Art and Objects. Graham Harman
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Название: Art and Objects

Автор: Graham Harman

Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited

Жанр: Афоризмы и цитаты

Серия:

isbn: 9781509512713

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СКАЧАТЬ since there are no bare objects without qualities or free-floating qualities without objects, none of these four abbreviations can exist in isolation, but must be paired with one of the opposite type. This yields four possible pairings in all. Let’s consider Husserl once more. Though we reject his notion that the real qualities of things can be known by the intellect, we agree with him that real qualities exist: his analysis is perfectly convincing when he shows that any sensual object (such as a horse) has essential qualities no less than inessential ones. In OOO terminology, Husserl shows that when dealing with sensual objects we have both SO-SQ (inessential qualities) and SO-RQ (essential ones). Turning to Heidegger’s case, in which the broken tool announces its qualities while remaining forever withdrawn, we have the interesting hybrid form RO-SQ, which proves to be the most important of the four tensions for art. I say four rather than three because we must also speak of the RO-RQ tension, one that is admittedly hard to talk about, since both of its terms are withdrawn from direct consideration. But without RO-RQ, withdrawn objects would all be the same: interchangeable substrata that would differ only insofar as each displayed different sensual qualities at different times to some observer. Since this would preclude any inherent difference between a hammer-in-itself, a horse-in-itself, and a planet-in-itself, there would be no way to account for the special character of each withdrawn object. Thus, the existence of an RO-RQ tension must also be affirmed. Leibniz already saw this in Monadology §8, where he insists that his monads are each one, but that each must also have a plurality of traits.16

      By aesthetics, OOO means the general theory of how objects differ from their own qualities. Given that there are two kinds of objects and two of qualities, there are four separate classes of aesthetic phenomena: RO-RQ, RO-SQ, SO-SQ, and SO-RQ. Generally speaking, RO-RQ is the tension at stake in causation of every type; the old philosophical topic of cause and effect is thus brought for the first time under the banner of aesthetics, where it rightfully belongs.17 RO-SQ is a less surprising aesthetic tension, the one that deals with our perception of objects under constantly changing appearances and conditions, of the sort that Husserl meant whenever he talked about adumbrations; we will soon see that this tension was noticed by Kant in the Critique of Judgment as well, under the name of “charm.” SO-RQ, which again owes so much to Husserl, concerns the tension between the objects that appear to us and the real qualities that make them what they are; it is here that we find “theory” in the sense of cognitive understanding. It is only with the RO-SQ tension that we find beauty, which I do not hesitate to insist is the domain of art, even if most artists today want nothing to do with beauty, but would rather sidestep that question in favor of some socio-political topic or other, given that emancipatory politics is the great intellectual piety of our era. On this score, the situation described by Dave Hickey in The Invisible Dragon has not significantly changed, despite his misleading mention of politics: “If you broached the issue of beauty in the American art world of 1988, you could not incite a conversation about rhetoric – or efficacy – or pleasure – or politics – or even Bellini. You would instead ignite a question about the marketplace.”18 For OOO, the meaning of beauty is not some vague appeal to an illdefined aestheticism, but is explicitly defined as the disappearance of a real object behind its sensual qualities. For reasons soon to be explained, this always has a theatrical effect, and beauty is therefore inseparable from theatricality – despite Fried’s understandable insistence to the contrary.

      A candle is like a teacher

      Who first provides the spark

      That kindles love of learning

      In children’s minds and hearts.21

      If it helps the reader to take it more seriously, we can pretend that this is simply the first stanza of a morbid poem by the Austrian expressionist Georg Trakl, one that soon takes a darker turn toward cocaine, incest, and extinction. Let’s also simplify the exercise by limiting ourselves to the first line: “a candle is like a teacher.” Next, we should contrast this statement with the dictionary definition of a candle. When I enter “definition of candle” into Google, here is what comes up first: “a cylinder or block of wax or tallow with a central wick that is lit to produce light as it burns.” For good measure, let’s also use Google to look up the definition of “teacher.” This is the first result: “a person who teaches, especially in a school.” If we combine the two definitions to replace the original metaphor, the result is perfectly ridiculous. Namely:

      A candle is like a teacher.

       becomes

      A cylinder or block of wax or tallow with a central wick that is lit to produce light as it burns is like a person who teaches, especially in a school.

      A literal statement treats objects, explicitly or not, as interchangeable with a list of the qualities it possesses.22 Imagine speaking with someone who had somehow managed to go through life without ever hearing the word “candle,” despite a relatively large overall English vocabulary. In such a case, we could repeat the dictionary definition and instruct this person that a candle is a cylinder or block of wax or tallow with a central wick that is lit to produce light as it burns. This definition gives knowledge about what a candle is. It does this by deflecting our attention away from the candle itself in two opposite directions. First, it undermines the candle by telling us what it is made of: “a cylinder or block of wax or tallow with a central wick.” Next, it overmines the candle by telling us what it does: “[it] is lit to produce light СКАЧАТЬ