By Nikolas van der Koelen
What constitutes a work of art? Aristotle’s aperçufrom his Metaphysics XII, nóēsis noéseōs nóēsis, or “awareness [is] awareness of awareness,” allows for a surprisingly modern and profound, even refreshing view of the problem, in spite of it being the central insight in one of the most-discussed works of European philosophy. This comes in no small part due to a recent translation from its original Greek by Erwin Sonderegger, which attempts to free Aristotle from underneath the crushing weight of what appears to be dogmatic interpretation. His work (Note 1), provocatively subtitled A Speculative Sketch devoid of God, sets a foundation which asks for a complete re-think of the Metaphysics of Substance. In this, Sonderegger’s Aristotle turns out to be an unlikely companion of Edmund Husserl’s; although both of them are understandably reluctant to name the conclusion in its stark consequence. It will not be our task here to line out the philosophical debate in intricate detail. Rather, I would like to invite readers to pick up from this deceptively simple thought, and walk into a gallery together.
It doesn’t matter if it is a white cube, or some flea market where the so-inclined may or may not stumble on a forgotten work from an old master. The question we are going to pose is, how does one recognize a worthy object upon encounter? Beyond all practical considerations, this is a problem of epistemology; it relates to the question of how ‘things’ are constituted in the first place. The classic philosophical experiment, already conducted by the Greeks, calls for doubters of any sort of external reality to keep kicking a rock repeatedly until convinced. Technically, it doesn’t need to be a rock, and things become ever more curious once we follow physics into the sub-atomic realm, where quantum mechanics applies. However, the essential fact remains: upon observation, ‘things’ show up and are present, even if it’s not immediately apparent what, exactly, they are in themselves (an sich). Edmund Husserl calls these things originarily self-given (originär selbstgegeben).
The guarantor of the presence of things is the conscious Self. When a tree crashes in the woods, and no one is around to witness the noise emanating from the fall, it does not make sense to ask if there is any noise at all. We may set up a recording device, but still we will only know about the sound once the device is recovered and the data played back. Ultimately, awareness of the fact is a conscious act relating to awareness itself: Yes, I can hear that crashing sound. –
This has a number of consequences for the encounter with a work of art.
For one, the emotions an observer is experiencing in the act are not originarily self-given in the object itself, but are rooted in the disposition of the observer, from where they come to illuminate the object—as if with coloured light, as Alfred Hitchcock said about his ability to convey feelings in his movies, likening the process to playing a colour organ. Incidentally, this is the same metaphor used by Husserl for the issue. It also fits well with Freudian parlance about drive occupation (Triebbesetzung).
Another aspect is about the placement of an artwork within an established discourse. Modern art likes to play on references, and at times one has to know about them to be able to make any sense of the work at all. While the original presence of an object appeals to the senses, its referential aspect does not also rely on it. Hence, the original presence is coupled to a symbolic meaning, decoding of which necessitates the recognition of the referring symbol as a symbol, as well as on knowledge about the discourse to which it refers. In extreme cases, the symbolic reference completely overtakes the aesthetic quality of the work. Indeed, the aesthetic quality of the original presence can become more or less ephemeral.
This is a hint at the eminently dialogical nature of aesthetic experience in the sense of the fine arts. The referential discourse is taking place within the stream of consciousness experienced (and directed) by an observer. Since all observers, being subjects, are alone and ultimately referring to themselves, every deliberation of aesthetic questions is structurally akin to a dialogue. It follows that experience of art is a sui generis social undertaking—in a solipsistic world, neither the concepts of art nor of the subject could be meaningfully conceived.
Stepping away from the notion of original physical presence, we can now see how Joseph Beuys’ idea of the Social Sculpture works. The idea seamlessly carries on to performance art, including flash mobs, where even the contextualizing framework of the art is ephemeral to at least some potential observers.
On the other hand, the context of art presentation appears to be not merely an addition to the originally present object, but is always tied to its experience, even if not always explicitly stated as such.
Encountering an object, reading an object, and gathering around an object are inextricably linked to each other, by virtue of the fundamental quality of noetic awareness.
Edmund Husserl terms the faculty which constitutes ‘things’ synthetische Apperzeption, with a nod to Immanuel Kant’s concept of synthesis. Unless we are able to artificially build machines capable of actual experience, as provided through synthetic apperception, we must remain conscious that awareness is the original ‘first’ in the old Greek question about the nature of the logos. In today’s terms, one may imagine the logos as the source code of Dasein (being-in-the-world) in which creation/the universe is programmed, but which turns out to be neither fully intelligible nor adequately utterable. As a matter of fact, formal logic and mathematics, exemplified in Goedel’s Theorem, as well as the quantum findings preclude such a machine from ever becoming real; lest it would be no more a machine.
Note
- Erwin Sonderegger, Aristoteles’ Metaphysik Λ. Ein spekulativer Entwurf. Einführung, Übersetzung, Kommentar. Bern, 2008. English translation availabe at philpapers.org/rec/SONAM-3.
