www.artintheage.com

I know class is over but there is a boutique in philidelphia called Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility and they sell a Water Benjamin tote bag.

Had to share.

War

I wanted to address the comments brought up in class after we viewed the documentary on Abu Ghraib. A couple students mentioned that “war changes everything” was not a valid response to the accusations against the soldiers in the documentary. I do not believe that their actions are excusable nor will I argue that their charges should be dropped in this post. I would, however, like to point out how different war is from ordinary life. Having a number of people in my family serving in the armed forces, I have come to understand how difficult the lives of soldiers are. My cousin, in particular, served at a FOB (Forward Operating Base) in the heart of Baghdad. The base was about the size of two football fields side by side. If anyone left the FOB, they ran the risk of getting shot at or blown up. He was stationed in a hostile country for twelve months. When he was on patrol duty in the streets, he worked shifts that lasted anywhere between twelve and fifteen hours. Most of the time he was only left with sticks of beef jerky to satisfy his hunger. After my cousin spent his first tour on the base, he had to serve a second tour in a location out of the city. His situation didn’t improve much. He was given the responsibility of guarding convoys in and out of Baghdad. One of the toughest challenges he faced was avoiding the IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device) used to limit the military’s mobility. Unfortunately, he rode in a vehicle at the front of the pack. A disadvantage of being in this position was running over these explosives, which was a frequent occurrence. In six months he escorted over ninety convoys and came back with visions of other soldiers getting their legs blown off by these devices or having their bodies completely shredded. These images, along with the possibility that you could get blown up at any minute, eventually takes its toll on the mind. It creates pressure and a tremendous amount of stress. The soldiers in the video were in similar conditions. One of the soldiers mentioned a mortar coming through the roof and landing at his feet. Technically, this soldier should now be either in a wheel chair or in the ground. I imagine that he didn’t take the situation very lightly. Not only did the soldiers have people shooting at them from outside, they also had to deal with attacks from within the base. Although they seemed to have the situation under control, there was an instance when one of the prisoners came into possession of a firearm and shot one of the patrolling soldiers. The soldiers stationed at Abu Ghraib were forced to work and live in an extremely unsafe environment. Like my cousin, they were surrounded with life threatening situations and horrific images of their fellow soldiers getting maimed and killed. It is likely that these living conditions would have a severe effect on their minds. In addition, a number of the people who were criticized for their behavior were serving as MP (Military Police). Generally, soldiers classified as MP were trained to direct traffic and handle domestic disputes. These soldiers were young, inexperienced, and not trained to carry out the job they were assigned at the prison. The military originally argued that they were “rogue” soldiers and that they were acting on their own, but further investigation showed that the soldiers charged were given orders from their superiors. There was intentional policy concerning how the prisoners should be treated and the orders came from commanding officers. In the army, if you do not follow the orders of your superiors, you run the risk of getting you and your fellow soldiers killed. Soldiers who do not follow commands are often thrown out of the military or even thrown in prison. There was a failure of command at Abu Ghraib. The superior officers gave the soldiers commands, but they were not appropriate for the prison’s management. Yes, by their actions the soldiers participated in cruel and unusual activities, but we can only place so much of the blame on them. The real investigation should have been conducted against their superior officers and the government agencies involved in the incident. The pressure and stress associated with their job also played a significant role in the treatment of the prisoners. Once again, this does not give the soldiers any excuse for what they did, but it is important to understand the significance of the situation and the relationship dynamics between them and their superiors.

WWII veteran had Hitler's art book on bookshelf

By JAMIE STENGLE, Associated Press Writer Jamie Stengle, Associated Press Writer – 12-9-09

DALLAS – After fighting his way across Europe during World War II, John Pistone was among the U.S. soldiers who entered Adolf Hitler's home nestled in the Bavarian Alps as the war came to a close.

Making his way through the Berghof, Hitler's home near Berchtesgaden, Germany, Pistone noticed a table with shelves underneath. Exhilarated by the certainty of victory over the Nazis, Pistone took an album filled with photographs of paintings as a souvenir.

"It was really a great feeling to be there and we knew, by that time, he was on his last leg," Pistone told The Associated Press.

Sixty-four years after Pistone brought the album home to Ohio, the 87-year-old has learned its full significance: It's part of a series compiled for Hitler featuring art he wanted for his "Fuhrermuseum," a planned museum in Linz, Austria, Hitler's hometown.

Pistone's album is expected to be formally returned to Germany in a ceremony at the U.S. State Department in January. Germany has 19 other albums discovered at the Berchtesgaden complex that are part of a 31-album collection of works either destined for or being considered for the Linz museum.

Pistone's 3-inch thick, 12-pound album's journey from obscurity began this fall when a friend became curious about the book sitting on Pistone's bookshelf.

The friend discovered after some Internet searching that the Dallas-based Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art was involved in 2007 in the restitution of two other albums that were part of a series documenting art stolen by the Nazis from Jewish families.

Its founder, Robert Edsel, who while living in Italy for a time after selling his oil and gas business became interested in what was done to protect art in World War II, traveled to Ohio this fall to examine Pistone's album. Seeing it convinced him that Pistone had one of the missing albums of the series on the planned museum.

Stamped on the album's spine is "Gemaldegalerie Linz" — Gemaldegalerie means picture gallery in German — and the Roman numerals for 13. It still has a sticker from the book's binder in Dresden.

Birgit Schwarz, a German art historian from Vienna who has written books about Hitler and art, including a book called "Hitler's Museum" describing the albums in the series, is convinced the album is authentic. She said she recognized paintings in the album along with the volume number and title.

"It's absolutely clear!" she wrote in an enthusiastic e-mail to the AP after reviewing scanned photographs of the album. "Hans Makart's 'Pest in Florenz' (Plague in Florence), for example, the first picture of album XIII, Hitler got as a gift from Mussolini!"

Souvenir hunting was routine by soldiers during the war, and problems arise when people try to sell rather than return culturally important items, said Thomas R. Kline, a Washington-based lawyer who specializes in art restitution and works for the foundation.

"It's really important that as people go through their attics and they find the things that grandpa brought home, people are aware that something as simple as a book of pictures could have a cultural significance," Kline said.

Ambassador J. Christian Kennedy, special envoy for Holocaust issues at the State Department, said the agency is happy to help return objects taken during the war. "This is all about doing the right thing," Kennedy said.

Edsel started his foundation in 2007 to honor and continue the work of the original Monuments Men, the roughly 345 men and women from 13 nations who helped Allied forces protect cultural treasures during World War II. After the war, they began trying to find the rightful owners of pieces of art looted by the Nazis, hundreds of thousands of which are still missing.

"It's my desire to see the works of the Monuments Men completed," said Edsel, who wrote two books detailing the group's work.

The discovery of albums could help. In Pistone's case, experts had the names of artwork featured in his album but the photographs could help match them to the correct piece of art, Edsel said.

"They are key documents from the crime scene," he said of the albums.

He said the art Hitler wanted for his museum was bought, stolen or confiscated. The 13th album contains works by some of Hitler's favorite German painters, including a photo of Adolf von Menzel's painting of Frederick the Great that hung in Hitler's office in Munich.

Edsel said his office gets about a call a day from someone curious about an item brought home after the war.

"We're looking for people with goodwill who don't know what they have," Edsel said.

Pistone, album in hand, returned home after surviving the battlefields in Europe. He finished college, got into the restaurant business and had five children. The album mostly stayed up on a shelf at his home in Beachwood, Ohio, but he'd occasionally take it down and let family members look through it.

Once he met Edsel and learned about the Monuments Men, he knew it should be returned to Germany. "I just wanted to get it in the right hands," he said.

Before the book makes the trip overseas, it and one of two other albums the foundation helped discover will go on display for about three months at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans following the State Department ceremony, Edsel said.

Edsel said that of the two albums from 2007, one has already been donated to the U.S. National Archives to join the other albums in that series used as evidence of Nazi looting in the Nuremberg trials. He said that the second will go to the National Archives in the next three years.

"When soldiers and their families realize what they have and come forward to return it, there's never an issue. It's a happy moment and there's celebrations of one kind of another," Kline said. "We owe a huge debt to this generation that saved the world from Naziism."

___

Stengle, Jamie. "WWII veteran had Hitler's art book on bookshelf - Yahoo! News." Yahoo! News. Web. 09 Dec. 2009. .

Objective Art

So Jon Rafman, an artist, is taking images of people captured on Google street view and blowing them up, presenting them as artworks. Here's a Rafman quote from this Gizmodo post about the artworks:

The world captured by Google appears to be more truthful and more transparent because of the weight accorded to external reality, the perception of a neutral, unbiased recording, and even the vastness of the project.

Now, I obviously have some misgivings about the potential objectivity of anything, much less something as subjective as art, but this is about the closest thing to it that I can think of; the pictures on Google street view are taken by a nine-lensed camera mounted to the roof of a car. As far as I can tell, it's an automated system; there's no real agency aside from the driver's choice of where and when to drive (and, if you look through the gallery, you'll see that there's no way a driver could have predicted some of this stuff).

Jeez, what would Benjamin think? This goes way beyond mechanical reproducibility. Of course, we have to realize that not every image taken by the Google cams reach the same aesthetic levels. It seems, then, that the "art" aspect really comes from the artist's selection of the images more than the images being taken themselves.

links

hey yall -- here's a few recent articles about art's merging with technology and politics.

"Why not everyone is a torturer": Complicating the"easier" readings of Millgram and Zimbardo

Here's an interesting BBC article written by two psychologists detailing how their research speaks to recent events in Abu Ghirab and also complicates most earlier interpretations of the Zimbardo & Millgram experiments. These earlier interpretations essentially contend something like "if we all shared the same circumstances as the soldiers working the prison, we all would have ended up doing basically the same thing."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3700209.stm

Certainly these newer studies don't invalidate the results of the Zimardo or Millgram experiments. What they do is caution us against reaching very broad and simplistic conclusions from the experiments. Unfortunately, answers to difficult problems are rarely simple and often times a nuanced picture or solution ends up being a closer approximation to the truth than one that is painted in grand, but broad strokes. I think Dr. J's reading of those experiment's significance is generally correct: "Basically what those experiments showed was that under certain conditions--primarily conditions that exploited people's trust and confidence in authority figures--some people might forgo their independent moral standards. The studies did not show that we all would do it, nor did they show that any of us could do it in a situation in which we had to make the independent decision to do so."

I need to give Dr. Johnson practically all the credit for the information contained in this blog post. If you want to read Dr. J's original blog post on torture, where this info came from,you can do so here: http://readmorewritemorethinkmorebemore.blogspot.com/2009/05/torture-101.html

Zimbardo + Abu Ghraib

A book I read a few years back seems relevant to our discussion of the Abu Ghraib cases. Philip Zimbardo (best known for his Stanford Prison Experiment) put out a book, "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil" after testifying at the trial of Staff Sgt Ivan “Chip” Frederick II, one of the Abu Ghraib defendants. Zimbardo argued the lessons learned from SPE: A bad system produces bad situations in which people act badly without even necessarily knowing why. The court martial rejected his testimony, claiming Abu Ghraib was an aberration. Frederick – an army reservist – was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment and stripped of nine medals and 22 years’ retirement pay. The standard line on Abu Ghraib held true, "a few rotten apples can taint the whole barrel," bracketing out the possibility of changing the prison structure, the prison situation that Zimbardo tried to argue caused the behavior.

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EDIT: Zimbardo's Hero Project centers around the study of the banality of heroism, aiming to be an "international organization to promote heroism as an antidote to evil and as a celebration of what is best in human nature," and "to internalize the perspective, 'That when I become aware of the need to act on behalf of others needing help or being the victim of evil forces, I will be ready and able to take the necessary action.'” If you want to be a Zimbardo "hero-in-waiting," it looks like you can sign up here (looks like Anderson Cooper did!).

notable post on the Hero Construction Company Blog: "Cameras and Heroes" -- "the camera really did change the way we behaved... and they weren't even real cameras!"

Tragedy and the Sublime

In Poetics, Aristotle discusses the imitative art of poetry. Aristotle explains that the origin of poetry is due to two specific parts of human nature. Not only is imitation delightful to man, but it is also natural to man from birth. Although Aristotle defines epic poetry, comedy, and lyre-playing as modes of imitation, he largely focuses on the tragedy as his topic of discussion. Aristotle believes that tragedy is the formal perfection of art because it contains the six elements of art, including Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, and Melody (Hofstadter 103). Of these six features, the “life and soul” of the tragedy involves the plot and the characters. Aristotle explains the, when constructing the plot, the both of these elements must be consistent and probable in order for the audience to understand how the tragedy unfolds. In addition, the poet must make the character good, appropriate, and based on reality (Hofstadter 112). He also explains that the plot must also have a logical progression. A tragic work is only considered “beautiful,” if it “presents a certain order in its arrangement of parts” (Hofstadter 105).

Aristotle also defines the aim of the poet when constructing a tragedy and the conditions that are necessary for the tragic effect to occur. The reality of the plot and characters must “draw” the audience in and allow the audience the feel as if they could participate in the plot themselves. Once the tragedy has attracted the audience, the characters must imitate actions to arouse pity and fear within the audience. Aristotle explains that the “perfect” plot displays a good man’s fall from fortune to misery by an error in his own judgment. He states that “pity is occasioned by undeserved misfortune, and the fear by that of one like ourselves” (Hofstadter 109). The success of the tragedy lies in the poet’s ability to make the audience feel a combination of these emotions; pity for the misfortune of the character and fear that the events in the tragedy can occur in their own lives. Invoking these feelings in the audience is a significant task the poet must accomplish for the fulfillment of the tragedy’s underlying purpose.

Although it is necessary for the audience to participate emotionally, there must a separation between the audience and the tragedy itself. Aristotle explains that the tragedy must also allow the audience to participate in “catharsis,” or a release of emotions. This detachment of feelings is the final cause of the tragic work. It involves having both a sympathy for and a distance from the tragedy. Aristotle explains that a discovery, or a “change from ignorance to knowledge,” is necessary in order for catharsis to take place (Hofstadter 108). Once the audience understands the character’s error in judgment, they are able to learn from his mistakes. Invoking the emotions of pity and fear and then allowing for the removal of these emotions are important aspects the tragedy must accomplish, but the end of the tragedy lies in the tragedy’s instruction. The poet must show not only incidents and how they are logically connected throughout the work, but also how the audience can avoid making the same tragic mistakes in their own lives.

Like the tragic work, the sublime invokes a feeling of attraction. In “the Critique of Judgment,” Immanuel Kant explains that the feeling of the sublime is a pleasure produced by the “feelings of a momentary inhibition of the vital forces followed immediately by an outpouring of them that is all the stronger” (Kant 98). The sublime, however, is simultaneously “contrapurposive for our power of judgment” and “violent to our imagination” (Kant 99). Kant describes the sublime as what is “absolutely large” and explains that its magnitude cannot be estimated by means of mathematical concepts (Kant 103). The sublime does not conform to any objective principles or forms and rarely occurs outside of nature. Kant also explains that the ideas of the sublime are aroused through chaotic situations where nature displays its devastation and might.

Kant discusses two ways for an individual to make an estimation of a magnitude. A mathematical estimation of a magnitude is accomplished by means of numerical concepts. An aesthetic estimation, on the other hand, is accomplished through intuition (Kant 107). Unlike the mathematical estimation of magnitude, Kant states that aesthetic “judgment” struggles to provide a measure that can be used to estimate a certain magnitude. Kant explains that aesthetic estimations can not always be made because the imagination is insufficient for comprehending a given object in a whole of intuition. The imagination “proves its own limits and inadequacy” by attempting to comprehend the magnitude of the sublime (Kant 114). Kant further explains that the sublime produces a feeling of displeasure the arises from the imagination’s inadequacy. At the same time, however, there is a pleasure that arises from the limits of the imagination because it is in agreement with rational ideas and the laws of reason. In addition to arousing these emotions, the sublime makes us realize our “physical impotence” while at the same time giving us the “ability to judge ourselves independent of nature” (Kant 121).

In the article Schopenhauer and the Sublime Pleasure of Tragedy, Dylan Trigg discusses the relationship between the tragedy and the sublime. Trigg defines the sublime as “the inability of the mind or the senses to grasp an object in its entirety” and explains that the sublime “leads to an affirmation of an experience that contains in itself a sense of both awe and terror” (Trigg 165). Trigg explains that Schopenhauer’s concept of the sublime involves the inability of the senses to understand the magnitude of a certain object. Schopenhauer explains that the sublime involves a “violent tearing away from the relations of the same object to the will which are recognized as unfavorable” (Trigg 172). Schopenhauer explains that tragedy elevates consciousness over the will to the point of opposition against the will. He believes that the tragic effect eliminates an individual’s ability to see the will as one’s own. Tragedy brings individuals into a state that allows them to view the general will or what Schopenhauer calls the “will-of-the-world” (Trigg 174). Individuality is negated in acceptance of the tragedy, which leads to a spiritual elevation similar to the pleasure invoked by the tragic effect. Schopenhauer further states that “tragedy mirrors a death of the subjective self from which an objective and sublime self is born” (Trigg 173).

Although Schopenhauer draws connections between tragedy and the sublime, Trigg questions their similarity. Trigg explains that individuals must believe that their own will is in no immediate danger for them to experience a feeling of sublimity. Because tragedy encourages an individual to have a strong emotional response to the tragic effect, Trigg states that the sublime must be excluded from a tragic work. The sublime must be a kind of “distant proximity” (Trigg 175). According to Kant’s concept of the sublime, the feeling of the sublime can only be aroused by a specific group of objects. Kant states that, because an individual must make an aesthetic judgment when estimating a magnitude, the sublime cannot be found in products of art because their form and magnitude are determined by human purpose. Kant further states that the sublime must be found in “crude” nature, rather than in natural things with a determinate purpose (Kant 109). Because a specific purpose underlies the creation of a tragic work, the lack of purpose associated with the sublime creates an even larger separation between the two concepts. Schopenhauer presents strong correlations between tragedy and the sublime. The distance necessary for an individual to experience the sublime, however, directly contrasts with the close proximity of the audience needed to experience a tragic work.

Works Cited

Hofstader, Albert and Richard Kuhns. “Philosophies of Art and Beauty: Selected

Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger.” New York: Modern Library, 1964.

Kant, Immanuel. “Critique of Judgment: Including the First Introduction.” Indianapolis:

Hackett Company, 1987.

Trigg, Dylan. Schopenhauer and the Sublime Pleasure of Tragedy. Project Muse. Johns

Hopkins University, 2004. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.

Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and Apollonian Illusion

I suppose I have the ignominy of the last posting–

My current interest lies in the way that Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872) picks up on the autonomy of the artwork that we discussed in re Kant’s Critique of Judgement. The BoT is a multivalent work that seems to respond to Kant in many ways (which is perhaps not a particularly surprising thing to say about any philosopher from C18 onwards), not least of all in its conception of the figure of the artist and its relation to the Kantian genius. What I hope to sketch an outline of in this post, however, is Nietzsche’s claim that “existence and the world seem justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon,” a move that recovers art from a potential Kantian separation from experience and places it as the very foundation of all human life (141).

Much of the BoT serves as an explication of two human drives drawn from Hellenistic culture, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. These concepts defy the kind of cursory treatment I’m about to give them, but it might be helpful to think of the Dionysian as essentially a kind of mental state in which man receives wisdom regarding the reality of existence (a horrible reality, you’ll no doubt be delighted to hear), the knowledge that what is best for man is “not to be born, not to be, to be nothing,” or, failing that, “to die soon” (42). The Dionysian dithyramb, taken to its extreme as an orgiastic ritual of mass intoxication and the dissolution of the individual into a kind of seething primal unity, is indicative of this state. It finds its opposition in the Apollonian, the drive towards (to continue to speak rather generally) the active creation of beautiful illusions, a tendency represented in the plastic arts. These two tendencies can never be separated; even as they resist one another (with the Dionysian revealing true existential emptiness and the Apollonian ceaselessly fighting to conceal this truth) they fortify and strengthen each other – the horror of reality dictates a constant effort towards beautiful artistic illusion, with this self-conscious illusion only being tolerated for its artificiality because of the knowledge of that which lies beyond it. The artwork is not to be believed in any unqualified manner but becomes a powerful medium through which “the truth is symbolized” and its appearance is “decidedly not enjoyed as appearance but as a symbol, a sign for the truth”; the beautiful artwork, which (to quote Moses Mendelssohn) must “illude us aesthetically,” must be understood both as an aesthetic (in the etymological sense of aisthesis) experience but with the simultaneous knowledge that something lies beyond it (qtd. in Bennett 422).

What Nietzsche seems to be working towards here is quite illustratively opposed, I think, to some of what we discussed in Kant’s third critique. What I have in mind is the experience of the sublime, that “attunement” of the intellect that is primarily self-reflective; as the sublime “proves that the mind has a power surpassing any standard of sense,” it speaks not to the object beheld but to the powers of the beholding subject (25.250). Any attempt to understand such an experience in terms of the sensible is utterly confounded, but in the process “the subject’s own inability uncovers in him the consciousness of an unlimited ability which is also his” (27.259). Where the contrapurposiveness of the object exceeds imaginative comprehension, the inadequacy of this faculty speaks to the existence of a higher one and establishes the ultimate purposiveness of reason. It is this kind of self-affirmative and self-revelatory experience that leads the subject into the realm of the supersensible, which is in turn indicative of his capacity for “moral feeling” (29.265).

For Nietzsche, the problem with this withdrawal from the sensible to the supersensible, this exaltation of an “unlimited ability,” is its very unlimitedness. This move leads to the uninhibitedly Dionysian; in the “rapture” of the “annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits” of experience, the Dionysian man finds himself in the position of Hamlet, the individual who has “looked truly into the essence of things” and thereby finds a “nausea” that inhibits action (60-1). In abandoning the comfort of the Apollonian that gives existence a “glittering reflection in the gods or in an immortal beyond,” man instead “sees everywhere only the horror or absurdity of existence” (60). If man takes the illusion of art as only a means for establishing the existence of “higher” faculties, he loses the will to live; the conscious and alluring artificiality of art must serve as the “completement and consummation of existence, seducing one to a continuation of life” (43). Dionysian wisdom must be tempered by the Apollonian “middle world of art,” which may not conquer truth but at least renders it “veiled and withdrawn from sight” (42).

The experience of the artwork, then, must be central to human life, for it is “the eternal and original artistic power that first calls the whole world of phenomena into existence” (143). The experience of artistic illusion is part of the active process of “creating and of illuding ourselves (Apollonianly) with a world in which human life is possible; otherwise we simply could not exist” (Bennett 429). I recognize that this may come off as a rather bold and unfounded statement to make in the context of this very brief writeup and with my still limited understanding of both Nietzsche and Kant, but I do think that the essential concepts at work here at the very least engage provocatively with a tendency towards the mistrust and rejection of artistic illusion that we have traced in various ways throughout the entire semester.

Works Cited:

Bennett, Benjamin. “Nietzsche’s Idea of Myth: The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics.” PMLA 94.3 (1979): 420-433.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. Trans. Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. “The Birth of Tragedy.” Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Modern Library, 2000. 1-144.

The non-factual as truth in photography

Following up last year’s regulation of runway models’ weight, Valerie Boyer, of President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party, proposed legislation last September for disclaimers on retouched photographs in print ads, billboards, and even political campaign posters. The legislation proposed does not ban or limit retouching, airbrushing, Photoshop or any photo-manipulation-- it simply asks that where these methods are applied, they are accompanied with a label stating to what extent the photograph is altered. Boyer wants one label, aimed at fashion photography, to read in bold: “Retouched photograph aimed at changing a person's physical appearance".

Her interest is in protecting the naive-- she reasons: “these photos can lead people to believe in a reality that does not actually exist, and have a detrimental effect on adolescents. " To Boyer’s mind, it falls to governmental regulation “to advise the public on whether what they are seeing is real or not." (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6214168/French-MPs-want-health-warnings-on-airbrushed-photographs.html)

Many fashion figureheads the US and Europe have spoken out against this law, most speaking on either the freedom to Photoshop or in defense of the elusive feminine ideal the fashion world is accused of purporting. But neither of these objections really speaks to the proposed legislation, since both retouching and its produced ‘ideal’ are not being banned or restricted in scope-- the same kinds of magazine covers may proliferate, they only need to declare themselves altered. So what is harmed or destroyed in labeling these images, if it’s not the craft or retouching or popular ideal?

The label on the magazine cover would indirectly but effectively destroy both the status of the retoucher and the perpetuated ideal because the illusion of the image-as-photograph would dissolve. Suddenly the magazine image is subverted into a Thomas Kinkade piece-- transparently generic, with no reference to or evocation of reality. The pictured woman is no longer striking as a woman, only as a work. And as a work, she is benign-- no one would attempt to live up to painted image. It’s only when the picture has purchase on reality does it inspire imitation. When the consumer believes the cover model to be as perfect as pictured, she hasn’t found an ideal, but a precedent. This status of beauty she now knows is humanly possible, and the model is proof. She doesn’t discount potential retouching, and its potential presence doesn’t impugn the virtue of the image, since the final product is built off the model. Though there might be a little illusion, the majority of the image is true, representing a real person.

This encapsulates the tension inherent in the encounter with the modern photograph-- the simultaneous and contradictory convictions that what is pictured is not factual while what is pictured is still truthful. Looking at a magazine cover, we can posit that the image has been retouched (though, if it’s done well, it will be hard to know where), and this thought does not need to impede our enjoyment of the image. The images are made to be beautiful, not to be court evidence. In this situation we can accept ‘better is better’. As for images for court or dating sites, we’d say ‘truthful is better’. But even in magazine spreads designed first to be beautiful, the medium of photography is enough to suggest an underlying truthfulness. Even if the beautiful image is not factual, we want it to be truthful, not all artifice.

Could it be instead that the imitation of the image through retouching points out the truth behind the image? Perhaps if the picture doesn’t say something factually true of the model, it might, as an imitation of the female form, reveal something true about a female ideal. Instead of vaulting models to some status of human perfection, airbrushing instead insists that no one can attain such a status, and the composite Photoshopped image is modern proof that art (through human agency) is necessary for beauty.

Gadamer, in his section on ‘Art & Imitation’ articulates this theory, applying it to both art and language (though it largely addresses meaning itself). He writes:

“Recognition as cognition of the true occurs through an act of identification on which we do not differentiate between the representation and the represented...for what imitation reveals is precisely the real essence of the thing” (G 99).

This idea hinges on the natural selection in the process of recognizing the essential and necessary characteristics of a thing-- when these are discerned and imitated, the re-presentation is, in a way, a truer, clearer picture of the original because all the external nonessentials are stripped away. For a pithy example: call to mind the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe standing on those blasting subway vents for a promotional poster for ‘The Seven Year Itch’. It’s already a familiar image. But what is startling about this image (making indeed an icon), is how effectively it’s recalled in the simplest imitation. All anyone needs to conjure this image is a short, platinum blonde wig and a white halter dress. If a baby gorilla were dressed in this, it would still evoke Marilyn Monroe in that poster. Of course, the imitations can vary in how convincing or exact they are-- pearls, heels, the drawn-on mole would all add to the life-likeness of the imitation. But what is inviolable is the necessity and ultimate sufficiency of simply the wig and dress to recall the target image of Marilyn.

Gadamer would appreciate the divide between Marilyn and the baby gorilla-- the imitation should not replicate so perfectly that it becomes its referent. No one dressing up in this costume expects to be mistaken for Marilyn herself. The imitator is supposed to be recognizable as something that is not the referent and at the same time embodies the necessary qualities of the referent in the imitation. In a way, the gorilla participates more in ‘Marilynness’ than Marilyn does. Marilyn herself, as a person, contains unnecessary features extraneous to the image essential to the ‘Seven Year Itch’ poster-- the shape of her ears, the exact size of her feet, even her height are all properties of the person that are nonessential to the iconic image. And when a person (or gorilla) imitates this image, they precisely do that-- they don’t actually conjure Marilyn.

This imitation unites the familiar with the foreign. In the same way, the retouched cover model as an image performs the same kind of imitation of itself as an ideal. As it channels some social female ideal, it is not identical to the referent (which is actually an ineffable idea), but it channels and re-presents all the necessary features of it. The model herself, the skeletal structure on which the Photoshopper will build, belongs to a certain homogenous pool who are only privileged by their proximity to an ideal. One model imitating another would necessitate some human original to be channeled. Instead, the photographer and retoucher in fashioning an image are imitating the beautiful ideal by discerning and applying the necessary, impossible characteristics. Only after the retoucher has applied his tools to the image does it channel an ideal. A Polaroid of a model is disappointingly pedestrian. A magazine image of the same model is superhuman, effacing and embellishing the human beyond its own limits. This is the definition of ‘ideal’.

In a way, photographs are the last frontier of images-as-truth. While we admit some photographs can be manipulated, we still think that at its core the photo must reveal something factual. It is this tension that labeling would destroy. It would disallow the hopeful ambiguity of the viewer about what is real and what is art-- the illusion makes the image beautiful. We know it participates in truth and art, and we are unconcerned with the Real or factual. Labeling would only draw attention to the alterations as artifice, giving no heed to the necessity of the illusion.

To Benjamin, the retouched fashion photograph could be the united work of the painter and the photographer where the painter is the Photoshopper. Benjamin contrasts the operations of the two as such: “the painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, whereas the cinematographer [or photographer] penetrates deeply into its tissue”. Where the photographer can only show a piece or part of an object, the painter’s is “a total image”, coherent and sufficient to itself (35). The retouched photo could also unite authenticity with technological reproducibility, always at odds (according to Benjamin) since reproduction dilutes the experience of the work as having a unique existence in a particular place (21). Although the image does not belong to a particular physical place, the genre of retouching has borne a new realm of existence for the image-- one of hybrid artistry and technological capture. In this inverted concept of authenticity, the focus is not on an original (because there is no original referent). Instead of mitigating that the original is somewhere, it emphasizes that the original is nowhere. The image belongs to a new unique realm that defies physical location. The inspiration for the image belongs to a realm of ideas; the image requires the imitation of the idea be revealing, truthful unto itself.

Photoshop reminds us that we human beings are not our own artworks-- we participate in a potentially beautiful form, and we trust our artists to discern what features are necessary to make us impossibly but perfectly beautiful. We want to entrust ourselves to artists, not machines. Traditionally and always, artists have rendered more beautiful images.

Ranking the Aesthetic Realm

While a majority of the readings we have encountered this semester deal with the difficulty of justifying aesthetics values, Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard offers another perspective of what he defines as the aesthetic realm in relation to the ethical and religious realms. His distinctions explain for the abundance of and attraction to the visual arts, and why it leaves us ultimately begging for more. I believe that his assertions help articulate how one participates in the aesthetic realm, but how it fundamentally is linked to anxiety, which is a fairly relatable experience.
In a move reminiscent of Plato, Søren Kierkegaard does not place a large stake in aesthetics. His conception of the aesthetic realm focuses solely on pleasure and the escape from the boredom of a monotonous existence. Kierkegaard calls boredom the “root of all evil. Strange that boredom…should have such power to set in motion” (8). The boredom has the ability to repulse the individual into action, which he would attribute for the abundance of artworks that we have discussed in class. The need to escape from boredom permeates the individual’s existence, and the participation in the sensually pleasing only reinforces how motivating boredom can be. One needs to look no further than the large body of visual representation in order to prove the extent of humans to escape boredom. The most heinous product of the aesthetical realm stems from the glory placed on possibility instead of actuality. This possibility arises when an artist speculates what to draw on the blank canvas or even in the interpretation of a completed artwork. The attention that possibility receives in relation to actuality infuriates Kierkegaard, because it would lead to anxiety.
The anxiety that Kierkegaard highlights differs from the medical sense; here anxiety deals with “freedom’s possibility” (30). The possibilities constitute an educative role in the individual’s existence, as possibilities inform the individual about his own notions of infinitude. The infinitude helps to educate one to the reality beyond the lowly aesthetic realm, only when it coupled with faith. Faith, without invoking a strong religious influence, regards the certainty that anticipates infinity (31). Anxiety of the limitless possibilities, which serve as an escape from boredom, can only be thwarted when the individual applies a faith of an infinity that transcends the finite. The challenge of man therefore is to cope, through faith, with the seemingly limitless extent of human freedom. We see the artist as fundamentally trapped in this freedom when approaching the blank canvas, as the possibilities of creation are endless. This causes anxiety, which Kierkegaard would believe the artist to leave unresolved, primarily because they are participating solely at a sensuous level concerned with finitude. Kierkegaard’s discussion of the anxiety appear similar to the Kantian sublime, which would allow for its appeal to emotion, but ultimately doesn’t correspond because of the role of the God and the value of realms Kierkegaard’s system.
Throughout his works Kierkegaard is critical of the aesthetic realm and how it differs from the ethical and religious realms. He explores the ethical realm in his analysis Isaac’s near sacrifice in the Bible (I offer a brief summary: Abraham is called upon by God to sacrifice his son Isaac, and Abraham agrees. As he is going to slay his child, God intervenes and ultimately rewards Abraham’s faith in God despite the unethical request that he was initially burdened with). The ethical realm dictates how the individual interacts with other individuals in a universal manner (15). The solely product and end of the ethical realm is to foster universality, in which individuals can harmoniously exist without infringing upon another. The ethical realm does not necessary oppose the aesthetic realm, as they coexist but are both ultimately subordinate to what he coins as the religious realm. The religious realm, like the aesthetic realm, relies on a temporary departure from the ethical realm in order to engage the subjects within the realm appropriately. For the aesthetic realm this would constitute art creation or interpretation, because it brings the individual closer to possibilities grounded in finitude and ultimately can be explained as an escape from boredom. Kierkegaard values the religious realm over all others, because it can transcend what is merely universal, and moves us closer to the possibilities involved with infinitude (To continue the relationship with the Isaac story: Abraham transcends the ethical realm by complying to sacrifice his son and is rewarded by God, which is infinite and transcends the ethical realm. This is why we regard Abraham as a hero and not a murderer, because he had faith in something infinite outside the ethical realm and successfully learned from anxiety). If we recall, these are the possibilities that he deems the most educative.
The gripping aspect of Kierkegaard’s works is his firm belief of a higher participation that in a merely aesthetic realm, which I tend to agree with. I side that one of the appeals of the aesthetics stems for its function as an escape from the boredom of the ethical realm. As the utilitarian will agree, the natural inclination of man is to pursue pleasure, thus reinforcing why the aesthetical realm’s large body of visual representations that indulge the senses. The struggle for me throughout this semester has been in the prioritization of aesthetics among the other aspects of life. I find Kierkegaard’s work refreshing, yet questionable at the same time. While it seems intuitive to me that aesthetics, or things dealing purely with sensation are below morality (ethical realm) or some type of religious realm (here I will just assert an infinitude and not favor Christianity), Kierkegaard own personal motives may cloud his judgments. His justification for faith and anxiety stem from a need, specifically his own, to participate with God in a manner that transcends the universal, and participates with infinity. This would almost inherently discredit the aesthetic realm, as it deals with finitude and it is incapable of applying faith to anything beyond itself. The downplaying of the aesthetical realm coincides with my own thoughts, but I am weary of an appeal to religion because of its seemingly tenuous position in relation to rational thought. Therefore, I take these readings with a grain of salt, but ultimately agree in the system set forth by Kierkegaard, as it accurately reflects the nature of anxiety in terms that relate to visual artistic representation and the aesthetic realm and why it is possibly inferior to an educative anxiety born out of a faith in an infinite.

Works Cited
Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Existentialism. Comp. Robert C. Solomon. Second ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. 17-23. Print.
Kierkegaard, Soren. Either/Or. Existentialism. Comp. Robert C. Solomon. Second ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. 8-14. Print.
Kierkegaard, Soren. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Until Death. Existentialism. Comp. Robert C. Solomon. Second ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. 15-17. Print.
Kierkegaard, Soren. "The Concept of Anxiety." Existentialism. Ed. Robert C. Solomon. Second ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. 29-31. Print.

Pictures for My Presentation

I couldn't figure out how to make it work with both pictures and words so here are my pictures. These are the images I refer to in my presentation. I thought they were really cool and never really thought about something like graffiti as actual art before this class.

Art in Urban Spaces: Can It Really Be Censored?

I was driving to Texas for Thanksgiving and I saw a billboard that struck me. It said, “Billboards are the art gallery of the public.” I thought that it was interesting that someone took the time to make a billboard that displayed this message to the general public. I began to wonder about this billboard after I pulled my phone out and quickly wrote down the message. I first wondered how many people a day passed by it? Of these people, how many actually read what it had to say and thought about the message? It didn’t advertise anything like a restaurant or casino. It was simply just a message. This message stuck with me through much of the break. You see, I am not very familiar with much art in the world. I regret this but it is not my main interest to discover more and more art. I am interested, however, in urban space and the way this space is used. Professor Grady helped me to combine this interest with the artistic world. There I found urban art or street art. The point of the billboard story, however, ignited my thoughts about other public, urban art. I began to wonder how a place like the one Socrates describes in The Republic would go about censoring art that is done out in the public. I thought it would be interesting to look at the oldest philosophy we studied and one of the newest forms of art available today.

Street art can be defined as, any art developed in public spaces and can range from graffiti to a poster on the side of a pole. There are limitless possibilities of what can be defined as street art. This type of art is usually not something that the government approves. Graffiti, for example, is illegal in many places and therefore must be created very secretly. Most of the graffiti seen around Memphis is the result of vagrants and not artists but some of the works seen in other places are done by an artist. The artist, therefore risks getting arrested each time he/she attempts to create a new work of art. The world literally becomes the artist’s canvas in street art. This is very important because the streets are open to the public.

There is one artist, in particular, that I will be concentrating on in this presentation whom I was very unfamiliar with until recently. Banksy is a well-known, British graffiti artist who uses the public as his canvas and gallery. Born in 1974, Banksy developed into an artist who used his canvas to convey his message to the world. He uses any public space in cities to display his masterpieces. He goes unseen, however. And has never been seen by the public eye which makes his existence as an artist very peculiar. Banksy can basically create whatever he wants, wherever he wants, as long as he does not get caught.

As you all remember from the beginning of the semester, Socrates spends a good deal of time discussing censorship of artwork in The Republic. He believes that in order for children to develop properly they should be exposed to the right forms of imitation. He speaks primarily of written imitation but I wonder what Socrates would say about visual artwork. First, do the same censorship rules apply? I think they do because children imitate what they see and what they hear. As a visual learner myself, I understand the importance of visual learning. Consider if I were to see a painting of a murderer who was not convicted of the crime and released, I may, hypothetically, think that I would be able to get away with a crime as severe as murder. If this painting was censored and I was not allowed to see it then I would never develop this thought. This is one of the reasons Socrates believes in censorship.

The book Wall and Piece opens with a statement from Banksy. In this statement he says a number of shocking statements including, “some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.” (Wall and Piece, 8) I think this is important especially when looking at the opinion of someone like Socrates who wants to have a censorship on the arts. Banksy is a completely uncensored artist. He can literally put on the wall whichever he pleases. How do you censor an artist that you can never see? I kind of think of it as censoring a ghost, which would be impossible to do and therefore would be difficult to deal with in this kind of society as demonstrated in The Republic. There are some examples I would like to look at as potential bad influences on young eyes as identified by Socrates. I think I really like Banksy simply because he breaks the rules. He could never be censored, which is extraordinary.

There is also a portrait of a guard using the restroom on a wall. ThisThe girl hugging the bomb is a good example also known as Brighton 2003 of mimesis. Next to her image in the book, Wall and Piece, is the text, “it takes a lot of guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in – like peace and justice and freedom.”This is very important in his work. I think this image can be considered an image that could be bad for young, developing eyes to see. Clearly, the young girl is embracing the bomb. I know that this is very satirical but how is it supposed to be received by young eyes would be unacceptable in The Republic. If imitation is the best teacher of children then this image could be very detrimental to the development of the kids. It could be viewed as acceptable public behavior to behave like or imitate the guard.This painting makes public indecency okay because an official is engaging in it. I would love to know what Socrates would think of an image like this. I think that Banksy does not intend for his images to be taken so literally but I think it would still be interesting.

Then there are the rats, which is what I am calling Banksy’s many depictions of rats. The caption next to the first rat that appears in the book reads, “they exist without permission. They are hated, hunted, and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant and unlived then rats are the ultimate role model.” I know this quote is not very relevant in the idea of mimesis as inspirational to developing youth but I do think that Banksy is right about the rat as the perfect role model for the dirty and insignificant. By seeing rats appearing in these positions children could potentially believe that this kind of life style is desirable when most people believe it is not.

I think Banksy is very interesting because his style challenges art, as I am familiar with it. I would be very interested to know how a philosopher like Socrates would receive someone who is completely uncensored like Banksy. Would he regard his work as important or just obsess over trying to censor him? I thought this was very interesting and am still deciding how I think Socrates would react. Is urban space the perfect place for an artist like Banksy to work? I really can’t see him being well received in any other setting.

Works Cited:

Philosophies of Art and Beauty. Ed. Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns. University ofChicago Press: Chicago, 1964.

All background information on Banksy found on Wikipedia.

Banksy, . Wall and Pieces. 10. London: Century, 2005. Print. (I wasn’t really sure how to cite this because most of the pages did not have numbers on them)