all of these things help us realize what the fork is used for as well as what it is in the world or what it could represent. As professor moss expressed in class she doesnt like the spoon because it decieves us. There is the illustion that the spoon can be filled up that it has no holes or gaps, that the potential for lost substance does not exist with the spoon. The fork on the other hand has no illusion, it is honest with what it can and cannot do. When you use a fork you know that you can only scoop some things up and there is always the possibility of those things falling through the cracks between the tines.
To illuminate the fork means to see it in a new way or to add to what we know about that object or person. To illuminate something means to approach it with new knowledge. To illuminate something means to see it without expectation and if it is at all possibly to see it objectively with out its cultural conotations. How can we strip an object or more specifically a fork from its common use or cultural history?
THINK ABOUT LIGHT. HOW DOES IT CHANGE SPACE?
light makes space visible. it defines space, it creates barriers and includes and excludes certian areas that are either touched by light or not. Light changes space in that it creates deapth, it makes positive and negative space. Where light makes one thing bright it can make another thing dark. light can create conflict. Light can sometimes mean heat in a space. Light can sometimes imply darkness where it might not have been noticed in the complete absence of light in a space.
the idea of illumination seems like a good metephor for art and technology, perhaps are that involoves technology. to illuminate art means to possibly constantly be affected either negatively or positively by art. To illuminate something means to see it a new or to see it in a new light. For example to really see the plastic fork or to illuminate it we must put it in an environment, we must give it a context in which it can be seen. I think that this idea harkens back to the idea of art in general that we have been talking about for the past couple classes. Art is a way of thinking, it is an approach to the world, a way of realizing objects, events, environments and people, and the way that all of these things may or may not interact with one another. it is the way that we crystalize these things in our mind or realize them in a new way or some combination of the two, that they become art. So to illuminate something either physcially or with your mind is to somehow give it new context or possibly make it an art form or piece of an art form.
One nice use of the light metephor that i am reminded of is four stanzas of Seamus Heaney's poem electric light. They read
If I stood on teh bow-backed chair, I could reach
The light switch. They let me and they watched me.
A touch of the little pip would work the magic.
A turn of their wireless knob and light came on
In the dial. They let me and they watched me
As I roamed at will the stations of the world.
Then they were gone and Big Ben and the news
Were over. The set had been switched off,
All quiet behind the blackout except for
Knitting needles ticking, wind in the flue.
She sat with her fur-lined flet slippers unzipped,
Electric light shone over us, I feared.
I really enjoy the mulitple ways in which Heaney uses light here. There is the play of light physically and emotionally lighting a situation but we are also aware of the technology and the time period of the poem by the fact that the light is electric and can be switched on and off. i dont know it just seemed relevant.
]]> i just thought this was a pretty crazy video that involves light in an amazing wayso when we were talking about how technology affects our individual lives i thought about this video that i had seen of a man who has trained himself to draw a perfect circle in less than a second (the link that i have written at the top of this post is a video of the man drawing the circle). anyway i was thinking about what would drive someone to want to train their own physical body to do such a task and perhaps the desire comes from our over dependence on technology to do these sorts of task for us. maybe it is so impressive to see this because we cant imagine drawing a circle that perfect without a tool or computer. are our experiences so mediated by technology that in order to make sure we still know our own bodies and what we are capable of that we have to teach ourselves task that our ancestors most likely were forced to do before the rise of technology.
]]>the writing is called
Walter Benjamin (1936)
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
“Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”
Paul Valéry, Pièces sur L’Art, 1931
Le Conquete de l’ubiquite