Performing Arts and Performances

Jacob asked: "is there a way to distinguish a performing art from the performance? Can a dance exist without being danced?"

This question brings up some intriguing discussion points, particularly where morality stands. As I may have made clear before, my own view on morality is that an art object is amoral, as only actions can have a moral aspect to them. This would seem to imply that there is, in fact, a way for a performance, as an action, to be moral or immoral.

I do not believe that this is the case, that a performance can be moral or immoral. After all, a performance is merely the acting out of directions given by another. The particular actions of a performer while performing may be immoral, but this does not make the performance itself immoral.

How can this distinction be made? A performance is a presentation of a work of art. In this sense, the performance itself is no different than the display of a painting or sculpture. It is a unique presentation in and of itself, and is therefore just as much an amoral object for aesthetic appreciation as the painting or sculpture.

The question of improvisation falls in to this same category. It is a display of a work of art, and is, in and of itself, amoral. I shall return to this later in regards to Jacob's second question.

However, the particular actions of a performer can be moral or immoral, just as the affects of a work on an audience can be moral or immoral while keeping the piece itself amoral. If, for example, a play calls for the rape of a character, and the actor playing the rapist, during the performance, actually rapes the actor playing the rape victim, this particular action on the part of the actor playing the rapist is immoral, but this does not make the play, or the performance, immoral.

What of improvisation in terms of Jacob's second question? "Can a dance exist without being danced," or, in a similar vein, can an improvised jazz performance exist without being performed? The simple answer to this is, "yes, it can." However, it is not a work of art until it is performed. In the same way, a painting can exist in the artist's mind, but it does not exist as a work of art until the artist actually paints it.

To end with a question: Does the intention behind a work to act as a stimulant for a particular response, i.e. emotional or physical, preclude the possibility that it has aesthetic and artistic merit?

Does Philosophy Help Us "See?"

Professor Yake brought up what I found to be an interesting point in Wednesday's class: the idea that philosophy should help us "see," in a literal sense.

My initial reaction to this was, "anyone with two functioning eyes can 'see' just fine, thank you. Philosophy helps us interpret what we see, and find the meaning in and behind the visual stimuli. It helps us 'see' in the sense of understanding, as well it should."

But then I started thinking about this. Could training in perception be helpful? It is certainly a possibility. It may be quite useful to learn new ways of physically seeing things, in order to give us a new perspective from which to analyze and interpret that object. Is philosophy the subject that should concern itself with this? Perhaps. Though the question would then become, "how might we learn to 'see' differently?"

So, I beg the question: how might philosophy be able to teach us to "see?" Can it? Should it?

"Aesthetic Objects" and "Art Objects"

I would like to present, for your rational evaluation, a theory I have developed concerning "art objects" and "aesthetic objects."

An "aesthetic object" is any object which elicits an aesthetic, or emotional, response from the viewer.

An "art object" is an object created by a human being with the intention to elicit an aesthetic, or emotional, response from the viewer.

Under this theory, "art objects" is a sub-category of the larger category of "aesthetic objects." The implication is that, first and foremost, for an object to be considered an "art object," it must first pass the test of "aesthetic object." If the object in question does not elicit an emotional response from the viewer, it has failed as art, and therefore IS NOT art, regardless of the intentions of the creator.

Only when an art object passes the test of being an "aesthetic object," thus showing it possesses aesthetic qualities, can we then evaluate the work's merit as an "art object," which would include such aspects as the artist's intention, the technique, the originality of the piece, authenticity, etc. Key here is that high AESTHETIC merit does not necessarily translate in to high ARTISTIC merit. Thus, under this construction, a forgery can have equal aesthetic merit to the original which was copied, but the forgery would have significantly lower artistic value.

To be explicit with my ending question: What do you think of this construction? Does it have merit?

"Rational Morality," and Art

In today's class, Professor Yake brought up a very interesting point about "rational morality." I would like to comment on it here.

I like the implications behind this idea of "rational morality." It seems, to me, to speak to the idea that we should question all of our assumptions, and only keep those for which we can find a rational basis. This, to me, is a view of high merit, for anyone. There is never any harm in exploring the roots of our views and having a solid foundation for holding what values we do hold.

I think, however, that trying to then apply this "rational morality" to art gets rocky. Art, in my view, does not exist solely as an expression of morality or moral living. Rather, art can, and should, reflect the realities of our lives. This is extremely important, as often, we can be blind to the reality around us, and fail to notice the proverbial elephant in the room.

To illustrate this point of cultural blindness, I'll draw an example from a course I took over the summer. In our society today, heterosexuality is so pervasive in all strata of social functioning, that it is considered to be the "norm" by which we judge everything else. This manifests itself in many ways. A famous example are the "coming out stories" we expect of, for example, homosexuals. Heterosexuality is so prevalent that there need be no explanation for the "discovery" of one's heterosexuality, but society demands a story, a reason, for one's "homosexuality."

In the same vein of the "heterosexual invisible" would be the rituals of marriage. This concept of marriage, of the wife in a white dress, the father giving the bride to the husband, etc, is so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that many, if not most, people are unaware of the historical symbolism behind the symbolism. The white dress is a symbol of the bride's virginity (which is questionable in today's society, and almost certainly so in the case of remarriages). The father giving the bride away is representative of the social view of women as property -- a woman is her father's property until she is married, at which point she becomes her husband's property, making the entire marriage ceremony a celebration of what is, at its core, a financial transaction.

How does this all relate to art? Simple. Art can, and should, function to expose such things to our larger cultural consciousness. Art is a perfect vehicle for revealing these sorts of truths that have become lost to the culture, and thus a great potential catalyst for social change where change is needed.

Hooray for interdisciplinary analogies! :)

... and now that I've just used a smiley in a graded blog, I shall end with a question: Should art serve as a "mirror to society," revealing the flaws in our society that we are often unconscious of, or should art restrict itself to utopian depictions of "high morality?"

Art "Inducing Immorality," and Racism in Art

I'm going to be blogging like crazy this week. I can already see that.

I'm going to tackle the topics in my title in reverse order. First, "racism" in art. It was brought up today that, a while back, there was a cartoon which depicted Obama as a monkey. I would like to begin by pointing out the hundreds, if not thousands, of depictions of our previous president, George W. Bush, as a monkey. The man looks like one, and he's about as civilized as one. The point here is that political cartoons, to make a point, characterize politicians as animals. This is not new, and therefore I do not consider the cartoon in question to be anything other than politics, or political cartoons, as usual.

Does this make the political cartoons somehow reprehensible? Perhaps. But I would contest that despite this, the artist has a right to produce it, just as the viewers have the right to be offended by it. Anything beyond that goes in to dangerous territory.

So, tying in to the idea of art "inducing immorality..." Professor Yake brought up a hypothetical porn movie, but I would like to take a real-world example: the film "The Triumph of the Will." "The Triumph of the Will" is arguably one of the most famous, and successful, propaganda films in history. It portrays the rise of the Nazi party as a revitalization of Germany, and casts Hitler into an almost-Messianic role for the German people. It served to solidify Hitler's popularity in Germany, and secure his position as Fuhrer of the so-called 'Third Reich.'

It is no secret that Hitler commissioned the mass slaughter of millions of innocents. The propaganda film "The Triumph of the Will" was certainly a powerful tool in building popular support for a government and ideology that is near-universally accepted today as pure evil. There is no way a rational human being can honestly legitimize the murder of millions of innocents (numbers which, incidentally, included a large number of my own relatives on my paternal side). However, despite the fact that "The Triumph of the Will" glorified this government and the man who would ultimately unleash one of the most destructive wars of the twentieth century, can we really call the film itself "immoral?" I do not think this is the case.

Why? The intentions of the film maker may have been immoral -- the glorification of Hitler. Hitler's intentions were almost certainly immoral -- "Endlösung," or the Final Solution, a policy that lead to the murder of millions of Jews. This does not, however, impose this immorality on the film. An object is inherently amoral. Morality refers to actions, to conduct, and perhaps to a lesser extent to ideas, but cannot, and should not, be afixed to objects, art objects included.

To end with a couple of questions: 1) Does a common tactic in political cartoons become racist when the politician being lampooned happens to be of an "ethnic minority?" 2) Is there any way to legitimately apply moral judgments to human creations?

"Art" By Non-Human Beings

Betsy asked: Why do you think most human beings are so reluctant to consider the intentional artistic expression of mammals and birds as art?

To begin, I would consider "intentional artistic expression of non-human animals" to be a rather dubious claim. To our knowledge (or at least to mine), the one characteristic that differentiates humans from non-humans is the fact that humans are self-aware. We are aware of our own existence, and have the unique capability of projecting that awareness. This allows us to think rationally, to imagine things that are not real, to feel empathy for other beings. As far as I am aware, there is no evidence of any non-human animals possessing these mental capacities, at least to the extent to which we possess them.

One of the key elements of (human) artistic expression is the intention for the art to point to something beyond itself. We can look at a painting and not see it as paint on a canvas, but as representative of something beyond itself. If the painting is a landscape, for example, we can see the landscape in it, imagine it in our mind's eye, imagine being there. This is a mental capability that non-humans lack, to the best of our knowledge.

Because other animals do not have this mental capacity, it is therefore questionable that they could thus intentionally create an artwork. Imitation is not necessarily evidence of artistic intent. My not-insignificant knowledge of animal behavior leads me to the understanding that non-human animals lack the capacity for such purely artistic intention. They are driven by instinct, by genetic programming and learned behaviors that are used exclusively for the survival and perpetuation of the species. The "architectural structures" they produce are not intended to be artistic, but to be pragmatic, to provide shelter. The bird's song is not meant to be artistic, but to attract a mate so that the bird may reproduce. Their "found art" is not intended to be viewed and appreciated artistically, but again, solely as an avenue for attracting a mate.

Whether or not this is true may yet be proved false, but this is my understanding, and I am sure it is widely shared among humans. For these reasons, aestheticians are likely reluctant to conclude that animals are even capable of intentional artistic creation, let alone if their "creations" are worthy of artistic appreciation.

To end with a question (that I intend to later blog about): What are the differences between "aesthetic objects" and "art objects?" Or do such differences exist?

"Conceptual" Art.

I found an interesting op-ed on the New York Times today. You can read it here. Incidentally, it was written by Denis Dutton, whose work you may recall from our book.

I strongly recommend you read it all. It's a fascinating read. But the point I want to draw out of it is thus: this idea of "conceptual" art.

To put it in brief, paraphrasing Dutton, "conceptual" art seems to be a new trend in art. In "conceptual" art, the artist does not do any of the actual work in creating the piece. The artist merely comes up with the idea, and commissions someone else to do it, and then sells it for obscene profits.

The example Dutton cites is a new "work" by the artist Damien Hirst. It is merely a medicine cabinet stocked with the same sort of drugs anyone may have in their medicine cabinet. It is not something he made, like Warhol's Brillo boxes. It is merely an idea he conceptualized, had someone else assemble, and is attempting to sell for over $200,000.

This seems to me to be a betrayal of what "art" really means. As Dutton says in his article, "There is no place on earth where superlative technique in music and dance is not regarded as beautiful," and yet these "artists" use no skill at all in the creation of their works besides coming up with the idea.

This all leads to my question: is "conceptual" art "true" art, or is it a corruption of art?

Can an "authentic" musical performance be a forgery?

Jaimie asked "When discussing music, sticking as close to the original work as possible is key to an "authentic" performance, where as with more "physical" art (painting, sculpture, etc.) this can be considered a forgery. Does this mean that authentic performances could be forgeries?"

Before I address this question, I would like to once again bring in the distinction of the creative and performance arts. With the creative arts, it is not the process itself that is art, but the final product. With a performance, the process is just as much part of the art as the finished piece. I would go so far to argue that the score of a piece of music, the script for a play, etc, is an entirely separate piece of art from the actual performance of the song or play, as the musicians and actors bring as much vitality and creativity to the performance as the composers and playwrights brought to the production of the score or script.

Next, the question of a forgery must be addressed. By definition, a forgery is an object, a copy of another object produced with intent to deceive, to pass off the forgery as one's own, or as something genuine, as with money or art.

Given this definition, a performance cannot be a forgery. A performance is not an object -- it is an interpretation of the object. The score from which a piece of music is played could certainly be a forgery, but the performance itself would not be, even if the musician claimed to have written the piece. The score would certainly be a forgery, but the performance would not be.

To end with a question: Is there any link between music and morality, as Scruton suggested in "The Decline of Musical Culture?"

A Broken Record

Thinking back to class the other day, I apparently kept repeating Lessing's argument over and over in response to Dutton's. I realize this was unintentional, but I feel it is worth exploring.

Why would I, in responding to one argument, more or less cite the other? The answer is simple, really: the former argument failed, in my view, to adequately address the points of the other.

Dutton's argument, from what I got from it, amounted to little more than "the artist is important because it always has been, and that's how it should be." He explains WHY, but he never provides an adequate defense for why it SHOULD be the case, for why it SHOULD matter for our aesthetic appreciation. This is where I think his argument fails, and why Lessing's ultimately makes much more sense.

To end with a question: SHOULD the artist of a work affect our aesthetic judgment of a piece? Why or why not?

Ethics and Art: The Question of Pornography

The question of forgeries is undoubtedly a question of morals over merit. It does a disservice to the work to claim that a work is any less accomplished just because of its origins, or of the intent of the artist. But the question of morals is not unique to forgeries.

Many of the arguments pertaining to pornography do not even begin to consider any of the merits of the work. Pornography is written off as art not for any intrinsic value it has, but because of a moral judgment that pornography results in evil, i.e. lust, objectification of the person (particularly of women), or instigating sexual crimes. The arguments ignore any value that these works may have.

To show how ridiculous this is, allow me to take a couple of examples. James Joyce's novel, "Ulysses," was banned for a while in the United States because it was labeled pornography. It was banned despite its clear literary merit, and today it is considered a fine example of literature.

Another example of this is "The Story of O" (which was, incidentally, written by an upper class French woman). This, too, was banned for a time because of its fairly explicit descriptions of sadomasochism. It is now considered to have literary, and thus artistic, value, despite the heavy eroticism in the book.

The label itself of "pornography" becomes suspect, as it makes a judgment based on shifting moral values in society. One generations smut is the next generation's literature. It is therefore rather obvious that making such moral judgments about a work disregards any value the work may have. This is not to say that all such pieces are unjustly belittled, but that there are some for which the hasty denouncement causes we, the art-viewing public, to miss out on quality pieces of art.

For a closing question, I pose this: should any art be censored? Are there any qualities of a piece of art for which the piece can legitimately be censored?

Is Philosophy an Art? A Response to Betsy's Response

Philosophy is NOT a medium. To call philosophy a medium is akin to calling a hammer and chisel a sculpture. These are NOT the final product, but tools with which the final product is produced.

Furthermore, philosophy was not created as an art form. It was created as a particular method by which humans can discover some truth. To play with your quote from wikipedia, mythology purports to reveal the truth through stories about gods and heroes. Mysticism purports to reveal the truth by ritual and meditation. Philosophy uses logic and reason. They are different, distinct methods. Plus, some of the early Western philosophers would not take kindly the accusation of their discipline being an art. Plato in particular thought that art was inferior, a useless "copy of a copy," and that it had little, if anything, to offer humanity.

Where does art come in? Art and philosophy both seek to reveal some truth, in my view. However, they do so in different ways. Philosophy uses the pure mental faculties -- logic and reason. Art does not. Art uses symbolism and emotion to reach that truth. They are two separate, distinct disciplines, and while some philosophy can be considered art, that is not to say that philosophy itself IS an art.

Question: What elements distinguish art from every other thing in existence? What makes "art" art?

I now present, for your consideration...

... This.



And I shall beg the question: Is this art?