Hansen's Bodies in Code

Hansen states that bodies are central to virtual technology rather than lost to it.
Like Bourrioud’s relational art, Hansen says modern technology “extends man’s space for play and action” rather than limiting it. He describes several artists’ work in terms of how they broaden the sensory “commons” (20), and refutes those who have eliminated the body from modern discourse. Rayer, for example, argues we have no mind-body split because we have no body (11). In contrast, Kreuger, a pioneer in interactive art, believes artists must put humans first, making the technology figure out people rather than the other way around. With some newer pieces, viewers operate cameras, dissolving and complicating the role of the artist. To those who consider interactive art a separate realm from reality, Hansen notes, “All reality is mixed reality.”

Links: The mind-body split argument is still very much with us from ancient Greece to now.

Fear of technology – the idea that technology swallows humanity, like Darth Vader or the Borg.

Relational art is a new term for me, but I find myself seeing it everywhere. Hansen’s artists seem engaged in relational art.
This makes me wonder if interactive museums, like the Holocaust museum are forms of relational art. I don’t know if being able to categorize them as such is important, but I think categorizing can help me understand the concept.

NPR just had a segment on a California street musician, recorded by some guy, then played for musicians around the world (Zuni reservation, Soweto South Africa, et c). These musicians then joined in the recording. Each group added to the mix, listening to an increasingly complex base recording that all started with one guy and a guitar. The first song was “Stand By Me.” Then, Anne sent a link to something quite similar with video and music combined.

I don’t understand the feedback loops of Lozano-Hemmer’s work. What are they and is this projected on a building (96)?

Is all architecture relational art?

How can we have no body (11)?

What is the pre-personal (page 21)? Is this another term for a priori?

Kenneth Burke's Counter-Statement and Rhetoric

I've skimmed Burke's work, reading the 1931 work first. Here Burke gives writers a "counter-statement" to what he calls the common "view of the day." He then describes qualities writers use and should consider, from specific narrative elements, to universal themes/ideas, to the role of artists in the world. His many specific examples clarify his ideas.

1931 "view of the day" must mean he runs counter to the avant-garde and Marxism, I imagine. His work does seem more traditional at first, along the lines of the Greco-Roman choices offered artists but he offers more variety and ends with the potential for a work to surpass the artist.


1950 In a Rhetoric of Motives, Burke discusses Classical literary traditions. At first, I thought his point would be to uphold these traditions against the "view of the day" mentioned before; however, he points out that these traditions are opinions, not facts to be used in all cases across all eras. He disputes the notion of "reason" in regard to choices of rhetoric. Reason, he feels, suggests a "truth," rather than an opinion. I am puzzled by his use of "we" to describe his own personal experience; however, I find his examples illustrate his points well. He does not negate the importance of Classical tradition, but does show how modern authors mustn't be hemmed exclusively by traditional opinions. I look forward to class, so I can better understand the details as I've had to skim both excerpts much too quickly!

Shusterman's Performing Live

Shusterman traces the diminishing value of aesthetics in art theory. He wants to bring bodily experience back into the discussion of aesthetics through popular art/culture because, like Bourrioud, he believes aesthetics help forge relationships in an increasingly commodified world.
He also notes how as technology replaces the body, our culture becomes more body-conscious. Unlike the Greeks or Kant, he doesn't place the mind over the body, but sees the body as the center, the source of pleasure. Interestingly, he notes how to Plato, the body was seen as temporary, but to an increasingly fast-paced society, the body seems far more lasting than most things. Apparently, the "eternal" is obsolete.
Shusterman argues in favor of variety (media choices, body images), in keeping with Steiner. He also describes how bodily self-improvement has replaced religion for many. Where Adorno finds this change a sign of increasing selfishness, Shusterman thinks otherwise. One source he quotes states links the gymrat phenomenon to the fact that people today have "so little to do." Artists today, Shusterman says, have to balance the tension between "working hard" and "abandoning" themselves. One must prepare for genius, but let go to achieve it.

I see many links to relational art. Shusterman wants to expand the space for discussion of aesthetics and art.

Where is the eternal? At what point did we lose discussion of the eternal, or did we?

I laughed at the comment about people today having so little to do after Shusterman's discussion of gyms. My aunt and uncle have a small sheep farm -- built by their own hands. After working outside for much of the day or spinning, weaving, and working inside of barns or house during bad weather, the last thought on their minds would be going to the gym. Counter to many Door County people, they built their house with smallish, well-placed windows to capture small views. They don't need expansive views of nature after being out in it for much of the day. Since I just visited them, this sprang to mind.

I'm not religious, but I'm not sure that replacing the church with the gym isn't a clear sign of self-centeredness. Isn't that shifting from we to I?

Wendy Steiner's Venus in Exile

Steiner describes the shift in the value of beauty in nineteenth and twentieth century art. She points out that modernists in rejecting beauty (especially feminine beauty), they have rejected pleasure and, in a sense, our humanity. In her book, she hopes to redefine beauty as an "interaction" between the subject and the object, not as a quality someone possesses or not.
Steiner uses the myth of Cupid and Psyche and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (really interesting stuff!)as touchstone pieces as she traces the changing view of beauty through several artist's works from Kant's sublime, to Flaubert's realism, to Basquiat's outsider art.


Connections to past ideas and present questions:

Steiner's description of myth of Cupid and Psyche and how it shows a changing relationship between subject and object, between aesthetic response and beauty reminds me of Hegel's idea about art being a reconciliation between the divine within and without.

The increasing importance of garbage as subject matter. I haven't thought much about this subject in art, but see her points. This reminds me of Ibsen's Enemy of the People and The Sopranos. The culture that produces yet denies its waste creates a new way to make money.

Outsider art (loosely defined) as reinvigorating high art by offering "hope" and break from commodity culture. This links to Marcuse's sense that art should offer hope of a better world even if it can't change the world.

The capitalist "exchange" is not "compatible with aesthetics. Wharton comes to believe this in House of Mirth.

The subject-object shift in the gaze of Manet's Olympia, thought at the time to be a prostitute (but actually an artist). How does the subject matter (prostitute vs. artist) change our view of the painting and the what that gaze represents?

The link between aesthetics and humanity in the body.

The ordinary looking Scottish singer who won everyone's hearts with her aesthetically pleasing voice.

Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics

Bourriaud writes of “relational aesthetics,” describing how modern art (1990s) is more about improving human relationships than about expressing absolutes or “creating utopias” (46). Art in the 1990s, he claims, changes the relationship between time and space, much like atomic particles. Thus, the audience helps create the relationship along with the artist. Form has become more diversified, while time has become more specific, making art more concerned with the ordinary world, but more like rendevous. To Bourriaud, this means that relational art cannot be as easily commodified as art in the past, which is important in an increasingly powerful global economy.

Links: Like Eagleton, Bourriaud relates art to a commodity culture. I thought this went back to Marx, Benjamin, Marcuse, Adorno, Williams. The post industrial revolution thinkers write increasingly of the relationship between art and capitalism. However, I also remember the Roman authors describing Roman culture as more superficial and greedy than that of the Greeks. So perhaps fear of “selling out” didn’t arise in 1980s punk scene but in the ancient Roman art scene.

The description of art as a relationship reminds me most of Williams and Hegel. Hegel describes it as a reconciliation between the divine within and without. Bourriaud isn’t describing a relationship with the divine, but between the artist and audience, mediated by time and space.

Question: I found this work very interesting. I especially enjoyed his descriptions of actual works. Bourriaud states that these works are knowingly specific and temporary and that those qualities shouldn’t lessen their relevance. I’m not sure what my point is here, but I find it difficult to discover the relevance of a work of art ( or my understanding of it) without reflection. Here, it seems like reflecting more on an experience than on a work of art. Will art that is more like a subjective memory last? He says that’s not the point, but how else do we discover relevance?

I especially liked his point early on about human relations no longer being “directly experienced” (9). I read this just before going to a two year old’s birthday party where I felt guilty for being the only parent not filming my sons finding easter eggs. I often like those fuzzy, did it really happen memories not predetermined by photographs.

Aesthetic Connections on NPR

Today while driving to work, I heard an interview with Lera Boroditsky, a Stanford teacher who is researching gender-language connections. She has noticed through her studies that languages which have masculine or feminine nouns carry these genders over into the adjectives used when describing these objects. For example, German speakers consider bridges feminine and when asked to offer adjectives to describe a bridge, they used words like "delicate," "beautiful," et c. However, Spanish speakers who consider bridges masculine, use words like "strong," "long," et c.
In other words, Boroditsky claims that language affects the aesthetic experience.

After testing out Shakespeare's line "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," Boroditsky found Shakespeare wrong. Roses in paper bags labeled "mowed grass" did not smell as sweet as those labeled "rose" to her test subjects.

Of course, this reminded me of Williams.

Williams- Marxism and Literature

In part one, Williams explains how linguistics and literary theories developed. He describes the interplay between history, language development, and linguistics. He points out how literature blossomed at the end of the feudal period as European society shifted from a society centered on religion to one with more secular concerns. From these shifts, he notes, literary theorists developed the concept of "tradition" (upholding certain ideologies) to distinguish "good" literature from "bad," thus keeping literature from becoming too egalitarian.
In part two, Williams goes on to reinterpret Marx's ideas (and post-Marxist ideas) regarding the base-superstructure. He points out the difficulties in separating art from production (with his piano example -- his one specific example!). He also rejects the idea that art is merely a reflection of society. Rather, Williams agrees with Adorno's theory that art/culture is a mediation of society -- that the mediation takes place within the art itself. He then discusses the problem of aesthetics, claiming that aesthetics is really a social function/reaction. However, he doesn't reject aesthetics because of this. He claims that artists (writers) must confront the "hegemony" within themselves (social forces) to be truly creative and to bring something "unknown" or new to the world.

Values
Marxism but reinterpreted.
Euro-centric. Asia had novels before the 17th century.
The Frankfort school highly valued.


If culture is a mediation of society, is the reverse also true?
What have these theorists got against specific examples?

Links

The aesthetic experience takes place socially? Is this like Hegel's reconciliation through art?
It's no longer the divine within, but the hegemony within. Yikes! My sense of self is either expanding or contracting. Am I a WE?

Williams reminds me a bit of Adorno in his critique of Marxist interpretations. Williams says art is not merely a reflection of society. Adorno criticizes Kant and the Freudians for their sense that art is valued not for what it is but for what it means in terms of something else.