I don't know Michael, but you seem to be hung up on what Harris most eagerly attacks. You mention recognizing a referent who see a representational artwork. Yet the thing about images and objects or words, etc. is that they can evoke many referents, even some unfamiliar to most people and probably even to the artist. I would agree that there is always, always a referent and many of them to be brought to mind by anything at all. And emotion...how does one say, OK, I've had the emotion, now what do I think about it? Emotions are not something set aside from stream of experience.
----- Original Message ---- From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, May 27, 2012 12:45:40 PM Subject: Re: "Signs" It seems to me that communication, and particularly linguistic communication, consists of two components: a feeling/emotion and a predication. Consider these terms: George Bush tiger childbirth deficit [name of your romantic partner] banana For each of them, my first reponse after decoding the word / building a meaning is a noticeable, single emotion or feeling. The feelings tend to be visceral and singular. Anger [or respect], fear, awe, perturbation, affection, pleasure. It seems to me that constructing a context occurs after these two steps are taken, namely, recognizing the referent and feeling an emotional correlative. In some cases, the feeling might be diffuse or imprecise, and the act of constructing the context (from remembered details, facts, history, etc.) refines the feeling. "Deficit" would fall into that category: the word alone (possibly) conveys a sense of disquiet and alarm, and then the conginitve act of giving it context (may) modify the feeling, or at least the way one describes the feeling to oneself. "Banana" seems to be a 'Platonic' example, in that the feeling may be the pleasure of any (or all) previous experiences of a banana, and then the constructed context particularizes it to one or two memorable times one encountered a banana. The name of your sweetie (may) evoke such a strong sense of your feelings for that person that you cannot easily or readily reduce the context to particular details. It is hard for me to remember the face of my ex-wife or of close amorous friends. I have to struggle with the details of hair colors, facial details, etc., but the simple memory of the name triggers a strong feeling. I believe the process when one encounters a work of art is comparable to this linguistic experience. I find that when I look at nonrepresentational works, I recognize (give a meaning to) the object as a work of art, and I react to it viscerally. Then I contextualize it (school or style, historical information, similarity to other works, and anecdotal information that I may know). When I look at a representational work, I go through the same steps, but for me the emotion that is evoked is often less visceral and more analytical: Bronzino's "Luxury" is elegant (an intellectual aspect of beauty), as is Van Der Weyden's "Deposition from the Cross," and Pearlstein'snudesa are brutally naked. I have come to the conclusion that representational works rely on a process of signifying that is similar to linguistic (grammatical) processes. When I recognize that the image is art (stage 1) and I react to it (stage 2), then I contextualize it by determining that it is representational (it indicates a referent). The next steps in contextualizing employ a complex process of correlating pictorial elements to some feature in the referent. Curve = shoulder, dark area = local color *or* shaded area, etc. Then I use rules of depiction (equivalent to linguistic and grammatical rules) to make sense of the picture. Thus, the diagonal lines signal a receding plane, just as the addition of a dental ending to a verb signals the past tense. Conceptual art, installation art, and others constitute a genre that relies a lot on a process of analytical cognition. For me, the process is: recognition (relying almost totally on the Institutional Definition), feeling (detachment), then contextualizing (i.e., applying various kinds of algorithms or code keys or other interpretive schemes to complete or fulfill the 'meaning'). | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
