Photography and Existentialism

noci said:
In this paragraph you muddle the waters between linguistics and semiology. the former being a branch of the latter does not automatically encapsulate anything semiotic in the linguistic. In fact, an artwork does not "say" anything; fundamental linguistics merely occupied itself with the act of speaking, even disregarding the written word- though that is history.

An artwork does not speak in a linguistic sense, and it is not per se related to the linguistic system of langue and parole. Do not confuse symbols with words.

You might assign meaning or words to a given symbol after the fact, but there is no proof that the symbol ever actually "contained" your delayed attribution. As such, "content" is as arbitrary as language, which thrives on translatability and the universal interchangeability of words. there is only ever differences. the word does not contain the object, and vice versa. the relationship is arbitrary, yet socially regulated.

It is a fundamental paradox, though, that without language we could not discuss art, and thus tend to subjugate an artwork's intersubjectively defined "meaning" to language itself - an act of illegal analogy that also happens to aid in attributing "he said this or that through the work" to the artist.
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I agree with with you, and you stress on an important distinction between linguistic and semiology. However I'm not embarrassed by that: I hold that semiotic relations in artwork "often" (not always or necessarily) are of linguistic kind; that is symbols refers to idea as a written word or a sound refer to an idea; then the articulation of those symbols, though different from linguistic articulation, can be translated in a linguistic syntactic structure. That's why I didn't made the distinction, that's why also I don't need a strong counter-argument such as : "semiotic relations in artwork are necessarily of linguistic kind".
If theere are some artistic works that verify the assertion: "sometimes/often/ it happens that semiotic relations in artwork are of linguistic kind", then I made my point. IMHO, the weak assertion is not disputable.
Best,
Marc
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Finder
I think the answer to these questions are in relationships to the work and not the work itself. I also think the artist's relationship to a work is not the same as a viewers.


Absolutely; I agree with you.
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While I also agree with that, the question that then needs to be asked is; is the relationship between the artist and the art really necessary?
I am thinking about prehistoric cave painting or those extremely old South African objects. In those cases there is no contemporary relationship between art and artist, we cannot even be sure the creatures that made them were fully human, yet their work is undeniably art.
The relevance of linguistics, symbolism or tradition also looks meaningless over the long term, when one is ignorant of the society that produced them one must judge the object on its intrinsic values.
On the other hand one can imagine that the society that produced the prehistoric painter also produced dancers and musicians whose relationship with their art was equally valid at the time but is now completely lost, we would then have to conclude that in fact the relationship between the viewer and the art is the more important.

Congratulation on the new arrival Marc
🙂 🙂
 
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this place rocks!

this place rocks!

People are talking on so many different levels here, the most interesting thing for me in reading this thread (coming late into the game) is to see the way people continue the discussion, making some really interesting points and raising some really good questions, even while incessantly misunderstanding each other and talking past each other. It could make a very cool montage effect!

In general, we can say that Existentialism isn't a very useful vehicle for posing questions about images compared to many other kinds of philosophical, sociological, political and even economic critiques.

There is a very good book by Christiane Vollaire published in France this year, titled < Humanitaire, le coeur de la guerre > (in English, "Humanitarianism, the heart of war"). The intelligent pun in the title of course will give readers an idea of what is to come--an unusually thought-provoking critique of humanitarian aid. I mention this book because it contains an extraordinary discussion of the way in which photograpghic art of a very high professional caliber can be used to prevent people from seeing things (in this case, the economic and political realities behind humanitarian aid) precisely by showing things extensively in highly formalized ways. One of the best examples of this would be Sebastiao Salgado's series of photos on famine in Africa.

This is one of the formulas common to our era: one of the best ways to hide things is by showing them in spectacular fashion.

I do not think that we can responsibly talk about images today without considering the way in which domains that had been previously kept separate--the economic, the political, and the ontological--are now converging upon each other in unprecedented ways. This conjuncture (not exactly confusion) means that we will have to include many things in the "frame" of the work that were normally thought to be wholly external.

But perhaps the biggest challenge we face is that the very possibility of framing--raised earlier in this thread as a fundamental part of art--is now disappearing with the advent of the virtual.
 
Marc-A. said:
[...] that is symbols refers to idea as a written word or a sound refer to an idea; then the articulation of those symbols, though different from linguistic articulation, can be translated in a linguistic syntactic structure.
[...]
If theere are some artistic works that verify the assertion: "sometimes/often/ it happens that semiotic relations in artwork are of linguistic kind", then I made my point. IMHO, the weak assertion is not disputable.
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precisely, there is a moment of referral. we make the same point, and I do understand now where your decision not to differentiate originates. there is a longing not to, of sorts. some might venture to say that semiological differentiation is moot anyways, since it cannot be shown in the sense of producing proof. this is where we touch the second paragraph of yours that I've quoted above.

"verification" is touchy territory.. yet none of us thankfully ever tried to "prove" anything here, in the sense of logics, rationalist methodology or the like. I say "thankfully" because if that were the case we'd now inevitably have to talk about epistemology. considering that caveat, I'd be careful with "not disputable", as this aspiration is made or broken depending on the underlying epistemological and methodological model.

However, we now see that art is "neither". It cannot be "proven". Thankfully, though, we can still believe it to be whatever we wish it to be, and practice art accordingly.

best wishes & thank you for the enjoyable discussion,

Max
 
There once was a Bishop called Berkeley
who remarked, metaphysically, darkly:
"Quite half what we see
cannot possibly be,
and the rest's altogether unlarkly"
 
"am I photographing in a particular style because I genuinely like it, or because it is popular?"

Now that's always a good question. The best artists seem to consistently create art to please themselves.

"solipsistic, intellectual masturbation" Sounds like a good title for this paper!

Many have seen this, but check out Winogrand refusing to take the bait on the questions about "what he does" in this Q&A:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whileseated/447245908/

And the video interview that has been discussed on RFF before:

http://www.jimarnold.org/downloads/winogrand/flash/
 
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One purpose of art is to allow us to transcend personal and existential limitations, meaning, everything we know, don't know or think we know. Photography, regardless of the tools used by the artist or involving an "other", is an act, that may or may not result in a tangible product. A mime with a mime-camera can take pictures. Where do his photographs exist? The same place our photographs exist: nowhere. The mime acts....with a certain level of absurdity and freedom.

When we get entangled with the tangible, the mystery of photography ceases to be mysterious. That is the threat we face every day. Absurdly so.

Chris
canonetc
 
mackigator said:
"am I photographing in a particular style because I genuinely like it, or because it is popular?"

Now that's always a good question. The best artists seem to consistently create art to please themselves.
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Often when we reduce complex issues down to simple presentations, we create false choices...

This reminded me of an exchange between an art critic and the artist Jasper Johns - very loosely paraphrased:

Critic: Do you use readymade templates for your numbers because you like them, or because they come that way?

Johns: I like them because that's the way they come.
 
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