It seems to me that narrow formal qualities like noise sounds and body gests and brush strokes and partial extracts are likely not "marks" in the broader philosophic use of the term, although when such qualities like sounds and gests and strokes and extracts do indeed reveal the style and voice and school of a particular producer, then they might be called "marks" in the wider sense of identifying some sort of comparison, as with a member to its class. It might therefore be best to define a "mark" in a more lofty way as that aspect of form which identifies the differences between an apposition and its opposition. For example, a "mark" could help identify the difference between an ambiguous figure and an opposed ground in a frame, or between the unmarked human as male or female and the marked woman only as female. If forms like sounds and gests and strokes and extracts fail to sufficiently identify differences in opposition, then they would not be "marks" at least in the broader sense. -Frances
Cheerskep wrote... A lister partly wrote "Actually, this is not a recognition test of "marks" if we define them as "whatever is done to a surface in a single, un-interrupted touch" because, more than just individual marks, I've presented entire areas of detail." These "entire areas" are much more interesting to me. When I was in college, my roommate had stacks of classical records that he was familiar with. I could start a record and put the needle down somewhere in the middle, and in less than a second he'd know the piece. I got to the point where, in a similarly short time, I could at least identify the composer. E.g. Brahm's blend of instruments was unmistakably "characteristic". Such characteristic style -- sometimes as little as a line, perhaps even a phrase -- is sufficient to identify those writers who have a unique "voice". I don't agree that looking for such characteristics in a painter, composer, or writer is merely play -- of no educational/appreciating value. ************** It's raining cats and dogs so be careful not to step in a poodle.
