Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 14:25:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: oconnell-AT-oz.net (Mark O'Connell)
Subject: Re: Introduction


Julian, thanks for the fast response. (Talk about service!!)

>>>You are right in implying that secondary programmes in the 70s-80s were aimed
>>>at the
>>>consumers producing meanings, but this is not the case now.
>
>The consumers referred to are those individuals in contact with the ed.
>programmes. The arts progs of the period were concerned with breaking the
>boundaries between arts and were very much concerned with the indivdual
>'expressing' oneself.

Why is the "individual 'expressing' oneself" a problem?  If it is a problem
how could it be avoided? I mean, if the "consumers" are consuming an art
education they're probably going to be interested in making things. They're
going to need to determine what things to make and how to make them and
this in itself could be considered self expression. Any decision or action
would be to some degree a bit of self expression. Should they try to
express someone else's self? Or no self? What's the significance of the
idea of consumers producing "meanings" ?

>>> The govt has decided on the kinds of knowledge it wishes to sponsor and the
>>>role of the
>>>school is to inculcate the individual into this dominant ideology.
>>
>>There is, in most groups, a dominant ideology. It seems normal that the
>>group would wish to pass on its beliefs. You have an ideology, you
>>obviously wish to pass it on.  How is this seemingly sensible condition
>>problematic?
>Yeah, you're right a dominant ideology. But if the role of a social
>institution such as the school,  whose role it is very much to sponsor those
>who are succesful in learning what it chooses to offer, is so obviously
>promoting only certain kinds of knowledge/art, it is essentially
>exclusionist. and that can't be good.

Would it really be possible for any institution to promote everyone and
offer everything?
Seriously, some things would have to suffer. What about institutions
founded on the idea of intense specialization? Music conservatories or
medical schools etc.? There are some benefits to be gained from these.
They've reached their various levels of competence as a result of the focus
that exclusion makes possible. I'm not entirely clear on this.


>>If the "expressive" mode emphasises the individual how is it that there is
>>no allowance for symbolic individual action? Why should individuals produce
>>identities from the media????
>Expressivism is artist orientated.. artist at the centre. postmodern theory
>ha sit has it that we can only represent the world through a network of
>socially established meaning systems and signs. The artist is not alone
>discovering a single 'truth' or identity, but us placed in a society
>discovering meanings that are socially situated.

I don't see how you get rid of the idea of self expression with the view
that "we can only represent the world through a network of socially
established meaning systems and signs."
An individual is still needed to  percieve these signs and relate them to
other signs/experiences and make decisions regarding them. How has anything
changed with this?
>Fashion,
>advertising, music etc are all producing images that are not taken on board
>wholesale, but are adapted and adopted in different context to create
>identity. Oft quoted examples of this are the punk movt and the use of music
>images from different periods which are combined to produce a new art
>meaning. The work of photographer  Cindy Sherman, and the way music is
>sampled and recontextualised in rap, are also oft quoted examples.

With this as well, where is personal expression, or artist, missing? It's
at the core of the decisions about what to sample/steal/borrow/appropriate
and how to arrange these elements.


>>>The expressive mode concentrates on finding an identity from
>>>within, whereas identity in a postmodern world is something adapted and
>>>tried on and is constantly in a state of flux.
>>
>>Should I deduce from this, that postmodern thinking denies the notion of
>>self? I mean, it sounds like you're saying that there is no consistent
>>ersonality involved. Please enlighten me.
>
>Postmodernism definitley denies the notion of the 'self'. There are a
>multiplicity of selves. Identity then becomes the question of which self to
>adopt for which setting. If you like, modernist art was concerned with
>discoverying absolutes such as 'what is truth','what is the self'.
>Postmodern art/society knows no such absolutes, the questions asked are
>'what truths are there', which 'self' shall I adopt now.

What led postmodern theorists to this position?  I mean, what made them
decide that a somewhat  consistent self is a fantasy? I agree that 'what
truths are there' is a more sensible question then the big 'what is TRUTH.'
Also that a fascination with absolutes can be a crippling distraction. But
the denial of a self I'm having problems with. It'd be very convenient to
be able to put on a new self like a new suit whenever I pleased. But the
fact of the matter is, when I wake up in the morning (or afternoon) I'm
there, like it or not. Bad habits, fears, likes, dislikes, addictions,
lusts, guilts, blah blah blah.....  Where are all these other selves?


>>>>I'm attracted to the aerly work of Baudrillard because he pinpoints the
>>>fragmentation of meanin that seems to be happening.
>>
>>What particular fragmentation is that? And what meaning?
>>
>In 'B's early work he discusses the way in which signs are divorced from
>their meanings. Examples of this are the way in which musicians might allude
>to/ use styles and quotes from other pieces without direct reference to the
>original.

This is not a new development. Why is it referred to as fragmentation?
What's being fragmented?
It could just as well be referred to as "richness" (if that didn't sound so
hopelesly lame that is....)

> The
>modernist art that is sponsored by govt National Curriculum does not allow
>for the fact that in the society in which people live, the way signs and
>symbols are used is divorced totally from this sponsored, false, reality. It
>does not allow the methods of ordering cultural signs (art), that people use
>in everyday life, to be part of the official culture. Hence the Gulbenkian
>findings.

What is the "false reality"? How is it false?  How does it not allow the
art "that people use in everyday life to be part of the official culture"?
Do schools flunk kids for sampling? Scanning? Cutting and pasting etc...?
Just wondering. Also, it's probably the hoped for intention of some of this
art to NOT be part of the official culture. If the official culture were
wide open where would we find the distinction between acceptance and
insidious cooption?  If every group, as we've agreed, tends to have a
dominant ideology, there'll always be an inside and an outside, as there'll
be other groups with differing ideologies. What says that more wouldn't be
lost then gained by trying to bring the outside inside? (think I could make
this idea any less clear?)

thanks again for your response

Mark O'Connell
oconnell-AT-oz.net