Sundog Rising!
Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog
You See Art Too
Last week, we took a look at the oftentimes disturbing world of Marcel Duchamp. However, I managed to work out that he was intentionally trying to disturb us, and our way of looking at the world. So that’s all right, then.
Isn’t it?
To review, using an example directly lifted from Douglas Hofstadter’s book Gödel, Escher, Bach, I suggested people approach visual art using this fundamental three level process:
Level One: People see only the physical object presented. In this case, hyphens and letters.
- - ex - - eq - - - -
- - ex - - eq - - -
Level Two: They draw upon past experience and memory to create an isomorphic interpretation of what they’re seeing.
2 X 2 = 4
2 X 2 = 3
Level Three: They draw value judgements concerning the original presentations based upon their isomorphic interpretations.
2 X 2 = 4; that’s right!
2 X 2 = 3; that’s wrong!
However, there’s no reason to limit the experience of either creating the art to be evaluated or evaluating the art created to only these three basic levels. When people start adding their assumptions concerning the nature of aesthetics to the isomorphic and value judgement levels, any number of extra levels of interpretation may come into play. A subject to be explored more fully next week.
What I want to talk about this week is the artist who intentionally adds a Fourth Level to the experience while creating his work. A Level meant to interfere with or short circuit the usual, accepted process. Such as Marcel Duchamp presenting an art show with a men’s urinal and declaring it art, merely by introducing the object into the art appreciation process by where he has physically placed it — in the gallery, not the men’s room.
I asked a question regarding these controversial pieces: how can you tell if the artist has managed to achieve taking the process one level higher, or has merely failed to communicate any message at all?
And I suggested the answer was, you know it’s art because the artist tells you it’s art. Such as Marcel’s urinal still being art because it’s found in the Tate Gallery in London.
So the question this week logically becomes, what the hell kind of an answer is that?!
The issue arises from the paradox central to viewing an art object meant to interfere with the normal process of viewing an art object. Specifically, the point in the three level function I illustrated above being rendered ineffectual is Level Two: drawing an isomorphic meaning from the physical representation that allows the viewer to assign similarities in form and relations to ideas already in mind.
The process in Marcel’s case introduces the concept of who could possibly think a urinal is art? The isomorphic interpretation that comes to the viewer’s mind is not that usually associated with trying to assign aesthetic quality to an object. Of course a urinal’s not art, the guy didn’t even design or make it himself, it has a completely different vulgar function we don’t even like to think about let alone associate with art, and all the so-called “artist” did to make it art was crowbar it out of the men’s room and stick it out in front of everybody’s faces in the middle of the gallery, where it’s not supposed to be!
How then, does Marcel’s urinal finally end up with the label not only of “art”, but as “one of the most important pieces of art produced in the entire 20th Century”?
Because Marcel didn’t relocate it to just another men’s room, where it wouldn’t have stood out as isomorphically incorrect. Instead he introduced various copies to art galleries and museums the world over! No one can argue that by doing that, he hasn’t successfully circumvented the first three steps of the process as I’ve defined it. However, since the whole idea was to short circuit the process that recognizes an object as art, something other than the viewer supplying his or her own isomorphic interpretation of the object creating an aesthetic sense of the installation needs to be provided before the viewer knows that what they are seeing is art, if the work is successful and not just a plumbing accident.
You can see why this aggravates the hell out of so many people.
In short, in so much of modern art, the isomorphic connection for the viewer to recognize the work as art has to be made by the art purveyor. Because, theoretically, if the artist has done his or her job properly, the viewer should not be able to make the connection on his or her own. Until he or she is sufficiently educated about modern art, of course. Then the viewer can confidently enter the gallery again and go “I don’t get that, and I don’t get that, and I certainly don’t get that. Therefore, those must be good.”
Let’s face it. When the artist moves to the supposed Fourth Level I have proposed, short circuiting the earlier steps of the process, meaning is no longer included as part of the gallery admission fee. Has the artist successfully achieved the Fourth Level? Or has the artist failed to successfully achieve anything? There’s no meaning in either case, so the result is the same either way. Therefore to requalify as art, a Fifth Level has to be added, circumventing the process yet again. Meaning has to be reintroduced by the “educated” gallery owners and experts. Art becomes art not because you recognize some inherent quality within it as art. Art become art because you are told it is art. One of the ways you are told that it is art is to see it displayed in an art gallery.
The isomorphic aspect of much of today’s art is rendered utterly absent or completely subjective to the artist. For you to understand a work as art, you have to be told what to look for, rather than making the connections on your own. The expression of the art as art therefore happens elsewhere than in the art object itself. With luck, you might be able to apply what you are told sometimes enough to recognize something in the work. Or maybe all you see is that yes indeed, the artist failed to communicate any message at all. I wonder if he did it on purpose?
The creators still create, but it has fallen more and more upon the gallery personnel and the experts to define anything as art. Therefore establishing them as a central — possibly the central agent — in the creation of the art experience for any given object’s viewers. So following on Marcel’s lead, you have creators, and then you have art purveyors, and they are not necessarily the same people. People who are making what they intentionally do not want us to recognize as art, associated with people who have to reestablish it as art for us in some sense so we’ll give it the time of day at all.
Thus the fundamental process expands to:
Level One: physical art object
Level Two: viewer attempting to assign an isomorphic interpretation to the object to establish aesthetic quality
Level Three: viewer’s value judgement on whether the object is successful or not
Level Four: creator intentionally trying to produce an object that the viewer cannot relate to isomorphically, interfering with Levels Two and Three
Level Five: purveyors, either artists or associated art industry personnel, reestablishing a status as art for works created on Level Four, so somebody can still make some cash in the escalating confusion.
But of course, it’s not that simple. As I said, back on Level Two, when the viewer is trying to establish for him or herself the aesthetic value of the object in question, any number of other intermediary Levels can come into play. Meaning some people will recognize certain somethings as art more readily than others.
Ultimately, the whole process may still come down strictly to a matter of Taste.
A subject definitely worth a detailed discussion of its own. Next week.
*******
REALITY FICTION UPDATE!
And what is Reality Fiction, you may well ask?
Simple. The concept of the Reality Television Series translated to the printed page. 40 characters from my backlog of generally unpublished material are gathered together to compete in a different theme each Episode, with one or two characters being eliminated each sequence until there are only two left to fight it out in the final. The winner gets a short novel of their own as the grand prize.
But somehow, things always seem to go horribly wrong ...
What’s happening now?
Beginning this week! The he-man action adventure doesn’t let up, as original John H. Baillie character John T. Longhorn leads us into darkest Africa for the Jungle Adventure Episode. And no more mixing up Edgar Rice with William Burroughs costume-wise, this time.
Continuing Friday at: http://realficone.blogspot.ca/
REALITY FICTION TOO! EPISODES TO DATE
EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR: PULP FICTION
“The Red Moon of Pango Pango”
EPISODE TWENTY-THREE: STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The Imp of the Reverse
EPISODE TWENTY-TWO: FAIRY TALE
Princess NoName
EPISODE TWENTY-ONE: THE WEDDING
Dearly, Beloved
EPISODE TWENTY: EXISTENTIALISM
Face the Hangman
EPISODE NINETEEN: ABDUCTION
Abduction/Apperception
EPISODE EIGHTEEN: MELODRAMA
“Terror in Tarnation! A Thrilling Narrative in Three Acts”
EPISODE SEVENTEEN: POETRY
“landescapes”
EPISODE SIXTEEN: SILLY EUROPEAN SPY SPOOF (DUBBED)
“Diet Ray of the Stars!”
EPISODE FIFTEEN: EROTIC SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE
“The Shadow of Her Passion”
EPISODE FOURTEEN: FLYING:
“Sky Calling”
EPISODE THIRTEEN: SLAPSTICK:
“The Phantom of the Werewolf”
EPISODE TWELVE: DAIRY FARMING:
“Early One Morning”
EPISODE ELEVEN: BURROUGHS:
“Chapter Nine”
EPISODE TEN: WEREWOLVES:
“The Silver Solution”
EPISODE NINE: WRESTLING:
“Suckerslam XIV”
EPISODE EIGHT: JANE AUSTEN ROMANCE:
“The Proud and the Senseless”
EPISODE SEVEN: THE JAZZ AGE:
“The Bucky-Dusky-Ruby Red Hop!”
EPISODE SIX: SUBMISSION:
“Re-Org”
EPISODE FIVE: MASQUERADE:
“The Eyes Behind the Mask”
EPISODE FOUR: SELF HELP:
“Sausage Stew for the Slightly Overweight Presents:
Some Several Suggestions Guaranteeing Success for the Mildly Neurotic”
EPISODE THREE: NUDIST:
“If You Have To Ask ...”
EPISODE TWO: FRENCH BEDROOM FARCE:
“Un Nuit a Fifi’s!”
EPISODE ONE: STEAMPUNK:
“The Chase of the Purple Squid!”
A J.H.B. Original!
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