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.