Thus far in this class, we haven’t really touched on objects in terms of their aesthetics. The focus has primarily been on their function and context (in terms of or apart from human agency). Even in the readings whose subject was architecture or design (‘art objects’), the focus was to examine the aesthetics of those things only insofar as it could reveal something else about the function, place, or history of the thing itself (the anthropomorphism of Caillois’ stones; the history of de Waal’s netsuke; the cultural displacement of Tanizaki’s toilet). Barthes, by contrast, in his essay on the Citroen DS, seems to be arguing that any impact made by the Goddess cannot be examined in terms other than it’s aesthetics. The design of it’s body, “the junction of its components,” Barthes sees as signaling “the beginning of a new phenomenology of assembling” – a shift in understanding structures of application and design. This “marks a change in the mythology of cars:” speed and power are no longer the only factors due consideration. The aesthetics of the “purely magical object” appear to make it “more spiritual and more object like,” more in line with it’s intended function: a man-made object, created to serve a man-made need.
The Citroen DS is a much different object than we have discussed before in class. While we have focused on art both naturally and by humans, we have yet to discuss commercial goods. In his essay, Barthes declares the DS a “humanized” object. Humanized as opposed to what? Naturally occurring? I thought it was a peculiar phrase.
Aesthetics play a large role in how we “see” any kind of object, and with machinery there is always an expected look. The DS looks streamlined, refined, and as sleek as possible to give one the sense of movement and speed. Without a certain material though, this would not be achieved. The metal used was selected for its ability to bend, and fit the streamlined design required. Therefore, the DS creation is what Barthes describes as the new phenomology of assembling, or a more benign Nature. While it retains a natural mystery and beauty, it was created by humans and is man made. Barthes also thought that this changed the mythology of cars, however I’m not so sure.
Caillois' text interested me the most. His descriptions/projections of the stones made me remember something I used to do when I was a child. Living in a house built in the 1970s in Los Angeles when I was little, it had what I called (maybe it is called this?) "popcorn ceiling". It was this bumpy white ceiling. It looks like pieces of popcorn were beneath the paint. Anyways, every morning as I lay in bed I used to look up at the ceiling and just stare at one spot until something appeared--until my brain created connections, until lines were created (rather like connect the dots) and shapes finally appeared. Entire scenes even appeared (I was really reminded of this when Caillois writes about the Florence stones, etc). Anyways, this way of looking at the world (which Caillois seems to do) was common for me as a child but as I grew older I began to see things more like others by default--I guess everyone does. My favorite quote is on page 78 when Caillois writes, "The vision the eye records is always impoverished and uncertain. Imagination fills it out with the treasures of memory and knowledge, with all that is put at its disposal by experience, culture and history..." I love this. I totally buy into this! everyone sees an object, a "thing" very differently--we fill in spaces (I don't mean literal) with our memory, experiences, etc--I can't put what's in my mind into words..
Callious and Scarry both discuss things in a way that examines how human project ideas upon objects; through material, both authors enforce the importance of the imagination in seeing how objects can have their own particular life. In both texts, objects are crucial extensions of identity, objects are not stagnant nonbeings, but are closer to us than expected. Painleve’s film also creates an experience of the nonhuman in a creative, poetic way that produces the sensation of a pulse. For Callious, Scarry, and Painleve, I think that they are trying to describe the sensational rather than the objective or rational. Through the idea that objects are more human than not, or alive and conscious, Callious finds the experience of the sublime through the marking of stones, Scarry relates physical bodily pain through artifacts, and Painleve makes films that are in between being scientific and poetic. In the existence of objects, projection and resemblance is something that is a reoccurring concern. Scarry’s “awareness of aliveness” of objects extends to a concept the authors mentions are all concerned with, at the same time the object meets the human with an indifference.
In his book, The Writing of Stones, Caillois blurs the lines between living and non-living things. He writes, “…nature sometimes gives us the impression of representing something” (14). In many of the stones he used as examples, one could interpret images of animals, plants, landscapes, man-made structures, etc. However, he wishes to call attention to the fact that while people are constantly seeking out representations in nature, they do not acknowledge that nature precedes man-made objects, and certain aspects are outside of the control of man. A particularly interesting stone is The Castle, which is limestone with dendrites. The dendrites formed on this stone create the images of people, buildings, and trees, and this stone had not been tampered with. Caillois presents the idea that the boundaries between living and non-living, and the categories of animal, plant, and mineral are all constantly interplaying with each other.
Similarly, Scarry discusses the animation of objects. Scarry argues that people attribute characteristics to inanimate objects thus animating them. For example, he using the example of an “uncomfortable chair”. Scarry points out that just because a person is uncomfortable in a chair, the chair is then deemed an uncomfortable chair. It now has a quality that animates it to an extent. Both Caillois and Scarry dismiss the limitations of strict boundaries between animate and in-animate things.
Elaine Scarry’s description of the process of making in her book, The Body in Pain, is very interesting. She begins by positing, “...[A]s physical pain destroys the mental content and language of the person in pain, so it also tends to appropriate and destroy the conceptualization abilities and language of persons who can only observe the pain,” (279). In order to understand what is “right” and “wrong” in a politically charged situation then, we must interpret a series of “fictions,” created by those invoking and observing the pain. So, Scarry turns to an analysis of the process of making. She says that creating is a process that comes out of the framework extending between physical pain and imagined objects - it seems, as opposing instances of complete conceptualization and lack thereof. Furthermore, she concludes that the “...[F]reestanding made object is a projection of the live body that itself reciprocates the live body,” (280) and thus, within it, shows a “material” record of the human sentience that created it, thereby drawing upon its power to “... [A]ct on sentience and recreate it,” (280). Finally, the object is made up of two forms: the conceptual and the physical; denoting that “making” is comprised of two different stages, “‘making-up’ and ‘making-real,’” (280). This conceptualization of the process of objects being made and, implicitly, the process of their interpretation by others; gives them an interesting position. Scarry writes, “... [T]he object is only a fulcrum or lever across which the force of creation moves back onto the human site,” (307). Objects can now be seen not only as a link between persons and political events, but as a material space of negotiation - being through both their materiality and sentient history a slate upon which to inscribe morality.
In the beginning of the article by Barthes, I was confused as to what exactly he was trying to say. After reading the article by Scarry, I realized that he is portraying the Citreon to be a material representation of the human body. In Scarry's piece, what resonated with me the most was how she felt that objects are not only materials, but also how we perceive them. After we create perceptions of objects in our mind since birth, we already have that notion in our mind whenever we are approached by that object or idea.
In relation to the Citreon, individuals can see the car itself also as a bodily object. The engine can be seen as the "heart", pipes as the "intestines", tires as the "feet", and etc. Scarry emphasized the relationship that we are learning in class, relationship between objects and individuals. However, she puts it in a completely different aspect. She describes objects as representing an individual as a whole. At one point of the text, she brings up how pictures can represent our memory and computers can represent the neurological system. We no longer can see objects materially, but we also have a technical and emotional relationship with them as well.
The Scarry reading is interesting in that she attempts to describe process of making and creating that is inclusive of the object's own capacity for doing, while situating it integrally in the economies of objects and bodies. It is obvious that she has built this understanding in direct response to the many fundamental philosophical tensions (ie. materialism and metaphysics) about action and consciousness and there are many explicit and implicit references to a Marxist understanding of these things (It seems to really boil down to her reinterpretation of the process of labor, production and objectification/commodification, though for her she has shifted that understanding away from a purely functional one). She has built a rather profound understanding of artifacts that shows a constant shift in agency between bodies and objects, rather than one dominating the other. She does stress that the processes within making aren't of equal status, and so it seems sometimes, the object's capacity to alter and recreate are stronger than that of the human's creative capacity. Moreover, human sentience and need to project (especially when it is out of pain) necessitates objectification and sublimation of these objects. However the objects are often "levers" between a projection and reciprocation of human sentience and the existence of these objects and their "aliveness" depends on human sentience (or so it seems in her analysis). When she discusses how excessive the reciprocation process is, its suggestive of how powerful the capacities of objects are. But this shift in power and agency is constant and fluid, while being theoretical substantial and systematic at the same time (more so than our pass readings). More importantly, I think she reframes the understanding of "making" and ontology of the artifact in a manner that successfully goes beyond functionality/non-functionality. One of many examples, she parallels the process in which sentience of pain (from hunger, etc.) could transform into something that becomes a sentience of pleasure and desire (eating cake) (kind of bad example). Barthes' and Caillois' readings are reflective of this attempt to understand artifact from the perspective of sentience. Barthes reads the Citroen DS as artifact of sublimated desire that had originally come out of the impulse to create for form but recreates itself into a artifact that appeals and alters people's relationship to what the car is and does. The nonfunctional qualities of the car becomes necessary to that particular car's ontology in the world, etc. Caillois is a bit different, in that he elaborates on the process of making that makes nature the creator of the stones rather than the human sentience, though the stones reconfigures the human sentience itself through reciprocation and the process of making in general (bringing forth new ideas of art).
also forgot to add, that looking at production from the perspective of sentience necessitates encompassing all objects, in all their functionality/lack of. She implicitly even categorizes them, as objects that have a direct relationship to the body and objects that create a different kind of need that goes beyond the literal bodily relationship. However, that fundamental process is the same.
10 comments:
Thus far in this class, we haven’t really touched on objects in terms of their aesthetics. The focus has primarily been on their function and context (in terms of or apart from human agency). Even in the readings whose subject was architecture or design (‘art objects’), the focus was to examine the aesthetics of those things only insofar as it could reveal something else about the function, place, or history of the thing itself (the anthropomorphism of Caillois’ stones; the history of de Waal’s netsuke; the cultural displacement of Tanizaki’s toilet). Barthes, by contrast, in his essay on the Citroen DS, seems to be arguing that any impact made by the Goddess cannot be examined in terms other than it’s aesthetics. The design of it’s body, “the junction of its components,” Barthes sees as signaling “the beginning of a new phenomenology of assembling” – a shift in understanding structures of application and design. This “marks a change in the mythology of cars:” speed and power are no longer the only factors due consideration. The aesthetics of the “purely magical object” appear to make it “more spiritual and more object like,” more in line with it’s intended function: a man-made object, created to serve a man-made need.
The Citroen DS is a much different object than we have discussed before in class. While we have focused on art both naturally and by humans, we have yet to discuss commercial goods. In his essay, Barthes declares the DS a “humanized” object. Humanized as opposed to what? Naturally occurring? I thought it was a peculiar phrase.
Aesthetics play a large role in how we “see” any kind of object, and with machinery there is always an expected look. The DS looks streamlined, refined, and as sleek as possible to give one the sense of movement and speed. Without a certain material though, this would not be achieved. The metal used was selected for its ability to bend, and fit the streamlined design required. Therefore, the DS creation is what Barthes describes as the new phenomology of assembling, or a more benign Nature. While it retains a natural mystery and beauty, it was created by humans and is man made. Barthes also thought that this changed the mythology of cars, however I’m not so sure.
Caillois' text interested me the most. His descriptions/projections of the stones made me remember something I used to do when I was a child. Living in a house built in the 1970s in Los Angeles when I was little, it had what I called (maybe it is called this?) "popcorn ceiling". It was this bumpy white ceiling. It looks like pieces of popcorn were beneath the paint. Anyways, every morning as I lay in bed I used to look up at the ceiling and just stare at one spot until something appeared--until my brain created connections, until lines were created (rather like connect the dots) and shapes finally appeared. Entire scenes even appeared (I was really reminded of this when Caillois writes about the Florence stones, etc). Anyways, this way of looking at the world (which Caillois seems to do) was common for me as a child but as I grew older I began to see things more like others by default--I guess everyone does.
My favorite quote is on page 78 when Caillois writes, "The vision the eye records is always impoverished and uncertain. Imagination fills it out with the treasures of memory and knowledge, with all that is put at its disposal by experience, culture and history..." I love this. I totally buy into this! everyone sees an object, a "thing" very differently--we fill in spaces (I don't mean literal) with our memory, experiences, etc--I can't put what's in my mind into words..
Callious and Scarry both discuss things in a way that examines how human project ideas upon objects; through material, both authors enforce the importance of the imagination in seeing how objects can have their own particular life. In both texts, objects are crucial extensions of identity, objects are not stagnant nonbeings, but are closer to us than expected. Painleve’s film also creates an experience of the nonhuman in a creative, poetic way that produces the sensation of a pulse. For Callious, Scarry, and Painleve, I think that they are trying to describe the sensational rather than the objective or rational. Through the idea that objects are more human than not, or alive and conscious, Callious finds the experience of the sublime through the marking of stones, Scarry relates physical bodily pain through artifacts, and Painleve makes films that are in between being scientific and poetic. In the existence of objects, projection and resemblance is something that is a reoccurring concern. Scarry’s “awareness of aliveness” of objects extends to a concept the authors mentions are all concerned with, at the same time the object meets the human with an indifference.
In his book, The Writing of Stones, Caillois blurs the lines between living and non-living things. He writes, “…nature sometimes gives us the impression of representing something” (14). In many of the stones he used as examples, one could interpret images of animals, plants, landscapes, man-made structures, etc. However, he wishes to call attention to the fact that while people are constantly seeking out representations in nature, they do not acknowledge that nature precedes man-made objects, and certain aspects are outside of the control of man. A particularly interesting stone is The Castle, which is limestone with dendrites. The dendrites formed on this stone create the images of people, buildings, and trees, and this stone had not been tampered with. Caillois presents the idea that the boundaries between living and non-living, and the categories of animal, plant, and mineral are all constantly interplaying with each other.
Similarly, Scarry discusses the animation of objects. Scarry argues that people attribute characteristics to inanimate objects thus animating them. For example, he using the example of an “uncomfortable chair”. Scarry points out that just because a person is uncomfortable in a chair, the chair is then deemed an uncomfortable chair. It now has a quality that animates it to an extent. Both Caillois and Scarry dismiss the limitations of strict boundaries between animate and in-animate things.
Elaine Scarry’s description of the process of making in her book, The Body in Pain, is very interesting. She begins by positing, “...[A]s physical pain destroys the mental content and language of the person in pain, so it also tends to appropriate and destroy the conceptualization abilities and language of persons who can only observe the pain,” (279). In order to understand what is “right” and “wrong” in a politically charged situation then, we must interpret a series of “fictions,” created by those invoking and observing the pain. So, Scarry turns to an analysis of the process of making. She says that creating is a process that comes out of the framework extending between physical pain and imagined objects - it seems, as opposing instances of complete conceptualization and lack thereof. Furthermore, she concludes that the “...[F]reestanding made object is a projection of the live body that itself reciprocates the live body,” (280) and thus, within it, shows a “material” record of the human sentience that created it, thereby drawing upon its power to “... [A]ct on sentience and recreate it,” (280). Finally, the object is made up of two forms: the conceptual and the physical; denoting that “making” is comprised of two different stages, “‘making-up’ and ‘making-real,’” (280). This conceptualization of the process of objects being made and, implicitly, the process of their interpretation by others; gives them an interesting position. Scarry writes, “... [T]he object is only a fulcrum or lever across which the force of creation moves back onto the human site,” (307). Objects can now be seen not only as a link between persons and political events, but as a material space of negotiation - being through both their materiality and sentient history a slate upon which to inscribe morality.
In the beginning of the article by Barthes, I was confused as to what exactly he was trying to say. After reading the article by Scarry, I realized that he is portraying the Citreon to be a material representation of the human body. In Scarry's piece, what resonated with me the most was how she felt that objects are not only materials, but also how we perceive them. After we create perceptions of objects in our mind since birth, we already have that notion in our mind whenever we are approached by that object or idea.
In relation to the Citreon, individuals can see the car itself also as a bodily object. The engine can be seen as the "heart", pipes as the "intestines", tires as the "feet", and etc. Scarry emphasized the relationship that we are learning in class, relationship between objects and individuals. However, she puts it in a completely different aspect. She describes objects as representing an individual as a whole. At one point of the text, she brings up how pictures can represent our memory and computers can represent the neurological system. We no longer can see objects materially, but we also have a technical and emotional relationship with them as well.
The Scarry reading is interesting in that she attempts to describe process of making and creating that is inclusive of the object's own capacity for doing, while situating it integrally in the economies of objects and bodies. It is obvious that she has built this understanding in direct response to the many fundamental philosophical tensions (ie. materialism and metaphysics) about action and consciousness and there are many explicit and implicit references to a Marxist understanding of these things (It seems to really boil down to her reinterpretation of the process of labor, production and objectification/commodification, though for her she has shifted that understanding away from a purely functional one). She has built a rather profound understanding of artifacts that shows a constant shift in agency between bodies and objects, rather than one dominating the other. She does stress that the processes within making aren't of equal status, and so it seems sometimes, the object's capacity to alter and recreate are stronger than that of the human's creative capacity. Moreover, human sentience and need to project (especially when it is out of pain) necessitates objectification and sublimation of these objects. However the objects are often "levers" between a projection and reciprocation of human sentience and the existence of these objects and their "aliveness" depends on human sentience (or so it seems in her analysis). When she discusses how excessive the reciprocation process is, its suggestive of how powerful the capacities of objects are. But this shift in power and agency is constant and fluid, while being theoretical substantial and systematic at the same time (more so than our pass readings). More importantly, I think she reframes the understanding of "making" and ontology of the artifact in a manner that successfully goes beyond functionality/non-functionality. One of many examples, she parallels the process in which sentience of pain (from hunger, etc.) could transform into something that becomes a sentience of pleasure and desire (eating cake) (kind of bad example). Barthes' and Caillois' readings are reflective of this attempt to understand artifact from the perspective of sentience. Barthes reads the Citroen DS as artifact of sublimated desire that had originally come out of the impulse to create for form but recreates itself into a artifact that appeals and alters people's relationship to what the car is and does. The nonfunctional qualities of the car becomes necessary to that particular car's ontology in the world, etc. Caillois is a bit different, in that he elaborates on the process of making that makes nature the creator of the stones rather than the human sentience, though the stones reconfigures the human sentience itself through reciprocation and the process of making in general (bringing forth new ideas of art).
also forgot to add, that looking at production from the perspective of sentience necessitates encompassing all objects, in all their functionality/lack of. She implicitly even categorizes them, as objects that have a direct relationship to the body and objects that create a different kind of need that goes beyond the literal bodily relationship. However, that fundamental process is the same.
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