Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 03:42:25 +0100
Subject: Art and expression
From: "John Appleby" <pyrew-AT-csv.warwick.ac.uk>


From: Daniel Haines <daniel-AT-tw2.com> wrote;
>John Appleby wrote:
>> 
> I think that expression may be the only way to think
>> about art as non-representational, but am not certain of this.
>
>could you expand on this point?

I'll have a quick go, but it might be a bit muddy:

I take it as non-controversial that a representational view of art is tied
to interpretation of the artwork, i.e. one apprehends the work and thinks
about what it might mean. The standard notion of expression would also be
representational because it is intentional, in that the artist communicates
something (e.g. an emotion) to the perceiver. I very much doubt that you can
have non-representational intentionality.

In contradistinction, D&G appear to argue that this expression takes place
purely on the level of the work. In other words what is expressed is a
pre-represenational set of affects which may then become overcoded by
representation when interpretation is added to the initial reaction:

'By means of the material, the aim of art is to wrest the percept from
perceptions of objects and the states of a perceiving subject, to wrest the
affect from affections as the transition from one state to another: to
extract a bloc of sensations, a pure being of sensations' (_What is
Philosophy?_, p. 167).

This is obviously a movement of becoming rather than one of communication.

The best example of this that I can think of comes from Bataille when
describing his reaction to the photographs of the Chinese man being tortured
given to him by Borel:

'I discerned, in the violence of this image, an infinite capacity for
reversal. Through this violence - even today I cannot imagine a more insane,
more shocking form - I was so stunned that I reached the point of ecstasy'
(_The Tears of Eros_, p. 206).

There are two points to notice here. Firstly Bataille's reaction to this
image is, at least initially, more visceral than intellectual thereby
circumventing his powers of representation. Secondly, it is very hard to
believe that this reaction was the result of the photographer intentionally
trying to communicate ecstasy to the spectator.

It might be objected that this example does not deal with a work of art
(whatever that is), however I think that the same affects take place with
more 'normal' artworks, particularly music.

Regards

John

Thought for the day:
=8CNietzsche thus situates the philosopher and the =8Cabyss=B9 on the same plane:
knowledge is an unacknowledged power of monstrosity. The philosopher would
be a mere histrionic if he did not have this power, if he refused
monstrosity=B9 (Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, p. 205).