The Language of Recognition

March 26, 2003

Type: discussion

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The Language of Recognition 
 
The meaning of a word is its meaning, and the meaning of a word is its use 
- Luwig Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations 


 
 As a working premise, all of the arts are based on a language of recognition. This is obviously a simplistic notion but it is a useful starting point. The artist employs the technique of mimesis to spur recognition. Mimetics is of course a basic, natural impulse, indeed a starting point for the creative act. Classic examples come to mind; a series of notes played on a flute that sound like a birds song, a still life painting of fruit that appears so real flies alight on its surface, a dance gesture that evokes a common act such as a caress. These all function on both the artists sense of mimesis and the audiences sense of recognition. This begs the question; what is the emotion at the core of this dialectic, of mimesis and recognition? Stephan Mallarmé writes; 
… nest pas lexpression dune chose, mais labsence de cette chose … le mot fait disparaître les choses et nous impose le sentiment dun manque universal et même de son propre manque. 
In essence, 
its not the expression of a thing but, but the absence of that thing … the word (throws out)disappears objects and imposes on us the feeling of universal missingness , even of its (the objects) own missingness. <A HREF="#footnote1">1</A> 
Lewis Hyde writes; 
Both market exchange and abstract thought require this alienation of the symbol from the object.<A HREF="#footnote2">2</A> 
Returning to the Mallarmé quote; the French word manque is a very deep and particular expression in French culture. It means to miss as in, I missed you, I am missing (something) , I missed it. The emotion is something akin to longing but implies a previous connectedness to the thing missed. Art operates in the realm of this emotion. It evokes it through the act of recognition within the spectator. The spectator recognizes that which is missing. In the artist, the act of mimesis replaces or substitutes the art for the object missed. To whom does the artist address the work? … a gift eventually circles back towards its source.<A HREF="#footnote3">3</A> 
Paul Valéry asserts; 
que sommes-nous donc sans le secours de ce qui nexiste pas? (What are we therefor without the security (safety) of nonexistence?)<A HREF="#footnote4">4</A> 
 
 This is a very sly reference to an earlier dictum René Descartes, Je pense donc je suis. 
(I think therefor I am.) 
 
and extends the discourse as it points to the fracture that occurs with onset of awareness, the missingness if you will. This leads us to the Ur fracture of every cross-cultural cosmogenesis myth. These mythologies invariably begin with an all-embracing consciousness that feels lonely, feels the missingness and from that original fracture creates the universe. Valéry also recognizes that 
within the idea of security (individual and communal) there is an implication of that which is missed and also some other state. Returning to the idea of le secours I believe this passage to be relevant; 
(Marcel) Maus surmises in ancient Italy. In the very oldest Roman and Italic law, he contends, things had a personality and a virtue of their own. Things are not the inert objects which the laws of Justinian and ourselves imply. They are part of the family … In antiquity the Roman familia was not simply people but the entire household, including the objects in the home down to the food and the means of livelihood. <A HREF="#footnote5">5</A> 
That which is part of the family is recognized as such, when it(they) leaves the household it is missed. This necessitates a need to calm the anxiety, often satisfied through art or artifice. This anxiety is used most effectively in the commodity exchange cultures artistic instruments of marketing and advertising. Indeed it is so ingrained in the U.S. psyche that this particular angst has become the subject of a current (2003) U.S. television series titled, …Without A Trace, that taps into this primal anxiety. It is about FBI agents who look for missing persons. The word missing in the title is cleverly implied by its absence. 
To return to the central theme , The Language of Recognition, John Berger writes ; 
Images were first made to conjure up the appearances of something that was absent. Gradually it became evident that an image could outlast what it represented. <A HREF="#footnote6">6</A> 
Interesting notion, the image (or word or sign or signifier) outlasts what it signifies. Indeed, one may say that the image has an identity of its own and as such is subject to the same emotional fracture of missingness as in the Mallarmé quote. 
How does this relate to the idea of market exchange? Several major thinkers have elucidated Western commodity culture. Marx of course is the natural starting point but the specifics of art as commodity is not his major focus. One may start with perhaps Walter Benjamin in his unfinished piece, The Arcades project and perhaps continue with Fredric Jamesons and Jean Baudrillards shared notions of simulation. In order to make the final bridge between the world of objects, the world of signs and the world of simulation one may also include Guy Debords Situationistes and the writings of Marshall McLuhan . Marshall McCluhan envisioned the global information environment that exists today and is part of the support structure for the marketing of commodities. 
 
Let me begin with Benjamins Arcades project (the Passagen-Werk) which was never finished. Indeed it was never published but was rather a collection of notes, essays, letters to friends etc. , organized on a loose idea of contemplating the nature of 19th C. Parisian shopping arcades. 
 The arcades were the original temple of commodity capitalism … , these privately owned, publicly traversed passages displayed commodities in window showcases like icons in niches. The very profane pleasure houses found there tempted passerby with gastronomical perfections, intoxicating drinks, wealth without labor at the roulette wheel, gaiety in vaudeville theaters, and in the first floor galleries, transports of sexual pleasure … <A HREF="#footnote7">7</A> 
thus begins the commingling and confusion between the private sphere of the home and all its contents (familia) and the external other of the public realm. Within the arcade , the space is private, isolated from the street, it is secure, (le secours). The emotion created within the space is not a desire (désire) or a want (vouloir) for the objects or pleasures displayed but rather (manque) 
a feeling of lack or missingness. Indeed , commodity capitalism creates the artificial shopping space as an extension of ones home. Tracing this trajectory up to the late 20th century, the arcade is replaced by the shopping mall and the emotional space of the arcade is reintegrated into the home via the television. The shopping mall then becomes the simulation of the commodity information space presented everyday on the TV. 
Marshall McCluhan feels; … it is obvious that any acceptable ad is a vigorous dramatization of communal experience <A HREF="#footnote8">8</A> This is the crux of the emotion. The communal experience is commingled with the private sphere, creating a new realm of hybrid information simulacra, that is both and neither. The media is an abstracted , almost mysterious space that, in many ways unites the world <A HREF="#footnote9">9</A> It functions in the realm of art using both the tools of mimesis and the emotion of missingness. Furthermore this information realm operates under the same principle of fracture discussed in the Malarmé quote and can quite literally become both the subjective and objective point of view at the same time. In other words it can be expressed in terms of both mimetics and recognition. For , by manifesting the surrounding environment not as it is, which is to say first and foremost as an artificial field of manipulatable signs, a total cultural artifact where neither sensation nor vision comes into play, but differential perception and the tactical game of significations; …<A HREF="#footnote10">10</A> 
 We allow that one can readily accept the idea of information space as a fitting inspiration for the creation of art just as say a landscape would be an inspiration for a Dutch painter. 
 


<A NAME="footnote1">1</A> Reason and Revolution , Herbert Marcuse , Beacon Press, Boston 1964 
pp. xi 
note: The original translation from the French is flawed in this edition. It reads ; is not the expression of the thing, but rather the absence of this thing …. the word makes the things disappear and imposes on us the feeling of a universal want and even of its own want.

<A NAME="footnote2">2</A> The Gift , Lewis Hyde, Vintage Books, New York 1983 
pp. 168

<A NAME="footnote3">3</A> IBID. Reason and Revolution pp.xi Again I feel this is mistranslated. The original translation , What are we without the help of that which does not exists? misses the sense and structure of the quote and leaves out the reference to Descartes. 
<A NAME="footnote4">4</A> The Gift, Lewis Hyde, Vintage Books, New York 1983 
pp.146

<A NAME="footnote5">5</A> IBID. New York 1983 
pp.86 


<A NAME="footnote6">6</A> Ways of Seeing, John Berger, Penguin Books, London 1974 
pp.10

<A NAME="footnote7">7</A> The Dialectics of Seeing, Susan Buck Morse, MIT Press, Cambridge MA 1991 
pp. 83

<A NAME="footnote8">8</A> Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1994 
pp.228 

<A NAME="footnote9">9</A> Believing Is Seeing, Mary Anne Staniszewski, Penguin Books, New York 1995

<A NAME="footnote10">10</A> Revenge of the Crystal , Jean Baudrillard, Pluto Press Australia, 1990 
pp.83

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Comments

2003-03-26 22:51, sadiq bey

>
> The Language of Recognition
>
> ?The meaning of a word is its meaning, and the meaning of a word is
> its use?
> - Luwig Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations
>
> As a working premise, all of the arts are based on a language of
> recognition. This is obviously a simplistic notion but it is a useful
> starting point. The artist employs the technique of mimesis to spur
> recognition. Mimetics is of course a basic, natural impulse, indeed a
> starting point for the creative act. Classic examples come to mind;
> a series of notes played on a flute that sound like a birds song, a
> still life painting of fruit that appears so real flies alight on its
> surface, a dance gesture that evokes a common act such as a caress.
> These all function on both the artists sense of mimesis and the
> audiences sense of recognition. This begs the question; what is the
> emotion at the core of this dialectic, of mimesis and recognition?
> Stephan Mallarme writes;
> ?… n?est pas l?expression d?une chose, mais l?absence de cette
> chose … le mot fait disparaitre les choses et nous impose le
> sentiment d?un manque universal et meme de son propre manque. ?
> In essence,
> it?s not the expression of a thing but, but the absence of that
> thing … the word (throws out)disappears objects and imposes on us
> the feeling of universal missingness , even of its (the objects) own
> missingness.
> Lewis Hyde writes;
> ?Both market exchange and abstract thought require this alienation of
> the symbol from the object.?
> Returning to the Mallarme quote; the French word manque is a very
> deep and particular expression in French culture. It means to miss as
> in, I missed you, I am missing (something) , I missed it. The
> emotion is something akin to longing but implies a previous
> connectedness to the thing missed. Art operates in the realm of this
> emotion. It evokes it through the act of recognition within the
> spectator. The spectator recognizes that which is missing. In the
> artist, the act of mimesis replaces or substitutes the art for the
> object missed. ?To whom does the artist address the work? … a gift
> eventually circles back towards its source.?
> Paul Valery asserts;
> ?que sommes-nous donc sans le secours de ce qui n?existe pas?? (What
> are we therefor without the security (safety) of nonexistence?)
>
> This is a very sly reference to an earlier dictum Rene Descartes,
> ?Je pense donc je suis.?
> (I think therefor I am.)
>
> and extends the discourse as it points to the fracture that occurs
> with onset of awareness, the missingness if you will. This leads us
> to the ?Ur? fracture of every cross-cultural cosmogenesis myth.
> These mythologies invariably begin with an all-embracing consciousness
> that feels lonely, feels the missingness and from that original
> fracture creates the universe. Valery also recognizes that
> within the idea of security (individual and communal) there is an
> implication of that which is missed and also some other state.
> Returning to the idea of le secours I believe this passage to be
> relevant;
> ?(Marcel) Maus surmises in ancient Italy. In the very oldest Roman
> and Italic law, he contends, ?things had a personality and a virtue
> of their own. Things are not the inert objects which the laws of
> Justinian and ourselves imply. They are part of the family … In
> antiquity the Roman familia was not simply people but the entire
> ?household,? including the objects in the home down to the food and
> the means of livelihood.?
> That which is part of the family is recognized as such, when it(they)
> leaves the household it is missed. This necessitates a need to calm
> the anxiety, often satisfied through art or artifice. This anxiety
> is used most effectively in the commodity exchange cultures artistic
> instruments of marketing and advertising. Indeed it is so ingrained
> in the U.S. psyche that this particular angst has become the subject
> of a current (2003) U.S. television series titled, …Without A
> Trace, that taps into this primal anxiety. It is about FBI agents who
> look for missing persons. The word missing in the title is cleverly
> implied by its absence.
> To return to the central theme , The Language of Recognition, John
> Berger writes ;
> ?Images were first made to conjure up the appearances of something
> that was absent.Gradually it became evident that an image could
> outlast what it represented.?
> Interesting notion, the image (or word or sign or signifier) outlasts
> what it signifies. Indeed, one may say that the image has an identity
> of its own and as such is subject to the same emotional fracture of
> missingness as in the Mallarme quote.
> How does this relate to the idea of market exchange? Several major
> thinkers have elucidated Western commodity culture. Marx of course is
> the natural starting point but the specifics of art as commodity is
> not his major focus. One may start with perhaps Walter Benjamin in
> his unfinished piece, The Arcades project and perhaps continue with
> Fredric Jameson?s and Jean Baudrillards shared notions of simulation.
> In order to make the final bridge between the world of objects, the
> world of signs and the world of simulation one may also include Guy
> Debord?s Situationistes and the writings of Marshall McLuhan .
> Marshall McCluhan envisioned the global information environment that
> exists today and is part of the support structure for the marketing of
> commodities.
>
> Let me begin with Benjamin?s Arcades project (the Passagen-Werk)
> which was never finished. Indeed it was never published but was rather
> a collection of notes, essays, letters to friends etc. , organized on
> a loose idea of contemplating the nature of 19th C. Parisian shopping
> arcades.
> ?The arcades were ? the original temple of commodity capitalism? …
> , these privately owned, publicly traversed passages displayed
> commodities in window showcases like icons in niches.The very profane
> pleasure houses found there tempted passerby with gastronomical
> perfections, intoxicating drinks, wealth without labor at the roulette
> wheel, gaiety in vaudeville theaters, and in the first floor
> galleries, transports of sexual pleasure … ?
> thus begins the commingling and confusion between the private sphere
> of the home and all it?s contents (familia) and the external other
> of the public realm. Within the arcade , the space is private,
> isolated from the street, it is secure, (le secours). The emotion
> created within the space is not a desire (desire) or a want (vouloir)
> for the objects or pleasures displayed but rather (manque)
> a feeling of lack or ?missingness?. Indeed , commodity capitalism
> creates the artificial shopping space as an extension of one?s home.
> Tracing this trajectory up to the late 20th century, the arcade is
> replaced by the shopping mall and the emotional space of the arcade is
> reintegrated into the home via the television. The shopping mall then
> becomes the simulation of the commodity information space presented
> everyday on the TV.
> Marshall McCluhan feels; ? … it is obvious that any acceptable ad
> is a vigorous dramatization of communal experience ? This is the
> crux of the emotion. The communal experience is commingled with the
> private sphere, creating a new realm of hybrid information simulacra,
> that is both and neither. ? The media is an abstracted , almost
> mysterious ?space? that, in many ways unites the world? It
> functions in the realm of art using both the tools of mimesis and the
> emotion of missingness. Furthermore this information realm operates
> under the same principle of fracture discussed in the Malarme quote
> and can quite literally become both the subjective and objective point
> of view at the same time. In other words it can be expressed in terms
> of both mimetics and recognition. ?For , by manifesting the
> surrounding environment not as it is, which is to say first and
> foremost as an artificial field of manipulatable signs, a total
> cultural artifact where neither sensation nor vision comes into play,
> but differential perception and the tactical game of significations;
> …?
> We allow that one can readily accept the idea of information space as
> a fitting inspiration for the creation of art just as say a landscape
> would be an inspiration for a Dutch painter.
>
>
> ———-
> 1 Reason and Revolution , Herbert Marcuse , Beacon Press, Boston
> 1964
> pp. xi
> note: The original translation from the French is flawed in this
> edition. It reads ; ?is not the expression of the thing, but rather
> the absence of this thing …. the word makes the things disappear and
> imposes on us the feeling of a universal want and even of it?s own
> want.?
> 2 The Gift , Lewis Hyde, Vintage Books, New York 1983
> pp. 168
> 3Reason and Revolution pp.xi Again I feel this is mistranslated.
> The original translation ,? What are we without the help of that which
> does not exists?? misses the sense and structure of the quote and
> leaves out the reference to Descartes.
> 3The Gift, Lewis Hyde, Vintage Books, New York 1983
> pp.146
> 3IBID. New York 1983
> pp.86
> 5Ways of Seeing, John Berger, Penguin Books, London 1974
> pp.10
> 6 The Dialectics of Seeing, Susan Buck Morse, MIT Press, Cambridge MA
> 1991
> pp. 83
> 7Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1994
> pp.228
> 8Believing Is Seeing, Mary Anne Staniszewski, Penguin Books, New
> York 1995
> 9Revenge of the Crystal , Jean Baudrillard, Pluto Press Australia,
> 1990
> pp.83
Iago's death scene
Narrative:
It was not enough to die in the service of the turks.
To deny allegiance to even the self and its endurance,
A victory only absence can claim, a curse can vector.
And you, the genius of faces, of timing, of singleness.
More than your beloved victims, your tapestry of falsehoods,
Your effervescent cleverness, you were dutiful to absence.
And torn to shreds of pain wrenched flesh, it is to absence that
You are delivered. Now there, o devoted iago. No iago. And no
Shadow of iago.

Verse/music 4/4
1)Feet locked in fate.
The lunatic parlance.
Darkness weeps.
Bluest celli with whisper.

Structureless time.
Anarchy's version lost.
The wicked are not sought.
The sought lost again.

And england held you not.
A blank for your name
And opium has its sway.
Obverts beer stained dreams.

Your days defined with knives.
Names on backs, the marks.
The lieutenant's earnest mastery,
a tongue that shrivels the heart.

2)war and sea not serving enough
to encrypt the soul's edifying crush.
A lust so sure, so utterly crowned
Satan's lot worships your measure.

what does serve your heatless stone,
your speechless trope, your secret self?
The only living architect
applied that space where death resides.

And made you itch and laugh aloud
And drink beyond your simple thirst,
That you could plan your awful deed
Not cloaked in flesh, but spoken word.

Feet locked in fate
The lunatic parlance
Even darkness weeps
Bluest celli with whisper.