"One of the first men of Africa ... informed me,
"you know, there is a dream dreaming us"
(van de Post, 1976, P.10)
Postmodernism is the term often used to define certain aspects of contemporary society and culture. Postmodernism is grouped within continental philosophy (as operated not only in Europe but elsewhere) with semiotics, critical and dialectical theory, structuralism, deconstruction, post-structuralism and 'French' feminism (Silverman, (1989), p.3).
Within this paper postmodernism is used more loosely to include aspects of these theories because there appears to be many common aspects or inspirational points across them.
It is not possible to do justice to all aspects of postmodern thought within such a short paper, the texts which attempt to do this, such as Burgin(1986), appear to be "forms of invention, never forms of clarification, objectification, or demystification" (Trembath, 1989, p.169).
Aesthetics is usually defined as belonging to the appreciation of the beautiful, in accordance with principles of good taste. Others use the word aesthetics to denote the doctrine or philosophy of taste, the theory of the Fine Arts, the science of the Beautiful" (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989).
Taste is defined as the faculty of discerning and enjoying beauty or excellence, especially in art and literature (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1964). it is also associated with what is socially or artistically right (a subjective judgement which includes aspects of socialisation).
This essay, will critically appraise specific aspects of deconstructionism and pluralism within an overall examination of the political aspects of postmodernism.
This vertical rather than lateral research was also done to compliment previous undergraduate papers on feminism and contemporary craft practice.
Therefore, this paper is a collection of fragments, however, in the choice of fragments of ideas and quotes, a value system, or personal aesthetic, has been used.
Derrida has been the inspiratational source for deconstructionist and poststructuralist theories. He criticised structuralist's attempts to achieve a scientific account of culture by describing the systems underlying cultural production, for their theories depended upon a stable centre, which existed outside the system under examination.
Whereas the life or thoughts of the author or artist had traditionally been perceived as the source of meaning, Derrida maintained that this was fiction and that the reader has the right to produce his or her own meanings from the text or image (Lodge, 1988, pp.107-8).
Derrida proposed that the image or text becomes autonomous as soon as it was created. The removal of the "creator" meant that there could now be more than one source of meaning.
Taking early and more recent theorists on the inter-relationship between the individual, the state and the role of aesthetics within this relationship, this section will lay the groundwork for a consideration of pluralism.
throughout history the body has been used as a metaphor for society. This idea was promoted by Rousseaus (1712-78) who believed that:
the body politic, taken individually, may be considered as an organised living body, resembling that of a man. [It] is also a moral being, possessed of a will, ... which tends always to the preservation and welfare of the whole and of every part, is the source of the laws ... each of us puts his person and all of his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole. (Rousseaus in Solomon 1988, p.19)
The "general will" is goal orientated, therefore value judgements are made, such as to increase wealth for all, or to create a more egalitarian distribution of wealth.
To use the body metaphor further the skin masks the operation of the body and is easily influenced by particular origins or powerful groups:
The ability of the upper - middle classes to dominate the market place of ideas has generally allowed the state to shape the entire society's perception of political reality and the range of realistic political and social possibilities ... in short, the major media - particularly, the elite media that set the agenda that others generally follow - are corporations "selling" privileged audiences to other businesses (Chomsky, (1989), P.8.).
This is done by such devices as promoting positive images of "normal"(upper middle class) people and values in such a way to mould aspirations.
An alternative and complimentary window on society is offered by performing and visual arts (State control of this will be discussed elsewhere in this paper).
Kant, Burke, and others, promoting the idea of an objective aesthetic, were in fact proposing a specific standard of taste, the limits of "good taste", and so can be seen as agents of the existing political and theoretical structures that existed (Foster, 1983, p.58).
Some of the strongest arguments for the fracture and discreditation of dominate narratives in taste have come from feminists working from a deconstructionist perspective. Feminist criticism has been particularly directed at modernist art which has been "absoluted centred, unitary, [and] masculine". Not surprisingly, Kant's ideas have been questioned and actively undermined.
Deconstructionism ... accounts for how a text's explicit formulations undermine its implicit or non- explicit aspects. It brings out what the text excludes by showing what it includes. It highlights what remains indecidable and what operates as an indecidable in the text itself ... elements of marginality, supplementarily, and indecidability. (Silverman, 1989, p.4)
A media dominated society marginalises any who are different from the group that control the state apparatus and media. Art also "encodes values and ideology, and ... art criticism, is never innocent of the political and ideological processes in which the discourse has been constituted"(Wolff, (1981), p.143).
While female artists experienced discrimination, artists with a Non English Speaking Background (NESB) have also expressed discontent with their position within the arts. This is especially true when their attempts to counteract what are perceived as "the reinforcement of all the structures of containment" are met with "localised counter-responses, skirmishes, active and occasionally preventive defences" (Andreoni, 1992, p. 1) by predominately state controlled arts agencies and statuary authorities. Because the State contributes the majority of the funding of arts agencies, effectively the administration is an employee of the state and are duty bound to comply with state policy.
We might take a cynical attitude to the success stories of NESB artists in Australia "as shining and very public symbols of how democratic, egalitarian and culturally unbiased Australian society is" (Andreoni, 1992, P.2), for once again the "skin" often hides the real picture of discrimination and manipulation.
Betty Woodmans ceramic form (see figure 1) plays with these ideas, in that the appearance of the two-dimensional form does not correlate to the three-dimensional functional form behind. How it looks does not correlate to how it works.
A careful examination of political pluralism provides a useful framework to examine the theory and reality of postmodern society.
Nicholls (1974) claims pluralism "is ambiguous and contentious" because different academics have attempted to use it for their own purposes(see Poster, (1983), p. xi). Pluralism is a specific political theory that evolved to explain a political process. Social and political theorists have been particularly "concerned with the relationship between unity and diversity in a state", ever since Aristotle argued that "a degree of unity is necessary in a state, [and that] total unity would undermine its very nature"(p. l).
English pluralist theorists supported the legal and political autonomy of increasingly numerous and diverse cultural, religious, economic and civil associations, to ensure a healthy society. On the other hand, American theorists saw the state's role as seeking to balance competing interest groups who were attempting to realise their specific goals via overt and covert action (Nicholls, (1974), p. 2). In Australian cultural politics we have a combination of these two elements in that State funded organisations present the illusion of lobbying the State on behalf of members. The diversity of small art specific agencies ensures a divided "industry" and segmented arts practices. A federation of such agencies would ensure the reduction of duplication and an expansion of services offered to members, while maintaining autonomy of policy and association.
Nicholls (1974) foresaw society changing from one where each person belonged to one integrated set of institutions in a single community to segmented or mass societies. Segmentation could lead to conflict and civil war, while a mass society, with low group loyalty and alienation, could become a totalitarian autocracy. The formation of institutions or associations which cut across, but not weaken, old loyalties and a resistance to single group control of government was seen to be critical to holding a pluralist society together, yet maintaining political liberty (p. 61-2).
Perhaps more specific to contemporary Australian society, Berelson (1978) sees the debate on democracy as having evolved from political, to educational, to economic, to that over democracy of culture. This new debate is over whether the arts and media should give the public what it wants or what a small group of experts think people need. Essentially this debate is over who's values to use, whether in light of structural changes occurring in society the debate is almost redundant.
Toffler (1980) predicted accurately, the current fragmentation of social structures via new technology created means of communication. The icon creating mass media (newspaper and television) is becoming fragmented into video, cable television, university and community based radio and television, desk-top publishing leaflets, mini-magazines and so on. All these promote and cater for the idiosyncrasies of specific groups rather than promote a standardisation of taste, in the way the mass media has done. (p.166-177)
Yet the more diverse the civilisation, the more information must flow between its constituent parts if the entirety is to hold together (p. 178). We need more information in order to anticipate how others will react and interact with us, consequently the pulse of the entire information system begins to quicken, shattering previous systems of beliefs and their encoded values.
We are now drowning in "blips of information" waves, from which we must create our own individual frameworks leading to a "demassification of personality" and culture. The debate over standards within the mass media becomes increasingly irrelevant over time as viewers turn to these emerging sources of information, which may have short life cycles. Different aesthetics will grow up in these media specific groups; different to the serial-in-time theories that exist in modernism. Postmodernism is, in this sense, a multitude of theories of aesthetics continuously coexisting (we already have computers that think in parallel rather than serial). Niche markets will need niche theories of taste, and improved international communication will enable those working in a small area of investigation to find and communicate with others with similar interests.
This fragmentation of society and its symbols evolves out of the death of the "general will" (see above) as a result of modernism's emphasis upon economic growth for growth's sake and other evolutionary philosophies. it might even be argued that the segmentation/fragmentation of society will lead to civil war, presumably because of the declining role and ability of the state to maintain consensus and keep the peace between competing groups.
Somehow I doubt this will occur because the improvements of communication will provide an alternative means of consensus building, as different groups seek to share in the benefits of temporary or specific purpose alliances. For example, all State and art agency operated artist databases could be amalgamated and transferred to an arts federation with the associated reduction in duplication of maintaining details, and the cost of mail-outs. Modem access would enable autonomy of the arts agencies.
In such a society the old binary "us and them", "I and they", "black and white" and "true and false" become redundant (Lyotard, (1984), P.62). For truth and beauty become only one of many truths, many beautiful things. This is because consensus created, or power imposed, objectivity is seen as simply someone's subjective taste (Levin, (1988), p.22) (For an appreciation of the Jungian psychological aspects of this see Fordham, 1953).
Changes parallel to this theoretical post-modern shift appeared in American ceramics in the 1980's. From the previous reductionist or abstraction of organic shapes, the move was towards a more diverse mixture of tastes, all running parallel to each other (Clark, 1987, p.208). In such circumstances the range within which aesthetically pleasing ceramics existed was substantially stretched. Expressed in another way, the previous system, which placed one type of taste in a hierarchical position over others, was shattered.
Clark (1987) uses Betty Woodman as an example of post-modern ceramics, in that her work plays on the two and three-dimensional object but also has more than one thrown centre. The slab from which the second section is constructed is thrown on the wheel, so that the finished work has the vessel centre and the slab centre (p.210).
Figure I. Betty Woodman Ostia, Vase and Stand 1986
In this case the two "centres" to the work are in some ways truly post-modern because both centres and perpectives are not exclusive. They both see the same object, but from different points. As discussed above, deconstruction "employs the logic of neither/nor and both / and against that of binary opposition" (Silverman, 1989, p.9) of the right and wrong way to view the work.
This device is similar to the Post-modern painters' rejection of the single point of perspective, which was invented during the Renaissance, in recognition that the world, and our personal reality, does not revolve solely around the viewer / individual (Dunning, 1991, p.333).
In an increasingly plural society each group will attempt to reposition itself in the present by rewriting their past and the whole body of knowledge. The result is that canons of taste will become fragmented and disappear (Lyotard (1984), p. 84).
Figure 2.Adrian Saxe Untitled Jar 1985
Fragmentation of canons enables artists to follow their personal taste and combine images in novel ways. Wrapped up within postmodernism is the idea that it cannot be new, for modernism claimed it was all that was possibly new. Postmodernism steps out of modernism in that it is novel, but not new.
Postmodernism is, therefore, both a growing out of modernism but also a separating from modernism. Postmodernism draws from the old, and is, therefore, a novel new-old combination. So, to use the body metaphor, it takes part of the body existing now (Modern) and combines it into a new body (Post-modern) with parts from the earlier body (Classic, Renaissance, etc.).
We could apply these ideas to publications produced by various arts organisations. Imagine the integration, within one publication with separate editor controlled sections, of FAR, Craftwest and ARM. The increase in readership and network potential would also radicalise contemporary perspectives and artistic practice.
Adrian Saxe takes cultural and historical appropriation further: Saxe's collage of styles into a "confusing combination of arranging for aesthetic appeal [and / or] ... symbolism ... [to create] the smart pot ... an academic object positing an imaginary academy, the brains of an all embracing civilisation" (Clark. (1987). P.223-6). These objects become a store of meaning, not because of the artist's intent, but rather the human viewer's need to project meaning onto the apparently random assembly.
Such apparently random "cutting and pasting" of images necessitates an inclusion of a specific style, but also a discrimination against all others. The consequence of this is a value judgement is being made as to what is still relevant, as parts from the past will be brought into the present. The new - old decision within postmodernism is, in my mind, only a debate over the level of individual freedom or state rectification of market failure necessary within society.
Martin and Jacobus (1975) make the distinction between the arts and other humanists in that the "artist reveals values, [while the latter] study or reflect upon values" (p. vii). Which raises the question, as to what is the role of aesthetics?
If postmodernism is merely a remix of previous positions and new circumstances then aesthetic theories do not have stand alone positions. Trembath, (1989), presents the argument that Derrida's writing depended upon "rhetorical generalisations to get us believing in the necessity of his deconstruction project" (p. 171). This intriguing idea suggests that not only philosophy and art criticism but also critics' articles on contemporary art are all simply rhetoric based word pictures.
With the collapse of objective viewpoints and their associated universal truths, there is no indicator of value, except in exchange. S we are forced to believe Trembath (1989) who argues that "all Philosophical argumentation - even ... early Derrida - [are] forms of invention, never forms of clarification, objectification, or demystification"(Trembath, 1989, p.169). The language is purely rhetoric and yet, if other theorists take it up, it creates its own sense of reality. The experienced reality is that, like other writing, theory can only be fiction.
Within this paper on the politics of post-modern aesthetics specific reference was made to deconstruction and pluralist theories and the manipulation of the media and the arts. A body metaphor was useful in highlighting the idea that unity in society is only skin deep. The sub themes of the end of binary opposition and the fragmentation of history and style led to an examination of rhetoric's ability to create self justifying arguments. Ceramic work by Saxe and Woodman were found to contain elements of types of post-modern aesthetics because they reflected the values of this time.
Overall the most useful themes, to inform me on the context of my practice and intent behind my work, were that of the values behind pluralism and deconstruction theories, which de-emphasise the artist as source of meaning. Both provide the potential for greater freedom of expression in the future, in the making of work and in operating within the political environment of contemporary culture.
This paper also accepts the political environment it is created within, using this to put forward a post-modern political collage for the reorganisation of arts within Western Australia. By becoming experts within their niche, arts organisations have become servants to the common taskmaster/mistress because they individually are too small to be politically and economically independent. By cutting and pasting themselves together into a loose federation, they would maintain their autonomy but increase their activities by amalgamating the things they all do well. Moreover the collective would be large enough to attract substantial sponsorship and exercise greater political leverage.
Cross-fertisation of ideas in an administration sense would also continue, but more importantly members would become exposed to other art forms. The latter would feed into art practice and also artists' recreational activities. Radicalisation via interaction of art form has the potential to sustain and develop a more distinct Western Australian culture. This is, by its very nature, a very personal artistic organisational aesthetic.
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