>I have no idea why one would want to force a viewer to experience a work in only one particular way. That sounds awful.
Aren't paintings and sculptures meant to be seen from certain views and certain distances and even certain lighting ? Not that you'll go jail for looking at them wrong -- but why try it ? Which leads to your main point --that Ranciere is concerned with an image as someone presents it rather than with how someone receives it. Now he's making a lot more sense to me. But he's still in trouble if he's going to base his notion on the distinction between art and non art -- or, at least as much trouble as we've had here over the last 8 years discussing such a difference. And BTW -- I don't think that all philosophy is a fool's errand -- I suspect that the Hindu and Buddhist discussion of image can be very effective for the kind of human development that concerns them. A nice discussion of this dogma can be found in the novels of Mishima. (and what a great image maker he was!) (and this is where Kirby should enter the discussion - regarding the images of Christ -- but alas -- he's been condemned to outer Van Daemon's Land) Ranciere doesn't take 'image' to be limited to visual phenomena, Chris. You also find images in literature (and presumably in music), and his early examples come from film. If you want a famous one from philosophy, I can provide it on request. But this aside, one of the points Ranciere does make is that images are 'limited' in something like the sense you describe - save that the restrictions apply to the creation of images, not how they are 'received' by viewers. I just didn't get that far with my commentary/interpretation (I had planned to move through the first 10 pages, but only got through about 3, for lack of time, and the dreadful realization that offering a reading of the 10 pages would mean writing a mammoth text, which no one would take on). IN any event, I have no idea why one would want to force a viewer to experience a work in only one particular way. That sounds awful. And come to think of it, Chris, why do you always think that intellectual pursuits are 'fool's errands'? First it was the impossibility of interpretation, now it's the impossibility of a 'philosophy of the image.' What next? this attitude seems rather philistine to me. why is it impossible? Why is explaining -- offering reasons that cohere together and justify one's assertion -- an impossiblitity? why can't one explain why they think Cabanel isn't art? again, I think that you're conflating justification and truth, fact and argument. It's time to stop doing that. It's time to argue. It's time to cease pointing at things and saying 'there, see, I'm right' And let's face it, we live in institutions. so of course they're going to play a roll in any explanation of cultural production. They just can't be the *whole truth* fo the matter. For that would be a black-box/humunculus theory, which ultimately doesn't explain anything. Details are important. So let's start with those. _____________________________________________________________ Click here to become a professional counselor in less time than you think. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2211/fc/Ioyw6ijnep3qdwzksCj6HXTaFaFiTu JCFf2gwMO7a18zlq4EPPBtTO/
