On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Graydon <o...@uniserve.com> wrote: > On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 11:07:59AM +0100, AlunFoto scripsit: >> Graydon, >> I wrote about _trust_, not truth. Trust is the thing that builds a >> bridge of consensus between our individual perceptions of reality, >> isn't it? :-) > > I wouldn't say so, no. I'd say that's either facts (arrived at in > falsifiable, public ways) or a presumption of the absence of malice. > > Facts about perception exist, but aren't particularly useful in a > context of art. > > Advertising *never* comes with a presumption of the absence of malice, > at least from my corner, but this has layers. > > Advertising is about creating or strengthening an insecurity and then > offering (or implying) a solution. That's a willingness to mess with my > head and/or cashflow, but it's not the same as "do this or we club you > with sticks" malice. The "creating insecurity" part also varies widely; > the folks advertising pay-day loans (and blatantly lying about low > rates) are different from the Pentax ad that implies $EXPENSIVE_LENS > will improve your photography, at least in as much as the folks > responsible for the Pentax ad can presume you already know that > $EXPENSIVE_LENS cannot improve your photography. > > Art is an attempt to produce a pattern of emotional reaction in the > viewer (for photography, anyway, viewer); this more or less requires > that you set out to mess with someone's head in creating art. You > might, as a specific individual artist, build up some trust over time > about how you're going to do that, but it's very easy to lose. (Pick > any popular art -- book, tv, movie, music... -- and find the wailing > when the artist(s) do something different, or different than expected...) > > So I'd say you can, maybe, trust an individual to be pursuing their > artistic vision, but you can't sensibly trust that you know what that is > (since they might not, and it will change with time) or that it's > necessarily good for you. (There are, after all, all those folks out > there on the net apparently sincerely pursuing an artistic vision of > wanting to make people spork their eyeballs out.) > > So I think "how do I react to this?" is a much more useful question than > "do I trust this artist? what were they trying to do?"
Holy shit, guys, I'm just taking fuckin' pictures, you know? cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
