In an earlier post on Facture I proposed (in words I can't exactly recall) that art the result of the relationship between the mind and an object (which is shaped partly by its setting) perceived as if from a separate mind inquiring that relationship aesthetically. When you do something and in the process of doing it you also inquire into it, that's what I mean by an as-if separate mind. So, bottom line, I think I lean toward the art as experience idea, or art as a aesthetically reflected upon experiencing. That's also what I mean by "make-believe" we imagine ourselves observing what we are experiencing. If we construct that "make-believe" in accordance with some generalized, ambiguous notion of the "aesthetic" (which may include all sorts of fragmented ideas, rules, preferences, tastes, remembered slogans) then we can say it's an art experience. I suppose a lot depends on how willing we are, too, to revise or firm up those ambiguous fragments.
So for my way of looking at this, not at all original, there's two Michaels, at least. One of them is observing an object and shaping it imaginatively through the relation of himself and the object; another is the second Michael who stands aside, a make-believe Michael who observes the first Michael's experience as if through a stained glass window (aesthetic "colors") that glow upon the experience of the first Michael and urge the second Michael to share this aesthetic coloration with the first Michael who then says, aha, art! Got it? wc ________________________________ From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, October 1, 2009 9:23:02 AM Subject: Re: Facture On Oct 1, 2009, at 9:57 AM, Boris Shoshensky wrote: > "art does not reside in material or its process." > > Then it resides in what? This is exactly the same quarrel I have with Cheerskep about where "meaning" resides--but I use the word "inhere." Does "meaning" inhere in the forms of the artifacts, such as words, pictures, constructions, etc.? Does "art" inhere in the materials and processes? Or only in the minds of the people who read or hear or see the artifacts? I believe strongly that there is something that persists without change (or with very little change, and change that can be remediated, such as missing parts of a broken statue) in the actual, objective, physical artifact that is essential to the way the meaning is formed in the viewer's mind. *Essential* to the meaning in the viewer's mind. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [email protected] http://considerthepreposition.blogspot.com/ http://thinkinglikeadesigner.blogspot.com/ Subscribe: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected]
