http://www.alart.org/museum-contemporary-art-seoul/
The aesthetics of fraud
In preparing this talk, I opened the Petit Robert, and I've read, into the "aesthetic" and the beginning of the following definition: "Science of Beauty …" I immediately stopped reading, because only in these three words make it clear enough imposture of aesthetics, I think, for my part, as the false science of a false object.
false object, because what we call "beauty" is totally scientifically inadequate: we speak of a beautiful poem, a beautiful car, a nice gesture, a beautiful sunset, etc. This does not mean that there is no reflection on what is beautiful, but today I refuse to consider this issue to talk only about the aesthetics as false science. Why a false science? Simply because aesthetics explains nothing as the arts. He immediately returned to the question: what is it to explain? And it is this question that I will start answering.
You may know that there are two main perspectives reasons to keep coming back to explain a phenomenon in principle, but the beginning, be careful on this point is to be understood a model and, of course, a phenomenon observed contemporary history chronologically, either as origin, a principle similar to naturally observed phenomenon, but chronologically earlier than him. Immediately gives an example. Consider a bird on a branch. Suddenly, hop! He's gone. Well, the explanation is twofold. First explanation: why is this bird has flown? Because he heard the sound of a gunshot. What they heard a shot? Because Mr. Smith went out hunting. Why Mr. Smith has gone hunting? Because he was tired of his wife complains. (And you realize that you can return to the original scene-this national the case to say! "The Adam and Eve). second explanation why the bird has flown? Because it is able to fly. Why is he capable of flight? Because he has wings. Why does it have wings? Because they must ensure sustenance in the air. Why would hold in the air? Because, given the gravity and density of air … etc … So first, the explanation has a chronological explanation of the origin priority, which is the logical antecedent model.
However, I first talk about art, the explanation for the same origin. In a second time, I will speak in the same area, of course, the explanation the model. And I will conclude by offering some reflections. So, first, the explanation for the same origin.
What has given this explanation for the origin of our faculties of letters? Art History. What that means, except that adds darkness to the other? In fact, the history of art, explains nothing, for two reasons. The first is that this discipline has been unable to distinguish art (singular) and styles (plural), as when we say "Roman style, Gothic style", " Baroque style, etc. The second reason is that without an adequate theory of history to clarify it, for example, concepts such as interaction, interference, influence, credit … makes chronological catalog. You see that everything can be blamed for the History of Art, because it defines neither art nor history. This must be done! Knowing that does not define anything, we understand that is doomed to a free totally useless.
Similarly, if you open a "History Literature, "as big as it is, you will learn nothing about what some call the literariness" "No more than if you open a" History of Religions … "Look, I have a good friend (who may be here tonight), who wants to read from beginning to end an enormous work of Mircea Eliade, entitled History of beliefs and religious ideas. Obviously, she reached an age when these questions begin to work on it! But then no! The book covers in two or three thousand pages, all the world (I mean the whole world), as the "Stone Age" to the present. This is a scholarly work: this guy knows everything! Absolutely everything! So I said, "But my poor dear, before you finish reading this thing, you are no longer of this world! rather read one or two letters of Mother Teresa which resulted in" English. Nothing doing. She objected: "I'm learning." And that's what I want! I bet my bottom dollar that will never know which is a belief or an idea is (religious or not does not matter here.)
Back to our business. What is, however, interesting in the schools of letters, is the training received by the "art" students (which is relatively new). What does the expression, that schools of letters have finally admitted that "Of all However, in art, is a bit technical, a little manipulation, we must not forget "etc? Under these conditions, you see that the existence of" art "is a sign of repentance to delete some teachers of art history and aesthetics of art teachers to neglect. And then have to take into account at least some "manipulations" to train people in my time drawing called teachers. It is true that training in the art remains the poor relation, because as you all know, what matter at least in France, is the shit.
Rather than roll, more steps higher on the ladder of Jacob grades and treatments! While down there (which almost I forget!) Are the artists. There are problems because they do not know any other reason. And it's true: the experience has taught me. When I was a young adult, Aimé Maeght had some interest in me because I made a few scribbles, and he introduced me to his gallery, met Giacometti, Miro, Braque and (and so on). Well, you can not imagine the intellectual stupidity of these people! Sad, but very normal: the cause of his art is not your thing. They do, and believe me, is a sacred ball game (and then not given to everyone). What I just want to say is that there are people, like artists, with that make it superior to the ability to explain what they do, and they do very well. In other words, this is not because someone is not able to explain what it does (which will be a very bad teacher!) Can not show how ago. That is why, in my time, when talking about an artist, who said: "Maestro." It was not at all flattering: they called him "Maestro", as corporatism, but spoke of "master craftsman". Well, what do you do this teacher? Silently showed their peers, he could do, and little by little "student" I mean "took" from the master of your practice.
Therefore, the shit, the higher you go up. Artists are down (Oh, if we could do without!). At just above artists, has the plastic, causing even a little. But as they work, so they tend to talk about what they do, too. A level above are art historians, who do nothing more to say and the climax is what I call the "transcendental aesthetic" in Malraux. Here we are in complete nirvana is the mystical delirium, ie fully derailed. And that, in general, to philosophers, who are the virtuosos of this sport.
And now the explanation of "literary" in its origin. I turn now to the model of explanation. In this case, I would be much shorter. Why? Because no thinker ever, according to the model, if only a small field of art … Except one! Believe me, I read a lot about art (too much, in fact!). Well, the only book of aesthetics that really made the difference to me, is the work of Pierre Schaeffer, a Polytechnic student (not a chance!) who has spent his life trying to model, I mean to propose a scientific theory of music. He died ten years ago, and his book, the first edition in Seoul in 1966, entitled A Treatise on the musical objects. Well, what is needed here is to talk about a painting, for example, in terms so precise and technical than those used by Schaeffer talk about music. Everything, absolutely everything, to do! Even to begin to acquire or build, imagine a whole new vocabulary to talk not only scientifically music, but also painting, dance, sculpture, etc. We are facing an absolutely colossal task, and may increase the generations of researchers! I used the phrase "scientifically speaking" as meaning what? Just what is known in science as "nature" of the theory. What is a theory? To see clearly, neither more nor less. You may know that the word "theory" comes from a Greek word meaning theamai "See" and the text in English, the word "theater" (Theatron in Greek).
That said, I get to the third part of my presentation, namely, the one that I will suggest some ways forward. I leave a note on the essentially abstract art. Usually speak of abstraction in terms of cognition (Logos.) But we must understand is that abstraction is not a matter of logic: it is a matter of technique. There would be art if it had ability to abstract art, and that is why all art is abstract. The "concrete art" does not exist, so no more "music concrete "that is" concrete dance "and" concrete painting, etc. Plato, Kant and Hegel had shown that art is abstract: linked to the intelligible, and they were absolutely right. But the problem is that, for them, the intelligible was the logos, ie, speech, language, or trial. Automatically this reduction due to the logos that have gone astray because they do not understand that there is in man a technical rationality. Therefore, it is not worth reading!
To explore the abstract nature of art, it is better to study the drawings of children in a kindergarten class. But for anyone interested in developing of this child, took the ventilation process of painting by the Surrealists to say at this time of modern art to art and not subject to the similarity. This has released all. But what must understand is why children's drawing is necessarily and immediately, spontaneously, abstract. But as it gives you the ability to ignore the child, refuses to believe that it is technically rational and verbal. Personally, I think we should take into account the child's drawing for the study of life, abstraction technique. But to put the production of an object of study and not an object of admiration. We all tend, as they are our little children who do this to save the museum. Even in schools, the masterpieces can be visited. It is the gallery "!" And I easily compare the child's drawing of the cartoon. He said: "The cartoon? minor art!. Of course not! The cartoon drawing as a child, means a hell of analysis! Analysis of what? Everything is there, and there are theories of the matter. But you are well aware of the abstraction of the cartoon. A cartoon is almost as abstract as the painting of the Mona Lisa, which is perhaps in any Western painting, the height of abstraction!
Of course, we must go much further. When, for example, a mathematician is an apple that attract your attention? The geometry of the sphere. But it is also what interests Cézanne! I mean that abstraction is exactly the same. The mathematician and the artist not refer to the area in the same way, of course, but they are also abstract. Another example, take the high fashion. When you see a fashion show, which says: "It is not possible! No woman is going to use that! This is not done! This means that the eye of big fashion, Christian Lacroix, for example, is a geometric look as the artist's eye. As captured there, this is not that women do not care. A dress made by an artist in high fashion is not intended to be used, as well as Cezanne's apples are not made to be eaten. What interests Christian Lacroix is a geometric body, just as in architecture, we have a geometric habitat. In addition, is no coincidence that "habit" and "habitat" are two words closely related? (There is certainly no accident that the Latin word habitus "Way of being,") In short, the dress in haute couture and the Parthenon, is strictly the same thing! With Gagnepain, called "figure" almost geometric sense, these two types of art.
But this abstraction is the art evident not only in terms of technical rationality, but also rationality in verbal terms. Like Cezanne's apples are not made to be eaten, and the Christian Lacroix dress, as it is an art, not made to be used, so the message report called the poem is not to say something (for example, "Honey, can you pass the bread?"). The poem is basically, talking without saying anything, because the message being carried to be, as in the figure, the path (or, if you want the gesture) took it to be. That's what showed in my opinion and definitely a great linguist Roman Jacobson I mean. In his famous tests of general linguistics, also published in 1966, analyzing the various "functions" of language, Jacobson leaves room for participation in the poetic "function" is defined as message was "back to the message:" "The vision (Einstellung) of the message as such, the focus on the message for its own account, is what characterizes to the "poetic." What does this mean? Jacobson takes a picture of the political slogan: I like Ike (Ike Eisenhower's nickname, candidate for the presidency of his country.) You see clearly that the "poetic function" of Jacobson defines the method for producing a message that is also a appointment with him, the concepts of rhyme and rhythm. In other words, a poem, phonological (in sound) or semi-logically (Under the aspect of meaning), is a sentence and a lid. And this renaissance is the fact that the poem has to say, poetically, that is, as it is art, is nothing other than what it is. The poem gives us its own law. If I tell you:
"In Paris
In a gray horse
In Nevers
In a horse …?
… Green, of course! You have no choice but to Max Jacob. That is what we call "inspiration." You see that it is very simple: "In Paris …"
In summary, we can now say that a poem is the linguistic structure is itself same object. This makes the importance of prosody (metrical verse, melody, rhythm, etc) There is no doubt about the final agreement on the "endless", the "useful or pleasant, "the purging of the passions and the devil and all his train. You tell me which is the art form. Of course it is a technicality, since the language it has to be not said! Y only for music. I'll tell a true story of the life of Bach. One night I was playing a Bach sonata in the living room of a German baroness as there are many. When completed to interpret its composition: "Oh Master! wonderful! … But what did it mean? Here, Bach moved back to the keyboard and plays his music. And when he had finished: "That, dear Baroness, which is what I meant." It is, however, pretty damn interesting! This simply means that music, like poetry works in closed circuit, and therefore can not be "translated" as they say, nothing can "mirror" of himself. Their motto is: "My end is my beginning." That is, if you want the snake biting its tail. Basically, the art factory that makes a point, that's all.
So the figure in terms of technical rationality, is the equivalent of the poem, in terms of rationality verbal. But this does not end there, also applies in terms of social rationality, as usual, is itself to be taking his ceremonial also, finally, in terms of rational ethics, that the conduct is taking itself to be, his achievement. It is here, complete what I told you some time on the "set" (as defined Gagnepain, this time) of the cultural dialectic, the tendency of any reinvestment of abstraction in favor, antagonistic or post (structural) of abstraction, is the natural center, what is still called "concrete." Well, add one third Poem … referred to the figure, ceremony and the achievement of the party (in rhetoric, industry, politics and morality) in a performance endocentric (A word coined from the Greek prefix endo-, meaning "in" and is used to form the "endogenous" endocardium "" endoscopy ", etc) is, in a show that rationality is not involved in the outside world (which would refer to something exocentric,) but inside (endo-) itself. You see, the inability to avoid neologisms: new object, the new language. As I said, the snake biting the tail. But this is no way to be empty, because every time the process takes itself as the poem is not empty: the message is full of himself Similarly, the figure is not empty, the book is full of himself, the ceremony is not empty, the application is filled itself and, finally, the feat is not empty, is full of moral conduct itself. In all these cases, it is important to understand that aesthetics is, at all levels, partly like others, expected outcomes, but characterizes the action as it remains once endocentric.
And I would add that, of course, this is known endocentric absolutely incompatible with the other two mentioned, which are exocentric: the poem is a poem which refrains (refers endocentric), did not stop to say something (referring exocentric). It may be technically columns (referred exocentric) then these columns are called caryatids young women (referred endocentric) as the Greeks have done in this monument is located on the Acropolis Athens and the call Erechteion. Laying the first stone of a building can be a ceremony (refers endocentric) and be at the same time, an act of conspiracy to monument in question do not come down (referred exocentric). Finally, you can do, without even suspecting the feat of beating the record hundred meters from France (which refers endocentric) just to catch the bus!
However, to remain in the realm of art, if this concept is given is an area large enough (figure in the art of dance and figure skating, but also in the field of gymnastics, free compulsory figures or figures, etc.) see that this definition of art as the product of self-reference of a dialectical process of abstraction techniques (weight each of my words) applies to all the arts! I mean absolutely everyone, from dance to the culinary arts, from architecture, sculpture, caricature, etc. I'm absolutely serious: take the time to think about giving you, yourself, some examples, you will see! It works! And if "works" is that our hypothetical-deductive method is supported by the comings and goings between the observation of concrete and theoretical assumptions. Thus, our theoretical position receives (even) their clinical audit, but its validation. We have no access to proper scientific truth, however, is precarious and provisional, but a proposal for general use in an explanatory model not created for the needs of a particular cause, but still operating in any occasion similar (if not the case, it would change the model, no more or less).
In these circumstances what would become a true science of art? We analyze the technical analysis implicitly by the artist. In other words, once again we have to do is to analyze an analysis "double" in the mathematical sense, somehow. This complicates things! We analyze the analyzer! Do you realize the enormous complexity of the case? You can imagine that we will have centuries to accomplish something!
And that is not everything! To be truly a science, the need for experimental verification of the model just outlined.
And the rest is literature! … I mean, fraud of a fraud that should, before any unmasking of the strongest, if we want progress.
men "www.theory>-mediation.com
About the Author
Jean-Luc LAMOTTE, Anthropologist and essayist
Disciple of Jean Gagnepain, he published an Introduction in the Theory of the Mediation in the publishing De Boeck (2001), and contributes, at present, to spread the thought of the Master.
Teacher who has passed aggregation by classical literature, he taught at first the linguistics to the College of the Letters of Beirut (University of Lyon), then professed during ten years in preparatory classes in the entrance examinations of the superior teachers’ training colleges (in Montpelier, then in Versailles).
His career led him, on the other hand, to put itself in the service of the distribution of our language and our culture abroad (Means-0rient, Morocco, the United Kingdom). He also had the honor to collaborate in the works of the service of the publications of the Académie française.
Since 1991, he dedicates itself to his researches in clinical anthropology, led within the framework of the activities of the School of Rennes (University of Haute-Bretagne).
At Korean contemporary Art museum, Seoul 220505