Self Consciousness day to day...

In Dr. Yake's second paper he talks about our self-consciousness in relation to how we reflect on our experiences in measures of time:

"when I look at my behavior of a minute ago and reflect on it, its meaning, its significance, its apparent effects, my intention or non-intention, its causes, its antecedents, etc...I can set limits to my reflection in one way or another, but there are a myriad of angles...that are possible, that are accessible to me..."

This passage reminds me of one from a book by Alan Watts titled, The Wisdom of Insecurity. The books main point is that the only way to truly become secure in oneself, is to abandon the fear of insecurity. He says this with the notion that as long as someone is aware of their sense of security, they will always have reservations and second thoughts and therefore cannot achieve security. Watts gives an example of what he means; Try reading this sentence while reflecting on it at the same time. You will find that it is impossible to do both at the same time. Although we need this occasional reflection, I have found that even Watts forgets his own advice from time to time because he is so caught up in the research and constant thinking about his theory.



Yet he is very convincing in perpetuating his theory through examples; If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things that I have been expecting come to pass.

Here, Watts gives a controversial look at reflections. He asserts that always focusing on reflections and predictions about the future keeps us from living in the present times and recognizing the reality of the present. Because of this, Watts argues that the future is essentially meaningless unless it is realized when it becomes present.

Question:

Dr. Yake states that "visual art intervenes in our psychic days and modifies or becomes the grist of our conscious mills, thereby allowing us...into reflections on the various facets of the psychic moment"

Pairing this with Watts' stand on our reflections of daily life, where does visual art come in? Does is distract us from reality or does it aid us to make brief yet frequent reviews or perhaps something completely different?

Immoral Art

Dr. Stan Yake presented two essays to the class and posed the question: Can we have immoral art; and how might we characterize it?


When viewing art, I often do not think of the actual work as possessing moral characteristics. Without sounding too literal, I feel that art objects or most inanimate objects for that matter do not possess moral qualities and I would actually describe them as being a-moral if anything. It is the ideas and intentions behind the art, produced by the artist which could be evaluated as being moral or not. Without this context, I don't think art objects can possess any moral qualities. In class, Dr. Yake used the example of a visual artwork such as a commercial designed to promote racism. Although the ideas which are being portrayed here might be immoral, and the intent may be immoral, I can't say that the actual work possesses these qualities.

This belief goes hand in hand with my thoughts that art cannot be evaluated as moral or immoral because the concept of "morals" varies person to person. There are no set standards as to what morals are "the right ones". I will use an example that I feel is similar to the one which Dr. Yake used; A visual art work, such as a commercial designed to promote same-sex marriage. Now, based on my personal morals, I would say that a work such as this would fall within my beliefs of what is acceptable. However, people do not always think the same way, and there are many people who believe that a piece of art which would send a message that same-sex marriage is acceptable is in fact immoral. They could argue that some religions tell us otherwise, and some do. People's views on this are not constant, and therefore how could I evaluate whether or not we can have immoral art if morals are based on individual perception?




check out this link to a blog I stumbled across which discusses Michael Jacksons death in relation to morality and art.

Jacob: Intent is commonly a requirement for an object to be art, so my only objection to non-human art is that they do not produce art intentionally. While non-humans are capable of producing aesthetic objects, can they have an artistic intent?

I have often thought about this same question and since I think the idea ties in with a post that I had made, I am interested in exploring the topic deeper. When evaluating art, we do often form judgements based on the artists intent. I have to agree that although non-humans can produce works which humans see as aesthetic, I find it hard to believe that there is much artistic intent involved. It is important to keep in mind that non-humans senses operate differently than ours and therefore even if there was some sort of intent behind non-human art, how could humans possibly percieve this intent on the same level? Much of the art that I have seen which is produced by non-humans focuses on still life-type imitations or even simple groupings of color and what not. My point here is that although we may percieve these works as aesthetic object, the intent behind them is most likely varied, and related to ideas in which we cannot understand due to the obvious language and behavioral barriers between humans and non-humans.

so here is a question:

Does art exist for non-humans in an aesthetic sense, or is it rather a reflection/extension of the human lifestyle?

Response to Tiana:

Are people art?

There are significant likenesses which could include people as being "art" however I think that there is one major factor which makes it impossible for a human to be art. One could argue that humans are in fact original, our lives are created and changed through experience, they can certainly evoke emotion/have the power to move others, and are in the most literal sense, man-made. Although this seems very convincing, I would say that people are not art because that would imply that art is created on other grounds besides on intention and expression. The production of a human is an innate impulse, instinctive, more so than it is an intent to produce a "work". Art needs to have intention to be looked upon as such. I would argue that humans could more so be described as products of craft, because they are most commonly produced with means for use as a human being rather than for aesthetic qualities.


counter-example to my own argument:

Excerpt from "Why Cats Paint"

I've seen work such as this (often called "non-primate art"...hmm, interesting), done by various animals receive much popularity in the art world. Yes, these cats are painting, however is it still art if it is impossible to know whether or not the animal has any aesthetic intention behind it? Does art in fact exist independently from humans?

how about here, with the performing arts?

Excerpt from "Dancing With Cats"

Questions Raised:

Does art exist without humans?
Are people products of craft?

Fakes and Forgeries

When looking at the essays done by Alfred Lessing and Denis Dutton about forgery in artwork, there was some confusion as to what exactly constitutes as a forgery, and whether or not there is anything wrong with a forgery in the first place. The book uses the main example of the famous forgery of Van Meegren who passed off his 'Disciples at Emmaus' as a genuine Vermeer, just to later admit to producing them himself. Both authors agree that aesthetically, there isn't much wrong with forgeries, it is rather a fact about the given art, an extra detail. The main conclusion that is drawn is that forgeries lack heavily in originality, and therefore posess technique but perhaps not creativity.
During our class discussion we touched on the point that forgeries sometimes even copy the techniques that were originated by the artist yet I have to say that I do see some originality in Vermeer's Disciples. I think that every artists work, no matter what form, takes bits and pieces from a variety of other artists and themes as a means to develope their own skills and ideas just as anyone does. In this, I think that originality can be found even in forgeries. For example, the famous "Nighthawks" painting by Edward Hopper:














Original 'Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper

Hopper is a renowned painter and 'Nighthawks' is possibly one of his most famous works (and one of my personal favorites). This painting is also widely used by other artists for creating parodies and references. Some of these parodies are obvious and made as jokes, and others are extremely detailed and use similar colors and styles as Hopper:
















Lego parody example











Parody example by Banksy















reference from The Simpsons.


Would you consider any of these reproductions to be forgeries of the original? I think that it can take just as much creativity to work off of an existing work as it did to create one, so much so that I actually collect various parody prints of Hoppers "Nighthawks".

Questions raised:

A forgery can posess technique, originality (to a point), and aesthetic qualities, what is it that we value about art which makes originality important for evaluative purposes?

Furthermore...When discussing music, sticking as close to the original work as possible is key to an "authentic" performance, where as with more "physical" art (painting, sculpture, etc.) this can be considered a forgery. Does this mean that authentic performances could be forgeries?