I was going to start this post off by saying the new theory is more complicated than that but in itself it's probably not - as David Gilbert would say the meaning around it is contingent but I think I do need to slightly change the wording and say- for future referencing in the polytechnic publications that my new theory of art is.
"The current purpose of art is to become a part of life and the current purpose of life is to become part of art."
It's a bit short and obvious but sort of works for me as a good starting point. I have put the part in as we were talking about spaces between and "the Hinterland of Knowing" and things been "becomings" "in process" and dialectics.
So the new definition only works if we accept a few things the first thing to accept is that
1. Art became Post Historical in 1969 when man first stepped on the moon and modernism ended. The first step on the moon and infact the whole luner program was the ultimate "Art act" the mission to touch the sublime, the most pointles act of situationist interventions in the solar system.
2. The appropriation of the "Social space" is essentially Duchampian and performative. All this work fails to accept it's resolution or "Becoming" as it's acceptance as part of the world. Like Atkins with low carb diets Heidegger got it right with Dazien.
3. The author died in 1968 Barth got in there one year early as he was one of the best minds of his generation.
4. We are now entering a phase of late,late,late, capitalism. Life is in a state of change and flux the old models of ontology no longer work - both art and life need to find a more purposeful way forward. This could be the start of the polytechnic Manifesto.
Purposeful Art/artful Purpose.
How we learned to stop worrying and love art (Again).
5. Every society in the world has discovered alcohol and developed an end of the world scenerio is it naive to assume that there is some connection or feedback loop.
Needs some work maybe I need to start to live more artfully.
Just passing comment.
ReplyDelete"The current purpose of art is to become a part of life and the current purpose of life is to become part of art."
I like that. Taking a swing with my Zizek glove however I'd say ideology, what was that? ideology. I'd assume that you haven't gone beyond the ideological but are expressing yourself through ideology. Just as you will make the same assumption about me. Still, we can have a conversation the situation being analogous to the arrow never arriving (it must get half way before the whole way ad infinitum). Somehow we go on.
The two statements about life becoming art and art becoming life are circling around something, literally. They allow us to formulate without literal formulation an idea that is contained in what isn't actually said. It is not that they imply anything but that they describe a space between them that is the contour of an idea. It is a bit like in a Scooby Doo cartoon when the ghost (presumably immaterial) has a sheet thrown over it and suddenly has real form (and turns out to be the janitor).
So such a statement suggests and maintains the idea that there is something intangible that can be expressed by skirting around it so to speak (something more than the janitor).
I'll refer to the old story of the elephant in the dark, I cite from the wiki:
“In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement. The stories differ primarily in how the elephant's body parts are described, how violent the conflict becomes and how (or if) the conflict among the men and their perspectives is resolved.”
The point is that they cluster around something and believe they can describe it either alone (in the dark) or together. Alone they are wrong. If they are together they produce a chimera, an amalgamation of all animals, they produce a myth.
So, the meaning of your statement is of the order of myth.
The news this week reported on a painting of Jacob Zuma in a gallery in South Africa. Controversial due to the President's penis being depicted, the painting was vandalised, that is the penis painted over with black paint. This was witnessed by someone who I heard report something like:
“I saw the men come in a start painting but I thought this was part of the installation, when they painted over his head in black paint I realised something was up.”
This is art becoming part of life as you say Steve and life becoming art. I guess what is needed is something that matters, someone who cares.
Tim
I like the elephant story. Here is my story about ethnography. A turtle was swimming with some fishes. He decided to go on dry land. When he got back, the fishes said, is it we 'No' said the turtle. 'Does it have seaweed/" asked the fishes? 'No' said the turtle. 'Can you swim in it?"no said the turtle. 'Then it must be nothing very much' said the fishes. 'That's as maybe' said the turtle. What this story means is that if we do not recognise something as literacy or narrative or art, it just stays there. Hymes said that one sometimes saw something being shaped, by degrees, from a piece of life into a narrative, a tale told by others. This is the beginning of art and what I am watching in Rawmarsh as part of language as talisman. This process is invisible unless watched closely. The process of creating art out of life can likewise be rendered invisible unless you care.
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