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reenkai am seriously being spoiled for other professors by the one for my lit class. the journal assignment is to write porn (yes. porn, baby porn) that doesn't use any references to vision or hearing. i am... beyond words. the coolness. the utter coolness knocks me flat. plus, he referred to himself as an old queen. ahahah. <3<3<3<3<3~!! poooooooorn, rang my battle-cry. poooooorn!!
and yes, sometimes i feel bad about porn-reading/writing. sometimes i feel it's useless and stupid to just write things that ... shallow. but. no. porn is beyond shallow. porn is... pornfully delicious! i can SO, so write slash i can't even BELIEVE IT. i can write SLASH for SCHOOL. (not that i'd -asked- but i'm pretty damn sure). the coolness is killing. me.
the only thing this equals is when i was drawing/reading comics for full credit. *happy sigh* anyway.
i feel like rambling about things we'd talked about in class, just like last week. i think i'm a natural essayist, so it's kind of weird that school really wears on me (i -hate- homework and i -hate- assignments and i -hate- responsibility). and it's not that i'm saying i like -porn-. but just-- doing what comes naturally. thinking, writing, discussing the things that -matter- (yes, porn). that's what it's all about, baybee.
when i'm a 50+ wacked-out old professor (you know it), i hope to be outrageous and vital like that. "and now, we talk about the porn."
not to give you the idea that this is what we talked about. no, he just mentioned it as an assignment.
there are basically two points from that that seemed especially relevant. the role of the aesthetic in being a means of delight-- all aesthetic, the tragic and the comic. which is interesting because the tragic (or the angstfic, to use common phraseology) deals in basically emotional torture. we read about ugly, terrible, painful things, and we are devastated, blown away. how is this delight? -is- this delight?
and of course, this is sort of a lead-in for talking about how the point of art, really, is to arouse emotion, strong emotion. enough so that it changes you, enough so that you can learn from it. the reader should most of all feel something. the poem/story is a mimesis, an imitation of life, and a expansion of it, a deepening, so you're trying to evoke the sort of responses one might get in "real life", but not quite, because you're guiding them towards some end, some effect. this is what plato refers to as "tragic pleasure"-- the experience of pity and fear that is transformed into something that uplifts and purifies and transforms the spirit.
usually, reviews to fics sort of refer to pleasure and delight, if only to say, "i loved this, this was wonderful", even if the piece was horribly disturbing and dark and painful in its actual content. and it's funny because i think i may have a reputation for being more in-depth, more "analytical" in my reviews and this supposedly makes me better reviewer-- because i notice details, because i can break things down into their component parts, because i notice plot and inconsistencies and characterization issues and so on. and in general, writers are pretty pleased if i say something about their fic, something that i noticed. i mean, i can just say i adored it, but that would just get me a thanks. what they -really- want is kind of what i thought it was, what i understood from it on a verbal level.
and talking about literature in general, you -refer- to the idea that the highest end of literature & art is this thing called emotional catharsis, but the discussion itself is moving away from that, isn't it. it's merely dancing around the true significance of the piece, merely playing with -meaning-, with the understanding of said meaning. now, meaning comes pretty easily to me. that is-- i can tell you what a lot of things mean, especially and perhaps, mostly, if they're in verbal form. i dunno, it's nothing i work at all that much. i just understand the meanings behind words, as a function of reading them. if i loved them, if they emotionally touched me, i understand them even better. but basically, what it is is just me, spitting back what the artist said, in less poetic and elegant terms.
the truest responses i have are tears, laughter, heartache, and art. if a piece truly touches me, i want to create something myself, in response. the language of metaphor and literary mimesis and painting is really all i can use to even come close to encompassing the srength and breadth of my response to beauty. that's why i make an effort to really say something meaningful, because if i love a piece of art, especially if it's tragic, it really kills me. it destroys me and remakes me. i am just-- blown away. telling the writer/artist i "loved it" would be the understatement of the century, and it would feel false and stale compared to the work i'm responding to. it is like seeing a sunset-- it is like realizing someone loves you back. it is like nothing else-- it's the ultimate experience of the purely human, as far as i'm concerned.
i was trying to justify to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ishuca recently why i gush and adore writers so much, almost and sometimes -to- the point of virtually deifying them. there are serious, serious flaws in the writing of every single person i've ever praised. serious flaws, which i rationally notice and can detail. and yet i -know- that were i to meet one of the writers i'd gushed over, it'd basically be death by squeeing and maybe me asphyxiating them by squeezing them so tightly ^^; i -adore- things with all my heart.
well, basically this is the point, for me, of art itself. is love. art is love. how good or bad it is, its very relationship to the concepts of ranking-- ie, is it better/worse/as good as some other piece of art-- is irrelevant to the central experience. art does exist in relation to other pieces of art, yes-- artists definitely respond and mimic other artists, knowingly or unknowingly, building upon concepts and images and ideas and so on. but the central moment of when the interaction happens-- when you are alone with the work and it is speaking to you-- is beyond such things. beyond ranking and comparing and dissecting. if i were to call it art, it is then changing you, transforming you, communicating to you. art/literature fails only when it fails to touch you, and it doesn't matter what the -result- of that touching is. in that singular timeless stretching moment when you are at one with beauty, you just feel and are transformed.
and by the way, this is why i'm vaguely offended when someone's review of my art (visual or verbal) goes something like, "this was good work", or "this was nice", or "you did a great/good job". i just feel like a complete failure, because there they are, judging my "product", and it's all bloody worthless if it didn't -touch- them, and that's all that matters. i want to be "good" and "great" and "genius", anyone who knows me knows that (and in fact i think i'm pretty good already, since people have been saying it since i was little, enough so that i take it for granted and am indeed shocked and hurt if someone thinks i'm not). it's just, ranking me isn't the point of art. it's not about how you classify it, or me. it's about you. you. you, who read/saw/understood it. you and your emotions and what it said -to- you, often -about- you. i'd rather you said you -hated- it (passionately) rather than you thought it was "nice work", which seriously makes me want to hurt things because obviously that means i SUCK (i could say "it" sucks, but art is my -life-, so basically, yeah i take it personally and yet-- see-- i can take criticism-- as long as it was your reaction).
~~
and about at the end (still of our discussion of plato's `poetics'), there was mention of the intersection between art and ethics. you could see where this was coming from. ethics are basically all about the classification and ranking of things-- good and bad, proper and improper, vulgar and high-minded. and for the longest time, of course, people have persisted in applying ethics to art. because indeed, art can be offensive. the professor said that the offensiveness of art may be because it touches the edges of our ethics.
i found this fascinating, because in the fanfiction community in particular (a microcosm of society, of course), there has been so many "scandals", so many of them based on ethics and someone finding some piece of art so offensive they refused to call it art. and you know what everyone said? most people (fighting this "oppression") said, "but the constitution says..."
the law. the law gives us free speech and therefore we can have art that offends some people. the law is why art is "free".
the law??!
you're using ETHICS to combat a problem that arises in terms of ethics?
it just struck me as somewhat silly & sad & hilarious. because my response would be to strike at the very heart of this concept. i refuse to believe that something so limited as ethics could (forget should) be applied to something as personal, as universal, as raw and vital and beyond the boundaries set by lawful society as art.
art is something that has to do with the human spirit. in that way, it is as ridiculous to meaningfully regulate it (not that it stops anyone from trying, but no matter) as it would be to regulate love. you just love. you just feel. life is offensive, love is offensive, the universe is bloody offensive, but that's the point. we are feeling things and that's what art is about. we are responding to it, and it's not about making us respond in some proper way that conforms to some societal ideal or norm. it's about breaking and remaking us and how the hell do you bring ethics into that discourse??
what does the first amendment have to do with pain and fear and passion, one way or the other, in atemporal terms? because while the effects and actions that comprise art are fully temporal, our responses aren't. they change us both forward into future and backwards into past.
but. and this is an important distinction. even though art changes us, it doesn't make us into anything we aren't already. it can be a catharsis, a catalyst, a means, but it's not a cause. there is a separation, an obvious one, between what we experience and what we -do-, how we behave (which is the realm of ethics).
it has always surprised me that the same book/movie/painting, which i considered breathtaking, which i couldn't walk away from without feeling like i was no longer who i was before i'd seen it, means little to someone else. something that means the -world- to me, is merely "pleasant" or "well-written" or "a damn good job" to someone else. it makes me want to scream with frustration, but there it is.
most people agree that shakespeare is brilliant. very brilliant. a large number of people acknowledge this, nod their heads, and go on, not feeling the need to proclaim it from every street corner by any means. some people (i imagine), -hate- shakespeare and think he -sucks-. some, just don't get him at all and think he's boring and confusing.
it's that first group that boggles me, sometimes. i'm one of those people who -can't- think of say, `hamlet' as a "good job". i can't. it's like an insult. it's fucking orgasmic. his words are beyond brilliant, beyond perfection. they are like-- It. i almost worship some of those passages. they are beyond good. i'm in (raging, passionate, full-fledged) love with them. they're genius is the only way to describe it. how can you look at genius, at beauty (beauty, to me, is genius, and genius, beauty)-- and say, "oh, yeah, that's good".
and yet, people can, and people do. so this whole application of ranking & ethical systems to something that is so endlessly personal is completely hilarious and ludicrous. all you can really say is what you feel, and what it means to you. at least that's what i, as an artist, would hope. and if that means i hope to offend you, then yes, i hope to offend you. i hope to startle and annoy and dazzle and frighten and entice and delight and transform you, to be more yourself than before. that would, indeed, be the end to which i hope to have the means.
so yeah.
and yes, sometimes i feel bad about porn-reading/writing. sometimes i feel it's useless and stupid to just write things that ... shallow. but. no. porn is beyond shallow. porn is... pornfully delicious! i can SO, so write slash i can't even BELIEVE IT. i can write SLASH for SCHOOL. (not that i'd -asked- but i'm pretty damn sure). the coolness is killing. me.
the only thing this equals is when i was drawing/reading comics for full credit. *happy sigh* anyway.
i feel like rambling about things we'd talked about in class, just like last week. i think i'm a natural essayist, so it's kind of weird that school really wears on me (i -hate- homework and i -hate- assignments and i -hate- responsibility). and it's not that i'm saying i like -porn-. but just-- doing what comes naturally. thinking, writing, discussing the things that -matter- (yes, porn). that's what it's all about, baybee.
when i'm a 50+ wacked-out old professor (you know it), i hope to be outrageous and vital like that. "and now, we talk about the porn."
not to give you the idea that this is what we talked about. no, he just mentioned it as an assignment.
there are basically two points from that that seemed especially relevant. the role of the aesthetic in being a means of delight-- all aesthetic, the tragic and the comic. which is interesting because the tragic (or the angstfic, to use common phraseology) deals in basically emotional torture. we read about ugly, terrible, painful things, and we are devastated, blown away. how is this delight? -is- this delight?
and of course, this is sort of a lead-in for talking about how the point of art, really, is to arouse emotion, strong emotion. enough so that it changes you, enough so that you can learn from it. the reader should most of all feel something. the poem/story is a mimesis, an imitation of life, and a expansion of it, a deepening, so you're trying to evoke the sort of responses one might get in "real life", but not quite, because you're guiding them towards some end, some effect. this is what plato refers to as "tragic pleasure"-- the experience of pity and fear that is transformed into something that uplifts and purifies and transforms the spirit.
usually, reviews to fics sort of refer to pleasure and delight, if only to say, "i loved this, this was wonderful", even if the piece was horribly disturbing and dark and painful in its actual content. and it's funny because i think i may have a reputation for being more in-depth, more "analytical" in my reviews and this supposedly makes me better reviewer-- because i notice details, because i can break things down into their component parts, because i notice plot and inconsistencies and characterization issues and so on. and in general, writers are pretty pleased if i say something about their fic, something that i noticed. i mean, i can just say i adored it, but that would just get me a thanks. what they -really- want is kind of what i thought it was, what i understood from it on a verbal level.
and talking about literature in general, you -refer- to the idea that the highest end of literature & art is this thing called emotional catharsis, but the discussion itself is moving away from that, isn't it. it's merely dancing around the true significance of the piece, merely playing with -meaning-, with the understanding of said meaning. now, meaning comes pretty easily to me. that is-- i can tell you what a lot of things mean, especially and perhaps, mostly, if they're in verbal form. i dunno, it's nothing i work at all that much. i just understand the meanings behind words, as a function of reading them. if i loved them, if they emotionally touched me, i understand them even better. but basically, what it is is just me, spitting back what the artist said, in less poetic and elegant terms.
the truest responses i have are tears, laughter, heartache, and art. if a piece truly touches me, i want to create something myself, in response. the language of metaphor and literary mimesis and painting is really all i can use to even come close to encompassing the srength and breadth of my response to beauty. that's why i make an effort to really say something meaningful, because if i love a piece of art, especially if it's tragic, it really kills me. it destroys me and remakes me. i am just-- blown away. telling the writer/artist i "loved it" would be the understatement of the century, and it would feel false and stale compared to the work i'm responding to. it is like seeing a sunset-- it is like realizing someone loves you back. it is like nothing else-- it's the ultimate experience of the purely human, as far as i'm concerned.
i was trying to justify to
ishuca recently why i gush and adore writers so much, almost and sometimes -to- the point of virtually deifying them. there are serious, serious flaws in the writing of every single person i've ever praised. serious flaws, which i rationally notice and can detail. and yet i -know- that were i to meet one of the writers i'd gushed over, it'd basically be death by squeeing and maybe me asphyxiating them by squeezing them so tightly ^^; i -adore- things with all my heart.well, basically this is the point, for me, of art itself. is love. art is love. how good or bad it is, its very relationship to the concepts of ranking-- ie, is it better/worse/as good as some other piece of art-- is irrelevant to the central experience. art does exist in relation to other pieces of art, yes-- artists definitely respond and mimic other artists, knowingly or unknowingly, building upon concepts and images and ideas and so on. but the central moment of when the interaction happens-- when you are alone with the work and it is speaking to you-- is beyond such things. beyond ranking and comparing and dissecting. if i were to call it art, it is then changing you, transforming you, communicating to you. art/literature fails only when it fails to touch you, and it doesn't matter what the -result- of that touching is. in that singular timeless stretching moment when you are at one with beauty, you just feel and are transformed.
and by the way, this is why i'm vaguely offended when someone's review of my art (visual or verbal) goes something like, "this was good work", or "this was nice", or "you did a great/good job". i just feel like a complete failure, because there they are, judging my "product", and it's all bloody worthless if it didn't -touch- them, and that's all that matters. i want to be "good" and "great" and "genius", anyone who knows me knows that (and in fact i think i'm pretty good already, since people have been saying it since i was little, enough so that i take it for granted and am indeed shocked and hurt if someone thinks i'm not). it's just, ranking me isn't the point of art. it's not about how you classify it, or me. it's about you. you. you, who read/saw/understood it. you and your emotions and what it said -to- you, often -about- you. i'd rather you said you -hated- it (passionately) rather than you thought it was "nice work", which seriously makes me want to hurt things because obviously that means i SUCK (i could say "it" sucks, but art is my -life-, so basically, yeah i take it personally and yet-- see-- i can take criticism-- as long as it was your reaction).
~~
and about at the end (still of our discussion of plato's `poetics'), there was mention of the intersection between art and ethics. you could see where this was coming from. ethics are basically all about the classification and ranking of things-- good and bad, proper and improper, vulgar and high-minded. and for the longest time, of course, people have persisted in applying ethics to art. because indeed, art can be offensive. the professor said that the offensiveness of art may be because it touches the edges of our ethics.
i found this fascinating, because in the fanfiction community in particular (a microcosm of society, of course), there has been so many "scandals", so many of them based on ethics and someone finding some piece of art so offensive they refused to call it art. and you know what everyone said? most people (fighting this "oppression") said, "but the constitution says..."
the law. the law gives us free speech and therefore we can have art that offends some people. the law is why art is "free".
the law??!
you're using ETHICS to combat a problem that arises in terms of ethics?
it just struck me as somewhat silly & sad & hilarious. because my response would be to strike at the very heart of this concept. i refuse to believe that something so limited as ethics could (forget should) be applied to something as personal, as universal, as raw and vital and beyond the boundaries set by lawful society as art.
art is something that has to do with the human spirit. in that way, it is as ridiculous to meaningfully regulate it (not that it stops anyone from trying, but no matter) as it would be to regulate love. you just love. you just feel. life is offensive, love is offensive, the universe is bloody offensive, but that's the point. we are feeling things and that's what art is about. we are responding to it, and it's not about making us respond in some proper way that conforms to some societal ideal or norm. it's about breaking and remaking us and how the hell do you bring ethics into that discourse??
what does the first amendment have to do with pain and fear and passion, one way or the other, in atemporal terms? because while the effects and actions that comprise art are fully temporal, our responses aren't. they change us both forward into future and backwards into past.
but. and this is an important distinction. even though art changes us, it doesn't make us into anything we aren't already. it can be a catharsis, a catalyst, a means, but it's not a cause. there is a separation, an obvious one, between what we experience and what we -do-, how we behave (which is the realm of ethics).
it has always surprised me that the same book/movie/painting, which i considered breathtaking, which i couldn't walk away from without feeling like i was no longer who i was before i'd seen it, means little to someone else. something that means the -world- to me, is merely "pleasant" or "well-written" or "a damn good job" to someone else. it makes me want to scream with frustration, but there it is.
most people agree that shakespeare is brilliant. very brilliant. a large number of people acknowledge this, nod their heads, and go on, not feeling the need to proclaim it from every street corner by any means. some people (i imagine), -hate- shakespeare and think he -sucks-. some, just don't get him at all and think he's boring and confusing.
it's that first group that boggles me, sometimes. i'm one of those people who -can't- think of say, `hamlet' as a "good job". i can't. it's like an insult. it's fucking orgasmic. his words are beyond brilliant, beyond perfection. they are like-- It. i almost worship some of those passages. they are beyond good. i'm in (raging, passionate, full-fledged) love with them. they're genius is the only way to describe it. how can you look at genius, at beauty (beauty, to me, is genius, and genius, beauty)-- and say, "oh, yeah, that's good".
and yet, people can, and people do. so this whole application of ranking & ethical systems to something that is so endlessly personal is completely hilarious and ludicrous. all you can really say is what you feel, and what it means to you. at least that's what i, as an artist, would hope. and if that means i hope to offend you, then yes, i hope to offend you. i hope to startle and annoy and dazzle and frighten and entice and delight and transform you, to be more yourself than before. that would, indeed, be the end to which i hope to have the means.
so yeah.
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Date: 2003-02-03 08:16 pm (UTC)when i'm a 50+ wacked-out old professor (you know it), i hope to be outrageous and vital like that. "and now, we we talk about the porn."
...when that happens, I am so there. Further education late in life keeps the brain happy, you know.
And it has nothing whatsoever to do with the porn, no, ma'am. *whistles*