In their discussion of science, Robertson and McDaniel bring up Karl Popper and his emphasis on falsifiability. This concept is important not only to science but also to any art that claims to be “about” anything i.e. psychoanalysis, society, identity, etc. Like science, such art supposedly involves an act of not only observing the world but also analyzing the resulting “data” and forming a summarizing statement.
Popper’s critique of Marxism and forms of psychoanalysis points out that such theories “appeared to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred” (Popper 40). Moreover, each theory could explain opposite or unrelated actions as results of the same convenient cause. On the other hand, Popper respects Einstein for the claims contained in his gravitational theory because of “the risk involved in a prediction of this kind” (41). Einstein’s theory could fail. It made specific predictions, which could turn out to be false, and if they did, would demand rewriting of the theory.
A similar critique can be applied to art and discussions of art. Suppose an artist constructs an artwork and puts it in a gallery space. Before showing it to anyone, the artist says, “This piece is about identity.” Different viewers waiting to see the work could imagine a wide variety of possibilities -- photos like those of Catherine Opie, an Abstract Expressionist painting, or even a minimalist box like Donald Judd’s. Identity as a theme could explain any of these possibilities. Other broad themes are equally convenient. This does not make such art bad. It just means that using “Identity” or a similarly broad idea as a beginning and an end to a piece involves little risk in that anything the artist makes could be said to involve identity, society, Lacanian psychoanalysis, etc.
Karl Popper. “Science: Conjectures and Refutations.” Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science. Ed. E. D. Klemke, Robert Hollinger, David Wyss Rudge, and A. David Kline. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1998. 38-47.
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Interconectedness is everywhere. It's inevitable and it's not a bad thing. If you dig deep enough, you will find a connection between ANY two (or more) things, objects, ideas etc. Post structuralists may say that the beginning and the end don't really exist becasue, why do we need boundraies? Who created them and why? Is there really any difference in yesterday and today..? If so, why should we label it? We don't label the air- the oxygen we breath in order to survive.. we are totally cool with letting that be whatever, whenever, whereever it wants all the time. It has creeped me out, since I was far too young to be freaking out about this sort of thing-- about "contamination by breathing other people's air." everytime anyone would walk by me in a store, I would hold my breath because I didn't want to breath their air. I thought we all had our own seperate air/oxygen clouds around us. They smelled like us, they were for the most part only ours, but you could loose some of your air to someone else if you walked past them to quickly. Vice versa, you could become contamineated by getting someone else's air. I defined your air and my air by smell. A person's air supply extended as far from their body as you could smell them.
ReplyDeleteI remember doing this at age 4. Where in the world did I come up with this "air contamination" phobia and why did I want the air to be divided and defined for certian breathers. I imagined a machine that would color the air, so we could tell whos was whos. Everyone would have a differnt color, obviously we'd have to start overlapping the colors eventually... but I'd deal with that when we ran out of the 96 colors in my crayon box. I am certain this notion of colored air came about from watching my Mom smoke- I was infatuated and repulsed and allergic to smoke. I became ultra aware of what air was clean and what air was grey and allergen filled. The colored air would help others, who were unaware of the "risks associated with breathing" tell what air was theirs and what was potentially hazardous air. I say all this to relate back to boudaries.... our need for definition and order in a world that is naturally not this way. During our post-post-modernism lecture Dr Curzon emphasized a statement from the Kristeava article " offer indefinite conclusions"... this is a double edged sword, but for art- I personally want my viewer to experince something because it is genuine, not because I feed them a few lines about what I was thinking about while making the piece and what it means to me.... No, I made it. That experince within itself is enough communication for me. I most times wish things didn't have title cards at galleries... bc one of the first things people do- they are attracted to a work of art, they draw near, look it over very quickly to make sure they are still iinteretsed and go straight to that card to get as much "given" information as they can. This information- title, any desciption about the piece, directly impacts, alters and helps form their opinion about and experince with the piece as a whole. I like to produce and then send out... let the work do what it's going to do (or not do) for people. I do really enjoy hearing people's thoughts, memories or relationship with my piece. It's about giving them something to react to and letting it happen (or not happen). That's what I do as a creator. That's what we human beings to daily, if you think about it. Our entire identity is a performance. We make it up as we go... and that's alright. Just like a child going through 'terrible twos', they do something and see how it e/affects(?) them or others around them. That's how they experience and learn and grow. I take on a similar thought process when creating my work.