Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 101.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2024-08-16 05:33:57+00:00
From: Bill Pascoe <bill.pascoe@unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.99: an exam question
'they have become a collective creation, a corpus so vast it can be assimilated
only through miniaturization' -> youtube, instagram and tictoc scrolling on
phones
'a technique of diminution that helps people to achieve a degree of mastery over
works of art' -> influencers and others who not only make 'content' but make
critique of 'content'.
'mastery without which the works could no longer be put to use' -> we watch
reviews and reaction videos.
What 'use' is art is a big question. Kant reckons (To sum up a few thousand very
difficult pages) that the only inarguable moral imperative is to treat others as
ends in themselves, not as something that can be used to some other end. He then
describes aesthetics as appreciating things in the world as inherently valuable,
rather than valued as a means to some other end. Eg: enjoying a beautiful sunset
because it's beautiful, not because it's going to get us a better house. So
aesthetics is a bit like an ethical relationship with the world - and you could
get spiritual about that. Hence 'useful art' is a contradiction. We just
confused because sometimes useful things are also beautiful - the point is our
attitude towards aspects of them - in so far as I use it, it's useful, in so far
as I appreciate it in its own sake its art. There's another level to puzzle over
that was brought up on this mailing list a few years ago - about the aesthetics
of code. Code is primarily meant to be useful, but sometimes people describe
well written code as 'elegant' or even beautiful. So it is with any
functionality or skill - it can be raised to the level of 'art', where it is
done so well, performs its function so well, is so excellent in its usefulness,
that we appreciate that in its own right - it's a pleasure to watch someone good
at what they do, or to see code or tools so well designed for their function.
Political systems use art, and that's called propaganda - like fascism,
communism, capitalism (advertising). Maybe the reason we find propaganda so
distasteful is because it is doubly unethical. It 'uses' something which is
meant to be appreciated for it's own sake 'art', which is a kind of corruption
or violation of something we love, in order to manipulate or 'use' us when we
are supposed to be treated as an end in ourselves.
On the other hand someone might argue a functional view of meaning, that all
meaning is a causal, anything that means something does so only because it has
some effect on use, creates some reaction. A beautiful sunset, or a picture of
one, causes the effect of our pleasure. The use of a painting is to create that
reaction. Some of it is politically provocative. Some is just meant to please
us, or make our living space enjoyable. Either way it is serving some use and so
perhaps we could extend this to saying all art is political, because it is
always meant to manipulate, benevolently, or malevolently. Maybe the difference
goes back to its ethical aspect. Like if someone is intending to manipulate us
with this art in order to use us as a means to their ends (such as to get voted
in, to make a lot of money, etc) or whether they want to give us this experience
because they care about us as inherantly valuable, and end in ourselves. Of
course we get confused when these two are mixed up - like when an artist needs
to make money, but that's not what they are doing it for, and they agonise over
selling out. And some say that it's neither one or the other, but that angst
itself, over what way to go, what to do, the moral dilemma, the struggle to make
meaning that is the whole point about being human.
Here I am slacking off being useful to have fun waffling on about aesthetics and
ethics. Every morning it's the same - to work or not to work?
Oh wait, I forgot about Heidegger, nothing even exists unless we're using it...
Shut up and get back to work!
________________________________
From: Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
Sent: Friday, 16 August 2024 2:54 PM
To: Bill Pascoe <bill.pascoe@unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: [Humanist] 38.99: an exam question
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 99.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
http://www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2024-08-15 23:47:30+00:00
From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.98: an exam question
I've always enjoyed Benjamin's essay, but I've read too much Adorno lately
to keep from asking, "What kind of a degenerate talks about the use
value of art?" Even reproduced, what use value does it have? I'd rather
discuss the artistic value of some useful objects, such as Estwing hammers,
which I've always thought had a certain sleek beauty, the Aston Martins of
hammers -- but then a beautiful car is also a useful object with artistic
value. I would also question the idea that, say, a great painting was
really being reproduced. A photograph of a painting isn't the painting, and
a photograph doesn't diminish the value of the original, not even today.
So, overall, I think Benjamin's essay is his communism running away with
him a bit much and generally nonsense, though I like his discussion of
artistic products in which the original has no real value: they're only
valuable when they are reproduced (such as a film or a recording). The
original print of the film may have some collector's value, but that's not
how the film really makes money, while an original Michelangelo is worth
more, probably, than all of the cheap prints combined, and the cheap prints
only have their value because of the original. I don't know that prints of
David would sell if the original didn't ever exist.
At the same time, in a DH context, one can't help but come back to
Benjamin's essay and reconsider it.
Jim R
On Thu, Aug 15, 2024 at 5:12 AM Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
> Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, let me offer the following observation by
> Walter Benjamin as an exam question for an advanced seminar in digital
> humanities. This version comes from his "Little history of photography",
> in The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and
> Other Writings on Media (Harvard UP, 2008, p .290:
>
> > "... one is brought up short by the way the understanding of great
> > works [of art] was transformed at about the same time the techniques
> > of reproduction were being developed. Such works can no longer be
> > regarded as the products of individuals; they have become a
> > collective creation, a corpus so vast it can be assimilated only
> > through miniaturization. In the final analysis, methods of mechanical
> > reproduction are a technique of diminution that helps people to
> > achieve a degree of mastery over works of art--mastery without which
> > the works could no longer be put to use."
> >
> > Discuss.
>
> Yours,
> WM
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