AD603 Critical Theory

I was more than a bit confused while reading Mosquera’s ‘Marco Polo’ article due to the plethora of seemingly contradictory and/or impossible scenarios he’d like to see happen in the art world.  To sum my interpretation of the writing, he’d like artists to be part of a meshed, international “community” (again, we encounter that un-definable idea) while still maintaining a personal “culture” (again…), then using the juxtaposition of these two to create art that represents neither one in pure form.  He wants individual cultures to have interactions and “vigorously adapt” to incorporate new, incoming ideas, but at the same time not using any of them in their art.  The reason for that is because it would be succumbing to emersion and the loss of a culture, but, conversely, basing all art on archaic stereotypes (for example, African art always being masks) isn’t progressive enough.  Huh?

            Mosquera goes on to state that, “The myth of universal value in art, and the establishment of a hierarchy of works based in their ‘universality’, is one of the heritages of Eurocentrism that continues to survive… (Kocur and Leung, 222)” Wait a tick. Doesn’t he establish a hierarchy when setting guidelines on what precisely is and is not quality art (as defined by its Eurocentric influences)?

            In regards to the presentation of art, Mosquera would like these pieces displayed based not on the artist’s demographic (gender, race, religion, etc.), but instead on the evaluative methods of curators, which, in turn, is supposed to be the universally inclusive and “correct” interpretation of anyone and everyone who might see the work.  But, at the same time, “…it has been demonstrated that the role of the viewer is fundamental in art and literature (Kocur and Leung, 223),” which assumes that these individuals all have their own interpretation and opinion of the work (otherwise, why else would their presence be so important?).  So, if viewers (be it a curator or a museum visitor) all of the same opinion on every piece, why have any curators or displays?

            I think I need the class discussion for a bit more clarity.

            In the meantime, here’s a site that outlines color symbolism in Chinese societies, relating to the second article by Tringh T. Minh-Ha.  Perhaps we could also discuss this, more of a point-of-interest than analysis.  I’m interested to know what classmates with experience living abroad (as in not the U.S.) might know about colors and their representations in other countries.

Hey, did you hear about that new piece in the gallery?  It’s called “White girl who’s a middle-class, straight, twenty-something with a college education and body issues?”  Check it out:        Isn’t it great?  I’ve always wanted to know what one of those would look like, and now we finally have one.  The title is extra awesome, too.  It’s so unique!  There could really only be one, too! I mean, it is the sole reflection of the artist and everything that she is.  I heard, though, that she’s also one of those rebels… you know, with, like, “opinions” on stuff?   Yeah, I know, right? Like that’s even important!  I swear, she’s lucky to even be considered for this exhibition.  I heard the only reason they picked her is because “White girl who’s a middle-class, gay, twenty-something with a college education and body issues” was stolen in shipment.  No surprise, either.  That one’s, like, a classic.

           Our art reflects who we are as individuals, not who we are as members of our ascribed and acquired roles.  No two people lead the exact same life, and as a result, all art is unavoidably diverse!  It is not able to be silent and mean nothing.

            Art should not have to represent only a part of an artist’s life. An artist could very well say, “This is the reflection of how I see myself as a female,” just as easily as saying, “This is a reaction to the palm trees currently gambling on the dark side of Mercury.”  Trying to classify art based only simplified categories of race and gender, and whatever other ones the artist falls in is just asinine.  Perhaps the art can just be… whatever.  There isn’t even a word for what it can be.  Art can just be!

All of those categories mentioned earlier are part of me, but they are not all of me.  I’d like to think I’m more a casserole than an ingredient.  Orange rather than red and yellow.  A person before a statistic.  It needs to be understood that a balance exists between genre categorization (Shawnee Indian Tribal Gear, pre-1800) and the freedom of expression for the sake of expression (Gambling Mercurial Flora).  Save the classification for tag clouds, blogs, and Wikipedia.  Leave the museum walls up for real life.

P.S. This is the first result of a Google image search of ‘Gambling Mercurial Flora.’  I found it kind of amusing.

I was surprised by this week’s readings and the unexpected similarities between Jameson’s ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’ and Adorno’s ‘Culture Industry.’ Jameson brings up topics that directly reflect the same points Adorno makes when describing what he believes to be the downfall of our creation society

As you probably remember, a major point of the culture industry, according to Adorno, is to take the same idea, put a new spin on it, and present it again as a new, innovative creation.  Rather than reject this rehash, the public seemingly clings to the familiar-ish nature of these ideas and products because of the comfort found in understanding.  ‘Postmodernism’ touches briefly on this same issue of rehashing the past: “…in a world where stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles (Foster, 132).”  This is the entire basis for “revival” movements of any creative field, be it architecture, fashion, writing, etc.  It starts with the idea of reexamining an idea from the past, changing it slightly, then redistributing into the current market.  It is even to the point that some artists can reproduce their own work and still sell it as something new (which ties nicely into Benjamin’s theories on aura and reproduction in art, but I will avoid diving into that now).  An example of this:

 Both these paintings are by Dutch artist Mondrian.  The right one, completed in 1921, is entitled, “Composition with red, yellow, blue, and black.”  The left one, completed two years later, is called, “Composition A.”  Now, we could get into a big argument about the purpose behind these two paintings because their abstract nature prevents definition, but the paintings are essentially the same colors and shapes.  Whether or not this is a negative is up to an individual – after all, someone was willing to accept these paintings as good-enough-to-be-famous in their own right.

Moving on. One big difference between the readings: whereas Adorno seems to feel The End has come to Art,  Jameson does provide a little hope to our future.  He mentions that because art is currently styled-out, so to speak, that new art is probably going to be only the essence of art.  Art in pure form.  No more messages or points or aesthetics.  Just art.

I have to wonder if that is even possible.  Perhaps art can be pure in one’s mind (we’ll assume this person is in a non-exposure bubble), but the expression of it inherently comes with some sort of statement based on the history of the medium.  Whether or not it’s painted, tiny, mobile, unique, paper, on display… all those features and all the other features… is a reflection on past pieces, on the artist, and on the ART of it.

So, keeping all this in mind, I’m going to take Erika’s opinion on this one:  why do we need to define ‘postmodernism’ at all?  Can’t it just be defined by it’s non-definable nature?  That seems, to me, the best course of action until a movement comes along that EXISTS while somehow also NOT EXISTING, a feature that would definitely set art on a new journey, separate than postmodernism.

(Note: The “defined space” term of this entry is based on the Skyline interview article.  It is distinctly different than his “utopian” and “heterotopian” theories in The Other Space.)

In his 1982 Skyline interview with Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault discusses the issues concerning defined spaces, both interior and exterior, and their connection to the users. In the most intriguing part of his theory, he describes the interdependent relationship of the intended design of a space and the social occurrences within it.  More specifically, that the plan of a space is just as dependent on the social activity taking place in it as the social activity is on the plan.  This can be related to the renovation of the Steelcase Global Headquarters, which was visited last week by some of the interior design students, including Dala, Rhonda, and me.  While we were there, we learned about the redesign of the top floor of the building, originally reserved for executive offices only, into a showroom.  When Steelcase first opened the building in 1983, the plan specifically set the exec offices high up and away from everyone – such was the “executive” lifestyle, as defined by a plan. 

The atrium view from those sixth-floor offices

As the story goes, when one exec found that scheduling a five-minute meeting took three weeks of planning, a problem was apparent – a communication jam.  That original layout/plan had forced a social hierarchy, much like what Foucault says happens in military camps.  Now the plan needed to be dependent on a new measure of social success, which would be based on human social research instead of antiquated placement ideas.

The new Steelcase layout puts the execs in much smaller, open offices, nestled in among all levels of workers.  Believe it or not, production levels, execs included, have increased, mostly because of the face-to-face connections people can make.  Five-minute meetings no require scheduling just to occur, because casual conversations keep the lines of communications open.  A new social situation (better communication) required the design to change to meet a need.  The design then required that the social situation change (not follow the old ways) to fit into the new plan.  Neither plan nor users have the upper hand.

There are situations, though, when Foucault says that there is an unequal distribution of control. When it comes to the user having power over a space, Foucault says, “The architect is not and individual of that sort [who has the power of domination].  After all, architects have no power over me.  If I want to tear down or change a house he built for me, put up patricians, add a chimney, the architect has no control. (Interview, 435).”  Foucault must also consider this, though – if the design from this architect is such that one doesn’t want to change anything about it, the architect has power over the user.  Such is the case with (what I term) “designer” architects, such as Frank Lloyd Wright.  His name is that design, and he was notorious for being uncompromising (read: stubborn) about what his vision of the space was to be.  The result?  An iconic yet unforgiving space that users must work around rather than in. 

A great example of this is West Lafayette’s very own FLW creation, the Samara House.  The quality of this floor plan picture is awful, but try to make out the bedroom areas in the top portion.  Being there in person, one realizes that no bed bigger than a twin size would fit down the corridor (with its sharp turns and low ceiling).  Want anything bigger, and you have to deal with the lump of two twin beds pushed together.  Yet, people were willing to deal with the bad to get the self-satisfaction of having an FLW. This, among other features, demonstrates that sometimes “name brand” architects do have the power to control the actions of the users.

   Lacan presents the idea that, “the relationship between the self and the other [is] fundamentally conflicted (Homer, 24),” due to the dependency of on one another to define each other.  A self-portrait, though, almost an exception to this – the artist alone gets to decide how what he interprets as his “self” and how that self will be presented.  Other than the master-slave relationship of artist-viewer, one can say that the piece is its own entity.  No, a self-portrait does not exist in the realm of the living (or so we refuse to acknowledge, according to Freud), but it can’t be dismissed as not representative of the ego’s existence in the artist, because he is obviously representing something he associates with his own being.  So, now, I’ll quickly explore two different examples of self-portraits and try to relate them to Lacan’s theory.

    Directly portraying the physical body while eluding to the mental image of oneself, we have the Triple Self-Portrait by Norman Rockwell.  This painting represents more “classic” definition of self-portrait because of its accurate, realistic portrayal of the artist.  However, Rockwell depends on literal outside (meaning not of his body) images to come together to define himself in this portrait.  He takes efforts to include the detailed self-portraits of the famous artists Van Gogh, Durer, Rembrandt, and Picasso (not a self-portrait, but a painting of a painter painting a portrait – ha!) clipped to the side of the canvas.  These portraits must be related to how Rockwell “sees” himself as an individual, because he knowingly added them as a part of his portrayal of his interpretation of his essence.  Like Lacan theorizes, Rockwell can not accurately define himself in this portrait unless the rest of the world is there to define what he is and is not in relation to the rest of the world.  As a result of this, the viewer must take what is given to Rockwell (the famous portraits) and given back out (his portrait) and then interpret the meaning.  Is Rockwell putting himself in the same category as these prolific artists, or is he mocking the self-important artist who can not pass the opportunity of painting his own glorious figure?  It is only up to the viewer to decide, which will then be thrown back to Rockwell in a never-ending struggle.

   This brings us to a more abstract version of the self-portrait, Self-Portrait by Salvador Dali. Certainly Dali didn’t physically walk around mouth-less and without three-dimensional shape, but perhaps that is the best way he can interpret his being, rather than his body.  This portrait, unlike that of Rockwell, seems to react to and transform the literal outside influences in life, rather than use them for definition.  As a result, what’s great about this abstract presentation of his “self” is that no one can tell him it is or isn’t like he shows it – he could have presented a blank canvas, a live kitten, or the sky and still be able to call it “me.”  The definition of his self is not dependent on how others define it or themselves, but only whatever Dali deems appropriate.  It is, in essence, only his essence as he experiences it.

Perhaps this is all an argument over the definition of “self-portrait” more than a case for or against the validity of Lacan’s ego theory, but still… I’d like to think the efforts of the artists are not wasted on meaningless, random brain activity but are instead significant in that they relate something about themselves and human existence.

P.S. Another reference I found could relate, albeit humorously, to the concept of the ‘mirror image’ forming in young children is the classic Dr. Seuss book Are You My Mother? (that the video’s  narrator, “Uncle Larry,” sound remarkably like comedian Steven Wright is inexplicable). This bird clearly goes through the ‘Mirror Stage’ much later than the ‘Symbolic Stage.’ Sorry, Lacan. J

Perhaps it was my multiple trips to the vet this week, but as I read our Freud selections, I kept coming back to the question of whether or not these Freudian theories apply to animals.

In the first packet reading, Peter Gay (directly translating Freud?) flatly states that applying the theory of unconscious to animals is not widely accepted (575).  I could not decipher if he meant that Freud would not accept this theory, or if the general science community would not.  In any case, I hope this isn’t a case of human beings believing all other beings to be below them – we should at least give them enough credit to have the mental capacity for both a conscious and unconscious.  As Gay goes on to explain, one can only assume, when dealing with the mental workings of our fellow men, that other humans have a consciousness, and this assumption is only possible by observing their utterances and actions (575).  This same theory seems applicable to our non-human counterparts, as the only way we have to learn about them is through observation and assumption.   In fact, a few of the “proof” examples of human conscious and unconscious given in this week’s readings can be directly applied to our observations of animals thus far.

Animals use problem-solving.  Freud for Beginners states that because humans are able to manage the urges of the Pleasure Principal (the primal, uncontrollable mind) with the Reality Principal (practical, systematic mind), we demonstrate a proof of the existence of both the unconscious and conscious sectors of our mental processes (69).  The ability to get food (primal need) by building a trap (practical thought) is cited.  That non-captive animals solve this problem every day should be evidence enough to say they, too, operate with at least the same base processes as humans.  Yes, they somehow have the “instinct” to do so, and capturing prey might be completely innate, but there are many instances where animals have adapted their techniques to fit a situation.  I cite, for example, Israeli crows using bread to fish.  It is fairly safe to say that bread is not a product of crow evolution, but rather an introduced “tool” the birds have utilized fulfill the need to feed themselves with fish.  The bird even pulls the bait bread gradually closer and closer to trick the fish into a catch-zone.  Amazing.

Animals dream.  Freud for Beginners also mentions dreams as another measure of human unconsciousness.  The packet says that “dreams represent the fulfillment of [unconscious] wishes (60).”  As mentioned earlier, primal needs (food, shelter, sexual drives, etc.) are expressed via the unconscious, and conscious actions are then taken as a result.  Essentially, dreams, if present, are essentially windows into the unconscious mind.

No doubt pet owners in our class have observed their furry, four-legged companion running, making noises, and otherwise appearing to be dreaming while sleeping.  Amusing as it seems, there is now evidence in lab rats that animals truly are dreaming, and those dreams are based on daily experiences.  It should come as no surprise, then, that most often the maze rats dreamed of getting food at the end of the race.  Fulfillment of that primal need for food is expressed through the unconscious in the form of a dream, just as Freud says happens in humans.  Granted, these rate dreams aren’t complex enough to need Freud’s interpretation methods, but these rats don’t lead very complex lives, either.  I guess it’d be about the same as testing a newborn baby’s dreams.

Animals have memory.   Okay, this is getting lengthy, so I’ll try to wrap up quickly.  In the first packet, Peter Gay states that, “…latent memories are taken into consideration, it becomes totally incomprehensible how the unconsciousness can be denied (574).”  If we did not have an unconscious, Gay suggests that all our memories would constantly be in our conscious mind, thus proving the existence of a non-conscious area.  The unconscious acts as file storage area for info until we need it.

 Well, why wouldn’t animals be able to have memories?  One touching example of an animal recalling a latent memory is in the tale of Christian the Lion, who recognized his original owners after a year of life in the wild.  Whitney Houston tear-jerkers aside, this lion obviously responded to his sensory cues, which recalled his memories and told him he loves these guys, they are safe, and, damn, wasn’t it awesome driving around hipster London in a posh Bentley?  Christian, after a year fending for himself, no longer needed to depend on his owners for food; his memory, though, was a positive association, so he also didn’t need to depend on the owners as food when encountering them after such a long absence.  His memory prevented carnage.  This isn’t to say that instinct would never take over (see: When Animals Attack 4), but it was a least a brief bit of proof of memory in an animal.

            This post isn’t meant to be scientific proof.  It was just interesting applying Freud’s theories to something other than Oedipal complexes and sexual repression.

Where do I begin with Walter Benjamin?  Rather than dissecting each individual point he makes (we only have one lifetime, after all), I’ll discuss only his “big-picture” point: namely that he does not approve “mass” art, which is vaguely described as art made to reach many people or art that is reproduced for that purpose. Unfortunately, the entire article, rather than critiquing the reproduction of art and its effect on the art world, seems to be only a critique of very specific aspects of filmmaking and why, in Benjamin’s opinion, the films should not be considered art.  An entire “tradition is being killed” message is eluded to at the beginning, but instead expounding on this, the reader is taken on a journey through the number of stills in such-and-such movie, the psychology of actors of being filmed, etc., etc.  It’s all hair splitting.  The point is - art should not considered art until it has the ‘correct’ foundation, as defined by the classical Greeks.  In other words, art has to be ‘deep,’ and meaningful, and film is too easily understood by the masses.  Which brings me to my first illustration:

The joke here is that Calvin has misspelled weltanschauung, which hints that the base of all his reasoning is incorrect. This comic, while satirical, is a good illustration on the reasons why having such a narrow definition of art and its purpose is more detrimental than helpful to art’s cause.  For Benjamin, art is not only the message being conveyed – it is intimately connected to the technique through which that message is released.  As a result of this, one has to consider the consequences for defining art so strictly as only able to be traditional.  Limiting art outlets also sets a limit the number of ‘messages’ it’s able to communicate, thus the number of people it can reach.  Art and its meaning will fail to represent the society around it (a factor Benjamin holds in high esteem) if it forced to subside in only ‘traditional’ forms, not changing with the current society.  Why limit art to those individuals who understand or appreciate or value only the traditional techniques?

In Benjamin’s time, film was the up-and-coming form of entertainment.  Entertainment - not art.  Instead of looking at this a possible venue for art expression, he discredits the entire outlet only because its methods don’t directly reflect an ancient people’s technology.  Benjamin himself makes a fascinating observation on technological progress early in his essay (“Just as illustrated newspaper virtually lay hidden within lithography, so the sound film was latent in photography (21),”) but then considers progress developed through old techniques a threat to art.  Benjamin does not see the potential, only the “machine”. So, is progress a threat to art, or a threat to Benjamin’s personal understanding of his world?  We can only speculate.

Art is significant.  I agree with Benjamin on that.  Art must not become an everyday, common aspect of our lives to the point that it is no longer regarded as noteworthy.   But, at the same time, art must be as progressive as the people making it.  If it isn’t, art will become the “cult figure”, not the other way around.

During class discussion this week, a comment was made that critical theorists portrayal of society makes it seem mechanical, heartless and passionless.  This then lead to the issue of where artists “fit” in the grand scheme of things - are they proletarian workers, forced to produce for little pay in a system outside their control, or are they bourgeois, managing their own fate by doing what they like and (trying to) work for solely for themselves? 

This week’s readings painted a much clearer picture, if you will, of art and its role in society according to one critical theorist, Theodor Adorno.  Without going into too much summary (as I’m sure you read it), Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory presents the argument that art is not (or, at least should not be used as) simply aesthetic ornamentation, a political statement, or a past time.  It is the link between humans and their world, as told by the seemingly fated gathering of worldly materials and subject matter to define spiritual meaning that would normally be lost to our limited abilities to see it.  Art IS our world, but we typically don’t see anything beyond ourselves.  In fact, these “windowless monads” subsist only to, “[represent] something which is other than they (Adorno, 233).”

How refreshing it is know that we artists/creators, in all fields, can be part of more than a societal machine, toiling away for naught!  Adorno’s portrayal of art gives a soul to our work and purpose to our collective existence, a factor that was completely lacking in the critical theorists’ works of last week.  In essence, the universe is using artist as a medium to create another medium (art) to be used as a translator of the cryptic messages intended for our own use.  How utterly existential.

Which bring us to a major point Adorno makes in the other reading selection, Cultural Industry Reconsidered: can art and creation truly be defined as such if they aren’t complete?  According to Adorno, our current “culture industry, most commonly coined as “mass media”, intentionally ignores the full message art exists to tell us.  Deeper, hidden meanings beyond the superficial level of the painting/symphony/film are lost on an audience who is merely an “appendage of the machinery (Adorno, 12),” that is an industry existing only to keep itself in power.  (Again, we encounter the critical theorists’ unavoidable power struggle.)  The majority of the viewers are only seeing what is “there,” which defeats the universal purpose of creation (vs. the possible individualist purpose of “just” entertainment).  Simply put, the spirituality of art is being abused, and Adorno is acting as its voice.

As we are taught in our studios, focusing on the negative, “absent” aspects of a creation is just as important as acknowledging the positive, “present.”  Adorno makes the point that the entire story isn’t told unless both opposing sides are present, so to speak.  So, yes, art is not, to quote myself, aesthetic ornamentation, a political statement, or a past time, but in reality it is all of those.  Art has to be exactly what it “is” and also what it “is not” in order to be complete.  Its opposite puts the message in perspective.  Can a masterful creation be what it is without the existence of what it is not?  Can art be art if there isn’t non-art?  I think not. 

As a result, based on this theory, the “fluff” entertainment art has to exist, as much as Adorno would like for it not to, in order for the “quality” art to have a purpose.  Teddy, your existentialism is showing.

And, just for “fun,” but also “not fun,” I guess, is an illustration of the cirucular reasoning that seems to be a common theme in critical theory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNTxr2NJHa0

In HIST105 a few years ago, I was assigned to compare and contrast the Declaration of Independence and the Communist Manifesto, no specific aspect of either in particular focus.  It was an interesting exercise, but a major weakness of it was the lack of background information - everything was discussed superficially, without any clear context as to why the documents were written as they are.  It also failed to include a look at the results of each document and the determination of whether each successfully met its own goals.  The selected readings for this class, however, helped to fill that void by providing a thorough explanation of the historical and motivational contexts of the Manifesto and the flaws that hindered subsequent socialist movements. My goal for this blog entry is to briefly analyze why the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution were more successful than the Communist Manifesto and its resulting socialist movements in Europe during the early 20^th century.

At face value, the Declaration of Independence and the Communist Manifesto share a surprising number of similarities.  Both documents present a “David vs. Goliath,” plight of victims under the tyranny of a much larger system - the English monarchy and capitalism, respectively.  Even the situations that produced the dissatisfactions have essentially the same set-up - the persecutor maintains control of the suffering underdog from afar by enforcing policies that keep the rulers in power.  The English monarchy kept a physical separation while issuing laws, while the bourgeoisie used social classes to separate themselves from the working proletariat.  A list of grievances as a result of these conditions is then outlined, and the solution to these problems is outlined within the body of the text. This shared solution – revolution – is the greatest general commonality between the documents.

So, why was the resulting American Revolution more successful (in terms of goal-reaching) than the Marxist revolutions in Europe?  The reasons seem to be vast, some of which are based in methodology, and others that are uncontrollable and incidental.  To start, the circumstances of the American Revolution were better suited for success.  There were only two “sides” involved in the conflict, and both knew the entire history of the situation.  In addition, at that time in history, technology could not support rapid communication; change and revolution were slow processes, which gave each side sufficient time for prediction and planning.  Finally, despite the slow advancement of change, the colonists were willing to take immediate action against their adversaries.  It was essentially a matter of revolution or death.

On the reverse side of success, the socialist movement struggled with many circumstances outside its realm of control.  Multiple countries, all within nearby proximity and all with various histories and philosophies, were involved in the movement, making unification cumbersome and difficult.  Also, due to that close proximity, the effects of other revolutionary movements were able to weaken the socialist movement with distraction of its supporters – the general population.  There were, in essence, multiple “teams” playing different games in the same arena.  To further their struggles, the communists were also relying heavily on one fact – Marx predicted, in his five systems outline, that socialism was inevitable, no matter what, leading many to believe that no immediate cause needed to be filled.

This seeming unwillingness to take the leap of faith into action was ultimately the most detrimental part of the socialist movement.  David Held, in his Introduction to Critical Theory, points out that, “The purpose of theory…is to analyze and expose the hiatus between the actual and the possible, between the existing order of contradictions and a potential future state.”  That space between reality and prediction is where the early Marxist movements were failing.  While the colonists made the decision to act, the Marxists instead were divided among themselves over the importance of action verses fate.

I’ve attached a couple images to this post.  One is a view of the original Declaration of Independece.  The other is a page of Marx’s hand-written notes while writing his Manifesto.