B. Bolt- Beyond Representation // Marcuse- On the Aesthetic Dimension

In preparation of our class discussion, comment on your favourite passage from each of these texts.

17 comments

  1. I absolutely loved Bolt’s words on “the art of art making”. That the process is a revealing. I am really curious about the role art-making can play and what it can allow in relation to what Herb calls “transcendental”. I think there is a dynamic relationship/experience/conversation that is happening between the artist and the artwork in-process that is essential to art-making. I want to play in this collaboration.

    Also, I felt a deep feel when Herb’s commented on “Great Refusal” works as “art in a total vacuum”. Fuck the blank canvas. “Intellectual masturbation” omgggggg

  2. Bolt’s argument comes from the relationship between the art and the artist, and the agency of the artist that becomes part of the artwork, and also the work of art. The importance of process and its relation to the hands of the artist showing a mechanism and a type of transmission, partially due to the fact that we are responsible for our own artworks. She questions “if a painting comes to perform rather than merely represent some other thing what is happening?” (Bolt, 3) It is hard to explain and a far reach to dwell down these concepts because I believe that artists or people who appreciate art are the only ones that really understand that relationship between the art and the artist. The artist has the power to make the audience believe what he/she wants the audience to believe because it is an abstract relationship an artist performs on the canvas, or on the computer, or any other medium. If we were to really give an answer to that unexplainable space, art would just be a formula. But is that where the world is heading to? Is technology ruining this space? I believe so. Theorising is a formula in my opinion and Bolt agrees when she says “theorising practice as a dressmaker approaches the task of making a garment… and the patters or shapes are “cut out” from the continuous flow of practices.” (Bolt, 4) But I believe theorising and the relationship of that to the artwork and the artist is an agent of responsibilities to the artist, but it is not in fact explainable. Artists unconsciously make these decisions about their art practice by their own memory of the past or present day surroundings and circumstances. The analytical approach that is often taken towards art, spirit and technology (or medium) is what in fact makes their boundaries inseparable.

  3. Can the image transcend its structure as representation and become performative rather than representational ? For some artists, the act of creating is the performative element where instinct overtakes thought. Bolt writes about her state of ‘flow’ during the fury of painting, as she “no longer had any awareness of time, pain, or making decisions.” Considering this experience, can an artwork/work of art only be truly experienced by the artist during the process? And is any truth discernible when one tries to analyze a finished work of art?

    “In its character as research, art history involves a demarcation of an area of knowledge specific to the discipline and the definition of fundamental concepts that underpin this field. The establishment and maintenance of these boundaries is of central concern to the maintenance and proliferation of the discipline. In all of this theorising, however, what can we say about practice in itself? We find that the ‘unruliness’ of practice is difficult, if not impossible, to insinuate into the discipline that has come to be known as Art History.”
    These statements are contradictory to what we learn as art students. I think the medium and type of artwork/work of art is important to consider when discussing these ideas, because each type of art work has different processes. For example, the act of creating an expressionistic painting is going to be drastically different from a computer-generated projection. Of course, when analyzing/theorising anything, the ‘unruliness’ of actually experiencing the thing will be lost. Does this mean there is no need to theorise or analyze art works?

  4. “In a world where contemporary artists are often so caught up in the business of art, art-in-itself tends to become subsumed by the creation and marketing of artworks for an art market. In this pre-occupation with art business, artsits tend to reduce art to an instrumentalist function, forgetting that art has much greater power. In returning to practice as a source of rethinking the work of art, I make the claim that the relationship between art and the artist moves beyond the realm of representationalist representation. I argue that practice involves a radical material performativity.” (Bolt 10)

    “If and when practically all dimensions of human existence are socially managed, then, obviously, art, in order to be able to communicate its proper truths, must be able to break this totalization in consciousness and perception and to intensify the estrangement. Here is a difficulty: Adorno, as you may know, thought that the more repressive corporate capitalism is, the more alienated, the more estranged art must be and will be.” (Marcuse 422)

    The two passages I chose comments on the role of art in critiquing society and the capitalist system. Bolt argues for a new way of looking at art as a practice, a radical material performativity, while Marcuse believes art must be estranged to such repression. This makes me wonder the role of performance art in society. In performance art, the artist becomes a material to his artwork, and the audience witnesses the practice. It also has the potential to perform estrangement, to be consciously separated from its setting (a public space/ gallery space). Performance art also rejects the art market because it cannot be packaged for sale.

  5. From Bolt’s essay, I was more likely to try to think in a simple way regarding the performativity of paintings, or artworks. Not everybody, but some people have an experience of feeling by a work or several works which has touched, moved, and impacted on them.

    For me, Edward Hopper’s paintings work that way. When I see his works, I feel something, I make some stories from it, I relate myself in models of the paintings. But also When I see his works again later, I do those things in different ways, which I don’t alway do from every painters’ works.

    I also have one painting, I painted last year, of my rabbit, Gato. I had to leave him to my friend before coming back to Canada. It obviously ‘represents’ Gato’s body, but when I see it (or him), unlike others would see, I can also see his belly and nose breathing, some leg moving while he is sleeping. I can see his gentle and light fur, again, unlike others would see.

    Maybe having a framework for a logic of practice wouldn’t be working well because everybody has different frameworks of each own. There wouldn’t be a ‘generalized’ framework.

    I am not sure yet about if an image can stand alone without a priori knowledge. But, as there is an image where the reality and the ideality meets by an artist, I believe there is something where the image and the knowledge meets. That, maybe, we can call as works of art…?

    1. some questions for Interview of Marcuse

      – the function and purpose of a relation of Capitalism and Aesthetic dimension. (more than the toleration)
      – what does it mean by his answer saying “The demand made by Brecht, for example, that art should represent the totality of the production relations in a given society is in my view absolutely contradictory to the potentiality of art….”, especially about ‘the potentiality of art’..?
      – what does the ‘class struggle’ do to the aesthetic dimension and its relation to the audience, in our time?

  6. ? Can the image transcend its structure as representation and be performative rather than representational? ( Bold 4). Yes certainly it can. This means that as an artist we are just partially responsible for our works because ? the work of art ? doesn?t let us to fully access all the dimensions of our artwork. At some point art starts to react to the artist and reality which in turn reality is no longer the same. It’s the mutual reflection of image and the reality. When art get the agency, it starts to perform. It?s no longer merely representation and in doing so something mysterious takes place. Thats where the magic of art begins. In a way the energy of the artwork is already out there and artist is a mediator to bring the artwork to life. Afterall it’s the blessing to be an artist and to get connected to energy that is out there beyond the repetitive life . For me, this way of analyzing, makes the process of art making somewhat a spiritual activity. I can go with the flow during the process and let the magic happen. For which that magic is what I?m looking for. Indeed, it?s the combination of art, spitir and technology which gives meaning to the image of today.

  7. Bolt suggests that the work of art shares the agency with an artist and his/her artwork, and this becomes one foundational idea of her argument on theorization of practice. To formulate a logic of practice is problematic since theorist and logicians focus solely on the production in a way that “a system of productions is substituted for production in itself” and as if the production represents the whole relationship. The metonymy appears in art research in a similar manner. Art history deals with identification, classification, evaluation, and interpretation of data and is not concerned with action. Both theorization of a logic of practice and art research done with the criteria established by art history do not allow us to fully understand the work of art. I agree with Bolt’s idea that if the work of art does have the agency and is performative and live, attempts to theorize a logic of practice should be done with deeper and more careful concern with the work of art. The problematic of formulating a logic allowed us to find out the significance of the work of art in understanding art in general, but I doubt we would ever be able to come up with a complete, solid logic (even if we come up with solutions to the problems) because the work of art —the action of production — is very different for each individual and not everyone experiences what Bolt does or I do.

  8. I have at the beginning of The Aesthetic Dimension outlined what social determination of art I think does indeed prevail: it is, essentially, the material, the tradition, the historical horizon under which the writer, the artist, has to work. He cannot ignore it. He lives in a continuum of tradition even when he breaks it. This social determination affects any work of art. But, as I said, it does not constitute its substance. (On the Aesthetic Dimension)

    The notion of art changes all the time, I think that’s because, as the passage said, the social determination is a factor. Since modernism and post-modernism appeared, the notion of art is limited only to be ‘idea’. I always doubt that, because even the form of art changes due to the social determination, we should never limit ourselves as artists. ART is a continuing existing substance; it’s always happening, in the space and time. Yet we often have bipolar groups that try to claim art, wether it is ‘idea’ or ‘craftsmanship’. I always think these two things work together. I’m not saying it is the only way of doing art, but I believe art cannot exist without either of them.

  9. 422: we no longer genuinely speak of individuals, we speak of a mass, of a consumer society in which identity is merged into a single function.
    degree to which Mozart composed for the nobility of his time. That was composition with respect to a very definite audience. But it was also more; it was also the negation of this relationship. There is a dimension in Mozart’s music that has nothing to do with a specific audience; it is the depth dimension of his music which transcends the particular social determination.
    Why is music more visible (more solid regarding comparison) than any popular form of art? Anyone can press the C key and produce music but what makes it different and a whole (not fragmented)?

  10. “Is it possible, for example, to think of our productions outside of the paradigm of representation?” (p.12) Surely. Furthermore, at what point is that representation’s trajectory moving on its own separate from the very thing it first started out wanting to represent? Well,.. if a painting does in fact perform and yet it is a representation, by virtue of its transcendence into performance mode doesn’t this make the representation something new? Especially if the first didn’t perform but the second did? In his essay, “Cinema 1 – The Movement Image” philosopher Gilles Deleuze (who B. Bolt refers to on page 12 in Beyond Representation) also discusses representations in our world. Deleuze calls them ‘secondary situations’ saying a piece of art can never entirely represent something else because it takes a creative effort to make the representation in the first place. That it is assigned its own significance through a constructive process with its own narrative history and meaning making journey into our world. If one considers Deleuze’s ‘secondary’ proposal, this would perhaps help articulate what is happening when a representation comes to perform rather than merely represent some other thing. In other words, according to Deleuze, all representations move into ‘secondary situations’ as they go about becoming representations. That the moment the paint brush hits the canvas, or the film camera snaps a shot, a new lamination of that reality takes form so that a discipline can be used to maintain or change the form with higher guidance. Thus, “to represent, is to present again” (p.15) would mean to put life into a second reality – and not the first being that the first had its own life which is not borrowed in the second. Nor is the first’s history and backstory taken. The second is the second – a necessary adoption in order to further a discussion. Something immediately after the first but before any others.

    Also, that the “standing in for another” (p.16) – perhaps this has come to pass because so much of our daily lives – single-serving sugar packets, single-serving ice cream, single pat of butter, the microwave, hobby kits, shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap – interfere with people going out and exploring their own worldly adventures or experiences. That we are trapped inside conditions of convenience. And that a market of representations thrives around our daily lives so that any frustrations that one may form from ‘lack’ are quickly doused where a substitute version of the original adventure/experience is available at little cost or energy to the individual who originally wished to have the said adventure/experience on their own steam. In this view, we are never lacking. And that their is no need for steam thanks a plethora of representations. And so suddenly you become euphoric, docile. You accept your fate. It’s all right here. We are taken care of in what many are calling a matrix of representations that copy your dreams before you can ask for them.

    Tyler Durden: “You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your khakis….”
    Fight Club Narrator: “And then, something happened. I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark. Silent. Complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom. And by the end of the first month, I didn’t miss TV.”

  11. Bolt Response:
    -practice and systems of fabrication, rather than systems of signification, as the work. There is always something about our work that is outside of our control. I’m intrigued at the idea of this being a way the art work asserts its own agency. That “accidents” or “mistakes” are a way in which we frame our own “error” instead of a personification of the work’s autonomy. Strange, considering we personify work in other ways (working *with* materials, fighting with an image or work, for example) and talk about bringing it to life, it having emotion, a “mood”.
    -on wondering why pieces seem to freeze or die when we stop working on them?: is it because of our obsession with “done-ness”? Can we learn/start to see our works as alive/in a state of flux/never necessarily “finished”/as a being? Can we see endless potential, endless agency or paths for asserting that agency? Maybe then it would be less of a “freeze” or “death” and become more of a rest or pause. Do we only experience art in a moment or is it a relationship we form with the work (do we keep coming back to it, whether physically or in our mind?); is it a conversation we carry with us, and carry around and away with us?

    On the Aesthetic Dimension Response:
    -on the idea that “there seems to be hardly anything that capitalist society cannot tolerate”: I have to disagree. I think there are plenty of things that capitalism doesn’t tolerate, and in some ways we can view this as not recognizing. Capitalism has a hard time translating and understanding individuality on some level. It’s all about mass production and so therefore on some level it will never fully tolerate or understand individual identity. It needs to view us in demographics, as groups, as masses, as the same. Products never make it to market unless there is a demonstrated need, and then, only if such demographics are deemed worthy of that product’s research and development (things and time which cost money).
    -further, it is morphing, and this isn’t a new thing, though people are beginning to speak out about it, to a point that capitalism in certain sectors simply cannot allow employees to have the right to their own thoughts/ideas (even on their own time) while working for a company. Web/game developers, in fact a lot of contractors in tech fields, and most notably and publicly now anyone who works at BuzzFeed, don’t have rights to their own intellectual property. Not only do most sign contract preventing them from working at competing companies within 1-2 years of leaving a company, but any ideas or projects they come up with on their own time are considered the property of the company they work for, whether the company actually wants to use them or not. Essentially, workers are denied autonomy and identity separate from the company they work for so that they “can’t compete” with them. So much for a “free market”–this is a totally false notion. (For more reading on this specifically see: http://fusion.net/story/318054/buzzfeed-video-non-compete-owning-work-youtube/ )

  12. “In a world where contemporary artists are often so caught up in the business of art, art-in-itself tends to become subsumed by the creation and marketing of artworks for an art market. In this pre-occupation with art business, artsits tend to reduce art to an instrumentalist function, forgetting that art has much greater power. In returning to practice as a source of rethinking the work of art, I make the claim that the relationship between art and the artist moves beyond the realm of representationalist representation. I argue that practice involves a radical material performativity.” (Bolt 10)

    nowadays, the accommodation of arts in our society leads the real value of art itself invisible.
    The artist has this responsibility to do art practices in order to release the power of art

    1. The truth of art lies in its power to break the monopoly of established reality (i.e., of those who established it) to define what is real. In this rupture, which is the achievement of the aesthetic form, the fictitious world of art appears as true reality.
      Art is committed to the perception of the world which alienates individual from their functional existence and performance in society – it is committed to an emancipation of sensibility, imagination, and reason in all spheres of subjectivity and objectivity.
      (Marcuse 9)

      This passage reveal an interesting point of view of the value of art, which has to break the established reality in order to achieve the new statement of artist’s about our society’s functionality and true reality.

  13. An artist creating an artwork is always inspired by something, such as experience, political/economic situation surrounded, which can be called subjective influence. When the artwork created is in display, it is like submitting to the public in order for judgement, which for the artwork itself is a second definition. According to the book, “…social determinance is the very very essence of art…”, I partially agree with this point. When a person never sees this kind of work through the already existing knowledge in his/her mind, curiosity must force him/her look for resources in similar fields. In that way, a new field would eventually be created, and become the so called “fact” to connect the audience with the new type of artwork.

  14. “Facts lead us to boundaries of creation, where fancy flies into unlimited space.”

    Hello all. I’ve been reading ‘The Art of Acting’ by Frank Findley Mackay this weekend. Came across something important enough to share with the group. Seems relevant to our topic of art as representation. See below: (page 25. page 26. Art of Acting)

    “How shall we, then, define art? Let us seek for a definition through a brief process of induction. Two words in our language: ‘Nature’ and ‘Art,’ limit and define the universe of things. Art is not Nature, for the reason that nature is created and Art is made, and again –
    Art is not Nature for the reason that nature re-produces plant and animal after their kind, and Art only re-presents them, and again, –
    Art is not Nature for the reason that Nature is ever crescent and Art is ever decaying. Everything that man finds here he calls Nature. Everything that he makes he calls Art. Nature is created. Art is made. To create, in its original sense, is to bring forth a visible, tangible something from an invisible, intangible nothing; while to make, is simply to re-arrange material already created. But to re-arrange-that is, to make – demands a mental and a physical force, and, therefore, art is a result of the application of the impressional force to mental conceptions through muscular actions. Under this definition art becomes a generic term which includes the useful as well as the fine arts – two species based in different causes, and with very distinctive effects.”

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