None of what you say goes beyond anecdotal talk. I want to know what really distinguishes experience from expression, if anything. This needs to be thought through. If experience relies on expression, then is expression active or passive? If active then it has an experiential source; that is, it is formulated and conveyed in some fashion. But if passive, how can it be formulated? I suppose you could say it's formulated by proxy, by means of signs and cues of social norms, through the fashioning of an artist, speaker, author or anyone else. But that is a hopeful proxy, fraught with likely error on the part of the one making the proxy and more error on the part of the one who imaginatively reconstructs it and then experiences the reconstructed "expression" as if it were located in the proxy. When you speak of something being well made but not moving you, how do we know that you really know it's well made and how do we know you are not projecting an iconoclastic ego as if to say, "it's well made but not well enough for me (and my higher standards)"?
I think the artwork, as a work of art but not an actual example of art (an important distinction) is a proxy or proposition that invites the viewer to "frame" it with a contextualizing idea or set of standards or point of view ranging from the art historical to the "unart" values of propaganda, commerce, you name it. The framing of the work establishes the nature of its form and content. When we experience artworks we are invited to pretend that we adopt the framing seemingly proposed and then relish the surprising new awareness we have. We have suspended our disbelief that our experiences can be enlarged by means of the artwork. Even when you say the artwork is no good, you have enjoyed the affirmation that your experience is not enlarged by it, which, perversely, enlarges it. Incidentally, I am wondering about perversion as a foundational tactic of postmodernist art. It purports to be art while aggravating against itself as art. Again, perversely, by this means the cliche is demonstrated: The way to make an artwork is to make something that's not art. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sat, March 20, 2010 8:32:43 PM Subject: Re: Phenomenology of Signs William wrote: > And how does a work "express" except by what is experienced? How can we say that what is expressed is at all different from what is experienced? I've had the reaction many time. I see a painting or a typeface design, a piece of music or an article of clothing and think that it is well and stylishly made, but it doesn't move me, it doesn't spark a great deal of affective interest in it. You can know what is good and what you like, and they don't have to be the same, or conversely, you can dislike something you know is good. I've had the experience of losing interest in a painting, just running out of steam, although in many ways it's good and well made. Sometimes (not often) this happens after I finish one. Initially, I liked it but within a short span of time it lost its ability to elicit anything more than courtesy from me. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
