Date: Wed, 26 Oct 94 08:42:00 EDT From: ma-AT-dsd.camb.inmet.com (Malgosia Askanas) Subject: Re: subject construction FLIP wrote: >> What kind of viewing subject does collage construct? > pardon the comparison but i believe that the implication here is a shift of > responsibility for the impact of art from the audience to the maker. we now > recognize (from TV as an example) that the artist, as perpatrator, is > giving the audience, as subject, the terms for understanding a work as > well as the work itself. in this way the force of a work, as well as > much of its meaning, is determined in the production. this is generally > a more powerful position for the artist as opposed to the older and > softer "all work is open to interpretation since all people are different, > and bring their own experience to it" OK. It is interesting that you have used the word "give". The model in which I am _given_ something is somewhat different than the model in which I _am constructed_ by the work. I understand the phrase "subject construction" and believe that it is an extremely useful point of view, but I don't like the formulation "what kind of subject does the work construct?". It suggests that the subject is fully and unrestistingly constructed by the work, and also seems to invite a move into psychologizing. What I like better is this, for example: What kind of subject-construction goes on in/through this work, and by what means? Do you see these two questions as equivalent, and me as quibbling? Or are they not equivalent, and the one I don't like is productive in ways I am being unaware of? - malgosia
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