Do you think art is and will remain a distinct category or is it best seen as a species of visual culture? List reasons for and against a distinct category. How many ways could ‘best seen as’ be understood? Aesthetically, morally, socially?

Having just started on my journey through Art education, I think that Art is a distinct category from Visual Culture. I think that academically, the field of Visual Culture has been constructed to represent any study into “the Arts” which does not focus specifically on Fine/High Art or Art History (history here, meaning the historical canon of art as opposed to the study of the historical timeline). Visual Culture is such a broad term that it allows for much bulkier academic work involving not only contemporary art but the discussion about the future of art and the future of society. It seems to encorporate a lot more information about commercial media than the actual practice of art-making. Perhaps this is just my perspective at this early stage of the course, however I feel that Mirzoeff stated something quite similar when he wrote:

The gap between the wealth of visual experience in postmodern culture and the ability to analyze that observation marks both the opportunity and the need for visual culture as a field of study. While the different visual media have usually been studied independently, there is now a need to interpret the postmodern globalization of the visual as everyday life. Critics in disciplines ranging as widely as art history, film, media studies and sociology have begun to describe this emerging field as visual culture

(Mirzoeff, 1999)

I would consider “Art” then, to be a separate category which focuses on the Fine Arts or ‘art for arts sake’. I have found one definition of Fine Art which I believe helps to explain my position, which is ” The term “fine art” refers to an art form practised mainly for its aesthetic value and its beauty (“art for art’s sake”) rather than its functional value. ” (Visual-arts-cork.com, 2019). I would consider Art – Fine Art, and therefore to be separate from the study of Media in Culture, which I think Visual Culture is. Another problem with considering Art to be simply a part of Visual Culture comes down to the very basic components of Art; we simply don’t have a definition of ‘what art is’. Calling the field of study Visual Culture suggests that something cannot be part of this area unless it is purely visual; but what art is ever purely visual? We read artwork, we may look at it visually, but we are engaging with it and with the physical components of it each time. Work often comes with a written name or explanation or detail. W.J.T. Mitchell explored this concept in his essay “There are no visual media”. In it, he addresses the fact that all “visual” media is eventually discovered to involve other senses in the body, and that “all media are, from the standpoint of sensory modality, “mixed media”. He does address the counter-arguements of Greenberg and others who would discuss the “purity” of painting, but even that arguement itself highlights the difference between “pure painting” and “visual media”. Mitchell explains that the comprehension of art requires some context or at the very least some mental engagement by the observer. Therefore, it is not simply a visual process, it is a whole-self experience. (Visual-arts-cork.com, 2019) I would consider “Art” then, to be a separate category which focuses on the Fine Arts or ‘art for arts sake’. I have found one definition of Fine Art which I believe helps to explain my position, which is ” The term “fine art” refers to an art form practised mainly for its aesthetic value and its beauty (“art for art’s sake”) rather than its functional value. “. I would consider Art – Fine Art, and therefore to be separate from the study of Media in Culture, which I think Visual Culture is. Another problem with considering Art to be simply a part of Visual Culture comes down to the very basic components of Art; we simply don’t have a definition of ‘what art is’. Calling the field of study Visual Culture suggests that something cannot be part of this area unless it is purely visual; but what art is ever purely visual? We read artwork, we may look at it visually, but we are engaging with it and with the physical components of it each time. Work often comes with a written name or explanation or detail. W.J.T. Mitchell explored this concept in his essay “There are no visual media”. In it, he addresses the fact that all “visual” media is eventually discovered to involve other senses in the body, and that “all media are, from the standpoint of sensory modality, “mixed media”. He does address the counter-arguements of Greenberg and others who would discuss the “purity” of painting, but even that arguement itself highlights the difference between “pure painting” and “visual media”. Mitchell explains that the comprehension of art requires some context or at the very least some mental engagement by the observer. Therefore, it is not simply a visual process, it is a whole-self experience.

Seeing painting is seeing touching, seeing the hand gestures of the artist, which is why we are so rigorously prohibited from actually touching the canvas ourselves”

(Mirzoeff and Mitchell, 2013)

Perhaps I am off topic. But I do think that the general public associate the discipline of “Art” to be a separate entity to “Visual Culture”; perhaps the words will develop to merge the two fields together, perhaps it is simply my age showing through and younger generations have already reconstructed this meaning for themselves.

Lastly, how many ways could “best seen as” be understood? My first understanding of that term is “the most correct”, which would be in relation to the socially constructed, collective understanding of the categories in the question. It can also be understood to be the morally accepted position; the acceptable state of affairs. It could also be understood as a visual experience, along the lines of “would one expect to see art as part of a visual culture exhibition, or as a separate exhibition itself?”.

REFERENCES

Mirzoeff, N. and Mitchell, W. (2013). The visual culture reader. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, pp.7-9.

Mirzoeff, N. (1999). An Introduction to Visual Culture. [ebook] London: Routledge, pp.1-5. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/34798599/Nicholas_Mirzoeff_An_Introduction_to_Visual_Cult_Book_Za_org?auto=download [Accessed 19 Jul. 2019].

Visual-arts-cork.com. (2019). Fine Art: Definition, Meaning, History. [online] Available at: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/definitions/fine-art.htm [Accessed 19 Jul. 2019].

Do you think Sokal was right to publish the article? Give reasons in a short paragraph.

Yes, I do. I think that Sokal was trying to draw attention to a problem that he saw in the world of science and academia; where research is over-done to the point of exhausting the subject. If you research, and analyse, something for long enough it eventually starts to contradict itself. He wanted to address this problem via a medium that would reach the largest audience within the communities he wished to address.

While I read the article, I found that most of the content was over my head. I did pick up on a tone of sarcasm, or mockery, within it; excessive referencing, detailed explanations of references, the use of convoluted language (maybe this is common in articles about quantum mechanics?). My feeling is that Sokal was using the methods of scientific analysis to mock the theory of scientific analysis – isn’t that a Modernist approach? I also feel that he is right – obviously I cannot comment on whether his theory makes any sense in terms of physics and scientific theory, but I have felt – strongly – since starting this course that the academic world has become a mass of overly complex “theories” and analysis, of art – which I think is and should be one of the most subjective subjects there is. While I understand the need to trace the history of art, even possibly to identify styles and periods and their relation to culture, I have found a lot of what I have been reading to be a sort of “writing theories for the sake of writing theories” – not for the sake of art. Perhaps this is what Sokal was trying to get at; that these journals – who obviously publish anything, if he was able to get this sarcastic piece published – are catering to the masses, who are really just repeating one another’s research back to each other to confirm or deny their own opinions.

I did enjoy some of the lines from the article though:

“Scientific “knowledge”, far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it”  (Sokal, 1994)

“that the truth claims of science are inherently theory-laden and self referential; and consequently, that the discourse of the scientific community, for all it’s undeniable value, cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives, emanating from dissident or marginalised communities”.  (Sokal, 1994)

“science alters and refashions the object of investigation” (Sokal, 1994)

When you read the first passage did it seem suspicious?

Yes, it did. Particularly the line “the radical democratization of all aspects of social, economic, political and cultural life.” seemed a little “out there”, even for a subject that I know little about.

Has anything else you have read so far in this course book seemed suspicious? Briefly say what and why:

I wouldn’t say suspicious. I would say that some things I have read have not sat well with me; they seem to go against my feelings or against my beliefs; more uncomfortable than suspicious. For example:

“The modern crowd, as the throng of people drawn to the spectacle of modern life, is a central feature of what we now call modernity. The things we take for granted whenever we go into a city centre – gazing in shop windows, being carried along by the stream of pedestrians, distracted by this or that advertisement or spectacle, all the while pursuing our individual interests – amount to the experience of modern life.” p.g. 45. I feel that this must be incorrect; surely there were many markets, town squares, throngs of people without a singular “event” to bring them together in ancient Greece, for example?

“some of Manet’s paintings include figures with rather deadpan faces. Olympia, The Bar at the Folies Bergere and The Balcony are some of the better known ones. Seen together it appears that Manet was painting a sense of disengagement, alienation or anomie
brought on by modern life, this being one of the reasons he is thought to be the first
modernist painter.” p.g. 46. This seems like nonsense to me – perhaps I am being too harsh, but surely it is non-sensical to apply feelings to figures that have been painted many years ago, without the input of the artist? Maybe he just liked to paint still faces? Maybe he struggled with painting emotions as well as he would like; maybe he just thought they were beautiful to look at as they were? I feel as though a lot of art history and theory places too much emphasis on what we think the artist meant/thought rather than the painting itself; but maybe that’s just me.

REFERENCES

Sokal, A. (1994). Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity. 2nd ed. [ebook] New York. Available at: https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2_noafterword.pdf [Accessed 4 Jul. 2019].