Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 10:28:33 -0400
From: ostrow-AT-is2.nyu.edu (Ostrow/Kaneda)
Subject: Re: one


>>Saul wrote:
>>
>>>... Adorno somewhere assigns to art the role of aspiring
>>> to the impossible in order to produce models of what  is possible.

malgosia  wrote
>>... I would
>>perhaps like art to aspire simply to the possible -- that possible which
>>can nourish it and permit it to be itself.
>>-

Dick replied

>But doesn't this mean you are advocating an art which functions by a sort
>of Brownian movement, following its momentary whim or possibilities and not
>following any sort of overall vision or intention? I have always had a
>secret admiration for Aristophanes' satirical image of Pythagoras-the
>philosopher staring at the sky and falling into a ditch. He may have gotten
>his tunic dirty, but he may also have gotten some valuable and undistracted
>thinking done.


The problem is that we are not faced with the eithor or of this arguement,
as we now know or seem to be aware of is that art ( as a concept not as an
object) has no singular function and the pitting of models against one
another as we do here is a product of our habit of dialectic thinking.  as
Dick may hav einadvertantly pointed out  momentary whims or possibilities
can easily be converted into overall visions or intentions and vis-a-versa.
The old saw concerning the best layed plans of mice and humans often go
awry.  What is possible and what is appropriate is not a dichotomy for they
both arise from and respond to the material conditions of their maker and
its audience when they do not they fail to be meaningful, become in
comprehensible or are affectless




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