Cheerskep; Where have you been? I'm in the midst of being over my head in linguistics, I'm working through Roy Harris in particular. His theory of integrationist linguistics would, I think, be very much to your liking. I'm currently wading through his Signs, Language and Communication (Rutledge, 1996) having already read a few of his other books. A courageous layman can get a lot form Harris and one of his main interests is to stretch linguistics beyond the narrow boundaries it has drawn. What he seems to be getting at -- in this book -- is that communication depends on the interpreter and not on the intention of the "speaker". You present a sign and I interpret it with or without matching your intention. Of course he's far more subtle than that and actually divides the communication act into parts corresponding with ways to distinguish between the personal and the public. For Harris it's all about context and thus while everything and anything can be a sign, it only functions as such in a given context that may or may not be intended. For me integrationist linguistics is very much like art where the artwork or object as a sign has no foolproof way of eliciting the response "intended" by the artist. that's because, again, the interpretation of the sign is created by the perceiver. That allows for a near infinity of interpretations. I like to think of those interpretations as metaphorical because they elicit "as-if" narratives or situations. Harris denies that words have meaning, that intended meaning can be "communicated" from one to another. In communicating we create a context by means of signs but the signs themselves are "meaningless". For decades I've been saying my artworks are meaningless (or I try to make them so) and that although my intentions as an artist may be necessary to me, as motivation, etc., but they are not sufficient to conveying meaning to a viewer and in fact it's pointless for the perceiver to try to trace out my intentions. I have found a fellow traveller in Harris. As a linguist, I'm wondering what you say about Harris. You once said he was wrong. But Harris would yelp hurrah! if he heard you say Guernica has no meaning. wc
----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, September 30, 2010 5:47:23 PM Subject: Re: challenge William -- Your posting of 9/25/10 has, in my judgment, an immense amount of valuable thinking about "meaning, content, referents, reference, correspondence, expression" and more. Brave piece, good piece. The trouble you may find is that many people will say the likes of, "What the hell is he on about? What's he saying? 'Guernica' has no meaning? He's gone crackpot!" It's almost as though they have to develop the thinking on their own, or they'll never grasp it on first hearing. -- Cheerskep In a message dated 9/25/10 9:21:43 PM, [email protected] writes: > When I was a kid, smart but quite delinquent, it wanted to grow up to do > something really hard, something so challenging that nothing else would > quite > equal it. I decided on art because it was something I vaguely knew was > all but > impossible to do (how could anyone paint that Velasquez I saw at the > museum?) > and because I could already draw better than any of my peers. For a long > time > that has sufficed. Art is hard, not because of the technical mastery > involved, > not because of its quizzical relation to the material world and monetized > culture, but because of the issues of meaning and content it invokes. As > a > mature artist and several decades later I came to recognize that questions > of > meaning and content, to say nothing of what artworks are considered good > or not > good, belong to the domain of art confabulators, the court of critics, > star > artists, the dealers, the curators, collectors, and all the greater and > lesser > nobility of the realm. They define content meaning, value, and quality. > I'm > usually not too troubled by this, not any more than Velazquez -- as I > finally > learned -- was troubled by the requirement to paint the haze of divinity > around > the head of his monarchs or to coarsen the colors of their servants. > However... > > Nowadays I am deeply troubled by that band of art courtiers, their coming > and > goings, their whisperings and gentle manners, their learned words and > machinations. They are dumb. Their ideas are naive and outmoded. They > have > faulty concepts and give bad advice. They are simply not smart enough for > me. > Take, for example, the critical notion of meaning and content. Almost > every > critic will speak of the meaning that an artwork has, what it expresses, > what it > "says". Almost every teacher of art theory will grill his or her snot > this or > that shape is the best sign of such meaning. What thinking person can > agree > that these modes of inquiry have any value? What remains of the ancient > idea > that some direct and limited correspondence exists between a word and an > object, > or between a concept and its manifestation either as a metaphor or as a > phenomenon? > > When did art people get the idea that abstract art, the so-called > non-objective > art, was free from provoking associative meaning and content, by which I > mean > the metaphorical reconstruction of conflated experiences and feelings? > Why is > the populist view of abstraction limited to a regard for its design and > optical > sensation? > Why do so many art critics and fellow outsiders -- the curators, etc. -- > go > along with the ludicrous oversimplification of Greenbergian thought in > saying > that the artwork refers to itself (as if that is possible)? Nothing at > all is > merely experienced as itself. Everything, all that is experienced, is the > mirror > of collective and personal memory and desires, beliefs and fears. In > itself a > thing, like a painting, is just a thing, meaningless. On the other side, > why do > these clowns fill up the world with babble about referents, as if anything > at > all signals a particular referent that's more significant than any other > that > can be imagined? Why, for instance, is conceptual art about one concept > rather > than another or none? To make the claim that a concept will necessarily > induce > recognition of this instead or that is absurd just as my finding a coin > on the > street will cause me to spend it on a newspaper is absurd. > > Why is the artworld so damned dumb? > > I could go on (and you know I will somewhere, someday) but I simply what > to know > why the artworld can still get by with outmoded notions about form, > content, > meaning? If they are deeded to decide the fate of art, why are they so > dumb > about it and about current thinking in allied fields -- like neurology and > linguistics, and even art history? I still think art is one of the most > challenging of human endeavors but I doubt that the value of art will be > decided > by the usual courtiers much longer. As a class they aren't interesting > enough > or curious enough or interdisciplinary enough. They have joined the > hucksters > union. They have embraced the commonplace vulgarity together with its > ineptness. No wonder they say art is irrelevant. Yes, they still have the > power; they can send artists to the dark Tower and doom them to obscurity > but > they are also drunk with that power, woozy, blurting incoherence, > blinking and > stumbling, unable to function in the intellectual and artistic daylight > some > artists enjoy. I don't want a prissy curator or artworldly buffoon > lightweight > in my studio or deciding my future. I want a huge-minded thinker. One > who > struggles with the only question that counts at every breath and moment: > Why? > That person is always welcome. > > wc
