I don't investigate aesthetics in doing my art. I act on impulse and delusional confidence. I am so given up to trusting the impulse that I attribute it to God. I just follow orders. Seriously. That's why I say that making a painting is just presenting evidence of belief. When I interfere with the impulse, when I think about rightness or wrongness or rules or aesthetic judgment, I screw things up, I lose the naturalness of form. Like many other artists, I have an untroubled ability to compose shapes and colors to evoke multiple and personal associations in myself and others by means of striking visuality. In that respect it is like composing symphonic music or some other art that requires multiple intersecting, organic, interdependent elements. My work also presents metaphors of art itself, in as-if conditions.
My interest in aesthetics is another thing altogether. Thinking about aesthetics exercises my intellectual curiosities. It gives me an opportunity to practice writing. It leads me back to books I've read and refreshes my memory. It engages me in normal and challenging communication. And it gives me the dark and playful delight of sometimes skewering my list-mates or the frightful awareness of being wrong. Really, I don't think many serious and delusional artists are involved in how aesthetics and its art market twin, affect their work. If they are, they're technicians or overwrought conceptualists who try to stay one step behind the curators and theorists. The rest of us just take orders -- as impulse -- from the only Ineffable, that which is beyond belief and therefore true. We make art, the scanty evidence of human belief. WC --- On Fri, 12/19/08, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: > From: [email protected] <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: Neurology and "Art" > To: [email protected] > Date: Friday, December 19, 2008, 11:52 AM > William writes: > > "I'll say that neuroscience is the most promising > route of inquiry for new > perspectives on aesthetic judgment. Tell me again why this > is such a dangerous > and censored idea. Is it the Bible? Some religious > dogma?" > > William, none of us is saying the idea of neurology's > contributing something > of utility or enlightenment about the creation or > appreciation of "art" is a > "dangerous" idea, or that it ought to be > "censored". We've said we've seen no > hint of any such contribution having occurred, or, indeed, > any "evidence" that > it's about to occur. > > You've been asked several times to tell us something of > aesthetic use you > have garnered from neurologists, but you have not done so. > Instead you refer us > to the likes of Semir Zeki, as though the evidence is there > if only we would > look. > > Zeki does indeed describe his specialty as "art > and the brain" and "the neural basis of > creativity and the aesthetic > appreciation of art". But here below is Zeki's own > list of his major contributions in > his specialty. (I hope you agree with Michael Brady that > mapping where neural > activity occurs may be interesting but it illuminates > nothing about aesthetic > matters -- and nothing about how consciousness "arises > from" such activity.) > > For me, the most potentially interesting of Zeki's > entries is the last one, > "Studying the neural correlates of subjective mental > states, such as love and > beauty, and more recently, hate." One can only await > the results of such > studying, along with a description of what sort of > "correlates" he has in mind. > > Again, William, people like me don't think Zeki's > studies are "dangerous". I > am happy to see him and other neurologists do such work if > they like. I'll be > even happier if I see something valuable for us coming out > of it. You champion > the search for "evidence" of our beliefs, and I > agree with you. You project a > fervent belief that neurology will tell us valuable things > about the > connection between neural tissue and art. I don't > believe anyone reasonable would call > me religiously dogmatic for asking you what your evidence > for that belief is. > > > Zeki's own list: > > * Discovery of the many visual areas of the brain and their > functional > specialisation for different visual attributes such as > colour and motion. > * finding neurons in a part of the monkey visual > system that would > respond only when a particular colour, rather than a > particular wavelength, was in > their receptive fields. For example, he showed that a > red-sensitive neuron > would continue to respond to a red stimulus, even when it > was illuminated mainly > by green light. This was the first study relating colour > perception to single > cell physiology in the brain. > * Showing that processing sites in the visual brain > are also perceptual > sites. > * Showing that we see different attributes of visual > input at different > times. > * Charting the activity of the brain in time and > showing that different > visual areas have different activity time courses. > * Studying the neural correlates of subjective mental > states, such as > love and beauty, and more recently, hate. > > > > ************** > One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, > Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. > (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp& > icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025)
