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sophiaserpentiaA while back, someone on my friend's list linked to an essay about art as misappropriation. I don't think it was linked approvingly, but the concept has stuck in the back of my mind, something to digest.
Then not long ago i read about the iconic image of Che Guevara as now appears on tee-shirts and numerous other commercial products. I don't know as much as i should about Che, but i think i have already well expounded on my views that anyone who uses violence is no revolutionary at all but is a part of the system. Anyway, this bit stood out in my mind, a quote from Trisha Ziff, who has organized an exhibition on the Che icon.
Hmm, i have to back up a little. I call my views "meta-neo-Marxian." "Neo" because we have progressed quite a bit in the last 150 years, in understanding the sociology of oppression and the intricacies of economics, and "meta" because i am not a subscriber to a philosophy, but merely a critic whose views are inspired by the trajectory which Marx played a role in laying out.
I view our situation as less a matter of "capitalism vs. socialism" and more a matter of me-centered world-parsing vs. us-centered world-parsing. I take this view because (a) the same problems preceded capitalism and have also tended to plague socialist societies and (b) i believe a truly just and merciful society could function compassionately with almost any economic or political arrangement.
So let me re-write that quote into a version that more closely matches my current views:
For the political-socialist, the image of Che is a commodity in that it is a valuable emotional push-button; and for the political-capitalist, the image of Che is a commodity because it sells tee-shirts. Neither point of view is really interested in exploring the meaning of Che's life, words, and actions.
Now, for the principle i promised in the title of this post. To wit:
The surest way to strip an image of meaning is to give it a dollar value or to use it as an emblem of demagoguery. But the principle works in other ways. Part of this is because each generation tends to create its own kinds of meaning, and so young people do not react in the same way to a creative work as earlier generations of people did.
I thought about this while reading recently about a Monet painting which was vandalized. Frankly, i found i could care less; some old painting who's time has come and gone was damaged. But i realize that the painting meant something to its creator; it meant something to the creator's contemporaries; and it means various things to various people today. Do those meanings resemble one another?
Who could do such a thing as vandalize a Monet? Someone to whom the work of art had little or no meaning. (Or, alternately, someone to whom the act of destruction meant more than the painting itself -- but... well, i have to reign in the scope of this somehow.)
But what is the meaning of a work of art? What is meaning? Without waxing too philosophical - i want to intentionally leave this a little fuzzy - i think of meaning as the reaction one has when contemplating something. But, additionally, the genuine meaning of a creative work is primarily that reaction which is intended to be provoked by the work's creator. I emphasized that because there are theories of criticism which argue the opposite - that meaning is supplied by the observer of a creative work. Such theories can, in my opinion, be demonstrated to be apologetics for the power paradigm.
One way to reduce the meaning of an object is to directly misappropriate it - to use the phrase or image to advance a different agenda and then to use your superior numbers or budget to simply drown out all incidence of the original usage. A radical movement of any import can expect to see this happen to their language, and as a result the dissenters of each generation are pretty much on their own. Another way to reduce the meaning of an object is to surround it with approved, dissent-sanitized replicas: the culture industry.
However, it is not just subversive meaning which is distrusted by the power paradigm - ultimately, it is all meaning that is unreliable. Meaning is capricious, meaning is unquantifiable, meaning is unmarketable and unprofitable. Even meaning which has nothing to do with politics can inspire someone to question the status quo. This includes faith. "Spirituality," as i mean it when i use it in my journal, is a process of misappropriation by which the words used by people of faith and conscience to describe their experience is sanitized of any politically radical content in ways that turn it into icon-worship. In other words, "spirituality" (as defined by me) is the attempt to destroy meaning and faith and replace it with a religion industry.
Then not long ago i read about the iconic image of Che Guevara as now appears on tee-shirts and numerous other commercial products. I don't know as much as i should about Che, but i think i have already well expounded on my views that anyone who uses violence is no revolutionary at all but is a part of the system. Anyway, this bit stood out in my mind, a quote from Trisha Ziff, who has organized an exhibition on the Che icon.
"There is a theory that an image can only exist for a certain amount of time before capitalism appropriates it. But capitalism only wants to appropriate images if they retain some sense of danger."
Hmm, i have to back up a little. I call my views "meta-neo-Marxian." "Neo" because we have progressed quite a bit in the last 150 years, in understanding the sociology of oppression and the intricacies of economics, and "meta" because i am not a subscriber to a philosophy, but merely a critic whose views are inspired by the trajectory which Marx played a role in laying out.
I view our situation as less a matter of "capitalism vs. socialism" and more a matter of me-centered world-parsing vs. us-centered world-parsing. I take this view because (a) the same problems preceded capitalism and have also tended to plague socialist societies and (b) i believe a truly just and merciful society could function compassionately with almost any economic or political arrangement.
So let me re-write that quote into a version that more closely matches my current views:
"There is a theory that a subversive image can only exist for a certain amount of time before the power paradigm strips it of meaning and makes it a commodity."
For the political-socialist, the image of Che is a commodity in that it is a valuable emotional push-button; and for the political-capitalist, the image of Che is a commodity because it sells tee-shirts. Neither point of view is really interested in exploring the meaning of Che's life, words, and actions.
Now, for the principle i promised in the title of this post. To wit:
Images and text will lose their meaning over time, in part because meaning is anathema to the power paradigm.
The surest way to strip an image of meaning is to give it a dollar value or to use it as an emblem of demagoguery. But the principle works in other ways. Part of this is because each generation tends to create its own kinds of meaning, and so young people do not react in the same way to a creative work as earlier generations of people did.
I thought about this while reading recently about a Monet painting which was vandalized. Frankly, i found i could care less; some old painting who's time has come and gone was damaged. But i realize that the painting meant something to its creator; it meant something to the creator's contemporaries; and it means various things to various people today. Do those meanings resemble one another?
Who could do such a thing as vandalize a Monet? Someone to whom the work of art had little or no meaning. (Or, alternately, someone to whom the act of destruction meant more than the painting itself -- but... well, i have to reign in the scope of this somehow.)
But what is the meaning of a work of art? What is meaning? Without waxing too philosophical - i want to intentionally leave this a little fuzzy - i think of meaning as the reaction one has when contemplating something. But, additionally, the genuine meaning of a creative work is primarily that reaction which is intended to be provoked by the work's creator. I emphasized that because there are theories of criticism which argue the opposite - that meaning is supplied by the observer of a creative work. Such theories can, in my opinion, be demonstrated to be apologetics for the power paradigm.
One way to reduce the meaning of an object is to directly misappropriate it - to use the phrase or image to advance a different agenda and then to use your superior numbers or budget to simply drown out all incidence of the original usage. A radical movement of any import can expect to see this happen to their language, and as a result the dissenters of each generation are pretty much on their own. Another way to reduce the meaning of an object is to surround it with approved, dissent-sanitized replicas: the culture industry.
However, it is not just subversive meaning which is distrusted by the power paradigm - ultimately, it is all meaning that is unreliable. Meaning is capricious, meaning is unquantifiable, meaning is unmarketable and unprofitable. Even meaning which has nothing to do with politics can inspire someone to question the status quo. This includes faith. "Spirituality," as i mean it when i use it in my journal, is a process of misappropriation by which the words used by people of faith and conscience to describe their experience is sanitized of any politically radical content in ways that turn it into icon-worship. In other words, "spirituality" (as defined by me) is the attempt to destroy meaning and faith and replace it with a religion industry.
