Examination Question: Section A

[riff]

Just print some hard copies, freescofr.

yes, the paper was written in 1990

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

Riff,
Interesting begining - "the medium is the message"
I hope you post more, I'd like to see where you brain continued on to.
I am leaving in a moment to go climb a mountain, I'll think on that while I am following the trail. (Ha, that is appropriate!)

And Free, I completely understand, I have often thought that my books would all get together one day and berate me for using them as I do. Always taking them for granted and never treating them as well as they should be.
If I wasn't a woman, they would call me a bastard too.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

Riff, old man, you'd get an "A" in my seminar, that's for sure.

Since you posted somewhere else that you were a devotee of Robert Scholes, and since I think you used to use a line from Umberto Eco as a signature, you know as well as I do that the difference between art/not-art or literature/non-literature has nothing to do with “the text itself,” nothing to do with any intrinsic properties of the work or art object.

Art becomes art by virtue of certain social operations that are performed on it. And once we examine those “operations,” looking at how a certain kind of text or artifact or practice came to be lumped into the art/literature category rather than the not-art/literature waste dump, we often see that such operations are merely exercises of power—hegemony, to use Gramsci’s term. Art is hegemonic insofar as its objects and practices can be shown to maintain inegalitarian relations of power: the ideas dominant in a society usually being those of the ruling class, and all that.

The anti-novel, like any other vanguard art form, is an effort to undo the hegemonic functioning of the category “Literature”—in the same way that Duchamps’ “readymades,” for example, sought to undo the category “sculpture.” Indeed, one way to look at the story of art over the last 150 years or so is as a series of attempts to undo the cooptative power of bourgeois ideology—
epater les bourgeoisie, if you'll pardon my probably incorrect French.

Getting back to the original query, we might say that one of the binarisms that preserves and protects the hegemonic functioning of Art is the distinction between Art and Life. Consequently, it has been one of the many projects of the avant-garde to question that binarism, to try to undo it, to blur or erase the boundaries between these two "commonsensically" distinct categories. What happens if we refuse common sense in relation to this issue? What happens if we believe instead that they are identical? What new possibilities are opened up to us?

As Tzara once said, "I am an artist. Anything I do is art. If I shit on the sidewalk and call it art, then it is art."

dadadadadadadada

 

[riff]

Jesusfuck, I am impressed.

Your post is a potential thread killer..... LOL

Being the perpetual student and questioner- it would seem that "form" is an issue? Form requires structure.

Deconstruction can be turned on itself and deconstructed.

We will definitely have to have that beer sometime.

I feel compelled to drop a name: Roland Barthes. He belongs in here too.

 

[freescorfr]

Jesusfuck, I am impressed.

Your post is a potential thread killer..... LOL

Being the perpetual student and questioner- it would seem that "form" is an issue? Form requires structure.

Deconstruction can be turned on itself and deconstructed.

We will definitely have to have that beer sometime.

I feel compelled to drop a name: Roland Barthes. He belongs in here too.

Normandy, August 2002. The Beer and Barthes Conference -
Dates 9th-16th, Abbey Notre Dame de St. Evreux. (Deconstructed 18c.)

Hamletmachine is a sheer joy to read.

 

[erosman]

This thread needs more female balance. The male focus is so acute as to begin to dissect the individual layers of bark on the trees and soon the forest will only be technical names - sophisticated jargon. The predominantly left-brained thought processes would compartmentalize the whole of expression into explanation. Just as art reflects the emotions and passions of the artist, can the discussion also let go of its need for masculine control and embrace its deeply rooted insecurities - its pretentious desire for linear control. Perhaps the undemarcated lines become more palatable when ingested by the right hemisphere's emotions.



I am only a poor beggar of knowledge, though.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

I love this thread, so I hope I haven't "killed" it, man.

And, yeah, I was gonna toss Barthes in there, too--he da man, in my book. (as opposed to de Man, who I don't much care for)

And, lord ha' mercy, I wish that I were headed back your way this summer, Free. The Beer and Barthes conference sounds great, and I'm having withdrawal pains from France at this moment.

 

[riff]

I love this thread, so I hope I haven't "killed" it, man.

.

Nooooo.... it was just that my nuts shrunk to the size of raisins when I read your post! LOL.

They are filling up with jizz again... heh

 

[freescorfr]

This thread needs more female balance. The male focus is so acute as to begin to dissect the individual layers of bark on the trees and soon the forest will only be technical names - sophisticated jargon. The predominantly left-brained thought processes would compartmentalize the whole of expression into explanation. Just as art reflects the emotions and passions of the artist, can the discussion also let go of its need for masculine control and embrace its deeply rooted insecurities - its pretentious desire for linear control. Perhaps the undemarcated lines become more palatable when ingested by the right hemisphere's emotions.



I am only a poor beggar of knowledge, though.

Greeneyedgirl is right in here erosman and she's pretty arty to my mind. My own knowledge is outdated and stale, but I know a fine wine when I sniff it. The ante-wine, as in ante-post, as in bookie, as in bouquet.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

They are filling up with jizz again... heh

LOL--don't ya luv it when that happens?

God, I feel like snapping yer ass with a towel now, too, after reading erosman's post.

This place is just reeking with testosterone!

 

[erosman]

Greeneyedgirl is right in here erosman and she's pretty arty to my mind. My own knowledge is outdated and stale, but I know a fine wine when I sniff it. The ante-wine, as in ante-post, as in bookie, as in bouquet.

LOL. I have ruminated over this thread for several days now, and my request for a more balanced - equal parts of right and left brain function - approach was partly induced by the concern that the thread's demise was imminent. Too often, I have seen the novel unable to penetrate the crusty decorum of sagacity. The grey-haired testosterone assures itself with golden memories of former ideologies. Perhaps time is conservatism's usher. Perhaps?

 

[Dillinger]

OK - so where are all the Art Girls at?

 

[freescorfr]

OK - so where are all the Art Girls at?

They're all out there Dilly. Erosman is probably right. Wrong image!
Matter, as Hamletmachine says with respect to Art and Life, of undoing the binarism and getting the chicks in.

Dilly, if you come to Normandy they'll all follow.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

Left brain/right brain, male/female. Sounds like more binarisms to me.

I'm left-handed, so I'm always in my right mind. Or not, if you're left-brained.

On the other hand, we could use some more babes in here, fer sure.

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

What the fuck?

I go away for a few hours to commune with nature on the top of a mountain, thinking about this thread, Riff's comments and Hamlet's moving response....... And erosman walks in and says there is no female presence in this thread.

FINE
(Strips naked)
Here's a female presense for you! And it is ART!

Okay, now....

Hamlet, you blew away my mind with your response. I think I need to sit at your feet and learn.

And as far as I am concerned, this thread has too much life in it to die anytime soon. The number of tangents on this topic are too numerous and interesting to let it peeter out. If I have to stand here naked, discussing Art and Life by myself, I will damn it.
I mean, I was surrounded earlier today by regeneration, death blanketing new life, and all I could think of was - nothing. My mind was clear, my lungs seared, and beauty was everywhere. That my friends, is Living Art. When you are so moved that you actually stop thinking, stop analyzing, stop deconstructing.
Just Being. That is the epitome of beauty. Very zen, and very cliche. Yet very true.



And why am I not included in the beer festivities? I'd pout, but there is nothing more irritating than a naked, pouting woman.

 

[Gnufi Poppets]

It is you are the naked with the green eyes that are on the pretty face of the you - the naked you are the being right here the right now in this thinking of the art and the culture that this thread is the being the about?

You are being like the hot naked sex statue that I am the always seeing from the people who are looking like they are the loving the Greek all the time?

Oh yahs!

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

It is you are the naked with the green eyes that are on the pretty face of the you - the naked you are the being right here the right now in this thinking of the art and the culture that this thread is the being the about?

You are being like the hot naked sex statue that I am the always seeing from the people who are looking like they are the loving the Greek all the time?

Oh yahs!

That's me Gnufi babe! Venus with arms!
*lol*

 

[Dillinger]

Kind of like a real life de facto de Milo?

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

I was making a point here (and before you go there, yes, it is a bit chilly).

Estrogen and testosterone do not decide the level of the intellectual ceiling. Those who are debating create and alter that. My dilby ( ) has nothing to do with the conversation that has evolved from Riff's original post. I hate it when people say that a female perspective is needed. Shit, my ovaries have nothing to say in this thread, they comment elsewhere. My brain is involved here, which I find more stimulating anyways, and I do not believe that the fact that I am female has anything to do with my opinions or contribution.

Damn it, now I am feeling all feminist. Better stay naked to counteract that!

 

[freescorfr]

I was making a point here (and before you go there, yes, it is a bit chilly).

Estrogen and testosterone do not decide the level of the intellectual ceiling. Those who are debating create and alter that. My dilby ( ) has nothing to do with the conversation that has evolved from Riff's original post. I hate it when people say that a female perspective is needed. Shit, my ovaries have nothing to say in this thread, they comment elsewhere. My brain is involved here, which I find more stimulating anyways, and I do not believe that the fact that I am female has anything to do with my opinions or contribution.

Damn it, now I am feeling all feminist. Better stay naked to counteract that!

I think your sex matters a lot to me greeneyes. Much as I admire the men here, indeed admire does not do justice to my regard for them, the fact you are a girl is highly significant for me. You do bring a feminine perspective. It's just exciting to have you.

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

I think your sex matters a lot to me greeneyes. Much as I admire the men here, indeed admire does not do justice to my regard for them, the fact you are a girl is highly significant for me. You do bring a feminine perspective. It's just exciting to have you.

From feminist to girly in one fell swoop.

I thank you most kindly, and I am very happy to be here and to have found such excellent company.

(I suppose I should dress now )

 

[freescorfr]

From feminist to girly in one fell swoop.

I thank you most kindly, and I am very happy to be here and to have found such excellent company.

(I suppose I should dress now )

You will be expected to be dressed in time for the conference in August, Greeneyedgirl. It's in a ruined abbey, by a lake, in a forest. In Normandy. You are invited. So is Beatrice. Like Sherlock Holmes she isn't dead at all.

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

August in Normandy, sounds wonderful.
Beatrice and I will dress in our very best to attend, and once and for all we will find out if she has one leg or two.
After a few bottles of wine, I will be curious to see where our discussions will lead in the ruined abbey. Hopefully the ghosts of the nuns past will throw off their wimples and join us as well.

 

[paganangel]

examine this

 

[Dillinger]

She said wimple!!! *heh heh heh*