“One critical reflection we might engage in today concerns what “theory” is or has become to us” which means to me we must revaluate the definition of theory (pg 388). What is Theory? By definition, theory is a set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts of phenomena. I believe, this means, a theory is an explanation for a set of facts. But what are facts? A fact is knowledge or information based on real occurrences. In simple terms, we as a society come up with ideas about how real things come into existence. But has theory become something set; something reused and without original thought?
What I mean, is, do we really come up with any original thoughts of our own? Any real theories? “ Gradually theory stopped even trying to invent new concepts or raise new questions, and became instead a set of stock formulas to be thrown together in the computer at will without regard for origin or rigor in an ever more arbitrary and entangled quotation patchwork” in other words,theory, has become routine, unoriginal, and already used (pg 390). If the knowledge we have about facts is always real and true how many explanations can we actually come up with that are new in concept. A theory, to me, should be considered a new and fresh thought but instead it’s just an old idea to a used fact.Today’s artwork is a good example of how old ideas are constantly being used and reused. The approach is just different. For instance, Olafur Elisson is famous for his waterfalls around the New York area, but haven’t we seen representations of waterfalls use in artwork before? Even though his approach and meaning to the subject is different, the idea, the concept is still the same.
Kocur, Zoya, and Simon Leung. Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Print.
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"A theory, to me, should be considered a new and fresh thought but instead it’s just an old idea to a used fact.Today’s artwork is a good example of how old ideas are constantly being used and reused. The approach is just different. For instance, Olafur Elisson is famous for his waterfalls around the New York area, but haven’t we seen representations of waterfalls use in artwork before? Even though his approach and meaning to the subject is different, the idea, the concept is still the same."
ReplyDeleteI love this statement. It made so many things about this article a clearer for me. I was having a hard time reading it because I became defensive at the thought that they were saying that no one is original, even though i can understand where they get that from. I really believe that theories can be new, as well as art... even if somewhere in history someone represented something like it before, it can still be presented in a new context. I agree that now more then ever the fact that someone can be original is hard... but I still think that something is original if it is presented in a new context.
Fact, theory, words, meaning .... why we value what we do? Who said that the tangible apple that we can eat needed a name? why did they call it apple? a-p-p-l-e is not an apple. It is a word that is used in order try and help ctegorize, identify and label- essentially help simplify all the things in this world. Just thought of this, my teacher Craig Wedderspoon and I were talking one time and I said, "There are only two things in the world that I hate, time and money." His reponse was, "Well... you do know Molly Brooke both of those things were made up by man in order to make sense of the excess matter around him?" I had never thought about that before he told me this. It blew my miond, and it also correlates to what I am speaking about in this comment. Language, words,letters... were all invented in order to organize the matter around us. The "excess of meaning" associated with Post structuralism, did scare and still scares the sense out of people. But the very first and second class meetings we had, when we talked about Post & Deconstrucuralism, linguistics, signifier, signified etc... I realized how bizare and seemingly silly it was the we put such a high value and give such power to words. words aren't ojbects or feelings they are only words, made up of letters which are assigned a value. Why is it so important for us to express ourselves to the world and society through language and written word? It is something I feel the need to constantly do as well, but why? Why do I feel the need to have a dictionary and thesaurus with me at all times... The ability to find just the perfect word to convey to someone else (who will never truly really understand through hearing my words what I want them to understand anyway, that's the breakdown of words & language) something that I feel. We are such social, expressive little creatures. Myself included. What if one day we found an effective more simple way to communicate, how would the eradication of two of the primary vehicles we use for conveying information-written word and/or language- change how our society runs, functions, looks and feels? (These are the things I think about, all the time.)
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