what
she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinous
as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.
Perhaps it partially comes to mind because of the posting of Lacan further down, but for some reason I feel that somewhere in the Merlau-Ponty essay, or in some corner of this neat thing called phenomenology, there might be something redemptive toward experience, something that was lost with analysis.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
A response and a question.
More than anything, I'm wishing that I more deeply understood the Kant reading from last week, because in each of the readings this week, I feel as if I'm attempting to grasp something that's just beyond my reach, or that I'm attempting to recognize a face I've seen before but can't quite actualize. Looking back at my notes from last week, there are a few ideas that come into a soft focus in light of the Sontag and Cavell readings.
Particularly the difference between the judgments that Kant calls "good"; those that are based on reason; those that are objective and the judgments that Kant calls "beautiful"; those that are considered subjective; those that are considered aesthetic.
Of course, now class is about to start.......I'll get back to this.
Particularly the difference between the judgments that Kant calls "good"; those that are based on reason; those that are objective and the judgments that Kant calls "beautiful"; those that are considered subjective; those that are considered aesthetic.
Of course, now class is about to start.......I'll get back to this.
Maria Jonsson- the mystical
Found this and took an excerpt when I looked up the hermeneutics of suspicion
The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: A Case
Study from Hinduism
Arvind Sharma
McGill University
HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Consciousness, which was once considered to be perceptually transparent in a Cartesian manner and linguistically transparent in a Wittgensteinian way, is now considered to consist primarily of the relationship between the hidden and the shown, between what is concealed and what is revealed.2 Consciousness therefore needs decoding, and so also the texts which embody it. This understanding of consciousness is the fundamental assumption underlying the “hermeneutics of suspicion” as it was espoused by Paul Ricœur, who referred repeatedly to the three “masters of suspicion”: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud.3 While these three might
appear “seemingly mutually exclusive,”4 for all three “the fundamental category of consciousness is the relation of hidden-shown or, if you prefer simulated-manifested.”5 The basic hermeneutical implication of their thought points in the same direction—a text may not be taken at its face value, indeed the face of a text may be no more than a mask which conceals underlying socio-economic, political, and psychological realities in such a way as to obscure them, or render them more palatable, if not more acceptable.
A hermeneutics of suspicion may be said to occupy a mediate horizon as distinguished from the immediate and the ultimate, where the immediate involves only a literal reading of the text and the ultimate a deeper meaning intended by the author. While the “hermeneutics of suspicion” also seeks to determine a non-evident meaning, such a hermeneutics focuses on a meaning which is different from the author’s intention, whether evident or hidden.
To me, it seems unnecessary to assume that the hermeneutics of suspicion always discloses that which is negative behind a text. It will be my contention that if the rigorous scrutiny of the hermeneutics of suspicion can reveal the negative implications and realities which lie behind a text that on the surface appears to be positive, then it is equally possible that such hermeneutics may also disclose the positive implications which might lie behind a text that on the surface
appears to be negative.
I would like to know what art Cavell wrote about as potentially fraudulent. What music? Does he say?
The risk of art is is very prevalent, and I think of critics, collectors, gallerists and everyone who profits from others art making are afraid of the artist potentially being fraudulent, and as powerful players they are in the game of making the fraud work or not, they can also be fooled and made to look stupid if the artist isn't the "real thing". But this is different perhaps of the possibly fraudulent experience of the artwork itself.
The fraudulence, of not knowing if one has interpreted it right, is one of the great things with art, like solving a mystery. I like the Susan Sontag text a lot and what she writes about French poetry, how silence in poetry reinstated the magic of the word and escaped the rough grip of interpretation. You are told sometimes in advise to your practice to be clear about content, your opinion, and some don't want to hear the word ambivalence, but if the meaning is not entirely clear, is something else spelled out?
Gaugain said: Paint what you see
The inauguration poet Elizabeth Alexander has a poem with the name of (and now I can't find it) an african poet who said: write about what you don't understand, or: write about what you want to understand.
I think about art that is provocative, that can stem from frustration over some situation, from others or ones own prejudices. That art want to create a reaction from it's viewer, can seem offensive and prejudiced at first but can hide a "positive" reason for doing the work, or problematizing the ambivalence to once own feelings toward something that can seem sexist, racist, homofobic.
Something that can be an interesting complex problem can be shunted or told inappropriate in an academic setting, the artist can be swayed away from this kind of work as with this kind of work he/she ethically is on the line too. Susan Sontag writes "Art is useful after all, Aristotle counters, medicinally useful in that it arouses and purges dangeous emotions."
In the Mca parking lot there's an Oscar Wilde quote that say if artists saw the world the way it really was they wouldn't be artists.
Once on the way to go running in the park i saw something white in the bushes. It was a sperm, a white plastic sperm the size of my palm, very graphic, very cute, with a smiley face and white liquid inside. I hid it and I later came back to collect it. On my walk back home a female orgasm echoed between the walls of the buildings lining the street and I thought this is just too good, and here I am with the sperm in my bag.
I was amazed by this little ting, What is it, I wondered.
I like that state of wonderment, of What does this mean?
Then later my friend told me to open it up, something I hadn't thought of, and I screwed it's head off and inside was some milky alcohol, for some hen night, I felt cheated. Opening did that.The spell of fascination for the objects mysterious qualities was broken.
I think about consciousness-true,false, authentic- paranoia- Merleau-Ponty says paranoia is bad, but is it? Or is it the need to solve it that is bad? It's as if expecting crime is on default, as a reaction to an inherent impulse to commit crime. Is suspicion bad? Would we like to leave the mystery unresolved when we (I) feel ( In crime fiction) find the resolve is the inevitable and most boring part?
The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: A Case
Study from Hinduism
Arvind Sharma
McGill University
HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Consciousness, which was once considered to be perceptually transparent in a Cartesian manner and linguistically transparent in a Wittgensteinian way, is now considered to consist primarily of the relationship between the hidden and the shown, between what is concealed and what is revealed.2 Consciousness therefore needs decoding, and so also the texts which embody it. This understanding of consciousness is the fundamental assumption underlying the “hermeneutics of suspicion” as it was espoused by Paul Ricœur, who referred repeatedly to the three “masters of suspicion”: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud.3 While these three might
appear “seemingly mutually exclusive,”4 for all three “the fundamental category of consciousness is the relation of hidden-shown or, if you prefer simulated-manifested.”5 The basic hermeneutical implication of their thought points in the same direction—a text may not be taken at its face value, indeed the face of a text may be no more than a mask which conceals underlying socio-economic, political, and psychological realities in such a way as to obscure them, or render them more palatable, if not more acceptable.
A hermeneutics of suspicion may be said to occupy a mediate horizon as distinguished from the immediate and the ultimate, where the immediate involves only a literal reading of the text and the ultimate a deeper meaning intended by the author. While the “hermeneutics of suspicion” also seeks to determine a non-evident meaning, such a hermeneutics focuses on a meaning which is different from the author’s intention, whether evident or hidden.
To me, it seems unnecessary to assume that the hermeneutics of suspicion always discloses that which is negative behind a text. It will be my contention that if the rigorous scrutiny of the hermeneutics of suspicion can reveal the negative implications and realities which lie behind a text that on the surface appears to be positive, then it is equally possible that such hermeneutics may also disclose the positive implications which might lie behind a text that on the surface
appears to be negative.
I would like to know what art Cavell wrote about as potentially fraudulent. What music? Does he say?
The risk of art is is very prevalent, and I think of critics, collectors, gallerists and everyone who profits from others art making are afraid of the artist potentially being fraudulent, and as powerful players they are in the game of making the fraud work or not, they can also be fooled and made to look stupid if the artist isn't the "real thing". But this is different perhaps of the possibly fraudulent experience of the artwork itself.
The fraudulence, of not knowing if one has interpreted it right, is one of the great things with art, like solving a mystery. I like the Susan Sontag text a lot and what she writes about French poetry, how silence in poetry reinstated the magic of the word and escaped the rough grip of interpretation. You are told sometimes in advise to your practice to be clear about content, your opinion, and some don't want to hear the word ambivalence, but if the meaning is not entirely clear, is something else spelled out?
Gaugain said: Paint what you see
The inauguration poet Elizabeth Alexander has a poem with the name of (and now I can't find it) an african poet who said: write about what you don't understand, or: write about what you want to understand.
I think about art that is provocative, that can stem from frustration over some situation, from others or ones own prejudices. That art want to create a reaction from it's viewer, can seem offensive and prejudiced at first but can hide a "positive" reason for doing the work, or problematizing the ambivalence to once own feelings toward something that can seem sexist, racist, homofobic.
Something that can be an interesting complex problem can be shunted or told inappropriate in an academic setting, the artist can be swayed away from this kind of work as with this kind of work he/she ethically is on the line too. Susan Sontag writes "Art is useful after all, Aristotle counters, medicinally useful in that it arouses and purges dangeous emotions."
In the Mca parking lot there's an Oscar Wilde quote that say if artists saw the world the way it really was they wouldn't be artists.
Once on the way to go running in the park i saw something white in the bushes. It was a sperm, a white plastic sperm the size of my palm, very graphic, very cute, with a smiley face and white liquid inside. I hid it and I later came back to collect it. On my walk back home a female orgasm echoed between the walls of the buildings lining the street and I thought this is just too good, and here I am with the sperm in my bag.
I was amazed by this little ting, What is it, I wondered.
I like that state of wonderment, of What does this mean?
Then later my friend told me to open it up, something I hadn't thought of, and I screwed it's head off and inside was some milky alcohol, for some hen night, I felt cheated. Opening did that.The spell of fascination for the objects mysterious qualities was broken.
I think about consciousness-true,false, authentic- paranoia- Merleau-Ponty says paranoia is bad, but is it? Or is it the need to solve it that is bad? It's as if expecting crime is on default, as a reaction to an inherent impulse to commit crime. Is suspicion bad? Would we like to leave the mystery unresolved when we (I) feel ( In crime fiction) find the resolve is the inevitable and most boring part?
Thoughts about Cavell's text
"Ordinary language philosophy is about whatever ordinary language is about." To me, this Clavell's sentence describes pretty well the concept of Ordinary language philosophy, which I (obviously) found extremely closer than last week's Kant reading. Although I found Kant's text to be extremely complete (no doubt about it), it seemed to be quite distance from the real world, specially in the theoretical "extreme" exactness of his language, which is one of the main Cavell's critiques.
Cavell analysis of Kant's ideas were pretty revealing to me, like his examination of the "Universal agreement" and its two kinds of aesthetic judgements. When he is adapting Kant's Canary wine example he exemplifies how aesthetic judgments can be arguable and shows why these judgments are powerful connectors/isolators of people within their communities.
Afterwards, comes the huge question thrown by Cavell about what should be considered as art. Instead of waiting "what time will say" in this respect, he states that "the dangers of fraudulence, and of trust, are essential to the experience of art". If I understood well (which I am not pretty sure), he is talking about the risks involved in the role and experience of the audience. As viewers we can only argue about an artwork's aesthetic quality or meaning (but not be certainly sure or prove anything logically). Being the audience implies then the inevitable risk of not been "right" (taking right as what an informed viewer would judge, which would include us in his/her community. But, then we should define what an informed viewer is...). So, talking about something intrinsically subjective, what I wonder is if it still makes sense to question or talk about the fraudulence of an artwork, or indeed what is considered to be art, as I think it highly depends on the connections created between artwork and viewer (which will not probably be universally arguable due to its subjectivity), and more importantly as it is an ever changing concept with more and more blurred boundaries. I found in this regard (I mean, interpretation, which is one of the reflections a viewer makes when experiencing an artwork) a very clear analysis in Sontag's text.
Julio
Cavell analysis of Kant's ideas were pretty revealing to me, like his examination of the "Universal agreement" and its two kinds of aesthetic judgements. When he is adapting Kant's Canary wine example he exemplifies how aesthetic judgments can be arguable and shows why these judgments are powerful connectors/isolators of people within their communities.
Afterwards, comes the huge question thrown by Cavell about what should be considered as art. Instead of waiting "what time will say" in this respect, he states that "the dangers of fraudulence, and of trust, are essential to the experience of art". If I understood well (which I am not pretty sure), he is talking about the risks involved in the role and experience of the audience. As viewers we can only argue about an artwork's aesthetic quality or meaning (but not be certainly sure or prove anything logically). Being the audience implies then the inevitable risk of not been "right" (taking right as what an informed viewer would judge, which would include us in his/her community. But, then we should define what an informed viewer is...). So, talking about something intrinsically subjective, what I wonder is if it still makes sense to question or talk about the fraudulence of an artwork, or indeed what is considered to be art, as I think it highly depends on the connections created between artwork and viewer (which will not probably be universally arguable due to its subjectivity), and more importantly as it is an ever changing concept with more and more blurred boundaries. I found in this regard (I mean, interpretation, which is one of the reflections a viewer makes when experiencing an artwork) a very clear analysis in Sontag's text.
Julio
Against Interpretation
Susan Sontag's text made me think in Lacan's concept of the real.
THE REAL (Lacan): The state of nature from which we have been forever severed by our entrance into language. Only as neo-natal children were we close to this state of nature, a state in which there is nothing but need. A baby needs and seeks to satisfy those needs with no sense for any separation between itself and the external world or the world of others. For this reason, Lacan sometimes represents this state of nature as a time of fullness or completeness that is subsequently lost through the entrance into language. The primordial animal need for copulation (for example, when animals are in heat) similarly corresponds to this state of nature. There is a need followed by a search for satisfaction. As far as humans are concerned, however, "the real is impossible," as Lacan was fond of saying. It is impossible in so far as we cannot express it in language because the very entrance into language marks our irrevocable separation from the real. Still, the real continues to exert its influence throughout our adult lives since it is the rock against which all our fantasies and linguistic structures ultimately fail. The real for example continues to erupt whenever we are made to acknowledge the materiality of our existence, an acknowledgement that is usually perceived as traumatic (since it threatens our very "reality"), although it also drives Lacan's sense of jouissance.
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/definitions/real.html
When Sontag writes: "In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art".
And also: "In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art"
In one pole we are pure sensory experience in the other an hypertrophy of the intellect, pure explanation, interpretation, dead words. But being pure sensory experience means to be unable to use language, unable to name things, which is extremely painful.
When she talks about Transparence, about "...experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of the being what we are" I wonder how close we need to be to Lacan's real, if are what we are, and we are pure desire, pure animal without langauge.
THE REAL (Lacan): The state of nature from which we have been forever severed by our entrance into language. Only as neo-natal children were we close to this state of nature, a state in which there is nothing but need. A baby needs and seeks to satisfy those needs with no sense for any separation between itself and the external world or the world of others. For this reason, Lacan sometimes represents this state of nature as a time of fullness or completeness that is subsequently lost through the entrance into language. The primordial animal need for copulation (for example, when animals are in heat) similarly corresponds to this state of nature. There is a need followed by a search for satisfaction. As far as humans are concerned, however, "the real is impossible," as Lacan was fond of saying. It is impossible in so far as we cannot express it in language because the very entrance into language marks our irrevocable separation from the real. Still, the real continues to exert its influence throughout our adult lives since it is the rock against which all our fantasies and linguistic structures ultimately fail. The real for example continues to erupt whenever we are made to acknowledge the materiality of our existence, an acknowledgement that is usually perceived as traumatic (since it threatens our very "reality"), although it also drives Lacan's sense of jouissance.
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/definitions/real.html
When Sontag writes: "In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art".
And also: "In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art"
In one pole we are pure sensory experience in the other an hypertrophy of the intellect, pure explanation, interpretation, dead words. But being pure sensory experience means to be unable to use language, unable to name things, which is extremely painful.
When she talks about Transparence, about "...experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of the being what we are" I wonder how close we need to be to Lacan's real, if are what we are, and we are pure desire, pure animal without langauge.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Critique of Critique—if I understood anything.
Over all I would have to say that I was most interested in the Eve K. Sedgwick and the Susan Sontag essays. Sedgwick’s essay was a bit difficult for me to grasp at times, for my background is so limited when it comes to the literary references. Through searches I somewhat understand the notion of “Hermeneutics of Suspicion”, but fear I’m missing the meaning completely. In the next class would love to discuss the issues that surround the meaning and look at The Three that define the term in this essay. I feel this term of hermeneutics may also be a useful term to define when looking to future readings.
In addition this week’s readings reminded of the first time I read Heart of Darkness and my intuitive reaction to the book at the tender age of 19. I was horrified (no not a pun) by the writing and could not replace the idea that Conrad may have mistreated the situation. Of course I was fought to the death about my interpretation based upon my inability to separate the work form the artist. Was I wrong to interpret it this way, I still question? Not sure if I remember the argument or the text so well at this point, but non-the less these readings reminded me of the event.
PS Maria Jonsson just texted me and ask for forgiveness in posting in the morning. Her Internet is down at home and said she will share her thoughts first thing tomorrow.
Over all I would have to say that I was most interested in the Eve K. Sedgwick and the Susan Sontag essays. Sedgwick’s essay was a bit difficult for me to grasp at times, for my background is so limited when it comes to the literary references. Through searches I somewhat understand the notion of “Hermeneutics of Suspicion”, but fear I’m missing the meaning completely. In the next class would love to discuss the issues that surround the meaning and look at The Three that define the term in this essay. I feel this term of hermeneutics may also be a useful term to define when looking to future readings.
In addition this week’s readings reminded of the first time I read Heart of Darkness and my intuitive reaction to the book at the tender age of 19. I was horrified (no not a pun) by the writing and could not replace the idea that Conrad may have mistreated the situation. Of course I was fought to the death about my interpretation based upon my inability to separate the work form the artist. Was I wrong to interpret it this way, I still question? Not sure if I remember the argument or the text so well at this point, but non-the less these readings reminded me of the event.
PS Maria Jonsson just texted me and ask for forgiveness in posting in the morning. Her Internet is down at home and said she will share her thoughts first thing tomorrow.
On Wittgenstein and Fraudulence
First off, I would like to share with you guys a link to a film about Wittgenstein directed by Derek Jarman. It was recommended to me by a professor in the GD department and I think it could be a helpful/fun watch. You can watch the entire thing here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2608378371506756422
I also have some quick commentaries regarding the issue of fraudulence in the Cavell reading, which I see some people have already brought up in previous posts.
To me, it seems that in his discussion of fraudulence Cavell falls into the same 'linguistic' trap that he (and Wittgenstein) identify as the source of otherwise insignificant philosophical problems. In other words, Cavell's rather obscure distinction between genuine and fraudulent 'art' resorts to the same kind of out-of-context use of essentialized and absolute language that he wishes philosophy would purge itself of.
-We impose a demand for absoluteness upon a concept, and then, finding that our ordinary use of this concept does not meet our demand, we accommodate the discrepancy as nearly as possible (77)
In reading through the entirety of his argument(s) I feel that his weakest claim is that the potential fraudulence of a work of art is essential to the aesthetic experience it represents. Although perhaps I am misunderstanding his argument, is seems like he is saying that distrust in the object of art is an essential part of aesthetic experience, which is not exactly the same as Kant's claim that aesthetic judgement is made with objective conviction because it is made at the risk of potential isolation.
If the question of whether or not atonal compositions are music is rendered irrelevant through the simple act of immersing oneself "within the experience of such compositions" (84) then so can the question of an art object's authenticity through a viewer's aesthetic experience of it.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2608378371506756422
I also have some quick commentaries regarding the issue of fraudulence in the Cavell reading, which I see some people have already brought up in previous posts.
To me, it seems that in his discussion of fraudulence Cavell falls into the same 'linguistic' trap that he (and Wittgenstein) identify as the source of otherwise insignificant philosophical problems. In other words, Cavell's rather obscure distinction between genuine and fraudulent 'art' resorts to the same kind of out-of-context use of essentialized and absolute language that he wishes philosophy would purge itself of.
-We impose a demand for absoluteness upon a concept, and then, finding that our ordinary use of this concept does not meet our demand, we accommodate the discrepancy as nearly as possible (77)
In reading through the entirety of his argument(s) I feel that his weakest claim is that the potential fraudulence of a work of art is essential to the aesthetic experience it represents. Although perhaps I am misunderstanding his argument, is seems like he is saying that distrust in the object of art is an essential part of aesthetic experience, which is not exactly the same as Kant's claim that aesthetic judgement is made with objective conviction because it is made at the risk of potential isolation.
If the question of whether or not atonal compositions are music is rendered irrelevant through the simple act of immersing oneself "within the experience of such compositions" (84) then so can the question of an art object's authenticity through a viewer's aesthetic experience of it.
Notes and thoughts about Cavell’s “Music Discomposed” and Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations II”
Notes and thoughts about Cavell’s “Music Discomposed” and Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations II”
Music doesn’t have the same critical feed back
The main criticism of music is with its newness. If newness is the measure of quality then has anyone created a definition of what makes something new?
Cavell States about the history of music, that it contains no criticism of music but instead it only makes notes on the details of notations, instruments, and processes.
Formulas for successful or even unsuccessful music are immeasurable. If that is the case then is criticism even possible. The thing that makes a song “bad” is the same thing that makes another song “good”.
He speaks of fraudulence within music as a disease. But my generation is a generation of appropriation. Everything is a remix.
I feel that when Cavell wrote this article that the notion of the remix (for many critics of music) would be considered fraudulent. He states that in art, fraudulence is not as easy to detect as forgery or counterfeiting. He states that there is no one feature, or definite set of features that can be describe.
Now musical taste within popular music seems to change so much faster than in previous years. Things that we where listening to two years ago seems old and outdated.
The trends of today’s artists are to make music that crosses genre. (Snoop Dogg records a country album or Little Wayne records a rock album). If the genres of music are mixing more frequently as more music is being produced then what is the bases of criticisms.
I like Orson’s example of classical music for a couple of reasons.
The first being that it makes me think of Mozart. Mozart’s music was considered edgy and sometime offensive in his time. Time has proven him a genius. Will time do the same thing for current popular music.
The other reason I like Orson’s example of classical music is the word “classical” itself. Where as it used to be considered “popular music” at some point it was named “classical”. This relates back to the Wittgenstein article and the idea of Ordinary Language.
Why is it classical? When did it become classical? So instead of classical should it mean European Art Music from 1730 A.D. to 1830 A.D.
(SIDE BAR BEGIN)
So I of coarse went to Wikipedia for answers.
The term 'classical music' did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to 'canonize' the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Beethoven as a golden age.[8] The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836.
(SIDE BAR END)
The idea is of ordinary language really is really messing with me. As I begin to better understand its meaning. I can’t help to think that I am not being clear in what I am saying and writing. Even looking back at what I have written in this blog I question the amount of metaphors used and wonder if I am using them because I am having difficulty finding the words to explain my thoughts.
My wife has been very helpful in process of understanding this term. She says that we argue about Ordinary Language all the time. That she will ask me a question and I will give her a short answer thinking that it should explain everything. But she places just as much value on the words that aren’t said and my body language as she does on my verbal response.
My understanding is that people tend to create layers in what we say by using metaphors and examples which are suppose to explain things indirectly. The problem with this is that many times speaking and writing in this more complex way can leave openings for different interpretations of what is being communicated.
My wife and I spoke about the bible as an example of a text that is filled with metaphors and hypothetical situations that are meant to invoke and teach religious lessons, but sometimes is received as literal example of an occurrence. Their have been many divisions of religious sects and wars based on the interpretations of holy scriptures.
My thoughts may be completely wrong or backwards. I am open to any suggestions that are contrary.
Music doesn’t have the same critical feed back
The main criticism of music is with its newness. If newness is the measure of quality then has anyone created a definition of what makes something new?
Cavell States about the history of music, that it contains no criticism of music but instead it only makes notes on the details of notations, instruments, and processes.
Formulas for successful or even unsuccessful music are immeasurable. If that is the case then is criticism even possible. The thing that makes a song “bad” is the same thing that makes another song “good”.
He speaks of fraudulence within music as a disease. But my generation is a generation of appropriation. Everything is a remix.
I feel that when Cavell wrote this article that the notion of the remix (for many critics of music) would be considered fraudulent. He states that in art, fraudulence is not as easy to detect as forgery or counterfeiting. He states that there is no one feature, or definite set of features that can be describe.
Now musical taste within popular music seems to change so much faster than in previous years. Things that we where listening to two years ago seems old and outdated.
The trends of today’s artists are to make music that crosses genre. (Snoop Dogg records a country album or Little Wayne records a rock album). If the genres of music are mixing more frequently as more music is being produced then what is the bases of criticisms.
I like Orson’s example of classical music for a couple of reasons.
The first being that it makes me think of Mozart. Mozart’s music was considered edgy and sometime offensive in his time. Time has proven him a genius. Will time do the same thing for current popular music.
The other reason I like Orson’s example of classical music is the word “classical” itself. Where as it used to be considered “popular music” at some point it was named “classical”. This relates back to the Wittgenstein article and the idea of Ordinary Language.
Why is it classical? When did it become classical? So instead of classical should it mean European Art Music from 1730 A.D. to 1830 A.D.
(SIDE BAR BEGIN)
So I of coarse went to Wikipedia for answers.
The term 'classical music' did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to 'canonize' the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Beethoven as a golden age.[8] The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836.
(SIDE BAR END)
The idea is of ordinary language really is really messing with me. As I begin to better understand its meaning. I can’t help to think that I am not being clear in what I am saying and writing. Even looking back at what I have written in this blog I question the amount of metaphors used and wonder if I am using them because I am having difficulty finding the words to explain my thoughts.
My wife has been very helpful in process of understanding this term. She says that we argue about Ordinary Language all the time. That she will ask me a question and I will give her a short answer thinking that it should explain everything. But she places just as much value on the words that aren’t said and my body language as she does on my verbal response.
My understanding is that people tend to create layers in what we say by using metaphors and examples which are suppose to explain things indirectly. The problem with this is that many times speaking and writing in this more complex way can leave openings for different interpretations of what is being communicated.
My wife and I spoke about the bible as an example of a text that is filled with metaphors and hypothetical situations that are meant to invoke and teach religious lessons, but sometimes is received as literal example of an occurrence. Their have been many divisions of religious sects and wars based on the interpretations of holy scriptures.
My thoughts may be completely wrong or backwards. I am open to any suggestions that are contrary.
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