Saturday, March 26, 2011
Nature and Chaos: One in the Same?
The more I trek through the Third Critique, the more I realize how influential – to an almost inescapable degree – his philosophy has been even amidst those hailed as the more contemporary of thinkers. Such is evidenced is our reading of What is Philosophy by Deleuze and Guattari. The most sticking similarity I’ve come to find between Kantian philosophy and D&G’s distinction between the three modes of thinking lies is found in their respective understanding of art. In particular, the similarity between nature and chaos. For Kant, nature is our apparatus for understanding everything that “exist” in time and space. All things sensible come from nature and our intuitions are a product of nature’s being, more or less, constantly upon us. In application to aesthetics, nature is where we find/discover beauty. The simple pleasures and pains which arise from nature presenting itself to us thus become the basis for our “liking” of beauty and moreover ground the subjectivity of our empirical encounter with nature. What we call beautiful, therefore, derives from our “disinterested” – perhaps better phrased “neutral”—pleasure which nature invokes from us. Our capacity for making this pleasure known is called taste, and everyone has taste. The artist, then, to whom nature has given a certain, ability, skill, or talent (denoted as genius), is the one who can effectively communicate taste through means of nature.
The same is true of the aesthetic figure in art. In art’s struggle with chaos (nature?), at a certain moment it is able to extract from chaos, in the form of a chaoid compound, a pure sensation that is able is capable of standing up on its own. The astonishing similarity I find between Kant’s imagination, where nature presents itself to us via the senses, and D&G’s understanding of art is that way in which both extract from the world private sensations that can be communicated as something universal. In this way chaos and nature are one in the same. They both inexplicably yield sensations to us which that we the capable of communicating to the world via art. Thus, I honestly think you’re right, Austin, the aesthetic figure is to chaos as the genius is to nature. So it seems, at least.
This is Genius: http://www.nowness.com/day/2011/3/18/1371/sebastian--embody
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Religion and Transcendence
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Deleuze and Guattari
The description of the concept that Deleuze and Guattari provide also stimulates a number of questions. After an individual has placed himself in such a position so that the concept is able to “reveal” itself, it is still unclear whether or not (s)he will become the means for the creation of a particular concept. Potentially, an individual could satisfy all of the necessary “requirements” for the creation of a concept without a concept coming even remotely close enough for the individual to grasp. In addition to this problem, the window of opportunity that the individual has to create a concept is limited. Deleuze and Guattari explain that the concept (as a “layer” of the brain subject) is incredibly fragile. Old age creates objective disconnections and disintegrations that prevent individuals from maintaining the infinite speeds of the chaos. Eventually, the concepts that the individual has accumulated throughout his/her lifetime will begin to disintegrate into separate components. Individuals who are near the end of their lives slowly move back into the chaos outside of the plane of immanence and are forced to rely on ready-made opinion (214). Deleuze and Guattari explain that philosophy only comes together in “the moment of grace between life and death” (1). Hence, the philosopher must struggle not only with opinion and chaos, but also with time. How can the individual who aspires to become a philosopher remain optimistic when faced with such an intimidating challenge? Philosophy, then, must be a mode of thought that is available to the individual regardless of his/her specific age.
Philosophies goal should be the pursuit of Logical prospects
In addition I have a problem with the conceptual personae. It does not seem logical for the character to be completely autonomous. Even Descartes was able to stop the idiot from doubting away everything. The idiot’s goal was to doubt everything. However Descartes was able to prevent the Idiot from doubting away what thinking was, he was able to hang on to opinions that the CP was unable to penetrate. Descartes was able to hang on to conceptions of God and other things to escape his solipsistic hole. The fact that the philosopher could create boundaries makes the cp more of a tool than an autonomous agent. Cp don’t usually take the philosopher just anywhere they are usually at least partially bound by the philosophers already prevalent beliefs. This is why Hegel did not differ that much from Kant, James did not differ that much from Pierce. The conceptual Personae is bound by opinions, thoughts, and beliefs already present in the philosopher. Because of this we do not usually see radical change in philosophic thought all the time. Philosophy usually just builds on top of previous philosophies. There are cases of radical change in philosophy however those cases are rare. I could argue that the philosophers who do cause radical change only do so because they may have experienced something that makes that philosophy inconsistent with some ideas they already hold. So they attempt to create a brand new system. It is like how religion and the idea of God often influence whether or not a philosopher will buy into certain systems.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
appropriation as a facet of becoming in art
Thus, the work of art is contingent upon it's physical existence insofar as it is the vehicle by which one may look at and with the artwork. What has happened to the viewer then, is not merely an experience marginalized by it's duration but rather a kind of reminiscence posited by the mind. The combination of the physical thing (whether that be music, visual art, literature or otherwise) with one's aesthetic understanding of the natural world combined with the dramatic intention of the artist will hopefully yield a work that is "a being sensation and nothing else" existing in and of itself. It is the task of the viewer then to further appropriate their feelings about the art encountered in order to create lasting impressions, in a way, feelings that can be conjured in the mind without the presence of the work of art itself. These feelings are called affects and percepts as they are in a way derivative of the visceral affections and perceptions felt upon viewing.
Thus, the task of the work of art both to participate and instantiate a process of appropriation. this appropriation could be of objects, methods, components, feelings, techniques or ideas; but it seems to me that D & G are hinting at a kind territorializing and deterritorializing in order to make the work of art stand alone, in and of itself. This explanation seems to be a surrogate for "appropriation" which, I believe, is inherent to the creative process.
Paris Je T'aime
Now, obviously they spend more time in the text tackling the differences between philosophy and science, so what I mean to say is how the definition and explication of art that they impart the reader is one that is highly refined. Perhaps it’s the nature of the apparent bias (and I don’t use this word in a pejorative sense) the French have towards art that inspired the rich content of D&G’s own understanding of art. Consequently, I’m more inclined to think of D&G as authorities on art more so than philosophy (all doctorates and publications aside). I mean, lets face it, Memphis is not Paris; and neither is New York City (sorry Kip and Ben), so it makes sense how D&G conception of art is almost inextricable from their own upbringing.
If you think about it, Paris is one of the few cities in the world that is simply exudes art. It leaves one feeling the rawness of human passion and emotion, incomparable to that of any other place on earth. Its almost like the city itself can be characterized by the same qualities of D&G’s own definition of art, as a constant “being of sensation and nothing else” (164). If you can imagine growing up in a city which itself can be defined as a “compound of percepts and affects” it makes sense to view art in a similar manner to that of D&G. Needless to say, my suggestion of Paris as more or less a personification of art helps make sense of the qualities D&G assign to art (at least id like to think so).
When thinking of the “artist’s greatest difficulty” in making art something that can “stand up on its own” this task can seem daunting. Yet possessing the ability to make art “stand up on its own” is integral to art as the artist can only accomplishes this task by ultimately composing art that goes beyond the “lived”. As D&G write, “In each case style is needed—the writer’s syntax, the musician’s modes and rhythms, the painter’s lines and colors—to raise lived perceptions to the precept and lived affections to the affect” (170). For me, D&G’s chapter on art provides an highly relevant interpretation that bounds art to its creative purposes while validating art all the while as a “bloc of sensations” that supersedes the “lived”.
Methods of Autonomy in Art
Percepts and Affects are born out of perceptions and affections, but unlike the philosophical concept, they preserve themselves apart from their origins. They solidify apart from their beginnings in the raw materials of the art work—color, line, shadow, light. From these they stand up, autonomous, preserve themselves such that they remain even while materials fade away. What more can we say about this process of becoming? Setting aside its nature (i.e. an expression of otherness, a realization of the non-human vague via collapse of the boundary between human subject and other), can we elaborate on the means by which such a nature is attained?
D and G relate three monumental types, three distinct patterns in which sensations stand up as monuments, as autonomous blocs. In each, a single sensation or two display movement of harmony such that they are preserved as percept and affect. The first is vibration, a single sensation that rises and falls, displays differences of level. This sensation is in no way cerebral, but it is rather nervous. The second is the embrace or the clinch, two distinct sensations that resonate so closely as to embrace tightly in a clinch, to seem to become bound by one another, though perhaps still remaining distinct. The Third is withdrawal, division or distention, two sensations that at first seems to be proximal but then draw apart.
What can we make of these descriptions? The latter two suggest that the specific interplay between sensations is what can render the work a genuine piece of art. This seems intuitively true. Often what works particularly well in a piece is contrasting emotions it evokes, such as the juxtaposition of contrasting sentiments in a novel. A satire, e.g., Voltaire’s Candide, can produce in one a pure delight in the piece’s caustic wit, yet this sensation will rely on, be closely intertwined with the painted perception of an impure, sordid philosophy, mocked throughout the interactions of a motley mix of juxtaposed characters (e.g., the naïve/the deceiving, the innocent/the underhanded manipulator, etc.). Here, distinct sensations seem to come together, revealing themselves as much more closely bound than one might originally suspect. The reverse can be equally effective. One of Damien Hirst’s sharks in formaldehyde seems to produce fission rather than fusion. The perceived strength of the deadly predator seems to split into two, as the predator and viewer at once become the prey, i.e., objects of death, as strength falls the inevitable victim of weakness, not merely one of contingent life but of the comprehension of one’s invariable end. The strength and the deadly starkly divides.
What of the first type though? A single sensation that functions not by means of interaction but by solitary movement of level. I’d like to here more said on this if it spoke to anyone.
The Event
On Chapter 7
Artistic works have a unique ability to become completely independent of the bodies and materials which compose them – and in doing so elevate the power of the work at hand to the level of pure sensation. This transcendent bloc of sensations is completely independent of its creator, instead having been formed through self-preservation of the sensations which arose from the original piece of art. Deleuze and Guattari posit an interesting series of steps for this artistic process, which we shall briefly examine here. First, there must be an artist in whose mind the model of the art to be created is held. The artist must also choose the materials with which the work must be created – not simply the physical materials (clay, paper, etc), but also the perceptions and affections which the artist wishes to relay or manipulate. This pool of materials somehow coalesces into a piece of work which has its own essence, conveyed through the perceptions and affections which are a part of the work. These feelings which are evoked by the work are somehow imbued with a quality which allows them to transcend the physical, material level of the world. Thus, the essential characteristic of the work becomes its transcendent quality, and the perception and affection which first regaled the audience has risen to become an independent, preserved quality. Perceptions become percepts; affections become affects. These are the timeless qualities of art which help it achieve its autonomous state, instead of a dependent state of affectation for the audience of the work.
The result which attains is that the percept and affect are able to preserve the essential qualities of the art through transcendence of the material bodies which compose it (e.g. the ink on the pages of a book, the canvas of a painting). This is because the artwork focuses and posits the key qualities of the piece as being within the artwork itself, thus wresting the power of creation from creator and bestowing it eternally to that which has been created. Thus, Art consists in freezing time, capturing a moment of sensation which is able to transcend the physical features of the artwork itself. This is an interesting juxtaposition with philosophy, which attempts to constantly relate and compare concepts whilst constantly changing the boundaries and internal connections of the concept so as to make it compatible with itself and those concepts around it.