history fails

[raven]

You know when someone comes into your room and you have to persuade them that you're not, really, really not trying to jump out of a third-floor window, really, you may have hit a low point in your life. (Actually, I was trying to catch a cushion I had just knocked out of it. Perfectly sensible thing to do, no I am not going crazy at all.)

Speaking of having hit a low point in my life, not only am I accumulating unhappy symptoms with a disturbing rapidity - why, hello there random tinnitus, swinging-from-hysteria-to-somnolence and jumping out of my skin at someone dropping a clove of garlic - I am reading cultural-imperialist articles on the philosophy of forgery and being encouraged by an insane classicist to use my newly-discovered heterosexuality FOR SCIENCE.

...not crazy at all.

Okay, let me backtrack. You - yes, you! - can help out not one but two nutty Oxonian finalists in their quest to retain their sanity and be awarded a degree! There are two ways in which you can do this!

First of all. I am, at the moment, revising for paper 109, Aesthetics and Philosophy of Criticism. I have many criticisms of this paper, it must be said. (Aha, see what I did there?) Most of them involve the way it's not a philosophy paper at all, it is a paper for failed literary critics. Real past questions have included: "The pointlessness of art is not the pointlessness of a game, it is the pointlessness of human life itself." Discuss and Given that horror movies frighten us, why do we go to see them? and so on.

Anyway. Yes. What is very handy for this paper is a ready stream of examples of "subversive" art. You know the sort of thing I mean. Tracy Emin's bed, Duchamp's Fountain, that kind of stuff. Of course, those are the two examples that everyone uses. I would quite like to use something the examiner hasn't heard eleventy million times before. Which is where you come in, dear flist. You all undoubtedly have better artistic taste than me. Tell me about art - things that are unusual, things that are on the boundary between art and non-art, things that a floundering philosopher might find interesting. I really would appreciate it; I'm swamped by awful aesthetics reading and nothing makes any sense.

Second of all. apotropaios is a very dear friend of mine, he is also a finalist, he is also going somewhat crazy. In the interests of science, he has been asking everyone he knows whether they've ever had intercrural sex. (Apparently, this was a particularly well-represented sexual practice in Greek vase painting of the sixth century onwards.)

This has rapidly devolved into a horror story of soft fruit and armadae of battle penguins. However. Hilarity aside, it is a serious request. If you - or anyone you know - actually has done this, or knows anything about it, he would like to know. Comments - his, not mine - are screened, and he is actually a good human who will be respectful and discreet and indeed, very grateful for any information.

I leave you now for a return to the philosophy of mechanical reproduction. Oh my I am so very fascinating.

Comments

art vs. non-art

[slasheuse.livejournal.com]

Re: the art. That art/porn scene in Paedogeddon from Brass Eye would do nicely. There must be scripts somewhere. The art/porn divide is quite a good way to go, obv.

OH, if you want things considered to be too violent/brutal/horrific to be art, try Sarah Kane's Blasted (but, to get the point, read the first night reviews, notably Michael Billington's). Also worth reading would be the "how can you stage a 45-minute suicide note" review of 4.48 Psychosis which I think had something along the lines of "this isn't art, it's just madness".

What about art that's on the boundary between the real and the artistic? Try: plays of David Hare's e.g. The Permanent Way (all real worlds, newspaper stuff, TV interviews etc), is it art or journalism - actually, try The History Boys, comb it for all references to journalism and check out Irwin's speech at the beginning. Check out Lintott's reference to Scripps's journalism at the end and how he wants "really to write" - think about what that means.

News images - are they art always, or is it just a case of "they can be"? Could someone justify, for example, the photographs of the dying Princess Diana as "art"?

That picture of Myra Hindley made up of children's handprints. Other paintings; "Paul can you come over" (the Diana thing, can't remember who), that installation of David Beckham sleeping (was it art?).

Antony Sher did a portrait painted in oils, cocaine and his father's ashes. That's something. OH, Gilbert & George, they've done stuff.

Is any of this anything? I hope so!

Re: art vs. non-art

[apotropaios.livejournal.com]

I own Brass Eye, if people want to borrow it...

Re: art vs. non-art

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

Ooh, it wouldn't have occurred to me to say Sarah Kane, but I second that. Particularly with something like Blasted, which has extreme content but its formal characteristics are quite recognizable--what's it mean if something that looks like a play and quacks like a play can be declared "not really art" because of what the characters in the play say and do? (And "how can you stage a 45-minute suicide note" actually is what I think about 4.48 Psychosis...)

Re: art vs. non-art

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

The art/porn divide is quite a good way to go, obv.

It's one I hadn't thought of, thank you! It's a nice showcase for the differing instrinsic character of content from form.

In fact, all these are very good examples - thank you. Your brain, it is full of good things! (Actually, I may poke you later this wee for your own views, if you don't mind? I could do with some additional argumentative material on this point.)