GIRL_painting_IPHONE

17.10.08/"Gemeentemuseum", The Hague

ME | the Nonmetaphorical Image

It is thought, as some sort of truism, that the visual arts, in contrast to discursive media like literature and philosophy (and according to some platonists, only the latter), cannot represent the abstract directly (this of course presupposes a theoretical dualism between the sensible and the metaphysical abstract, which transcends objectivity, a view that can be disputed, but let’s accept it for the time being). The only way for an artwork to show the abstract is indirectly through a metaphor; a glimpse into it is unveiled by something absolutely other, which constitutes the relation of some kind of semblance or analogy between the sensual and the abstract, the latter being the actual cause of the first; the image is so deeply embedded in the concrete and objective realm, we say, that it can in fact only be metaphor, or not referential at all. Perhaps only to itself (e.q. the natural objects it represents). So the nonmetaphorical artwork can only be an illustration of itself. There is of course just one other possibility; that it does in fact show the abstract directly, unmediated by metaphor; but this seems a contradiction in terms, and therefore impossible. It seems essential for the abstract, that it cannot be accessed without mediation or 'intervention' by sensible mechanism, thereby transforming its being, except maybe through language (understood only, in its empirical emition) . Although indeed seemly a contradiction in terms, this is my intention of showing; for self-referential images are dull and purposeless, and most metaphorical art is shallow and superficial, the metaphorical intention being too obvious; so although for example a sensible cube-representation can never be strictly abstract, for it is always this cube, here and now, it is still possible to strip the image of it’s being a metaphorical illustration of some-thing that it itself is not; we must be carefull not to retreat to cheasy mathematical metaphor when we intend to present the abstract directly (although this makes sense, the abstract can't be reduced to mathematical forms, if it wasn't just for the aesthetic infelicity of this position). Maybe for this to be possible, the dualism mentioned above must be dissolved, and some synthesis of the sensible and the abstract must be established, as was one of the prominent items for phenomenologists; for how can the abstract show itself unmediated even in common thought, when the relation between the sensible particular and the abstract is as mysterious as ever, and still the missing link, the holy grale of philosophy? The Nonmetaphorical Artwork arises out of this reduction, taking place between object-representational images (a Rembrandt) and metaphorical images, although maybe only in a slightly metaphorical way ;)

The being-metaphorical of a work of art constitutes some sort of consolidating reassurance, which alienates the work from its original alienation by revealing it's raison d' etre, as something external to itself, or only partial internal to its 'surface'; which the nonmetaphorical work leaves completely intact; it refers neither to itself (depicting the objects it represents) as its conditional ground nor to some condition external to it (in the case of the metaphor, this being the abstract/concept). It creates the uncomfortable feeling when one looks at an arrow that doesn’t point towards anything, thereby negating it’s own intrinsic 'intention' and 'legitimacy of existence'; so we whisper to ourselves, in constant repetition: “why is it here?”.

But now a problem arises; for there seems to be no intrinsic property of the work which necessitates a determination of it’s effect in the viewer, as being especially not-metaphorical; in other words, the viewer always has the freedom and spontaneity of inflicting on the work some kind of metaphorical relation with an abstract, thereby destroying the absence of the principle of sufficient reason (the absence of course being now his own p.o.s.r., which seems unavoidable) and so this shows the absolute vulnerability of the work, which is constituted by this absence, and can always be reversed by an intentional act of the viewer.

note: of course there exists a discipline called 'abstract art' especially in painting, but this only means that it is not representational in terms of 'natural' objects at all; but the abstract mentioned above is referring to it in the way a concept is abstract; in the way (linguistic) meaning transcends sensible reality, just like when Wittgenstein suggests, that logic is the actual condition of sense, but cannot be depicted within its own internal structure, therefore can only be shown, and is the mystical 'root' of the totality of the 'sayable', preceding it, the sayable being (in the tratatus) a logical (representational) relation between facts and propositions/sentences.

varvaras | "Dumb & Dumber"

Perhaps the movie Dumb & Dumber has only one serious scene, luckily enough though. But in this one ‘serious’ scene (which was perhaps intented to be funny also), something special is said by the main character, played by Jim Carrey. At first he says at a certain moment: “I’m sick and tired of being a nobody” and then following this statement: “I’m sick and tired of having nobody”. What this shows, or at least can be inferred, is that the two statements are, logically but perhaps also causally, connected; for me to have value, I need somebody else, (‘to have’). The myth of self-worth as a causa prima of value in itself, is meant to disguise the dependence of the person on others mentioned above; a reasonable one of course, because it is a very unstable and dubious criterion. So, logically speaking, for a thing to have value, it always needs something else, that is able to constitute that particular value, because value is the result of a certain relation, and a relation presupposes two things already; so a thing cannot constitute it’s own value, in the same way as an effect cannot be at the same time it’s own cause; it needs another ‘value-constitutive-device’ (commonly called a ‘human being’). This is, it seems to me, a totally valid thing to say; but it has enormous implications.

ME | B.A.

This picture is an obvious example of what I call "Bourgeois Aesthetics", in which the term 'bourgeois' doesn't refer to some marxistic theory*, but to some pale and cowardly executed form of art practice & consumption, and 'aesthetics' to some totally outdated idea of 'beauty', which seems to be still commonly practiced on all art institutions: fag-melancholic-expressionism; the adoption of real suffering (which is strictly noumenal) by it's hypocritical empirical counter form, introduced in order to neutralize the former. Suffering in it’s most concrete (melancholic) form is not meant to show suffering, but to disguise it.

*which seems now to be fully and successfully expelled from 'the realm of truth', to which 'the capitalists' seem to have a monopoly.

tryptich #3.001/0

ME | CPC: "Something died in my room that night..."

Contra-Philosophical Contractions #00.1

I left some fruit peels in my room the other day, I think they were bananas (I don't usually eat that many bananas, but there was a discount at my supermarket). It lied there for like two days before I came to notice there were actually quite a lot of fruit flies circling around them. I got rid of the peels, but then it seemed the fruit flies were disappearing as fast as they came; they probably died instantly, because they had nothing to eat anymore. To think that this 'incident' almost completely slipped past me, and would've almost had gone by unnoticed, really and deeply disgusts me. Something died in my room that night...

triptyche 0.1 - 11.2007

Twee van de grootste esthetici: eerst keizer Nero, die Rome in brand stak om zich voor te kunnen stellen, hoe de stad Troje destijds gebrand had, en vervolgens Andy Warhol, die, op het bericht dat een van zijn voormalige liefdes en goede vriend onder invloed van acid uit het raam van z'n appartement gesprongen was, reageerde met de enigzins teleurgestelde vraag, waarom er niemand bij was geweest om het te filmen. Kierkegaard was misschien wel de eerste om expliciet te beseffen dat het Esthetische en het Ethische altijd in een absoluut contrast staan, en dat het esthetische in zijn extreemste en uiterste consequentie kwaadaardig lijkt. Wil men het ethische leven (en dit kan alleen door haar te leven), dan is het eigenlijk al geen ethisch leven meer; het is het alledaagse, onmiddelijke algemene leven, een zijn onder de anderen dat zich aan theoretisering en esthetisering ontrekt, zich telkens verbergt door zich als betekenisloos voor te doen, en zich zo onttrekt aan de gewelddadige kracht van de woorden in hun discursiviteit, en het boze rusteloze oog van het kunstenaarsdenken, oftewel voor dat laatste geen werkelijke optie.