The 'complex interaction' I mentioned isn't something a work does. A ork of art is the _outcome_ of such an interaction. now, I must admit 'm anticipating a great deal form the half dozen pages I flipped hrough, but this seems to be the horizon in which Ranciere wants to ove. ON the very first page of the book, he asks two questions (first n French, then in my translation): 1) est-ce bien d'une rC)alitC) simple et univoque qu'ils nous parlent e) Is there really one simple, univocal reality that 'image' captures, enotes, connotes, etc.
There damn well better not be. Why should a painting have only one reality, one existence. Inddeed if they did, once the local cultural meaning faded out of the work=like so many religious paintings= then the painting would be meaningless to the present and we manage to find some meaning in them. ) N'y-a-t-il pas, sous le me^me nom d'image, plusiers fonctions dont 'ajustement problC)matique constitue prC)ecisC)ment le travail de l'art? e) are there not several functions implicit in [or hidden] in the oncept of 'image' [literally, under the name of the image, but meaning omething like, rallying under the banner of the image] whose roblematic readjustment and negotiation constitutes precisely the task nd effort of art? There is certainly the gross act of depiction, and given specific cultural assumptions=still lifes being better off with a dash of gesture , you can continue on, rearranging the bits. It is especially hard to produce a still life like Pieter Claus and have it look like anthing but an imitation of Claus. to give one exmple of difficulty in rC!rranging the underlying text of the painting. I have neither question marks nor quotation marks nor dashes. KAte Sullivan SO there it is. Beginning with the banal observation that 'Artworks are utcomes of processes' the questions that follow are what were the rocesses (here construed in a historical, social sense) and how did hese processes become dominant? So the leading questions have a kind f genetic/genealogical thrust. So it's not about the meaning of a ork, its about what goes into making a work. IN short, Tom, You've ast a stone at the wrong house. The position you attack is not the one eld. -----Original Message----- From: Alexei Procyshyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:42 pm Subject: Re: Alexei's report on Ranciere's "interactions" and "disruption". Ugh, for some reason the french accents didn't come out. the thingie that ooks like, "C)" is actually an "e" with an accent aigu. From now on, I'll ust omit the accents (at the risk of offending any French listers, unlike the iacritics in other languages, french accents don't really mean anything nyway [ok they mark certain verb tenses sometimes, but they don't change the eaning of nouns]) >>> "Alexei Procyshyn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/18/08 7:27 AM >>> om, The 'complex interaction' I mentioned isn't something a work does. A ork of art is the _outcome_ of such an interaction. now, I must admit 'm anticipating a great deal form the half dozen pages I flipped hrough, but this seems to be the horizon in which Ranciere wants to ove. ON the very first page of the book, he asks two questions (first n French, then in my translation): 1) est-ce bien d'une rC)alitC) simple et univoque qu'ils nous parlent e) Is there really one simple, univocal reality that 'image' captures, enotes, connotes, etc. 2) N'y-a-t-il pas, sous le me^me nom d'image, plusiers fonctions dont 'ajustement problC)matique constitue prC)ecisC)ment le travail de l'art? e) are there not several functions implicit in [or hidden] in the oncept of 'image' [literally, under the name of the image, but meaning omething like, rallying under the banner of the image] whose roblematic readjustment and negotiation constitutes precisely the task nd effort of art? SO there it is. Beginning with the banal observation that 'Artworks are utcomes of processes' the questions that follow are what were the rocesses (here construed in a historical, social sense) and how did hese processes become dominant? So the leading questions have a kind f genetic/genealogical thrust. So it's not about the meaning of a ork, its about what goes into making a work. IN short, Tom, You've ast a stone at the wrong house. The position you attack is not the one eld. This doesn't mean, of course, that Ranciere isn't banal. I don't know et. I have to read stuff more carefully. >>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/17/08 9:39 PM >>> lexei has already started reading Ranciere. I'll take his report on the irst pages to be the first reading-lister's comment on "The Future of he mage". lexei writes: "One of the points Ranciere appears to be making is that an image is a ather omplex product of several distinct "semiotic" codes, which disrupt each ther in various ways, but which nevertheless conjointly produce a articular ind f aesthetic experience. It's this complex interaction that he seems o ake as a guiding theme for his discussion of art (as opposed to crambled ggs)." Evidently, then, we're asked to accept that there are TWO different inds of interaction" going on -- one between distinct elements in the work, and nother between the work and the observer. As I wrote to Saul, I can nderstand why thinking reader believes there is "interaction" going on between him nd he inert work, it's a pretty figurative notion -- but in fact inert bjects o ot act. We, the observers, can't interact with them. "But certainly in a novel when two characters clash, they are nteracting?" hough that should be expressed in the past tense, I'll grant that uper-obvious fact. Why do I suspect Ranciere will never rise above that bviousness, no atter what he celebrates as "disruption". "See how the mood of this usic in he Bresson film clashes with the mood of the characters?" Believe it: f he ites such stuff as "disruption", his only credit should be for finding new abel for something that was knowingly used even long before when reughel sed t in his 16th century "The Fall of Icarus" (and Auden noted in his plendid oem about that painting, "Musee des Beaux Arts".) But I can't part here without noting Alexei's shot, "b&Ranciere's uiding heme for his discussion of art (as opposed to scrambled eggs)." Alexei as ere esponding to my earlier comment, "My primary point with my line was hat anciere's remark -- "Art remains art insofar as the image stimulates nterpretation." -- is faulty because, though it seems to be trying to ay omething unique o "art", ANY image "stimulates interpretation" -- including the image f crambled eggs." Tell me: Does Ranciere define "art"? And does he do t in uch way as to exclude scrambled eggs? Why do I guess he does not? eantime, I onfess this much gabble by me has order the damn book from Amazon, and I have one so. But I'll bet I find is undamental up-front confusion and his demonstrably inadequate mind make e uit he book early on. As we used to say in publishing, "You do not have to at ll of the egg to know that it is bad." ************** t's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & inance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)
