Work of Art and communication (24-08-2019)

(Sixth and seventh texts published on Textup, sent by Daedalus )

 

You ask: "Does a work of art need an audience in order to exist?"

 

In other words, "is there" [something] in the absence of "observer(s)"?

 

First of all, understand that in this formal statement, "there is" is conceptually different from "something".

 

The "something" can only exist in its articulation with the observer, who is necessarily distinct from what is observed. The observer, the subject, becomes "conscious OF something", in the sense that he necessarily "separates" himself from what is observed. This thing "ob-jectifies" itself, becomes an "ob-ject", which is, etymologically, what is thrown in front of oneself, that is, in front of the subject.

 

It is therefore a first dialectical relation in which one of the elements generates its opposite (observer/observed) as a definition of the very essence of the individual, understood as a simple crossroads of a larger web.

 

For this reason, when it is announced that: "Its essence is the information it transmits and which defines it.", you must understand that there is a radical difference between the idea "that there is" essence or information and "its essence/information" in itself.

 

"Its essence / information" exists only as a node forming part of an immense spider's web.

It only takes shape in its dialectical relation with "another" point of articulation. "My" essence exists only in relation to "Your" essence. However, the use of a possessive adjective that applies to the speaker makes it possible to define that same speaker. But even more than that, it represents him before another speaker.

 

With all this, is it not therefore this vast arrangement, this total system, composed of transformations that are themselves structuring, enriching and conserving over time, which "defines" and determines the individual?

 

The structure is negentropic; the object is not.

 

A "work of art" exists for the observer who recognizes it and describes it as a "work of art", but now ask yourself: if the object only is (exists) in its opposition to the subject, then do both exist independently? Without an observer, does the observed "exist"? Conversely, does the observer exist without the observed? Then, what happens when the observer perceives, in a kind of "meta-perception", that this independence is illusory?

 

---------------This second text was published the same day, a few hours apart--------------------

 

Before producing his work, the artist starts from an idea, from an "essence", which he will create, give shape to, that is, to which he will give the property of "existence". In this case, "essence precedes existence".

 

However, without the "existence" of the artist, the "essence" of the work would hardly have arisen. So it is not incorrect either to say that "existence precedes essence".

 

Does this strange paradox reveal an insoluble contradiction or, on the contrary, a trivial complementarity of identities?

 

Take up your example of the painter again.

The "essence", or the idea, of the painting pre-exists its painting in the painter's mind. However, without the "existence" of the painter there is no "essence" of the painting. In reality, "existence" and "essence" are dissociated in thought only by their chronological relation. This is a new illusion.

 

Are "existence" and "essence", in this case, one and the same thing? This too is incorrect.

Both stem from the principle of causality, which shows that the seed of any consequence is necessarily "already" in the cause; making the cause/consequence duality just another illusion of the mind. Cause and consequence are ultimately one and the same thing, whereas the painter, of course, is NOT his painting.

 

If "essence" is NOT "existence", but both are evidence of an illusory split based on the principle of causality, then what remains?

 

You sense, here, that a fourth property, symmetrical to this last statement, must come in.