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Hermeneutics and Art

Hermeneutics and Art

When approaching an artwork, we recognize its situatedness in a particular sociohistorical, cultural context.  In some sense, this helps us interpret its meaning. Perhaps in other ways, interpretation obscures or conceals meaning.  Either way, interpretation’s important.

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So, let’s talk about the art of interpreting art (I am impossibly clever), and refer to Freud, Adorno, and Nietzsche in the process.  Freud, because he’s occasionally insightful, but usually crazy. Adorno, because no matter how carefully I study him, he gets deeper, changes, and betrays me, and because he so effectively puts Freud in his (father’s) place. Nietzsche, because he belongs everywhere, he’s really never unnecessary.  Mostly because these gentlemen are useful lenses through which to investigate the process of interpretation, especially its application to art.

As the nineteenth century recuperated from the enormous impact of Kantian idealism, the predominant response emphasized a movement away from transcendental and abstract explanations of phenomena.  While many philosophers and scientists embraced empiricism, for thinkers like Freud and Nietzsche, the rejection of idealism culminated with a turn inward, to the very source of perception and understanding.  Ever skeptical of appearances, instead of interrogating observable, external reality, they sought to understand the relationship between that reality and the mind, with the assumption that the latter modulates experience of the former.  As the early twentieth century ushered in a reliance upon abstraction and symbols, which were thought to capture reality more faithfully than perception or experience alone, the Freudian “hermeneutics of suspicion” became ever more relevant. It is illuminating to explore how the discourse of suspicion regards human ability to symbolically convey or experience truth, particularly through the medium of art, and what alternatives are suggested within the thought of Adorno. 

The intellectual atmosphere of the early twentieth century was characterized by brilliant innovation, rapid progression, and substantial transformation.  Exciting new technologies, scientific and mathematical advances, and the developments in modern art all seemed to point in the direction of a new reality and a new understanding.  Space and time, seemingly such concrete notions, were shown by Einstein’s relativity theory to be nebulous and relative, and the realm of sense perceptions ceased to be a reliable arbiter of certainty.  As the invisible reality, laden with x-rays, electrons, and the secret truth of objects was gradually revealed, it became more and more apparent that the five senses and confined, positivistic schemas were impotent in the face of such an amorphous dynamic.  New instruments were needed to capture it and a new language was needed to communicate it.  Since nothing representational or experiential was capable of conveying reality, its expressions had to become entirely symbolic.  To access the nature of space and time scientifically, it was necessary to rely upon mathematics, of which the elegant and abstract symbols presented reality more faithfully than perception ever could.  However, mathematics was not reserved for science, since art, too, learned to approach nature “in terms of geometric forms, such as the sphere, the cone, the cylinder”.  Eventually, even geometry became too representational, too bound to form and object, and the first entirely nonfigurative painting was created in 1910.  The goal of nonfigurative art — representative of philosophy itself — was to rise above the distractions of mundane narrative to a more universal, more objective, vantage point.  Once abstract enough, the artwork breathes a purer air, visually revealing not, let’s say, a flying bird, but the very essence of its lightness.  If the artist’s intention is to visually evoke something approaching a universal truth, then a sophisticated and disciplined understanding of the artwork requires deciphering and translating visual content into meaning.  Reliance upon symbols, then, is itself a reliance upon hermeneutics since the task of accessing what the symbol points to, whether mathematical or aesthetic, is an interpretive one. 

Approaching art in this manner, by taking for granted that its goal is truth and its tools are symbols refined of personal narrative, is to conduct the hermeneutical enterprise by faith.  This type of interpretation aims at restoring meaning to the symbol, treating it like a deliberately crafted message, even if the message lies beneath the surface of the symbol.  The symbol, in this case, is a manifestation of the message.  A different interpretive approach, however, is characteristic of Freud and Nietzsche, who conducted a hermeneutics of suspicion, a “tearing off of masks, an interpretation that reduces disguises”. 

Nietzsche, perhaps the greatest un-masker of all, demonstrated that what seems most natural and self-evident is actually the result of a particular way of approaching and experiencing the world.  Intellectual formulation is, for Nietzsche, a quest not for truth but for values motivated by the will to power which is itself motivated by terror of nihilism.  This perspective mistrusts the symbol that is “there” but sees the underlying content which is “not there” and aims to unearth that which underlies and constitutes the symbol, to ultimately hold up the symbol as an illusion, as a manifestation of forces which it is not privy to.   Freudian psychoanalysis is the most disciplined example of the discourse of suspicion, and it regards most symbolic content as a manifestation of a concealed content.  Dreams, for Freud, are collections of symbols requiring interpretation to reveal how they are substitutive of the thought process and operate as wish-fulfillments, enabling the dreamer to continue sleeping by generating within him the illusion that his desires have been obtained.  Such wishes may be obvious or repressed; the latter require the transformative power of the dreamwork, which conceals the latent content behind the cleverly constructed manifest content, allowing them to slip into conscious awareness.  The result is often obscure, and analysis alone can interrupt the masquerade to reveal the latent content of a dream.  The artwork functions the same way as dreams do, and is to be interpreted the same way dreams are.  To apply the hermeneutics of suspicion to an artwork is to approach deciphering it with the prior understanding that the work is a visual representation, a projection, of the artist’s interior world.  However, it is not the internal vision that comes into question, but rather the recounting of it through an aesthetic medium.  As soon as the artwork comes into being and begins to communicate, it becomes an unintelligible disguise not for truth, but for the unconscious.  Intelligibility is achieved not through a grasping of a truth, but through a substitution of attempt at truth with concealed desire, or, in Nietzsche’s case, with the will to power.  

Clearly, this constitutes an enormous challenge to modern art’s attempt to move beyond the biases of personal narratives and internal states toward essential truth.  To thus undermine the symbol’s ability to point beyond itself to something more universal, to demonstrate that symbolic abstraction shines a light onto little more than its own constitutive foundations, is to revert the symbolic discourse into narrative, except of a trickier kind.  Of course, the Freudian approach is not satisfied to merely tear off masks.  Once the relationship between hidden desire and external manifestation is apparent, it becomes easier to apprehend understanding itself.  Perhaps paradoxically, undermining the pursuit of truth brings us closer to truth.  By revealing the hidden dimensions of the mind, psychoanalysis aims to overcome neuroses, and the Nietzschean mode of suspicion aims at “the increase of man’s power, the restoration of his force”.  However, what of the man who does not seek either power or freedom from neuroses but, in the simplest terms, pursues not self-improvement but access to truth? 

The discourse of suspicion has a “suspicious” similarity to the Kantian idealism Freud rejected – it, too, employs a totalizing gesture when it reduces symbols to subjective desire.  Psychoanalysis grounds art firmly into the social sphere, preventing it from evoking universal notions, and in its reductionism, belittles the communicative power of the artwork.  Such is the essence of Adorno’s critique of Freud’s conception of art: Freud’s over-emphasis on unconscious drives denies the artwork elements of autonomy necessary to transcend local contexts for the purpose of critically reflecting upon, or polemicizing against, those contexts.  “In the process of artistic production, unconscious drives are one impetus among many,” Adorno tells us, because the crafting of symbols is a dynamic process, not merely a result.  The symbol, then, is not only the reflection of the structure which constitutes it, is not only a disguise; it is also a meaningful engagement with objectivity, possessing revelatory power which can be extended beyond the latent desires of an individual subject.  If one wishes to preserve art’s autonomy, one must either afford the dream symbols a larger scope, or suppose that the artwork does not function as the dream does, is not purely psychic phenomena. 

Perhaps, as is so often the case, truth dwells somewhere in the middle.  Perhaps the hermeneutics of suspicion and of faith are not doomed to be antagonists, wherein one or the other method prevails, but may rather become the guardians of an inner tension that includes, and whose conclusions are superior to, either approach alone.  To restore meaning to the symbol with one hand, and to sweep aside its illusions with the other, is not a gesture of contradiction or of cancelling out, but an inclusive, dialectical movement of reconciliation and evolution.  The enigma of Mona Lisa’s smile need not be understood only in terms of Leonardo’s relationship with his mother, the legitimacy of which does not preclude its evocation of something more essential and universal, something that had nothing to do with Leonardo’s personal history and which the symbol is nevertheless able to glimpse. To continue with Adorno’s perspective, since an artwork can never be fully deciphered, since its language cannot undergo complete substitution by a different text, there is a limit to the hermeneutical project.  Deciphering must end where the aesthetic experience begins, delimiting for art an autonomous space where interpretation and substitution cannot follow.  However, hermeneutics can absorb this limit into itself and make the aspect of uncertainty a part of its processes.   

James Joyce and Aesthetics

James Joyce and Aesthetics

I don’t like James Joyce as much as I ought to.  It might be because he’s too earthly, too real, too human.  Every time his language lifts me into the sky, he’ll say something ordinary or mundane or cheap and I’m back on the ground, wondering why he bothered. But that’s just how humanity is, right?  Alternately ennobling and degrading itself.  

Anyway, the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man contains a very, very, very insightful conversation between Stephen Dedalus and his friend, Lynch.  They’re talking about art and beauty, and it’s cold, and they’re smoking, and I’ve often flipped the book to that chapter to follow them along foggy and curving paths, waiting for my turn to speak.

Let’s talk about art.

 

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To be fair, this isn’t Joyce’s philosophy of art, but his protagonist’s.  Stephen’s aesthetic theory is unraveled and developed while he and Lynch wander around campus, talking and smoking (without me).  The sources of the theory are anticipated earlier, when Stephen tells the dean: “For my purpose I can work on at present by the light of one or two ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas.” Stephen reveals that he intends to utilize the two philosophers as a launching pad for his own thought.  Later, with Lynch, Stephen begins by claiming that pity and terror haven’t been defined by Aristotle, for whom these emotions are integral components of tragedy.  Stephen defines pity as “the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer” and terror as “the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the secret cause.”  In other words, the observer is moved to pity when presented with suffering which relates him to the sufferer, and he experiences terror when he relates to the cause of suffering.  In both cases, the observer understands that he, too, is capable of suffering so.  Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that Stephen points out that tragic emotions must be invoked by “whatsoever is constant and grave in human sufferings” – they cannot, and will not, be summoned by chance accidents.  Pity and terror, then, are experienced only when the observer relates to timeless, essential human experiences which are manifested by the very nature of the human condition. 

For Stephen, pity and terror are the essence of “proper art” because they are what he terms “static” emotions: “You see I use the word arrest.  I mean that the tragic emotion is static.”  Static emotions are contrasted with what he terms “kinetic” emotions: “The feelings excited by the improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing.”  Desire and loathing inspire movement toward or movement away from an object; when we desire, we go toward, and when we loathe, we move away.  Such emotions are brought about by the “pornographical or didactic” arts which are improper because they encourage a physical, instinctual, self-aware, response.  Stephen is after the type of art in which the physical and petty self is transcended for the sake of the contemplative self.  Upon achieving stasis, the observer is lifted out of himself and remains suspended in a sort of trance: “The mind is arrested and raised above desire and loathing.”

This spell is eventually broken by the “rhythm of beauty… rhythm is the first formal esthetic relation of part to part in any esthetic whole or of an esthetic whole to its part or parts or of any part to the esthetic whole of which it is a part.” 

Lynch, however, is unsatisfied with this explanation, and demands to know just what beauty is.  Stephen returns once again to the notion that the aesthetic experience is static and cognitive, comparing the apprehension of beauty to the apprehension of truth: “…the true and the beautiful are akin.  Truth is beheld by the intellect which is appeased by the most satisfying relations of the intelligible: beauty is beheld by the imagination which is appeased by the most satisfying relations of the sensible.”  We realize that it is within these “satisfying relations” that beauty dwells.  Why is it, Stephen asks, that different cultures all propagate differing versions of female beauty?  Is there an overarching quality that all cultures notice and admire?  Of course, it is possible to go along the route of evolutionary psychology, which suggests that the survival of the species is hiding behind aesthetic understanding, but Stephen dislikes this route because “It leads to eugenics rather than to esthetic.”  The alternative, wherein Stephen begins to define beauty itself, consists of finding “certain relations which satisfy and coincide with the stages themselves of all esthetic apprehension.  These relations of the sensible, visible to you through one form and to me through another, must be therefore the necessary qualities of beauty.”  The apprehension of “relations of the sensible” is what the rhythm of beauty consists of.  Thus, Stephen has posited a profoundly cognitive, almost mathematical, approach to aesthetics insofar as beauty is to be found in particular formal relations of shape and structure, which are perceived by the mind.  There remains to describe how these formal relations correlate to the stages of aesthetic apprehension to achieve an understanding of “the qualities of universal beauty.”

Aquinas’ three prerequisites for beauty, as translated by Stephen, are wholeness, harmony, and radiance, and these prerequisites correspond to the three steps of aesthetic apprehension.  To demonstrate, Stephen asks Lynch to look at a basket.  Stephen tells him that in order to see the basket, one’s mind “first of all separates the basket from the rest of the visible universe which is not the basket… the esthetic image is first luminously apprehended as selfbounded and selfcontained upon the immeasurable background of space or time which is not it.”  In other words, in perceiving, the perceiver selects the aesthetic object, thereby differentiating it from the rest of the world as separate and complete in itself.  This stage of apprehension corresponds to Aquinas’ first requirement of wholeness.  Simple enough. Second, one’s mind perceives the aesthetic object “as balanced part against part within its limits; you feel the rhythm of its structure… You apprehend it as complex, multiple, divisible, separable… harmonious.” The perceiver analyses the separate parts of the aesthetic object and concludes that they are balanced, symmetrical, and congruent with one another.  This second stage of apprehension corresponds to Aquinas’ second requirement of harmony.  So far, the stages of apprehension are almost reminiscent of Hegelian dialectic, although they follow a completely different chronology.  Instead of moving from thesis to antithesis to synthesis, Stephen has the perceiver begin at a synthesis wherein the aesthetic object is apprehended completely, then move to an analysis of its constituent parts. 

The final stage of apprehension is not quite as straightforward.  Stephen dismisses the notion that, by “radiance,” Aquinas could have meant a Platonic idealism wherein the aesthetic object is beautiful because it is a shadowy imitation of the transcendent real: “Aquinas uses a term which… would lead you to believe that he had in mind symbolism or idealism, the supreme quality of beauty being a light from some other world, the idea of which the matter is but the shadow, the reality of which  it is but the symbol… But that is literary talk.”  For Stephen, the aesthetic experience is possible only here, on Earth, and the aesthetic object need not depend upon a transcendent realm to be legitimately beautiful.  Radiance is contained within the object, not beyond it, and is approached with the understanding that it “is that thing which it is and no other thing.  The radiance… is the scholastic quidditas, the whatness of a thing.”  Quidditas, or quiddity, is the very essence, or nature, of a thing.  Consequently, the essence of an aesthetic object is that which gives it its radiance.  The third and final stage of aesthetic apprehension is the static, still, moment of revelation when the essence of an aesthetic object is beheld.  Interestingly, we have arrived at yet another synthesis, but of a different kind.  Now, instead of merely seeing the complete form of the object – the “synthesis of immediate perception” – we see its very heart, but this sight must be reached only after perceiving its wholeness and the relations of its parts: “When you have apprehended that basket as one thing and have then analysed it according to its form and apprehended it as a thing you make the only synthesis which is logically and esthetically permissible.  You see that it is that thing which it is and no other thing.”  In this instant, one stands entranced within “the luminous silent stasis of esthetic pleasure, a spiritual state…”

Finally, Stephen describes beauty as it is understood “in the marketplace,” where the image of the aesthetic object is “set between the mind or senses of the artist himself and the mind or senses of others.” Here, Stephen makes the delineation between any perceiver of beauty, and the artist.  The artist, who presumably exists “in the marketplace” because he is a producer, must re-create the tripartite aesthetic experience for an audience.  This re-creation can take three possible forms: “the lyrical form, the form wherein the artist presents his image in immediate relation to himself; the epical form, the form wherein he presents his image in mediate relation to himself and to others; the dramatic form, the form wherein he presents his image in immediate relation to others.”  The lyrical form of art is simply an expression of individual, personal experience, or “the simplest verbal vesture of an instant of emotion.”  The epical form of art expands upon the lyrical; after critical reflection upon himself as the center of an event, the artist distances himself from the event such that its “emotional gravity is equidistant from the artist himself and from others” and the audience, too, may be emotionally affected by it.  The dramatic form of art is achieved when the vitality of the artist grants each fictional character a life of their own until “the personality of the artist… finally refines itself out of existence, impersonalizes itself… The mystery of esthetic like that of material creation is accomplished.” In other words, the artist assumes a godlike role, who ultimately becomes and remains detached from his creation.  

 

Derrida, Language, Context

Derrida, Language, Context

Someone much cleverer than I am once said that thinking about the entirety of the enigmatic, mysterious, elusive philosophy of Jacques Derrida is just about impossible.  It’s much better to think about it in pieces, to manage the details, and try to be satisfied if that leads to anything at all.

So, let’s talk about a little piece of Derrida.

d_jaques_derrida_15281830The first part of Derrida’s Signature Event Context outlines what he considers to be the essential aspects of any form of writing and, by eventual extension, of all communication. Firstly, a written sign can continue existing as itself with or without the subject who produces it. Secondly, writing possesses meaning even if it is removed from the context from which it originated. Thirdly, the written sign is constituted by its separation from other written signs, which then enables it to be removed from its original contextual structure. The second “rule” is, perhaps, the most debatable, and therefore, worth exploring. Since, for Derrida, writing is representative of communication in general, then any expression or statement ought to be removable from the context that produces it and insertable into an entirely different context without wholly losing its meaning. This results in the inevitable conclusion that any particular communication is not, as it has been traditionally thought, primarily the representation of the event which constituted it in the first place. In simpler terms, communication is not the movement of a meaning from one subject to another. However, this does not always seem to be the case. There seem to be occasions in which expressions cannot survive without their constituting context.

Derrida states: “By virtue of its essential iterability, a written syntagma can always be detached from the chain in which it is inserted or given without causing it to lose all possibility of functioning, if not all possibility of ‘communicating,’ precisely.” He qualifies by adding, “One can perhaps come to recognize other possibilities in it by inscribing it… onto other chains. No context can entirely enclose it.” Thus, a communicative expression, no matter how specific and seemingly context-dependent it is, ought to have some ability to function in other contexts. What is important to consider is to what extent such a removed expression can survive the stripping away of its context in order to function in other contexts. Is it just words that can function in other contexts, or the expression itself?

Let us consider expression A, which is constituted by context X. Let us then place expression A into context Y. If all the expression retains is some semblance of correct grammar, is that proof that the expression itself is indeed functioning as expression A, or does it merely point to the universality (and subsequent recognizability) of grammar itself? If the latter is the case, then all one can say is that grammar is an example of a structure by which we recognize the fact that an expression exists, and no more. This, however, seems to be such a small remainder of our original expression A, that it seems almost negligible. But it seems that if Derrida’s second rule means an iterability, or a survivability, of the expression, it implies that any particular expression can maintain some measure of its integrity beyond the borders that constituted it, which suggests that expression A can maintain some of its “A-ness” even in context Y.

Perhaps some examples are in order. Derrida briefly considers the ceremony of marriage as an example of a performative utterance. He maintains that it exists as such a performative primarily by virtue of the fact that, for example, the phrase “I now pronounce you husband and wife” is citable, or iterable. However, to what extent is this repeatable in other contexts, without referencing its original context? If one examines the “performative” aspect of the expression, then one might argue that in contexts other than marriage ceremonies, the expression does not perform the act of marrying anyone, and therefore, is no longer performative. But perhaps this is because the expression did not survive the displacement from its original context, and is therefore prevented from performing as itself.

One could say that the expression “I now pronounce you husband and wife” would still function in other contexts because words such as “pronounce” and “husband” possess recognizability even in the absence of marriage ceremonies. But let us imagine that a new marriage law is passed and “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” which is indeed a collection of recognizable signs that are capable of functioning separately, were to be changed to the phrase, “Blook.” Ministers or government officials who perform marriage ceremonies no longer say, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” but rather they begin to say, “Blook.” This becomes an expression that pertains only to the conclusions of marriage ceremonies. After this expression is used for a while, it is easy to imagine that it would be mentioned in casual conversation and not solely during marriage ceremonies. However, the only way that “Blook” would make sense in such a casual conversation is by an instantaneous and even unintentional reference to marriage. If one of the participants of the casual conversation were out of touch with the times or ignorant of the shifting of legal practices, one would be quick to ask what “blook” means. He would be told that it is an expression utilized to grant credence to marriage ceremonies. After the explanation, the previous conversation would then make sense to him. But the explanation necessarily involved a pointing towards the originating context of the expression. Without such a pointing, the expression would be recognizable only as a word, and nothing more.

Perhaps the imaginary legalization of “blooks” is entirely unnecessary. The expression “I now pronounce you husband and wife” itself references a specific constituting context, even if it is uttered in an entirely different context. If one wanders into a room full of strangers and declares, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” nobody in the room, of course, could understand precisely what the speaker meant. Nevertheless, the phrase would carry recognizability by virtue of the listeners’ automatic reference to marriage ceremonies. The declarer need not add, “That phrase regards marriage.” The expression carries the context of marriage as inextricable from the phrase itself. If, within the room of strangers, one had never heard of marriage, he would recognize the expression only as a collection of recognizable words. In such a case, as far as the ignorant listener is concerned, they could be absolutely any words in a grammatically correct chain, because the expression does not mean to him what it means to everyone else in the room. Without the context of marriage, he hears only a grammatically correct sentence. He could accidentally substitute “platypus” for “husband,” and it would make very little difference to the listener. Of course, one may well point out that a platypus is certainly not a husband. Certainly not. Nevertheless, without any reference to a context of marriage, none of the integrity of the expression remains. The expression of marriage does not survive without the constituting context. All that remains is an expression. Is this enough for an expression to be considered iterable?

It is likely that many would assert that the force of Derrida’s claim lies precisely, and only, in that. An expression always remains an expression. But if this is the case, the insight is obvious, at best. It is a little bit like saying that an object which possesses physical properties will always be an object, even if it is moved from room to room. Heidegger explores the scenario of himself and a Senegal Negro gazing at the same lectern. If Heidegger were to conclude that both he and the Senegal Negro, despite their vastly differing contexts, both see an object, there would be very little to say about the scenario. There is no denying that both viewers see a physical shape, which subsists regardless of context. Heidegger seems to suggest, however, that their differing contexts alter the meaning of the object so much, that the object itself changes. It is easy imagine someone interrupting with, “Aha! You misunderstand! You’ve just proven Derrida’s point, because you’ve shown how the lectern has different meanings in different contexts. Therefore, meaning is not derived from the expression, but from the context in which one encounters it.” If this is the case, it shows only that in each different context, the object is different. Or, to return to communication, in each different context, each expression is different. Then, it is not the same expression. In which case, nothing survived. No expression is re-iterated, nothing survives, other than a recognizable alphabet and the rules of grammar. All that remains is an expression which is still an expression, but this means that it can be any expression possessing alphabetical marks and the rules of grammar, and not the survivor of the original context.

But if Derrida’s claim lies only in the fact that an expression is still an expression, regardless of where it’s placed, there is nothing to think about and explore. One will say, “Sure,” turn out the lights, and go home. But Derrida goes further. He suggests that because of this ability of expressions to endure context-swapping, communication is then not primarily a transmitter of meaning. No matter the context, and therefore no matter the meaning, the expression remains the same, and can bear the weight of an infinite number of meanings in an infinite number of contexts. But in some cases, the expression does not seem to remain the same. It is still a collection of symbols, to be sure. But the fact that they are very specific symbols occasionally gives rise to the question of whether or not, in certain cases, the specificity of the expression perhaps relies so much (not completely, but so much) upon the originating context, that unless one performs great feats of mental acrobatics, the expression cannot function in other contexts in any meaningful way at all, and the likelihood of its doing so is so small, as to be negligible.
Other examples may prove useful. To borrow an excerpt from Lewis Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky , let us consider the expression “frumious Bandersnatch.” If one is wandering down a city street and accidentally overhears this expression from a window, several things may occur. If one is aware of the poem, the expression carries meaning, and one perhaps thinks, “Ah, what a lovely book.” One references the context in which the Bandersnatch originated, and makes sense of the expression. If one is not aware of the context in which the Bandersnatch originated, one cannot possibly begin to grasp any meaning in the expression. One might conclude that he overheard a different language, or simply nonsense.

Here, perhaps, Derrida might suggest that “frumious Bandersnatch” is an example of agrammaticality which nevertheless can be cited, or put between quotation marks. This action will then “engender an infinity of new contexts.” However, the very act of putting “frumious Bandersnatch” into quotation marks references a context which, although possibly unknown, then lends meaning to the expression. The quotation marks seem to say, “We are here because this expression is largely inaccessible within this particular context, but there is a context somewhere from which this expression originated, and within which it makes complete sense.” So the agrammatical expression, even if within the confines of quotation marks, is still tied to a meaning-engendering context, and it is by virtue of this tying that the expression makes sense. There is also the example of highly complex and remote expressions, such as those encountered in abstract mathematics. Mathematics is itself a strange and complicated language, featuring expressions such as “holonomic” and “quaquaversal.” Within the context of abstract mathematics, these expressions carry the weight of very specific meanings. And to those who are deeply engaged with abstract mathematics, or, in more relevant words, to those who operate within the context of abstract mathematics, such expressions are quite usual and useful. To return to a previous example, if one walked into a room of non-mathematicians and announced, “Quaquaversal tiling of Euclidian 3-space,” nobody in the room would understand the expression. However, if the announcer then added, “From the Abstract Mathematics Handbook,” the listeners would be provided with a context in which such an expression holds meaning. They would require no further explanation. They need not learn what the definition of “quaquaversal” is. A context is enough to provide the listeners with meaning and subsequent understanding. Only reference to a context would preclude the expression from becoming nonsense.

A very useful illustration of context-dependency lies within the domain of art. In a very popular television show, Gilmore Girls, the main character is assigned to write a newspaper article covering the grand opening of an art exhibit. In the midst of the exhibit, she gets thirsty and approaches a drinking fountain. Just as she is about to take a drink, a girl suddenly appears and cries, “Don’t touch my artwork!” The main character steps back, puzzled, and the “artist” laughs, telling her, “I’m kidding. It’s just a water fountain.” Although, in this particular case, the water fountain was only a water fountain, it is completely conceivable that a water fountain may be an installation in an art exhibit. Within the context of the art exhibit, it is not a water fountain but a work of art, not to be touched, only admired from a respectable distance. But let us imagine the exact same object in the hallway of a university. Suddenly, it is back to being merely a water fountain. Of course, the object is recognizable as a water fountain, but it is no longer recognizable as art. In order for it to function as an expression of art, it must be placed within the context of an art exhibit.

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp submitted Fountain, a signed urinal, to the Society of Independent Artists. It is hardly possible that, in the 1600s, such a submission could have been conceived as a work of art by anybody, no matter how revolutionary. The urinal, in order to engender the controversy it did, had to be constituted by the cultural Dadaist context of the early 1900s to exist as an expression of art. If it is removed from this context and placed, instead, into the 1600s, it loses the expression of controversial-potential-work-of-art and becomes, instead, a urinal. Without the context that transforms water fountains and urinals into expressions of art, they remain water fountains and urinals. Of course, they are still capable of being recognized as objects. But this is obvious. Is this, then, enough to constitute iterability, and the ability to survive outside their contexts? They function as objects, certainly, but the object that is a work of art, and the object that is a drinking fountain, are two such distinct objects that it seems they are not the same object at all. In other words, the work of art does not seem to survive the displacement of context and emerge as a new potentiality. It is not the same object that emerges. An expression of art is transformed into a mundane object. Surely, this does not constitute survival, or iterability?

In fact, one could even go on to suggest that all abstract art is constituted by the creation of expressions that have meaning only within a very specific original context. Beyond the context of abstract art, the works become either nonsense, decoration, or simply mundane objects. For certain works of art to function and be understood as works of art, the background of abstract art is required.

In some cases, if no reference to a constituting context is possible, it seems that the expression is recognizable only as an expression, surviving with none of what made it that expression, and not any other. To return to an earlier example, the expression A does not, in fact, retain any of its “A-ness” beyond its context X. Therefore, the expression A does not survive, and is not iterable. If all Derrida’s second “rule” implies is that such expressions survive with only their existence as an expression intact, the insight seems slightly obvious for some cases.

Overall, the above examples could mean several things. Perhaps one would say that the examples provided are not examples of communication. Or, perhaps, in certain cases, context, and therefore intentionality, is an irrevocable aspect of communication.

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