pavel sebastian's List: art

• Kant distinguishes two notions of the sublime: the mathematically sublime and the dynamically sublime. In the case of both notions, the experience of the sublime consists in a feeling of the superiority of our own power of reason, as a supersensible faculty, over nature
• • imagination does not have the task of understanding. reason does. The confusion Kant is making here is between imagination and  the unconscious as a depository of thoughts, representations and sensations.

  • how can reason be superior to imagination, when imagination in itself is a part of reason, and not a distinct faculty? Kant sees them as distinct but they are not.
• In the case of the mathematically sublime, the feeling of reason's superiority over nature takes the form, more specifically, of a feeling of reason's superiority to imagination, conceived of as the natural capacity required for sensory apprehension, including the apprehension of the magnitudes of empirically given things.
• We have this feeling when we are confronted with something that is so large that it overwhelms imagination's capacity to comprehend it.
• The fact that we are capable, through reason, of thinking infinity as a whole, “indicates a faculty of the mind which surpasses every standard of sense”
• • I see the mathematically sublime in Kant as a lack in the capacity of rational deduction, based on a low string of informations. An architect would see the St.Peter basilica as mathematically sublime as a peasant?  I argue that the latter would see it as sublime, and not the architect
• While Kant's discussion of the mathematically sublime mentions, apparently as examples, the Pyramids in Egypt and St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (§26, 252), he claims that the most appropriate examples are of things in nature. More specifically, they must be natural things the concept of which does not involve the idea of an end (§26, 252-253): this rules out animals, the concept of which is connected with the idea of biological function, but it apparently includes mountains and the sea (§26, 256).
• • what is the relation between what Rudolf Otto explained as the numinous - a "non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self" - and the sublime? is it the same thing? the numinous is a mystery, terrifying and fascinating in the same time.
• Kant says that we consider nature as “dynamically sublime” when we consider it as “a power that has no dominion over us”
• We have the feeling of the dynamically sublime when we experience nature as fearful while knowing ourselves to be in a position of safety and hence without in fact being afraid.
• The feeling associated with the sublime is a feeling of pleasure in the superiority of our reason over nature, but it also involves displeasure.
• In the case of the mathematically sublime, the displeasure comes from the awareness of the inadequacy of our imagination; in the dynamical case it comes from the awareness of our physical powerlessness in the face of nature's might.
• Kant also describes the feeling of the sublime as a “pleasure which is possible only by means of a displeasure”
• and as a “negative liking”
• • for Kant a judgment counts as scientific knowing if and only if (1) the self-evident or clear-and-distinct character of the propositional content of that judgment necessitates the cognizer's belief in that proposition, (2) the belief is coherent with a suitably wide set of other beliefs, and (3) that proposition is also true.o conviction or certainty for Kant does not entail truth. In this way, truth is a relatively external and extrinsic factor in relation to justification: truth is irreducibly something the world gives to us, not something we can make for ourselves, due to “the fact that the manifold for intuition must already be given (gegeben)” 

  • here is the difference between what we see today as instrumental rationality and Kant's practical reason (which was preoccupied by morality) : for Kant, practical reason did not implied an end or goals for an agent's actions. To be moral was an end in itself, not a economic reason. Today's instrumental rationality preoccupies itself with the nature of beliefs and their soundness. For Kant, belief is a matter of cognitive semantics, not of epistemology; belief for Kant is a defeasible rational pro-attitude arising from and presupposing an act of judgment and its propositional content. Justified true belief is for Kant scientific knowledge.Kant holds that a belief constitutes scientific knowing if and only if the judgment underlying that belief is not only subjectively sufficient for believing but is also objectively sufficient for believing, and coherent with a suitably wide set of other beliefs (A60/B85), and also true, although it still remains fallible.
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  • • it's not the object, but the aesthetic judgement which is represented as purposive. the aesthetic judgement is not represented as purposive for imagination or judgement, but for reason.

    • if in making a judgement of the sublime, we regard the object as "contrapurposive", this means that practical reason is not implied in such a judgement, although Kant appears to identify the sublime with the feeling of respect, which in his practical philosophy is associated with recognition of the moral laws.
• In making a judgment of the sublime, we regard the object as “contrapurposive,” rather than purposive, for the faculties of imagination and judgment (§23, 245). While judgments of the sublime do involve the representation of purposiveness, the purposiveness differs from that involved in a judgment of beauty in two ways. (a) It is not the object, but the aesthetic judgment itself which is represented as purposive. (b) The aesthetic judgment is represented as purposive not for imagination or judgment, but for reason (§27, 260) or for the “whole vocation of the mind” (§27, 259).
• • The claim to universal validity made by a judgment of the sublime rests, not on the universal validity of the conditions of cognition, but rather on the universal validity of moral feeling (§29, 255-256).
    
  • While we can correctly call objects beautiful, we cannot properly call them sublime (§23, 245); sublimity strictly speaking “is not contained in anything in nature, but only in our mind” (§28, 264).
    
  • While judgments of beauty involve a relation between the faculties of imagination and understanding, the faculties brought into relation in a judgment of the sublime are imagination and reason (§29, 266).
• The idea that aesthetic judgment plays a role in grounding the possibility of morality for human beings is suggested at a very general level in the Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, where Kant describes the faculty of judgment as bridging “the great gulf” betweeen the concept of nature and that of freedom (IX, 195).
• Aesthetic experience serves as a propadeutic for morality, in that “the beautiful prepares us to love something, even nature, without interest; the sublime, to esteem it, even contrary to our (sensible) interest”
• The demand for universal agreement in judgments of the sublime rests on an appeal to moral feeling
• Taking a direct interest in the beauty of nature indicates “a good soul” and a “mental attunement favorable to moral feeling”
• Beauty serves as the “symbol” of morality (§59, passim), in that a judgment of beauty “legislates for itself” rather than being “subjected to a heteronomy of laws of experience” (§59, 353); relatedly, feelings of pleasure in the beautiful are analogous to moral consciousness
• Beauty gives sensible form to moral ideas (§60, 356); this is related both to the view that there is an analogy between the experience of beauty and moral feeling (see (ii) above), and to the view that beauty is the expression of aesthetic ideas (see 2.6). Because of this, the development of moral ideas is the “true propadeutic” for taste

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• Am impresia că în procesul artistic noul survine nu la nivelul formei, ci la nivelul infrastructurii. Inainte de toate, aceste schimbări au legătură cu faptul că statul e dispus din ce în ce mai puțin să sprijine muzeul și sistemul artistic. Inițiativa a fost transferată în mâini private – lucrul acesta s-a întâmplat în America la o scară foarte mare, în Europa se desfăşoară într-un ritm extrem de alert.
• Ca să poți efectua ceva dizident, trebuie pur și simplu să te plasezi într-un spațiu dizident. Totul pornește de la o topografie deja existentă, de la o structură deja existentă, iar în cadrele acestei structuri, bineînțeles, există loc și de protest
• Aș compara totuși artistul contemporan cu circarul de altădată, care călătorește și își execută numărul. Iar dacă sare prin colacul de flăcări sau călărește o panteră, această situație nu are nici o legătură semantică, tematică sau ideologică cu orașul în care călărește o panteră, cu evenimentele pentru care călărește o panteră. Poate fi vorba de orice fel de eveniment
• Mi se pare că în Rusia, oamenii gândesc despre ceva ca trebuind să aibă neapărat legătură cu altceva. Pe când aici, în Occident, banii sunt alocați pentru ca ceva să aibă loc, iar acel ceva chiar are loc, dar această relație nu are neapărat un caracter semnificativ ce ţine de conţinut.
• Înțelegi, problema în Vest e că acolo există două tipuri de fapte: faptele rele (să câștigi bani) și faptele bune (să-i ajuți pe alții, care nu au nimic). Prin urmare, a da bani pentru artă e un lucru înțeles din ce în ce mai puțin ca o faptă bună.
• Aceasta înseamnă că arta nu este interpretată de către public ca o faptă bună. Mai mult, ea este interpretată ca fiind ceva ce poate compromite o faptă bună.
• arta trăiește cu stigmatul absenței legitimării democratice.
• Cred că singurul instrument al artistului cu care poate câștiga interesul publicului democratic este să se poziționeze într-un mod care să trezească interesul ori să ocupe o poziție interesantă într-o configurație socio-politică.
• A trăi clipa de față ca pe ceva ce-ți lipsește și din care nu faci parte, trebuie spus, e în genere caracteristic pentru cultura contemporană. Cultura contemporană consideră contemporaneitatea ca fiind acel spațiu și timp din care ea nu face parte. Timpurile în care trăiesc eu nu-mi aparțin, ele aparțin modei, nu știu căror trenduri ș.a.m.d. Strict vorbind, oamenii sunt interesați în permanență din ce sunt alcătuite timpurile în care trăiesc. Iar acest interes pentru self-updating este extrem de ridicat.

  • de retinut. interesanta perspectiva temporala.
• contemporaneitatea este ceva expus într-un loc anume, unde poți merge și te poți uita la ea.
• Curios e că dispariția totală a trecutului și a viitorului nu a dus la identificarea cu prezentul. Dacă înainte trecutul și viitorul erau o problemă, astăzi problema a devenit prezentul. Dar acesta e un prezent străin, în care trebuie să pătrunzi ori cu care să intri în contact. Iar această operațiune totalmente mistică, de a pătrunde în propirul tău timp,  ori de a sincroniza timpul tău personal cu un timp mai general, aceasta e ceea cu ce se ocupă poporul zi de zi.
• Arta se dovedește a fi sau a fost în decursul unei perioade îndelungate una din sursele de informație despre aceasta. Și poate că acesta a și fost rolul ei de bază de-a lungul ultimelor trei sute de ani. Funcția centrală nu era una creativă sau critică, ci informativă – să informeze oamenii despre starea lor din prezent și despre starea lumii în care trăiesc. Și chiar de s-au îngrozit de ceea ce le-a fost arătat, ei au luat-o drept mărturie și au crezut-o pe cuvânt.
• arta însăși, ca formă de cunoaștere. Artiștii se duc să predea în academii, în universități, susținând că posedă o cunoaștere anume.
• Da, dar în ce constă această cunoaștere? Chiar dacă toți înțeleg instinctiv că la un moment dat poate apărea și consensul asupra acestei chestiuni. Momentan nu știm foarte clar care este acest consens, dar în viitorul apropiat, consensul, a cărui formă de cunoaștere este arta, va fi dezvăluit, iar aceasta va fi reintegrată în sistemul academic în calitate de cunoaștere.

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• Limbajul devine artistic, crede Şklovski în 1917, cînd este supus unei operaţii de defamiliarizare. Ideea rezonează cu o literatură modernă care descoperă deliciile „absurdului“, dar şi cu un limbaj care ştie de-acum să-şi materializeze tropii. Totodată, un acelaşi materialism literar se opune abstractizării tipic romantice, cînd limbajul comun devenea literatură mai degrabă prin abstractizare, sublimare, decît prin defamiliarizare pur şi simplu. După 1950, teoria literaturii ca metapoetică, ca hermeneutică deconstrucţionistă a criticat un limbaj literar „burghez“ prea „sentimental“, ca şi recursul excesiv la figură, la simbol, la sensibilitate.
• Umanizarea modernă înseamnă scoaterea unui obiect, a unei fiinţe din context şi replasarea în aşa fel încît între obiect (fiinţă) şi context să se creeze acel spaţiu de observaţie, acea distanţă estetică în care poţi pătrunde pentru a studia (clinic) personajul. Umanizarea aceasta, nu fără legătură cu preeminenţa unui vocabular biologic la început de secol XX, se dezinteresează de istorie pentru a se replia pe istoricitate.

• If you try and argue with people on the street about labor exploitation as a central driver of the economy, eventually they will bring up art, how labor exploitation doesn’t explain the sale price of a Picasso. The example of what aristocrats would pay for paintings is one of the oldest objections to the idea that labor creates value, before Marx, going back to Adam Smith. In the art market, value seems to come out of nowhere, paintings zooming from nothing to millions of dollars for no apparent reason but whim, with no clear-cut exploitation (although, if you look at the Sotheby’s lockout, that shows there’s real, old-fashioned labor that goes into presenting this stuff too).

   

  And I think that’s actually an interesting ideological role the art market plays, as an exception: it is a sub-part of the economy that seems to be purely formed by ego and marketing. That is how, ideally, economic pundits would like to pretend the whole world works: if you have a good creative idea, value just magically accrues. So the art market’s very existence serves a kind of function as a representation that value is a kind of magical thing.

• If you try and argue with people on the street about labor exploitation as a central driver of the economy, eventually they will bring up art, how labor exploitation doesn’t explain the sale price of a Picasso. The example of what aristocrats would pay for paintings is one of the oldest objections to the idea that labor creates value, before Marx, going back to Adam Smith. In the art market, value seems to come out of nowhere, paintings zooming from nothing to millions of dollars for no apparent reason but whim, with no clear-cut exploitation (although, if you look at the Sotheby’s lockout, that shows there’s real, old-fashioned labor that goes into presenting this stuff too).

   

  And I think that’s actually an interesting ideological role the art market plays, as an exception: it is a sub-part of the economy that seems to be purely formed by ego and marketing. That is how, ideally, economic pundits would like to pretend the whole world works: if you have a good creative idea, value just magically accrues. So the art market’s very existence serves a kind of function as a representation that value is a kind of magical thing.

   

  But of course, it’s an illusion: this particular market only works in the presence of very rich people who have massive amounts to bid against each other competitively. And their money comes from somewhere, it’s extracted from workers, or through monopoly and all kinds of shady things. So, in that way it is, as you say, both entangled with and somehow autonomous from the ordinary, grubby life of capitalism; it reflects it and refracts it.

• Most working people just don’t have any say in the creative content of their own labor; that’s part of the definition of being a worker, you trade your labor to someone else and they get to tell you what to do. So, the idea that there is a category of person in society who both gets to do, to a certain extent, what they want and make money doing it takes on some kind of special aura because it is an exception: precisely because most people are alienated in their work, the dream of being an “artist” takes on some exaggerated societal importance as an image—even though the reality for most “working artists” is more complex, and most people who call themselves “artists” actually make money somewhere else.

   

  In truth, the fact that people present themselves as “actually” an artist and only temporarily or incidentally an office worker or whatever shows the powerful ideological function this idea of the “artist” holds on people, as this kind of imaginary escape.

   

  From that angle, the “aura of mystery” is not a pure illusion. There is something really mysterious about contemporary art that makes it seem like this carnival of individualisms; the conditions of being a professional artist are just not the same as the conditions faced elsewhere, even elsewhere in the creative economy. The art-school industry in some ways sells a highly commodified version of the idea of escaping normal labor.

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