Very true,
Every design which I have done and valued, has happened
serendipitously, minus any effort on my part.
A streak of luck that seems to happen the more I allow my being free
rein.
mando
On Sep 2, 2008, at 7:39 AM, William Conger wrote:
Our disagreement rests on our using the term art differently. I am
suggesting that a work of art is the special status of something
that can't be achieved by means of artistic intention. By that I
place greater emphasis on its subjectivity, its reception, than on
its matgerial status.
On the related issue regarding representation, I quickly agree that
there are no truly abstract forms even though all forms are
essntially abstract (nameless in themselves, as Cheerskep may
affirm). The seeming contradiction in that suggeston is that we
can't perceive anything without either naming it or inventing a
likeness for it. So everything looks like something else (or
evokes the metaphorical "as-if"). The problem is that anything can
look like many other things which are themselves multiply evocative
of still other things, and so on. So an incredibly complex
ambiguity is built into every perception. This is where Cheerskep
and I part company. He would say the author has the duty to be as
clear as possible in stirring another to perceive what he or she
intends to convey. I say that some authors, artists, etc., have
the duty to remove as many barriers as they can from the natural
ambiguity of perception. I know this is not suitable to
expository communication for it exposes paradox, alternative
perceptions, free-ranging fictionalizing, and even incoherence.
The benefit, however, is a greater awareness of the sheer magnitude
of how we think and feel. It is an invitation for the fullest
possible self-reflectivity, which is simply another way to achieve
oneness with Being.
While you conclude that abstractness leads to non-referentiality, I
propose that non-referentiality is impossible (as does Amando)
because, as stated above, everything looks like something else (or
perhaps like everything else in some respects and certainly in its
evocative capability for nothing prevents me from likening it to
anything else no matter how strange or perverse). Abstraction is
simply the degree to which form maintains its ambiguous evocative
nature in our perceptions, or, more plainly, to subvert our
habitual associations and open us to others.
Because I imagine the role of some artists to be that of revealing
the fullest possible ambiguity of form, its suggestive capacity to
evoke likeness to anything and everything while always being
itself, for the sake of "stirring" feeling of Beingness (or oneness
-- with nature, God, or cosmos), I reject the notion that (all)
art should convey (stir) some idea or translation of language or
coherent thought or lesson, or, finally, intentionality. Any
intentionality consciously imposed will, by necessity, reduce
ambiguity. Any conscious effort to reduce ambiguity may be
essential to science and exposition, "truth", "meaning" and the
like, but it is opposite of artistic endeavor. Art is ambiguity
exposed. The ideal art intention is none at all. The ideal meaning
is none at all -- impossible to achieve yet worthy to seek. It is
what the Renaissance era called Divine.
WC
