Art, Expression, and Personality

29.07.2009

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.

— T. S. ELIOT, The Sacred Wood

Writing on Trees

23.07.2009

Last Friday, I came across an installation that is part of the exhibition Walking in My Mind, currently on show at the Hayward Gallery of the Southbank Centre in London. It is a pop art piece called “Ascension of the Polkadots on the Trees” by Yayoi Kusama, a female Japanese artist. It consists of a group of trees dressed with a red plastic fabric with white spots of different sizes.

Every dressed tree has a warning on the ground: “Do not draw or write on the trees. This is an art work — respect it.” People have been ignoring this cautionary advice and have been writing on the fabric — a lot.

Does this make the work less valuable? Have these signatures, drawings, and writings tainted the work of art? “Ascension of the Polkadots on the Trees” has transformed the trees, giving them a new face. I am sure it made these woody enduring plants more noticeable to those who were used to their repetitive appearance to the point of becoming indifferent to their presence. Writing on these transformed trees is a response. In this context, it may even be construed as a reply to an invitation: here we are, changed, covered as if in plaster, and waiting for the acknowledgement of our intensified presence. Writing is therefore a means of marking that someone noticed them, seizing the opportunity to assert their own presence — “I was here”, that is what these written traces say. For a work like this, placed in a public space, this interaction has to be taken as a reverent reaction. Ignoring the warning signs is a way of not ignoring the art work.

A Brazilian Journal of Communication

21.07.2009

I have discovered this interesting journal recently: Revista de Estudos da Comunicação. The latest issue (no. 20) includes essays on post-television and hybridisation theories and on Michel Gondry’s music videos, and other topics. It is in Portuguese (with abstracts also in English) and some past issues are available online.

Philosophising and Living

15.07.2009

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

— HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Walden

Art, Aesthetics, and the Sexual

10.06.2009

During the next two days, the Aesthetics Research Group of the University of Kent presents a symposium on sexual imagery and themes in art. Confirmed speakers include:

David Davies (McGill University)
Susan Dwyer (University of Maryland)
Rob van Gerwen (Utrecht University)
Jerrold Levinson (University of Maryland/University of Kent)
Alex Neill (University of Southampton)
Elisabeth Schellekens (Durham University)

Screen Studies Conference 2009

03.07.2009

Desperate Housewives, “Pilot” (1.01).

The “Screen” Studies Conference 2009 begins today and ends on Sunday, 5 July, at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. The event will explore the different facets of contemporary screen theorising. It is the 19th international meeting organised by Screen, an esteemed journal that commemorates its 50th anniversary this year.

I am presenting a paper called “Televisual Works” in the only panel on television, “Serial Fictions”. My aim is to analyse the ontological differences that are usually pointed out between the aesthetics of cinema and television. They are not very persuasive. I shall present another way of distinguishing between them that does not depend on identifying essential features, but rather the specific history of development of each medium. I take Twin Peaks (1990-91) as an instance of what we may contingently call a televisual work (of art) and use the opening sequence of the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives (2004-) to illustrate the importance of visual elements in some television fictions.

The programme is too big for me to include it in this post — but it can be downloaded (via the University of Glasgow web site).