[MD] Fwd: Images and Physical Reality

[Mary]

Hi John,

A+

However, I always look forward to the Quality family time spent with my 15
year old on Friday nights when we sit down to watch Bill Maher together. ;-0

http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher/index.html

We are really pulling for Texas to win the "Stupidest State in America"
contest!

Mary

- The most important thing you will ever make is a realization.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org [mailto:moq_discuss-
> bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of John Carl
> Sent: Friday, June 04, 2010 1:59 PM
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: [MD] Fwd: Images and Physical Reality
> 
> Ok, I usually don't forward on stuff I get but I thought this was
> pretty good.  And sort of an example of how the Metaphysics of Quality
> is affecting one college student anyway...
> 
> MoQ Discuss?  I present to the thoughts of my eldest:
> 
> PS:  It also reminded me of a story about my new boss's chair, I've
> been meaning to share.
> 
> PPS:  I avoided the temptation to make corrections.  I deserve a
> frickin'
> medal for that alone.
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Em Pryor <sharpcurvz at yahoo.com>
> Date: Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:43 AM
> Subject: Images and Physical Reality
> To: John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com>
> 
> 
> 
>  Hey Dad,
> I just wrote a paper for my Art History class and somehow, I thought
> you might like to read it. I know my arguments could be better-
> developed but I wanted to know if I made the concept that I was driving
> at clear. anyway thought it might interest you.
> Love,
> Em
> 
>  I had all the answers, but then I forgot the questions...
> 
> 
>  Emily Pryor
> 
>     Arth 116
> 
>     Professor Carpenter
> 
>     Final Paper
> 
>           Suppose someone were to walk up to you and offer to sell you
> a chair. A plain, wooden-framed, straw-seated chair. Not particularly
> appealing, right? Now suppose it was revealed to you that this
> particular chair was one of those depicted in Van Gogh’s * Room at
> Arles*. More interested? Perhaps. But the chair still wouldn’t have
> nearly as much value as the *painting* of the chair. Here we arrive at
> the baffling phenomenon of
> art: that the useless, functionless depiction of a thing is valued more
> highly than the thing itself.
> 
>     What is art? It’s a stock-in-trade question for anyone interested
> in the art world. The general consensus these days seems to be that art
> is whatever an artist says it is. What is an artist? Anyone who knows
> how to successfully proclaim their work as “art”. A diabolic paradox
> that chases itself around in circles- perhaps explaining why artists
> seem so crazy.
> Generally, though, art is the artificial representation of an
> object/event or the depiction of a concept. The ideas and feelings
> behind art are important to communicate, but a problem arises when,
> like the objects, the ideas become devalued by the work.
> 
>           Art, in its early Rennaisance forms, was designed to remind
> the everyday man of the divine, and to make the spiritual a more
> concrete concept. It brought awareness of biblical truths to a largely
> illiterate population. This tradition, of communicating what could not
> otherwise be expressed, had continued throughout the ages. The various
> movements of techniques and ideals come and go, each rebelling against
> the norms of the last, but the fundamental purpose of art is to
> beautify life and express something.
> 
>     But is art *functional*? Does it serve a concrete, useful purpose?
> It does not provide food or shelter, but the very fact of its existence
> shows that it is necessary to the human soul—in every culture, at every
> time, there has been some form of art produced. It is a human need to
> express our thoughts, demonstrate our opinions, and leave our mark, in
> some small way, on the world. There is a place for art, and a very
> important one.
> 
>     The functional, concrete world around us, however, is also vital to
> our existence. As obvious as it may sound, we need the physical world
> just as much as the ideological one. However, in our society, the image
> seems to have risen above the reality, and the representation above the
> represented.
> The work that best exemplifies the rising awareness of this divide is,
> of course, René Magritte’s *The Treachery of Images*. By presenting the
> viewer with an image of a pipe, coupled with a French phrases
> translating to “This is not a pipe”, we are forced to confront the
> nature of art and our own perceptions.
> 
>     The phrase “seeing is believing” is all too true in human nature.
> We are prone to suspend rational judgment in favor of evidence
> presented to us with our eyes. Sometimes this is a good thing. One can
> arrive at all manner of erroneous conclusions using solely logic, while
> the evidence presented to us with our own eyes is more practical.
> However, this tendency leads us astray when it comes to images that
> lie. Nothing in our society provides a more useful example of this than
> television.
> 
>     Television, the great beacon of knowledge that shines from every
> living room, bedroom, and hotel suite. Form the corporate moguls in
> Hollywood to the humble eyes of the billions of viewers worldwide come
> messages of great importance. The commercial interests decide the
> messages sent. They decide what is beautiful and what is strange. They
> decide what is acceptable and what is perverse. They sell us things we
> never knew we needed, point out flaws we never knew were flaws, solve
> problems we never knew we had.
> Television restructured the way we experience culture. No longer a
> locally-grown, population-influenced phenomenon, culture is now shaped
> by the programming we receive. And who decides what we see? The
> corporate stockholders. They decide what is going to be beamed out,
> portrayed as alluring or interesting or disgusting. They decide what
> television is. They are the artists.
> 
>     Where once stood complicated concepts and feats of skill or
> originality now is the blue box of doom, beaming out messages of
> promiscuity and vanity.
> The pictures haven’t changed that much- nude women, battle glory- but
> the intent and concept behind them has shifted radically. No longer
> striving for expression or enlightenment or even beauty, the motivating
> force between the majority of images people see is money. When art
> loses its soul, what effect does that have on the soul of the person
> who experiences it?
> 
>     In every piece of art there are three components: the artist
> (representer), the art (representation) and the object, person, or idea
> being made into art (represented). In a classical portrait such as,
> say, the Leonardo da Vinci’s *Mona Lisa,* the representer and the
> represented were both real- genuine, functional beings not identifiable
> as art of themselves.
> This lends an honesty or accountability to the work, to some degree,
> while also casting doubt onto the value of the represented object—or,
> the actual woman. No one cares much for the location of the woman now.
> She is dead. She is useless to anyone. The painting, however, is still
> widely valued and sought after. Here is immortality. Here is worth.
> 
>     Could one really state, however, that a work of art is worth more
> than a human life? Suppose again with me. Suppose, now, that you are
> visiting a famous museum. While admiring a famous work of art, you are
> suddenly aware of smoke billowing out from one of the side rooms. In
> seconds, the museum is engulfed in flames. Visibility low, your head
> spinning from lack of oxygen, you notice a woman passed out on the
> floor not too far away from you.
> Looking back at the wall, you see the work of art hanging within reach.
> There is only time to take one thing before you flee the room. Do you
> rescue the priceless painting? Or do you save the woman’s life?
> 
>     The argument of worth really calls for another argument, that of
> the definition of “value” and “worth”. However, I believe that rapidly
> slips into the territory of the metaphysics of quality and, having not
> yet finished the book I was recommended on the subject, I don’t yet
> know how to define quality or worth. I think that even without making a
> strong argument in that direction, however, it is clear that a
> represented object is not less important than the representation. It is
> just important in a different way.
> 
>     To simplify the argument, take Marcel Duchamp’s *Fountain*. Here we
> have only representer and object, no representation at all. This is an
> example of art that defies the nature of art. Modern art, in some
> forms, involves only ready-made objects, things that take no skill or
> finesse to obtain. On one hand, the “art-ness” of these objects is
> somewhat debateable. One the other, looked at from the perspective of
> the devaluation of the real, these modern art presentations are a
> fascinating counter-blow in favor of the world of the represented.
> 
>     The argument of this paper is in no way anti-art or anti-
> representation, but on the importance of awareness of the divide
> between the depiction and the depicted. Our world’s standards are
> beings shaped by artificial forces, by the images constructed in a life
> lived largely on an artificial level. We don’t talk anymore- we text
> and chat. We don’t go to libraries anymore- we search articles on
> Google and EBSCO-host. We buy computer games and
> software- virtual products- with PayPal- virtual money. Perhaps the
> world would be clearer if we carried in our minds Magritte’s
> distinction: to the friend who is chatting with me from another
> continent, “These are not my words.” To the page I read online, “This
> is not a book”. To the romantic comedy that ruined my friend’s
> relationship with its idealized romance, “This is not love”. And to the
> reality television stars that force us all to evaluate why our
> existences are so drab and uneventful, “This is not life”.
> Art is vital to the human soul, and expression of ideas is necessary to
> intellectual progress; but art is not the human soul, and expression is
> not progress. We are all idolaters, guilty of raising the
> representation above the represented, guilty of valuing the symbol over
> the symbolized, guilty of valuing money over what money can do, guilty
> of praying to a painting of God and not God.
> 
>     Now
 how much will you give me for this chair?