Do we only have one? A multiplicity? Do we inhabit a society that tries to suggest that we have only one? Or do we accept the premise of postmodernity, that we have none…
‘None’ is interesting: does none posit the idea that there are some which cannot be applied? That used to apply but no longer do?It always strikes me as being similar, in structure to the atheist/god argument: an atheist is, in essence, asserting that there is something in which they do not believe. Surely the simpler thing would be to state that the question is ridiculous, and not worth thinking about – a non-issue. Is there a value in the discourse of god? Well, yes, for many there is, but that’s only because of cultural conditioning and the human person’s fear of death; the human person, well some human persons, are unable to grasp the concept of a ‘finish’. To put it bluntly, we die and that’s it. Again, you can trace this whole issue back to Plato…This isn’t to say that the concept of a god and the uses to which this concept has, and is, put isn’t fascinating. It is. For centuries, it’s been a tool whereby unsupported notions of “the good” has been instantiated without validity except the use-value to to those in power.
This use-value spills into Art through arguments that only morally good Art can be aesthetically good. Do we accept these arguments as valid or can we see them as similar to many others that cite God as a support for their perspective, not because God exists, but because the writer or makar concluded that it was too dangerous to not claim this. The idea of God has always resided in the hands of the powerful – as part of their power – therefore, to put it colloquially, were writers and makars of pervious times merely “hedging their bets”?
Art is, as I’ve argued previously, a critique of, and protest against, the status quo. Whether by design or accident, it highlights the fractures, injustices and untruths of particular times, regimes or ways of thinking. It also analyses ways of Being. Each work begins as a critique of form: of brush stroke, of musical composition, or of writing – of how this medium represents and refracts in specific ways, given the vistas and limitations of its form. Form is the makar’s first choice: what do I want to express and which medium should I choose? Usually, this choice is informed by familiarity, by an initial understanding of the discourse of the form in question. It may be the case that we find our chosen form wanting, have to push against its apparent ‘boundaries’, experiment, innovate, yet we start from a understanding of what we think the form can do, can provide. The discourse of Art (the discourses of the various media that go to make up ‘Art’) is unique in that it is not defined, not confined to a language that must be simply learnt and accepted; this discourse flows and grows (like water?) refutes absolute notions of right and wrong. It not tied to a particular epoch or ideology but to concepts of what it means to be a human person, in touch with other human persons (that comma isn’t a mistake). The discourse of Art embraces other “Humanities subjects”, not in order to act as a measure, or to invalidate them, but to engage in mutual learning and understanding. In this, it asserts its uniqueness to other discourses.
The discourse of Art makes not a claim to truth, but to perspective, often to a perspective on (a) truth (that vanishes even as we (almost) grasp it).
Unlike the discourses of, say, medicine, psychiatry or business the aim is not an exclusivity, a definitive right and wrong, a series of absolute truths (which obtain only within the structure of the discourse) operating in a teleological system. The discourse of Art is boundless, a vast open plain of endless possibilities unified by human persons. It has no overarching theme, no metanarrative, no guiding metric. It ‘relies’ simply on enthusiasm and the desire to express, to ‘speak’ (in whatever form that ‘speaking’ might take place). In this, the value of the discourse of Art lies in its ability to unify, to enthral, to reassert the human. Using a different kind of language (discourse?), Art liberates, it radiates in and through the human person while, simultaneously, allowing us (however fleetingly) to transcend our facticity. To reach beyond ourselves. Art that does this? All I can do is name-drop those who I know: J.B. Bach; Keith Jarrett; Resnais’ Last Year in Marienbad; Antonioni’s La Notte; Godard’s Weekend; Rilke’s poetry; Miles Davis’ Agharta; Beethoven; Joyce; Proust; Rothko; Brecht.
I can name my works, and you can name yours. On occasion, these will be the same – works that intrigue, challenge and explain, enabling us to learn from one another, to identify themes that we both consider important. They will not, to offer a “negative definition”, reinforce, insist and retrench. In simple political terms, the former will be left-wing, the latter right. Art is not created to reinforce bourgeois apathy, to enhance their world view as univocal.
Back to Eisenstein and Benjamin…and Derrida.
Murmurs from the Forest 