RE: [microsound] fetishization

[Ian Andrews <i.andrews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>> >The albums are readily available anywhere, so there's no need
>> >for any album fetishization
>>
>> hmmm...some quick notes as I am heading out the door to do errands:
>> I just spent the past couple of weeks writing an article for an arts
>> journal and re-reading Attali's "Noise: the politcal economy of music" (I
>> do this every couple of years and am constantly amazed by the fact that
>> this book was written in 1977)...there have been some interesting points
>> brought up on this thread but I would not agree that there is no need for
>> fetishization as this is what drives demand in the mainstream record
>> industry...
>
>I'll have to read Attali.  It sounds like the idea is straight out of Walter
>Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".  Apply
>to any art form at will :)

yes I'd say you are right. Here's something I wrote on the matter as part
of my thesis a few years ago. Cut into 2 parts.

on Attali also see http://sysx.org/microsound/iana/music.html

Sorry about the missing footnotes and references.  I'll put the whole
thing, properly formatted on the sysx site soon.


  The General Economy of Fetishism: the use-value of a Van Gogh

"The work of art is a gift."  This is the premise of Lewis Hyde who, in
_The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property_, opposes the
creative activity of the artist to the market economy of commercial
activity.  "...Every modern artist who has chosen to labour with a gift
must sooner or later wonder how he or she is to survive in a society
dominated by market exchange,'    Hyde's position is not only idealist but
also thoroughly Kantian.  Kant conceptualizes artistic ability in terms of
the gift - the gift of nature (_Naturgabe_), meaning the gift of God.  But
also, according to Kant, the artist (poet) "gives more... than he
promises."  The artist receives the gift of "genius" which must according
to the correct ethical values be passed on to humanity.  Moreover, the
production of the fine arts is, for Kant, governed by Man's freedom, and
thus cannot be reduced to craft which is exchanged.  Kant thus places the
liberal arts above the "mercenary arts" (_Lohnkunst_), the art of the
marketplace.   As Derrida argues, Kant's hierarchization of the fine arts
places art in a transcendental relation to political economy.  The
generosity and overabundant expenditure of the artist's gift "supersedes
the (circular) economy, governs and places itself above (restricted)
political economy."
  The work of art seems to be immobilized between two limits: art as
unproductive expenditure, and art as commodity.  The simple opposition
between art and the market, like (as) the opposition between gift and
exchange needs to be submitted to further questioning.  This line of
interrogation must also encounter the concept of aesthetic pleasure and its
relation to a certain eroticism of the object (a concept alluded to in the
title of Hyde's book but sadly never developed).
  The Kantian judgement of taste, concerning that which constitutes the
beautiful, is defined as that which pleases without interest.  Nietzsche
asks, how is this disinterested satisfaction to be achieved, without an
"interest" which is clearly based on sensual or even sexual excitation?
How can one conceive of a theory of pleasure without pleasure, a theory
which suspends desire and bridles excitement, a theory which simultaneously
sublimates, conserves, heals and calms.  Against Kant's formulation, which
he sees explicitly manifested in the case of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche
proposes that the origin of that "particular sweetness," which is the
peculiarity of the aesthetic condition, may well lie in the "ingredient of
sensuality."
  Although his critique of Kantian disinterestedness may assist in
rethinking the use-value of the work of art, Nietzsche's view of art, like
Kant's, is still subjectivist.  Nietzsche considers art from the standpoint
of the artist, privileging the expenditure of artistic energy emanating
from the will of the artist.  This perspective, like the Kantian "natural
gift," tends to leave the gift/exchange art/craft oppositions intact, and
relegates artistic expenditure to a transcendental sphere beyond economic
activity.  The possibility of displacing this opposition therefore demands
a different perspective: one which endeavours to think the value of art,
not from the privileged locus of the artistic producer (genius), but from
the work of art itself; or more precisely in terms of the consuming
subject's relation to the  art object.  This perspective, taken up by
certain theorists of the Frankfurt School (Walter Benjamin and Theodor
Adorno), is also, though in a slightly different way, Heidegger's
perspective.
  With the gradual secularization of art, the unique value of the cult
object of religious or magical ritual is transformed into a value of
authenticity.  The uniqueness of the object is superseded by the uniqueness
of its creator.  But according to Benjamin, this is not completely so.
There is always a trace of fetishism: "the concept of authenticity always
transcends mere genuineness. (This is particularly apparent in the
collector who always retains some traces of the fetishist and who by owning
the work of art, shares in its ritual power.)"
  Above all the greatest prohibition of art spectatorship is the interdict
which prevents the viewer from touching the art-work. As Theodor Adorno
suggests: "...the most important taboo in art is the one that prohibits an
animal-like attitude toward the object, say a desire to devour it or
subjugate it to one's body."   Noting this prohibition, Bataille throws
down the gage: "I challenge any art lover to love a canvas as much as a
fetishist loves a shoe."   On the one hand, there is the detached pleasure
of Kantian Aesthetics; on the other hand, a residual fetishism which
Benjamin articulates as a characteristic of ownership, and which Bataille,
following Nietzsche, extrapolates into a "perverse" eroticism.
  How does the concept of art communicate with the question of fetishism?
As Derrida suggests, this question of fetishism needs to be extended beyond
the psycho-analytic concept of sexual fetishism, and also beyond the
Marxian notion of commodity fetishism, and finally, in a more general
sense, beyond the classical opposition between fetish and truth (the fetish
and the thing itself).   The mysterious power of the work of art in modern
culture can perhaps be attributed to the unique space that its discourse
occupies at the juncture of these economic, aesthetic/religious, and sexual
paradigms.

Use-value/ Truth-value
  Heidegger, in "the Origin of the Work of Art" (_Der Ursprung des
Kunstwerkes_) , argues that the essence of art lies in the movement which
launches truth as becoming, the setting to work of truth of beings. This
process of becoming proceeds by way of the Greek notion of
truth-as-unveiling (_aletheia_), or what Heidegger calls unconcealment.
Heidegger begins by reviewing three traditional ways of understanding "the
thing." 1. The thing as subject/substance, or _hypokeimenon_ (the core
around which certain properties or characteristics have assembled).  2. The
thing as _aistheton_ (a unity perceptible as a collection of sense
impressions).  3. The thing as _hyle/morphe_ (formed matter).  But all of
these interpretations fail in their adequacy toward an essential
understanding of the thing.
  The inadequacy of this situation is revealed, according to Heidegger, as
soon as we refer to things in their pure and simple form, as "mere" or
"naked" things.  That is, as things stripped of their usefulness and of
their being made.  "The mere thing (_blosse Ding_) is a sort of equipment
(_zeug_), albeit equipment denuded (entkeidete) of its equipmental being.
Thing-being consists in what is then left over." (PLT, 30) What then is
this remainder, this remnant which Heidegger refuses to attribute any
ontological status, which is not properly determined in itself?  The
approach of simply subtracting the equipmental being (as characterized by
the usefulness of the thing) from the thing itself is questioned by
Heidegger, who doubts whether this process would reveal the thingly
character of the thing at all.
  In order to determine the nature of equipment outside of the matter-form
opposition, that is, in order to achieve a non-metaphysical description of
equipment, Heidegger chooses as an illustration a painting by Van Gogh, in
which is represented some (peasant?) shoes.
  Derrida, in _The Truth in Painting_, devotes the final section,
"Restitutions of the truth in pointing [_pointure_]," a "polylogue" (for n
+ 1 - female - voices), to a close reading of the "Origin of the Work of
Art," and the critique by Meyer Schapiro, "The Still Life as a Personal
Object," which draws attention to a misapprehension on the part of
Heidegger as regards to the ownership of the shoes in Van Gogh's painting
(Schapiro insists that the shoes are none other than Van Gogh's own "town"
shoes).
  The painting, which remains unnamed by Heidegger, could be one of several
painted by Van Gogh, but what is more of an issue to Heidegger is the
character of usefulness as portrayed by the shoes in the painting.  Surely,
asks Heidegger, the usefulness of equipment can only be encountered in its
use, in walking in and working in the shoes?  Thus he concludes (but only
provisionally) that the unused, out-of-service shoes in Van Gogh's painting
are useless for establishing the true character of equipment.  "From Van
Gogh's painting we cannot even tell where these shoes stand.  There is
nothing surrounding this pair of peasants shoes in or to which they might
belong - only an undefined space.  There are not even clods of soil from
the field or the field path sticking to them, which would hint at their
use. A pair of peasant shoes and nothing more.  And Yet-" (PLT, 33)  The
picture is thus useless for the purpose showing the essential value of
usefulness.  Derrida notes this double uselessness of the illustration to
Heidegger.  Firstly, the uselessness of the shoes, out-of-service, unworn
and unlaced.  Secondly, the uselessness of the painting, or any painting to
convey the essence of usefulness, which can only be apprehended in use.
Heidegger, for the moment (up to the "and yet"), pretends, for the sake of
argument, to have condemned the value of the shoes and the painting to
uselessness.
  The "and yet," this "jump cut" of Heidegger's, marks the moment of
return, of speculation, the moment of withdrawal of the risk of loss of
meaning and uselessness.  This is the point at which Heidegger begins to
exploit the value of uselessness, to make it pay.  After the "and yet"
Heidegger changes direction, lets the shoes be, lets the painting speak for
itself.  "This painting spoke. In the vicinity of the work we were suddenly
somewhere else than we usually tend to be." (PLT, 35)  Heidegger here moves
away from Kantian aesthetics and toward an ontological view of art, which
sees art as revelation of truth.  Thus for Heidegger, it is only through
the work and in the work that the equipmental being of equipment can be
apprehended.  "The art work let us know what shoes are in truth.  It would
be the worst self deception to think that our description, as a subjective
action, had first depicted everything thus and then projected it into the
painting" (PLT, 35-36)  The traditional concept of art as representation
along with the aesthetic notion of "entering into" a painting is put into
question by Heidegger.   However, Heiddegger's position on art does not
differ greatly from Hegel's, which sees art's role as facilitating the
passage of consciousness from the sensual and physical,  to the spiritual
and intelligible.  In Hegel's _Aesthetics_, art functions both as an
indicator of, and as a means to the spiritual progress of humanity.    What
unites Heidegger and Hegel is the view of art as performing an unveiling of
truth.  Following this theory, Hegel is able to read the entire history of
consciousness in the history of art (this is in fact the project of the
_Aesthetics_), to give a chronological and ontological order to the
discourse of aesthetics, beginning with architecture and ending (at the top
of the hierarchy) with poetry.  The difference between Hegel's and
Heidegger's aestheticism is that the latter attempts to find truth in art,
while the former places the highest value on the discourse of philosophy
(logic) which, for Hegel supersedes aesthetics.
  Heidegger not only sees art as the revealer of truth, but also as the
creator of truth.  In this sense his theory of art comes close to Maurice
Blanchot's idea that art creates the sacred by veiling it (in what must be
a process of fetishism), the work of art names the sacred as the
unnameable.  The work of art, according to Heidegger, "speaks" from a
perspective of non-subjective being, prior to the opposition between
subject and object.  Likewise, Blanchot places art in a position where it
"encounters Being before an encounter with Being is possible."
Blanchot's argument, however, differs significantly from Heiddegger, taking
a position similar to Derrida: that which art provides when it veils is not
truth, but non-truth.

Ian Andrews
Metro Screen
Sydney


Email: i.andrews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.metroscreen.com.au

Metro Screen
Sydney Film Centre
Paddington Town Hall
P.O. Box 299
Paddington NSW 2021
Ph : 612 9361 5318
Fax: 612 9361 5320