Warning: Excited Rhetoric based on Unqualified Assumptions
This long and soupy waffle is going to be mostly about the relationship between what they call ‘art’ and the Principle of Charity. With all the broadsheets in the country busy wiping our minds blank with their reccomendations and tips for surviving the Bienniale I have to increasingly re-assure myself that this is standard practice in case I give in to the temptation to hit my head very hard against the wall. It’s not that the reviews are at all bad – far from it – but if the conoisseur-wannabe were to hold the word of the Straits Times as some kind of holy gold they won’t bother to make any alternative interpretations of the artwork when they do see it. As it is I am assuming that the articles are there so that the layman who is ordinarily unable to see anything particularly aesthetic in what is called ‘art’ any more will find something to appreciate, which is infinitely better than not understanding any part of it at all.
Even if the person I have in my mind doesn’t take the Straits Times as the sacred word as I suggest the perception of the art he will see might well be warped in favour of the article he read. Although a similar event with movie reviews, a movie is a thorougly immersive experience – all five senses and then some – in a way an arty piece may not be. Some of the latter can be abstract at best. People can like DoA the Movie knowing that it’s really crap (really!) but they can’t do the same for art; what the critics say invariably affects common perception of ‘artwork’ because it has more or less achieved some coveted status as ‘highbrow’, and largely requires interpreters who pare it down for the masses to appreciate. And the writers at the newspapers are doing just that i.e. doing their job. But! Think of it! A few hundred people passing an installation either not looking at it because they’re not interested (that’s fine), and a few hundred thousand passing an installation looking at it and THINKING EXACTLY THE SAME THING because they’re all remembering the SAME DAMN ARTICLE!
I wouldn’t mind the possibility of this quite so much if the dominant spreadsheet weren’t quite so… dominant. Although it does provide some kind of universal, most general guide to the scene it cannot say everything in two pages, but people tend to assume it can because, of course, it is a newspaper and should tell the Citizen everything he needs to know… especially if he really is trying to understand… but it’s probably like running repeatedly into your mounting block.
I might as well confess it here and now. I work and write and speak and live in a space where the Principle of Charity is applied in the most liberal doses, and if I am misunderstood it will largely be by wilful choice, and if I misunderstand it will be similarly so for many cases. If I misunderstand involuntarily and it is picked up upon a point of view that I have missed will in all likelyhood be explained with due care, with minimal impatience or ire. However much I wish I can be so I cannot see from the sole perspective but for the bedrock principles I refuse to really discuss here. You may not kill me when I say that I’m not going to judge the hijackers to the planes on September the Eleventh until I know every bloody thing that made them do it. (Although being a biased individual I CAN say that Hitler, at least, was a real bastard.) Put me in a conversation with someone beholden to the principle to be completely convinced that everything we agree upon is certain to be right and I shall be afraid to say anything at all.
So it is with a homing instinct for the weird and wonderful that the weird and wonderful is rationalised, described, rationalised again, digested, and messed around with marvellous alchemical thought processes that aren’t marvellously alchemical until it becomes boring: ‘Entreprenurial’, ‘creative’, hear my ears prick in Singing Singapore.
Most of what I’ve written so far are excited rhetoric based on unqualified assumptions, but use the Principle of Charity –
How can something be weird and wonderful if you think you understand it?
And would this be how the Principle of Charity is essential to art? I think so. I don’t care if you don’t. I’m not putting my argument down in standard form and you’ve read the earlier bits you should know precisely why. Is this a sole perspective? Should I pick a sole perspective after seeing more? Is this a principle by itself? Sometimes it’s more fun.
Just don’t call it the ‘Principle of Charity’ in this context. It’s not ‘charity’ any more. It’s paths, branches, mystery, nodes, air and aether. It’s night and nova. On things of this sort it doesn’t have to be coherent because that’s what it is; I don’t understand what I just said because I can’t. Nobody will understand everything, but try anyway.
Even if the person I have in my mind doesn’t take the Straits Times as the sacred word as I suggest the perception of the art he will see might well be warped in favour of the article he read. Although a similar event with movie reviews, a movie is a thorougly immersive experience – all five senses and then some – in a way an arty piece may not be. Some of the latter can be abstract at best. People can like DoA the Movie knowing that it’s really crap (really!) but they can’t do the same for art; what the critics say invariably affects common perception of ‘artwork’ because it has more or less achieved some coveted status as ‘highbrow’, and largely requires interpreters who pare it down for the masses to appreciate. And the writers at the newspapers are doing just that i.e. doing their job. But! Think of it! A few hundred people passing an installation either not looking at it because they’re not interested (that’s fine), and a few hundred thousand passing an installation looking at it and THINKING EXACTLY THE SAME THING because they’re all remembering the SAME DAMN ARTICLE!
I wouldn’t mind the possibility of this quite so much if the dominant spreadsheet weren’t quite so… dominant. Although it does provide some kind of universal, most general guide to the scene it cannot say everything in two pages, but people tend to assume it can because, of course, it is a newspaper and should tell the Citizen everything he needs to know… especially if he really is trying to understand… but it’s probably like running repeatedly into your mounting block.
I might as well confess it here and now. I work and write and speak and live in a space where the Principle of Charity is applied in the most liberal doses, and if I am misunderstood it will largely be by wilful choice, and if I misunderstand it will be similarly so for many cases. If I misunderstand involuntarily and it is picked up upon a point of view that I have missed will in all likelyhood be explained with due care, with minimal impatience or ire. However much I wish I can be so I cannot see from the sole perspective but for the bedrock principles I refuse to really discuss here. You may not kill me when I say that I’m not going to judge the hijackers to the planes on September the Eleventh until I know every bloody thing that made them do it. (Although being a biased individual I CAN say that Hitler, at least, was a real bastard.) Put me in a conversation with someone beholden to the principle to be completely convinced that everything we agree upon is certain to be right and I shall be afraid to say anything at all.
So it is with a homing instinct for the weird and wonderful that the weird and wonderful is rationalised, described, rationalised again, digested, and messed around with marvellous alchemical thought processes that aren’t marvellously alchemical until it becomes boring: ‘Entreprenurial’, ‘creative’, hear my ears prick in Singing Singapore.
Most of what I’ve written so far are excited rhetoric based on unqualified assumptions, but use the Principle of Charity –
How can something be weird and wonderful if you think you understand it?
And would this be how the Principle of Charity is essential to art? I think so. I don’t care if you don’t. I’m not putting my argument down in standard form and you’ve read the earlier bits you should know precisely why. Is this a sole perspective? Should I pick a sole perspective after seeing more? Is this a principle by itself? Sometimes it’s more fun.
Just don’t call it the ‘Principle of Charity’ in this context. It’s not ‘charity’ any more. It’s paths, branches, mystery, nodes, air and aether. It’s night and nova. On things of this sort it doesn’t have to be coherent because that’s what it is; I don’t understand what I just said because I can’t. Nobody will understand everything, but try anyway.
posted by the zen thing at 6:57 PM
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