TrialRM
Dead ends in the way we talk and think about Art, and eventually produce it
Any alarmist paper about dead ends in art will probably try to sell itself as objective. But, it will fall short. It’s obvious the writer’s conclusions are based off a personal distaste for the world’s current state. But remember, taste is subjective, and the reader will simply choose to believe the writer or not. Again it’s obvious, no side will be wrong. Everyone walks away satisfied, and that will be it. [Editor’s note: It’s not apparent that these statements are sarcastic, which I think is your intention. I added the light banter—obvious, remember, etc.—to emphasize the humor.]
[Editor’s note: Regarding style: I think we should use the Chicago Manual for Style for the text. The Wikipedia Manual of Style should be used only for the formatting of the site. When it moves into print form, I think this will make for an easier transition. Wikipedia says to follow standards of style and I think CMOS would best benefit this project.]
[Editor’s note: I believe the use of italics should be very infrequent if at all. You can create emphasis through sentence structure, and sometimes you don't even need the emphasis. Wikipedia style and CMOS both say that overuse of formatted emphasis reduces effectiveness.]
Objective interpretation is not unattainable, and there is a judgment criterion that aims to be objective. [Editor’s note: I think it is important to state your goal right away. You are attempting to create objective interpretation.] [Editor’s note: Is there a name for this particular judgment criterion? Or is it general feeling? Or are you naming it?] It asks whether a given work of art proposes something new to a given person, or, more accurately, sufficiently new to this person. (Is the remix of an old song something new? The listener must decide). Conversely, this criterion is not free from pervasive value judgments, namely that new is better. It creates a paradox—after all, isn’t it possible to have it both new and worse? Let’s direct this sarcasm toward the capitalistic need for growth, by promoting innovation over and over, which becomes predictable when corporate boards plan for advancement through a strict schedule of novelties. [Editor’s note: As you noted about your style, you will be using the pronoun I. I think that’s a good choice. For the sake of the introduction, I also think it is okay to address the reader. The pronoun you, sounds best in your writing. Also, you can invite the reader to join you in the conversation, which is why I used “let’s” above. Outside of the introduction, I think you shouldn’t address the reader, or be as informal. But like I said, it will work well in the introduction.]
Glorification of the new suggests that genuine and great are always new and unique. [Editor’s note: I think emphasis here is proper because it introduces these points, which are constant throughout the introduction. Also, CMOS recommends using italics for emphasis and not quotations.] It claims that lesser works are always the same, to the point that some reviewers simply avoid writing negative reviews. No reviewer wants to add his voice to the bad chorus. What’s the point of writing the same critique again and again? Bad works demonstrate the same, typical traits: bad music fails to move the listener; bad films are badly acted, too unrealistic, or don’t provide sufficient character development; bad novels are weighed down by weak plots, unsatisfying conclusions, unsympathetic characters, unengaging writing style, etc. I could continue this list clichéd list, but I’ll stop. [Editor’s note: You already use it, but I think that “bad” should become the consistent descriptor of bad works. If you vary the adjective, then you run the risk of creating degrees of bad, and that might give the reader the wrong idea and cause them to look for meaning behind the different levels of bad.]
The issue is not the clichéd nature of bad works, or even how it lends to the clichéd nature of reviews. (Yes, it sometimes happens that authors strike back at reviewers for not also creating a groundbreaking review.) The issue is how positive reviews sound as clichéd as the negative ones. Although opposite, great works demonstrate the same, typical traits: great music moves the listener; great films are well-acted, realistic, and provide compelling character arcs; great novels have strong plots, riveting conclusions, sympathetic characters, engrossing writing style, etc. I could continue with a clichéd list, but once again, I’ll stop. However unique, great works invariably result in equally clichéd reviews. [Editor’s note: ”Great” should be the consistent descriptor of good works. For the same reason bad is used.] [Editor’s note: Doesn’t that mean you can’t review without being cliché? Can reviews become new?]
Positive reviews are clichéd in such a way that they apply to other works with only a few cosmetic changes. [Editor’s note: This sentence is unclear to me. Are you saying that positive reviews copy other, positive reviews—they simply change out the necessary words to fit the reviewed work? Or, are you saying that positive reviews do not take much work because they simply insert pieces of the work into the review and since the work is good, the review becomes good from it?] Uniqueness gets lost in its own argument because calling a work unique does not also make the review unique. Yet, many reviewers attempt to capture uniqueness in such a fashion. Often, the most objective phrases in a positive review—those not too tarnished by value judgments, such as interesting subject matter or engrossing writing style—could also apply to inferior works. The only difference between the two is in the reviewer’s enjoyment or distaste of the work. For example, a film praised for its realism might get simultaneously thrashed for its slow-moving story—you know, like in real, real life. A novel praised for its sympathetic characters might also be thrashed for being too one-sided. And a work loved for being unique is thrashed for trying too hard to be smart.
The fundamental weakness of value judgments is why so many reviewers—not just in art, but everywhere else: the tech world, tourism, etc.— take painstaking care to give fairness to multiple, target audiences, resulting in broad strokes. If you like action in your movie, then.… But if you prefer feel-good endings, then.… Read this example from a book review (emphasis mine):
Character likeability has always been one of literature’s sources of division. If online discussions are anything to go by, book groups seem to care about little else, which puts them at odds with most serious writers, who feel that a book’s merits have nothing to do with whether or not you would take the protagonist to the pub. That said, when writers present to the world someone as unsympathetic as John Self or Humbert Humbert, they tend to sweeten the pill by offsetting the character’s despicability with likeable qualities: irony, japery, or a fancy prose style. [Editor’s note: Personal note: I would argue with Mr. Annan that likeability and predictable or desired character actions are not mutually exclusive. :)]
It is brave, then, of the much-decorated Chinese-American novelist Yiyun Li to have written a book with largely unsympathetic characters in unadorned prose. […]
I imagine most people’s reaction to the book will be dictated by their tolerance for her semi-aphoristic authorial proclamations and the mannered faux-philosophical dialogue, both of which confused and confounded this reader. Reading it, I felt Moran, Ruyu and Boyang were hedged by the past, but also, in the end, by the author.
❞[Editor’s note: I am unsure about the middle part of the quote (It is brave…). Are those your words? Are those the words of David Annan, leading into a quote by Yiyun Li? Is this a quote by Yiyun Li inside the review by David Annan?]
Let’s examine different ways to combat this fundamental weakness, some of which resulted in this project. [Editor’s note: Does the word essay describe this introduction, or the book itself? You use it multiple times and I think you are describing the book. I think you should refer to the book, while it’s in website form, as a project. Then when it moves into book form, you start referring to it as a book. It’s perfectly okay to self-reference the work, I just think it should be done so appropriately.] If you are searching for the advertised, end-user enjoyment, you’re out of luck. You are effectively condemned to sorting through popularity polls to make sense of its random data, which is clichéd. You know from the start that, even with claims to uniqueness, most popular works may be exactly those you’re trying to avoid. The irony swells when you search for the truly new, especially when a Batman movie will always be more popular than a Gaspar Noé film.
[Editor’s note: I think you should add a portion to the introduction. I think it would benefit from talking about what happens when whitewashed art gains consumer popularity more easily than not. You touch on it in Batman vs. Gaspar Noé, and I think you could expand on it. Is whitewashed art that the fault of clichéd reviews? How about art that becomes whitewashed because of its consumption by popular culture? Also, does the cliché exist in art interpretation because of the reviewers championing of the art for the uninitiated, and therefore create a cliché by aiming it toward the masses? Also does he hope to steer the uninitiated consumer towards appreciation of the art, but instead steer him away because of the clichéd nature of the review?]
If, on the other hand, you’re seeking a forum to discuss work you already know, your approach to opinions depends on the level of objective clarity you gained from initially consuming the art. You might not have much to say that hasn’t already been said—besides matters of taste and opinion. Or, maybe you have something objective to say, that is also new, while refraining from ambivalent additions that only add padding to a value judgment. Statements such as how multiple character arcs keep a story interesting and how humor provides a welcome relief to the serious theme add nothing new to the review. Another reviewer will simply echo back on how the multiple character arcs made for confusion and how the humor didn’t fit the serious theme at all. An average consumer of art can announce similar value judgments without the benefit of expertise. [Editor’s note: This portion (starting with “Or, maybe”) was unclear in a handful of spots. I think I worked through what you were trying to say and I hope I treated it fairly. You used the word substance and I think you meant the opposite. Please let me know if I went the wrong direction with this.] The expert in art is a highly educated person who offers an array of descriptions that are almost always a picturesque exercise in style, which bounce off the subject and push open doors. If such a person, say Umberto Eco, were to describe our society’s sense of insecurity “as a new Middle Ages,” we’d get something like this: [Editor’s note: Is “as a new Middle Ages” a quote, or your emphasis?]
[Editor’s note: I stopped here. I have a few notes that and thoughts about the rest of the introduction, that you will see as editor notes. So don’t stop reading just yet.]
[…] the seminomad medieval society was a society of unsafe journeys; setting out meant making your will (think of the departure of old Anne Vercos in Claud’s L’annonce faite à Marie), and traveling meant encountering bandits, vagabond hordes, and wild animals. But the concept of the modern journey as a masterpiece of comfort and safety has long since come to grief, and boarding a jet through the various electronic checkpoints and searches to avoid hijacking restores perfectly the ancient sense of adventurous insecurity, presumably destined to increase.
❞The comparison is smart, but with the strengths and weaknesses of harmless analysis. I don’t need to have images of “bandits, vagabond hordes and wild animals” represent plane hijackers to understand the dangers of plane hijackers, thank you. Likewise, I don’t need to be told about the quality of the acting in a movie, I can decide for myself if it was good enough for me, thank you. Ever had this moment where, while enjoying some singing, someone complains that it’s “not pitch perfect?” It may be true, but really, this is besides the point. When someone pops out of the blue to tell you about “pitch perfect” in a moment when it didn’t matter at all, it puts the arbitrariness of our judgment criteria on the spot and makes you question their necessity. If you begin to question the degree of arbitrariness of what you hear and read daily, you might be surprised at the suggested overall picture. Each judgment criterion makes sense in itself. But when put in the larger context of a complete review, it sounds like a non sequitur, and the more the review develops, the more it forces you to think of a bottom line that must guide the ultimate meaning. All the talk about some work of art—from the casual talk to the philosophical commentary—is fundamentally crippled by the sense that it only makes sense in the overall picture as part of a bottom-line value judgment. What is the point of saying that “the woodwind is particularly song-like and soulful in the second movement, where the intensity of the tempestuous outbursts is all the greater for the classical restraint” (random quote from the BBC website), if not with the tacit understanding that this is “a good thing?” As an exercise, where is the coherence in writing the following:
Their forms–scrolling, zig-zagging, rippling, geometric, curvaceous–are endlessly various. Sometimes the surface is incised, embossed or coated like verdigris on copper, as if the image wanted to break into three dimensions. Sometimes the canvas splits in two and a deep internal shadow appears, like the box of a violin, or the shadow is a painted illusion. There are impossible perspectives and visual interplays that you can’t exactly fathom, but above all there are gorgeous metaphorical associations: the riffle of a fan, the shimmer of art deco moiré, children’s tumbling blocks in constant cascade.
❞The key word is in the last line: “gorgeous.” Only a value judgment can really tie everything up in a neat sellable package.
When an art debate—a crowd favorite is: what is art? or its innumerable variants, such as: are video games art? is a Renaud Lavillenie jump art?—reaches its end, a sense of powerlessness comes from acknowledging that “it’s just a matter of tastes.” You like it or not, and you can’t do anything about it. You were born with this taste, or this taste was programmed into you, with nothing to ever discover, and no amount of dissertation will change that. Ever heard a joke that leaves you cold, so the joke is explained to you, which all but ensures that the joke is never going to work? Taste in art and jokes is too personal. It cannot be communicated as part of a social experience. All that remains at a social level is the building of communities of taste. With experience, one finds out that the consensus on which communities of all kinds are founded is first and foremost superficial and coincidental, like deafs talking to each other.
This leaves us with the objective statements about content, which you may know them already or not. In the first case, you may feel that the opinions did miss something. From there, you could pride yourself in spreading the holy word about your discoveries, which are perfectly legit because, as is supposed, these discoveries are more derived from the work’s content than from analytical prowess that is more flattering to the reviewer than to the reviewed work. If you didn’t make the discoveries yourself, you may be grateful that someone pointed them out for you. This situation is plausible because (1) someone can figure it out and tell you the discovery because it is objective and communicable contrary to taste and feeling—not counting the contagious crowd feelings that arise from social gatherings such as concerts which have as much or more to do with the setting than the artistic content—and (2) you might very well have missed the discovery precisely because it is so easy to miss for a variety of reasons.
This essay is about preparing the readers to being introduced to a few select works about which I feel that a lot was missed even and especially when they are praised. Therefore, it is far from being yet another general theory about what Art is or should be, which works are good or bad, or a recipe for producing successful art. The particular content that I discuss will demand self-discipline in interpretation and communication. The difficulty is not so much the way we talk about it than the fact that the language of value judgment dominates the way we think and consume art. Bad works are boring, and so are their reviews. But the reviews of the great works are boring as well, and in fact, depending on how you approach them, the great works can be boring as well, and it actually happens that if I were to approach the great works like most people do, or even like I was doing a few years ago, then the works I find great now would become exactly as boring as their reviews since these reviews are structured like our way of thinking. [Editor’s note: Do you think that once clichés are stripped away that the interpretation/review can be art in and of itself?] It is all about preparing our abandoning general theories, binary judgments and their cousin, categorizations, and our tackling individual works in all their individuality with an expanded critical awareness of the cliché. Saying more or less covertly that a work is “absolutely genius” does not exactly honor individuality. And if this is going to be what it takes to honor works of art, then it should also be how we honor general theories: by looking at them in their individuality, and seeing through them the widespread, unconscious clichés pervading our thinking, unnecessarily blocking ways of seeing uniqueness first, before using it as a possible gateway to enjoyment.
Why you could care some. An issue not of value but of the interpretation that predates the value
Did I just write: “This essay is about preparing the readers to being introduced to a few select works about which I feel that a lot was missed?”
The reader may just stop reading at this point and legitimately say: “But I don’t care about you. Who are you anyway?”
Those “few select works” are less a selection of approved works than a selection of “new-style” interpretations. [Editor’s note: Would you consider this a remix of sorts, like what you described in paragraph 2? Would it be a remix of other reviews? This adds to the review as art question I asked earlier.] If it were a mere selection of works, the criterion for its success would be the degree to which people agree, and it would be weighed down by the communication issues already discussed at length. The dead end is not art (although it can ultimately be), but the interpretation.
If a work has some uniqueness, so does its new-style interpretation, in such a way that the interpretation doesn’t essentially amount to a value judgment. This interpretation doesn’t demand of you to accept it or agree with it. Instead, its point is the worded communication of some uniqueness. You are free to judge its value on a per-case basis, but if you don’t, you can still come away with learning something unique, although the new-style interpretation address ideas that were new to me. In a lot of ways, the success of the interpretation was achieved before it was read: right at the time the uniqueness was figured out in a clear objective light. [Editor’s note: I love this bit. The birth was the moment the light bulb went on. Not when it was put to paper]
This essay has the following demographics in mind:
- The curious ones who want to know what they stumbled upon comes from
- Those who feel the boredom or routine progressively taking over their enthusiasm for art
- Those who have given some art a honest try, listened to what enthusiasts had to say, but came away unimpressed despite understanding perfectly what they said
- Those who could have written this essay, and can now just focus on writing new-style interpretations instead of explaining the theories behind them
In particular, it doesn’t try to make believers out of non-believers, or to convince people happy with art that there is are dead ends in art, like some kind of missionary trying to sell paradise to perfectly happy aborigines. The fact that it only prepares people to unique interpretations that are only as unique as the work that underly them, makes it fundamentally down-to-earth and anti-“big theory.” It doesn’t need to be linked, as a subculture, to the philosophy of art or whatever grand purpose in the history of art or human knowledge, although I do try not to repeat what others have already said—I find better to quote them, even pages of them if necessary. When one hears Gilles Deleuze complaining how “tired” he is of ways of thinking he found in books written centuries ago, one is almost led to believe that the author must have lived for centuries. I, for one, only need to heed the call of feeling bored. I may escape my boredom through a few works, maybe try to promote them, and leave to fate the chance that it pays off with more people able to convey and build upon new objective ideas, instead of pushing opaque values as if pushing again and again would somehow end up leading to loss-less reception.
[Editor’s note: What types of art are you going to focus on for the entirety of the project. All kinds? Or are you going to stay to books, movies, and music? The reason I ask is that you mention books, movies, and music quite a bit. You also mention the possibility of video games, jokes, and athletic ability being art. Yet, you ignore using paintings as an example. Not that there aren’t many different kinds of art, but in popular culture, the type of work most easily associated with art is painting. It almost seems to me that you are ignoring paintings on purpose. If that is the case, I wonder if the absence brings greater notice to paintings than the clichéd inclusion would.]
[Editor’s note: That also brings me to another question. This doesn’t need to be addressed in the introduction but I am curious about your audience. Who is the book written for? It is clear that you, the author, know your audience, but I need to know as your editor. Is your audience the type of art consumer who immediately knows that paintings equals art and is happy that you ignore them in this intro? Or, is you audience the kind of person who is uneducated about art and therefore would wonder what kind of art book wouldn’t even mention art (you know like the Mona Lisa).]
