Art as Simulation - Maggie McBrady

Art as Simulation - Jean Baudrillard
Assigned Reading
Maggie McBrady

"We have finished with the end of representation, then, with the end of aesthetics, with the end of the image itself in the superficial virtuality of the screens."

     Baudrillard is criticizing the direction art is taking by comparing it the the current human desire for the "hyperreal".  The hyperreal is when images become more real than the actual objects they represent.  For example, an explosion in an action movie seems more real, hyperreal, than an explosion in real life.  We have become so used to the explosion we are presented with in movies that we would not be impressed if we saw one happen in front of us.  The explosion we see in the movies is the simulacrum.  The simulacrum is the substitution of the real object for what we desire in the hyperreal world.

     I cannot tell if Baudrillard fears what is coming for art or if he is simply stating what he thinks will happen without emotion.  According to Baudrillard artists will cease to serve a purpose because the art they produce won't produce an aesthetic pleasure because we will become desensitized to it and desire the hyperreal.  We will no longer look to art to fulfill a greater meaning because all that is left will be images.  Baudrillard cites Andy Warhol as evidence that this is already happening.  Warhol's famous Campbell's can is just the presentation of an image yet it was well received.  The cans don't produce an aesthetic pleasure but are simply there.
     I'm not sure I completely agree with Baudrillard.  I think, like all things in life, we are in a phase of art.  Modern art is seen as hip and so it is payed great admiration.  But once we grow tired of a canvas being painted with a single blue strip we will seek out aesthetic art.

Reliability - Maggie McBrady

In Class Discussion on Reliability

Student Chosen Topic

Maggie McBrady

     In my notes I have that art doesn't put forth a purpose like most objects in our lives.  So if art doesn't have a purpose why do we utilize it so often and place such large value in it?  The answer as we discussed in class comes from arts ability to change our way of thinking.  Reliability emphasizes the importance we place on an objects purpose.  The shoes above are only shoes if they serve their purpose.  When the shoes fail to serve their purpose they are no longer shoes because they no longer have their reliability.  However, if we paint the shoes then they cannot serve a function because they reside in a two dimensional painting.  They only represent the reliability they would have served in the real world.  The purpose of art then becomes to show the reliability we place on objects.  By looking at a painting of shoes we can be told a story about their owner.  If the shoes are heavily worn then they might be the only pair the owner has, if the shoes are covered in mud then the owner must work in the fields, in contrast if the shoes are clean and well kept then the owner probably has multiple pairs and doesn't have to do strenuous labor.  Art presents objects not for the purpose they serve but for the meanings they hold.  Art skews reliability into telling a story.

Art as Communicable Pleasure - Maggie McBrady

Art as Communicable Pleasure - Immanuel Kant
Assigned Reading
Maggie McBrady

"There is no science of the beautiful, but only a Critique"

     While writing my research paper on feminist art I came across an article that said feminist artists try to breakdown conceptions of fine art by not following fine arts "rules".  A few of the rules mentioned were not using crafts in fine art and fine art being the work of a lone genius.  I was initially confused and thought "Shouldn't art just be art not matter what form it comes in?".

    Kant and I are in agreement.  In the section of Fine Art Kant writes that "There is no science of the beautiful, but only a Critique".  If science were involved then there would be requirements and steps that needed to be taken to prove beauty.  Beauty would fail to remain a "judgement of taste".  If we ascribe rules to what is beautiful we are restricting beauty.  Kant defines an object as beautiful if it pleases apart from all interest; if you can look at an object and appreciate it for what is being presented to you.

     A second definition Kant offers is agreeable art.  He defines agreeable art as those that have "mere enjoyment for their object".  The examples he offers are hosting a dinner party where the guest sit around the dinner table in "unrestrained and sprightly conversation".  I think agreeable art shouldn't be a type of art but an attribute that art can have.  If looking at a piece by Picasso gives you the same giddy feeling then agreeable art should be an element of it.

     For if the purpose of art is to escape into the wonder of beauty happiness or gaiety as Kant mentions should be a welcomed element in all arts.

Holy Words - Maggie McBrady

Holy Words - Van der Leeuw
Assigned Reading
Maggie McBrady

"The beauty of words does not reside in their meaning, but in their rhythm, in their meter."

   A common saying I have heard and used many times is "It isn't what you say but how you say it". Van der Leeuw explains this common saying through the importance that humans place on formulas.  Rhythm and meter, are among the easiest of formulas for us to understand and implement in our lives.  Van der Leeuw explains that the only time something becomes alive for us is when we have found a formula for it.  So since rhythm and meter present obtainable formulas we latch on to them and ascribe a large amount of meaning to them instead of the individual words.
    To connect this to modern life I though about music.  Dubstep and Electronic Dance Music (EDM) rely heavily on strong varying rhythms and meter.  When Dubstep and EDM first began developing many people didn't understand the point, there were hardly any words just a bunch of sounds and beats.  They were both initially dismissed.  But the quickly built up a strong following and have established themselves as music genres.  I don't think Van der Leeuw would have been surprised.

"Rhythm compels the movement of the soul, even the soul of the Gods..."

a culinary dance

I love to cook. As with most anything, cooking is a much richer, more joyful experience when shared with ones you love. My most cherished memories at CNU to date are cooking with friends; I love the collaboration of it.

    One of my favorite memories came with the outrageous amount of snow we got last semester and the cancelling of classes. A house of boys that I befriended about two blocks away did not have a working heating system when the snow and freezing temperatures came, so decided to get snowed in at the house I lived in. We were happy to have them. They brought their groceries in and, as dinnertime was approaching, we took inventory of our collective items to see what we could come up with. Chili. Two or three of us undertook the task as the less culinarily inclined engaged us with their conversation. We went round and round sharing things that nobody in the room would have previously known about us; going on a tangent every now and then returning to the game. Music was played and the cooking - and dancing - began. Cooking together often resulted in overly spicy food, as one friend in particular would get so swept up in the music, dance, and joy of the moment that he’d get carried away with the cayenne. But it was always a good meal especially, maybe entirely, because it was shared.

When reflecting on these wonderful memories the other day, it struck me how cooking is so much like a dance as Van Der Leeuw describes it. He describes dance as a game, one that requires participation in order for it to be understood. This is certainly true in my experience of cooking with friends; it’s very much a game. Ingredients are tossed from one person to another, knowing glances  are exchanged, laughter ensues. The meal we made was always dependent on the participation of the whole group. Each brought what they had to share, and something grander was created from our collective resources than we would have come up with on our own. In step with Van Der Leeuw’s description, this culinary dance was not a performance. Rather, the participants got swept up in genuine dance, loosing from themselves the heaviness of being bound to earth. Worries and stress relating to our studies or other things seemed to slip right off our weary shoulders, leaving us free and burdenless in the joy of dance. It’s almost as though we danced our meals right onto the plate, every moment in preparing the meal beforehand was both so free and so deliberate. This reminds me of Van Der Leeuw speaking of dance as exploding and controlled passion. I wish to enjoy more meals prepared in such a beautiful, exhilarating manner.

Ancient Art and Ritual

Ancient Art and Ritual - Jane Harrison
Assigned Reading
Maggie McBrady

A point of Harrison's that I really enjoyed was the need for emotion to be present during ritual. Harrison says that ritual's desire to "recreate emotion not to reproduce an object".  As a member of the Greek community on campus ritual is something that is supposed to be held near and dear.  However I feel that most people often leave out the importance of emotion during ritual and have fallen into the trap of simple mimicry.  Without emotion ritual becomes a dull lifeless action of people just acting with no real concept of what they're actually doing.  I think mimicry is the greatest insult to ritual.

van der Leeuw on the Imago Dei

Van der Leeuw writes in his section, "The Image of God":

"The image of God, which most unequivocally attempts to approach the other and the mighty, is the clearest example of formation of images in general. As we have seen, the primitive artist is intensely interested in what he represents, and this interest is neither purely sentimental (romantic), nor purely visual (aesthetic); his interest is, rather, conveyed by his entire personality, directing itself toward the entire being of what is represented"(162).

Debates of iconoclasm or representation of God aside, which is what van der Leeuw discusses later in this section, I was just particularly struck by this paragraph as a life vision of an artist or a seeker of beauty. We are to be the primitive artist, intensely interested in what God represents. We are to allow our entire personalities, our entire essences of being, to be about understanding, dwelling in, and seeking the face of God and the beauty which He is.