Reading Our Mind

Have you ever had the experience of waking in the morning convinced you have had a dream but unable to remember anything about it?  Why do you suppose it hasn’t been recorded in your memory?  Could it be because the arbitrarily concocted images we suspect to have been a dream has no currency as language?  Most scholars accept the proposition that we think in language. Could it be said perception divorced from language is nothing to speak of?

  

Imagine if we had no language.  We’d still be living in dark caves bumping into each other.  There wouldn’t be any marvelous paintings on the cave walls, you can be sure of that.  Sure, we probably learnt that fire provides light as well as heat but we need more than light and the right materials to make a painting.  We need language.

Is that difficult to believe?  Look at it this way; remember the time you were showing your infant daughter or granddaughter a picture book?  It was all part of her learning language.  If you’re like me you would point to a picture of a cow and say something like: “See, this is the cow.  Here are the cow’s horns and its ears and here is the white spot on the cow’s back and here is the cow’s tail. Can you say ‘cow’?” 

Two things are happening here; the child is learning language but the child is also learning how to read a picture.  We don’t automatically see pictures as pictures.  Rather, we have learnt a vocabulary that allows us to read them as compositions and there are cultural differences between how pictures are read just as there are cultural differences in language.  The one thing we know about those people who painted those wondrous cave paintings in France and Spain is that they possessed a well developed language.

Now, here is a curious thing.  If we need a language to read a picture or image on a wall or in a book, we also need a language to read a picture or image in our head.  It’s the same process as learning to read a picture book. Perhaps this is why people are urged to write down their dreams immediately on waking.

Some people resist the idea that we think in language.  I’ve met some aphasic types who say they think in pictures or images.   I can’t figure it.   I know there have been children as young as two or three who were unable to speak but who had an eidetic memory and were able to draw detailed pictures of what they have seen but there is no evidence that they knew or could read what they had drawn.  Indeed, it seems that when and if they learn language the eidetic memory tends to vanish along with the ability to draw.   

No doubt the brain can imprint images as neurons which in turn create those seemingly random dreams we are unable to grasp.  Without the aid of language our heads are somewhat mindless.   

Launt Thompson
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=Launt+Thompson&url=search-alias%3Daps&x=16&y=9

Are The Mind And Brain Related?

Following Gilbert Ryle’s ghost-busting The Concept of Mind, it became chic to argue that there is no Wizard of Oz, and the brain and mind are one and the same. In Mapping the Mind, Rita Carter documents research that demonstrates how and where the brain stores memories, accommodates language, captures sensory information and creates the avenues that channel understanding. Her thesis is that the mind is merely a complex biological system housed by the brain, and that free will is an illusion.


Understandably Carter’s well-researched and well-argued hypothesis is discomforting to those who hold that the brain is merely the organ that generates the music we recognize as the mind. Contrary to Carter, they argue that as the music is not the organ, the mind is not the brain. But there is much evidence to suggest that the mind as a separate and distinct thing is a myth, and little or no evidence to show otherwise.

Gerald Edelman (Bright Air Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind, 1994) proposes two types of consciousness, one building on the other. The first is what he calls Primary Consciousness, which is animal consciousness. It “emerged during evolution as a new component of neuroanatomy.” Creatures with Primary Consciousness (such as chimpanzees, most mammals and Neanderthal man) are always in the present. They are aware of things, have mental images in the present but have no sense of being a person, with a past or a future. Homo sapiens evolved with a higher-order or Tertiary Consciousness. This allows for “the recognition by a thinking subject of his or her own acts or affections.” Homo sapiens evolved a well-developed language that became the means for memory, providing a sense of the past and the ability to symbolically model the future. Language use promoted the development of a sense of self through interactions with other language users. So the mind we experience is our conscious language activity; thinking, speaking, writing, imagining, and how this informs our sensations and what we hear, see, touch, taste and smell. All of these exist as a direct result of brain activity.


Central to the issue of the mind/brain relationship is an explanation of consciousness that satisfies the demands of science and promotes the opportunity for further research. While there is good reason to believe that consciousness is created by electrochemical activity within the brain, we still don’t know how the functions of the brain produce consciousness.

Launt Thompson
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=Launt+Thompson&url=search-alias%3Daps&x=16&y=9

Emotions Vs. Feelings: Busting an Urban Myth.

I suppose it would be possible to discover a brief moment in time when everyone was using language correctly.  Could it also be the case that we might discover a time when everyone was using language incorrectly?  In physics the rule is that if it is not prohibited it is compulsory.  The probability of the former event happening would be very slight indeed but I suspect the latter event would not be as fanciful. In any case how could we possibly know?  Language is not immutable.  It has changed considerably since it first evolved and it is still changing.  Nevertheless we all are destined to use language incorrectly at one time or another but what means are at our disposal to allow us to discover our misuse?  Must we merely wait to be corrected by someone whose opinion we respect or until the mass of opinion concurs with our usage? 

The mass of opinion is not a very reliable barometer for correct language use.  Nonsensical statements are commonplace within the general public, among politicians, from shady salespersons and from the semi-literate.  Even philosophers have from time to time demonstrated they have concocted a questionable proposition.  For example in attempting to explain the distinction between expression and expressing John Dewey opined “An onlooker may say ‘What a magnificent expression of rage!’  But the enraged being is only raging, quite a different matter from expressing rage.”[i] 

Dewey is correct to chide his onlooker but he has jerry-rigged his argument.  The onlooker’s statement deserves censor because it is grammatically incorrect.  Magnificent is an adjective describing the noun ‘expression’.  To make his argument Dewey has created an onlooker that doesn’t speak with sentences for there is no verb in the statement.  Dewey was attempting to unpack the notion of ‘expressing’ to show that it is a controlled, organized activity and not merely an impulsive purging activity but his pursuit was misdirected.

Dewey has fallen victim to a mental slip of the tongue.  To make his remark coherent his onlooker would have to say ‘What a magnificently expressed rage.’  If this were the case then it would have been clear to Dewey that the point in contention was merely a value judgment determining the quality of the rage and not an explanation of how to use objective criteria to establish the concept of ‘expressing’.

No doubt we are all capable of making such a mistake.  I draw your attention to Dewey’s remark because our understanding of rage is important to our understanding of the distinction between emotions and feelings.

The question that must be asked is how did we come by the emotions we express?  Were they learnt or are they merely involuntary responses emanating from within us?  If you hold the latter view you are in good company for such a view holds that emotions and feelings are directly connected; so much so that the two terms can be used synonymously.  Indeed some hold that it is a seeming self evident truth that emotions are feelings.  But it is neither self evident nor is it the truth.

I think few would deny that emotions have meaning.  The person who angrily exclaims ‘Come over here!’ is making a different statement from the person who merely states ‘Come over here.’  In the former statement anger is part of the propositional symbol (sentence) and is understood as a command rather than a request.  There are two points to demonstrate here; emotions are expressional rather than expressive and emotions are learnt as our language is learnt. 
 

Anger, along with fear, are two of those pet emotions psychologists use to demonstrate the so called affect component of emotions and tend to distinguish them from what is termed higher level emotions such as remorse.   There is little agreement among psychologists about how the cause of emotions should be correctly described[ii] though most tend to presume that to investigate the psychological and/or physiological cause of particular feelings is to investigate emotions.  

Steven Pinker reports that Catherine Lutz’s research of the Ifaluk ( a Micronesian People) demonstrates that they do not experience anger.  Rather they demonstrate their offense with what they call Song; a show of resentment indicating a moral infraction.  He points out that “If emotion is defined by behavior then emotions certainly do differ across cultures.”[ia]

Given this state of affairs I have no compunction in insisting emotions are components of language and have the same relationship to our spoken language as punctuation marks have to our written language; they serve the communication of ideas by showing emphasis.  

To understand the distinction between expressive and expressional behavior we need to investigate the notion of feelings.  The term ‘feeling’ is a pernicious one for we use it in so many different ways our understanding is easily confused.  I have already mentioned the belief that feeling can be used as a synonym for emotion but there are also times when the term is used to mark thinking activity as when a person says ‘I have a feeling I should vote for x party.’ We also use the term to express desires or urges as when we say ‘I’m feeling like a good long walk.’  We use the term to convey information about our physical state as in ‘I’m feeling dizzy’ or ‘I’m feeling tired.’  We are also in the habit of using feeling to refer to such things as the feeling of conviction.  “One speaks of a feeling of conviction because there is a tone of conviction.”[iii]  Wittgenstein is pointing out that tones are as much part of our propositional symbols (sentences) as gestures.

Commonly, however, feelings are understood as sensations within the body. When we have a feeling of pain we can be said to have a sensation of pain; indeed, sensation is a less misleading term. Sensations are such things as pains, aches, twinges, tics, throbs, palpitations, flushes, blushes, etc.  These sensations are said to be expressed by the body much as a bruise is expressed on our leg.  But the darkish red spot on our leg is a symptom of our bruise and not a symbol of it. Symptoms have significance but they have no meaning.  Symptoms are expressive but they are not expressional. They are signs that require interpretation (the darkish red spot may be a carcinoma) whereas if we understand the system in which a symbol works we grasp it immediately.  

Sensations are also symptoms and to hold that emotions are feelings is to hold that emotions are the physical manifestations of symptoms involuntarily expressed by the body that must be interpreted before we can understand them. But few are in doubt when we present others with an expression of anger, love, remorse, etc.  

“Thus sorrow often goes with weeping, and characteristic sensations with the latter. (The voice heavy with tears).  But these sensations are not the emotions.”[iv]  Wittgenstein’s point is clear.  Some of us may become red in the face and feel a flush of heat when we offer the expression others recognize as anger but the red face and flush of heat is not the anger.  It was this point that confused Bertrand Russell.

“On one occasion my dentist injected a considerable amount of this substance into my blood, in the course of administering a local anesthetic.  I turned pale and trembled, and my heart beat violently; the bodily symptoms of fear were present, as the books said they should be, but it was quite obvious to me that I was not actually feeling fear.”[v]

Though Russell’s use of the term feeling in this context is queer it is clear he concluded there were no grounds to be afraid; to present the expression we could recognize as fear.  Such symptoms might also occur in a teenager who falls in love with a rock star at a concert or in the boyfriend who displays anger as a result of the girl’s behavior.   What should be clear is that there is no particular sensation (feeling) that is a necessary condition of any particular emotion expression.  We did not learn to express emotions by investigating sensations within our bodies.  As children we learnt to express emotions as we learnt language from our parents, our teachers and our peers. Indeed, it is a measure of our ability to use language that provides us with the means to express any one emotion in so many different ways. It is not unusual to discover that a child’s tantrums diminish as he or she becomes more proficient with language.

One of the reasons we find television soap operas so banal is that the scripts are written for the least literate or language lazy among us.  The emotions that are expressed are commonplace, lacking subtlety, richness and variety.  Persons who have a poverty of language have a poverty of emotions but they, no doubt, are capable of experiencing all the sensations we experience.  While Shakespeare also wrote for groundlings who could neither read nor write, New English was still a blossoming experience for his audience.  His language use was varied, rich and at times subtle and often nuanced providing a bountiful resource for the expression of emotion and his audience delighted in the flavor of it.

“One’s hand writes: it does not write because one wills, but one wills what it writes.”[vi]  

Wittgenstein’s point is well taken.  Writing is a voluntary behavior perceived through what we write.  So too is expressing an emotion voluntary behavior perceived by the expression of it.  It is not the case that we are born with a collection of emotions that we must learn to harness.  We willfully express anger, love, etc.  While some may wish to renege on their responsibility for their voluntary, unbecoming expressions and attribute the cause to others, they have no defense.

Some along with Gilbert Ryle[vii] hold that emotions are propensities or dispositions to act in certain ways. Ryle’s theory is that our emotional states are discovered by us much as we discover another’s emotional state. But emotions are not dispositions or agitations as Ryle holds.  Agreeableness and aggressiveness are dispositions and are conditions of behavior.  We may aggressively offer an expression of love or we may be angry in an agreeable manner.  Dispositions are a condition of non-emotion behavior as well as emotion behavior.  ‘Disposition’ is a collective noun and while it may be part of a person’s disposition to be easily angered, the anger is not the disposition. A person’s disposition is tied to the circumstances of an expression and not the expression itself. 

Implicit in Ryle’s remarks is the notion that emotions are components of communication that are distinct from what is communicated.  I think it is clear that we can no more separate tones of voice, pitch, facial and body gestures, and grimaces from the meaning of a statement than we can separate meaning from the propositional symbol (sentence) that is the expression of it.  It is no small consideration to point out that we are often asked ‘Do you mean it?’ when our tones of voice, pitch, interjections, gestures and grimaces do not correlate with our statements or the circumstances in which they are made.

Though Ryle seems to concur that emotions are learnt he mistakenly holds that emotions can be shammed but emotions can be no more shammed than the meaning of a sentence can be shammed.  They can be false in the sense that they do not apply or they can be poorly or inadvertently expressed by inarticulate language users but emotions are not such things that are counterfeited; physical behavior can be as awkward or inarticulate as speech.  When we describe an emotion as insincere we are making a statement about its applicability not its substance.  Indeed, it is the substance of an emotion that allows us to recognize it in the first place.

Learning to control our emotions does not mean that they are such things that we need to harness or overcome by force of will.  This implies they are contained within us and need to be trained.  Rather, learning to control emotions is the learning of new and different emotions in place of those we abuse or are limited by.  Particular expressions of emotion can become habitual much as the uses of particular phrases or words become habitual.  

I began this essay with a query concerning our use of language.  In part, my purpose was to alert the reader to the difficulties public usage confronts us with when attempting to discover correct or incorrect language use.  When faced with such difficulties Wittgenstein urges us to defer to public criteria when attempting to unpack our language problems.  Though many writers demonstrate they misunderstand the term, public criteria are significantly different from public usage.  The term public criteria merely means that there are criteria that are open to discovery by anyone who cares to look.  It is in this sense that they are public.

To understand how the use of public criteria works in practice we should look again at Dewey’s remark.  However confusing his point may be it is clear that Dewey considers rage an emotion but what is rage?

Certain persons who are subject to bouts of depression understand that rage is an uncomfortable sensation, often described as being in the chest area of the body and caused by a neurochemical condition that has direct physiological and behavioral effects. Persons subject to rage and unaware that its cause is neurochemical often respond negatively.  Some suffers conclude that they are angry and express anger toward those who are innocent of transgression.  Their expression of anger is often an attempt to free themselves of their rage but it is seldom successful for rage is a symptom and anger is an emotion.  It is not unusual that a person expressing anger in a violent fashion – throwing things, smashing furniture and being loud and vocal – is described as enraged or raging. In such cases the term rage is most often used as a metaphor likening the display of external turbulence to the neurochemically caused internal turbulence that some are known to suffer.  Of course it may be the case that such a person is also suffering from an intense sensation of rage caused by a neurochemical imbalance but more often such violent behavior is an attempt to intimidate and/or an expression of frustration; a tantrum.   

We generally display anger when we believe our rights or the rights of others have been transgressed but in such cases the expression of anger is the result of conclusions we draw and not the result of a sensation we feel.  Also, it is not unusual to find ourselves confronted with a person behaving in a controlled unresponsive manner as if deliberately trying not to present an expression of anger but this, of course, is merely another expression of the emotion and is recognized as easily as a blatant expression.  In many instances it is merely a strategy designed to intimidate; a tactic known to actors as ‘playing under’ a highly charged situation.   

A similar but more overt problem tripped up Russell when discussing fear.  The chemicals injected into him produced anxiety, not the bodily symptoms of fear. 

“It is one thing to feel acute fear, and another to have a ‘chronic’ fear of someone.  But fear is not a sensation.”[viii]

 Wittgenstein (or his translator) is puzzling with his use of the term feel but he is clear about his description of fear.  Russell was feeling anxiety; a sensation we all are familiar with.  Some psychologist take it as a given that anxiety is the feeling of fear but we can express fear when we are not subject to anxiety and we may well have reason to express anger, love, remorse, joy, etc. when anxiety is present. Indeed, Russell expressed wonder! It is well known by medical practitioners that rages and anxieties are neurochemical conditions and are the common bedfellows of many long term cannabis and cocaine users.

We can question all of our emotions in much the same way.  “Love is not a feeling.  Love is put to the test, pain not. One does not say: “That was not true pain, or it would not have gone off so quickly.”[ix]    Here Wittgenstein shows us that there are public criteria that demonstrate expressions of love whereas sensations are incorrigible.  If you say you have a pain we are obliged to accept it even though you may not display what has come to be known as pain behavior (assuming there are no grounds to suspect deception). Also:

“If someone acts grief in the study, he will indeed readily become aware of the tensions in his face.  But be really sad, or follow a sorrowful action in a film, and ask yourself if you were aware of your face.”[x]  

There are two aspects to this direction.  First, it is clear that we can display the emotion of grief or sadness at will, alone in our study (usually we have to imagine a situation to enlist the expression) and second if we are accomplished we need not consciously attend to our expressions of emotion as they are expressed anymore than we need to consciously attend to syntax when we speak. It is, perhaps, this aspect that deceives many into thinking emotions are impulsive expressions welling up from within us but we seldom assess ourselves to see if we are acting in a loving fashion when we spontaneously carry out a caring act of love though we may, as a result of our expression, find it a pleasurable experience.

As we can think and have a dialogue with ourselves we can express emotions when we are alone.  We can contemplate caring acts of love for or from someone and find it pleasurable.  But the pleasure we gain (often described as the feeling of being in love) is the result of our thoughts, not the cause of them.   By the same token a caring act of love can be very unpleasant as when we provide the opportunity for a loved one to die in order to cease their suffering.

While writing this I rose to go to the kitchen only to be met half way by my wife who handed me a stack of newspapers to set outside in the recycle bin.  I grinned and exclaimed with joy “For me?”  My reaction was spontaneous, honest and sincere and my wife responded with a complementary gesture but I had no need to search myself for a sensation that would confirm joy was the expression I should offer though both my wife and I received pleasure from the exchange.   Ryle would say I was shamming joy but I was sincere and my wife accepted it for what it was.

Throughout this essay I have relied on Wittgenstein to make 
what I suspect will be an unpopular argument.  It has serious
implications for the notion of expression in art.     Nevertheless I
persist, well aware that courage is the price paid for such 
 thoughts[xi].

Launt Thompson

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[i] Dewey, John, Art as Experience, Putnam ,1958 pp61.

[ia Pinker, Steven, The Blank Slate, Penguin Books 2003 Digital edition.

[ii] See . Griffiths Paul E, What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories. University of Chicago Press. 1997  Also: Lacewing, Michael Emotion and Cognition: Recent Developments and Therapeutic Practice, in Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, June 2004;  11,2 pp 175 – 186 And: Lazarus, Richard S. Cognition and Motivation in Emotion,  American Psychologist, April 1991 Vol. 46, No. 4, pp 352-367

[iii] Wittgenstein, L., Zettel, Blackwell, , 2^nd edition Trans. G.E..M . Anscombe,  Oxford, 1967, #513

[iv] Ibid, #488.

[v] Russell, Bertrand, An Outline of Philosophy, Unwin Books, London, 1970 pp 226.

[vi]Wittgenstein, L., Zettel, 2^nd edition Trans. G.E..M . Anscombe, Blackwell, Oxford, 1967 #586

[vii] Ryle, Gilbert, The Concept of Mind, Penguin University Books,1973

[viii] Ibid, #492.

[ix] Ibid, #504

[x] Ibid, #503

[xi] Wittgenstein, L. Culture and Value, Trans. by Peter Winch,  Blackwell, Oxford,1980,,52e

Should some Art be Censored?

                                                                            

We all indulge in censorship of one sort of another in our personal lives but most of us resent the idea that governments or institutions should impose censorship on us.  No doubt there is such a thing as public standards of decency and a public morality but many in the art world believe that art should not be harnessed to the standards or morals of the majority.

But sometimes censorship is simply a matter of propriety.  For example this seemingly harmless bronze sculpture of a naked woman caused considerable concern when first exhibited.  

                                                                         

The piece is titled Tumbling Woman by Eric Fischl.  On the week of September 9th 2002 Tumbling Woman, which was commissioned as a memorial to those who jumped or fell from the World Trade Centre on September 11^th 2001, was placed in the lower concourse at Rockefeller Center.  Many who saw it and recognised the allusion to that tragedy were deeply disturbed (and understandably so). Consequently, the work was removed.  The sculpture was not something the passers-by sought out, it was thrust before them.  If they had reason to be in that part of the building they had no way of avoiding it.  In a museum somewhere, the work will no doubt find a valued place in the art world for then it will be presented in a different light.

Another work held equally indecorous is this 11 foot high photograph titled Myra made using children’s hand prints and then turned into a monochromatic photograph.

                                                                             

When it was exhibited in New York in 1999 it was part of an exhibition that was closed by the Mayor of New York.  Two years earlier this work had outraged Londoners.  Myra is a portrait  of Myra Hindley imprisoned for life for her part in the murder and torture of five children (the

infamous Moors murders).  One Londoner threw eggs at the work and proclaimed that such works had to be stopped before some artist decides to paint a picture of the actual torture.

Like Tumbling Woman, the work itself is not what garners censure.  Rather it is the association these works have to relatively recent tragic events.  For later generations such associations will have little more than curiosity value. Still, we must ask the questions: “Does a work we find offensive fail as art merely as a result of the offense? Does not an art work such as Myra transcend the offense some people may take from it?  Is there a limit where ‘offense’ takes priority over art?

Of course sometimes what is considered improper is merely an inflamed swelling in the eye of the beholder. This was the problem the Attorney General of the United States, John Ashcroft suffered 2002 when he ordered the statue behind him draped. 

He didn’t want photographers taking pictures of him with the bare breasted Spirit of Justice  in the background.  Silliness reigns in the American Hall of Justice.

For some people works of art are ‘speech acts’ and consequently subject to moral considerations; we are morally responsible for what we say.

This work is Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary, a painting depicting a reinterpretation of a popular religious icon.  At first glance it seems little more than a harmless cultural re-statement.  But when audiences were informed that the medium used to create this work includes elephant dung splattered onto the canvas and cutouts of women’s buttocks some became outraged. There is no evidence to suggest the artist had a desire to mock the religious icon or the person it represents. The use of bodily fluids and excrement as a medium for art is common in a number of cultures.

The Ofili work was part of an exhibition of ‘Young British Artists From the Saatchi Collection’ presented at the Brooklyn Museum.  The exhibition was eventually closed because Mayor Rudolph Giulani (who is Catholic) threatened to cut off New York City’s $7 million dollars in annual support to the museum if it went ahead with the exhibition.

Censorship of works that notoriously re-present religious icons would be laughable were they not taken so seriously by ultra-conscientious Christians.  If we were ignorant of the fact that elephant dung was used as part of the medium of this painting I doubt that many would see the work as objectionable.

Commenting on this digital collage of a bikini-clad Virgin Mary By Alma Lopez when exhibited at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, the Archbishop of Santa Fe complained that  “No one would dream of putting Martin Luther King in speedos and desecrating his memory by putting him in some outlandish outfit.  But somehow it seems open season on Catholic symbols.”^[i]   But, of course, it is just what ‘no one would dream of doing’ that fuels the imagination of many artists. In this example, Alma Lopez confided that she wanted to find a meaningful connection with La Virgen de Guadalupe.

Another work that caused equal consternation for Christians Is Renee Cox’s “Yo Mama’s Last Supper”.

William Donohue, the head of the Catholic League for Legal and Civil Rights described this photograph as ‘Catholic-bashing propaganda and morally objectionable’. Mayor Giuliani was so outraged that he promised to create a “decency panel” to monitor publicly funded artwork in the city.

In the Ofili work the outcry was against the medium (elephant dung) that was used. In these latter two examples it was how the subject matter was depicted that raised the hackles of concerned citizens.

                                                                             

In Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ it was the medium (and to some extent the title)  that caused public consternation.  The work is a cibachrome photograph (100 x 150 centimeters 3X5 feet) of a plastic crucifix floating in ox blood and the urine of the artist.   It has caused a public furor wherever it has been shown which is ironic because the work is very attractive.  If the title had been omitted I suspect fewer people would have found cause to reject the work (A duplicate of this work is titled Pieta II). While a title is not essential to most works it often pays to ask ourselves why a title is offered.  It is not immediately obvious that urine has been used to make the work. We marvel at its size and the golden, ghostly appearance of the crucified Christ emerging from a blood red back ground.  But it is only when it is discovered that the red is actually ox blood and the golden hue is urine that some become outraged.  They tend to overlook the technique of the artist.  They fail to acknowledge that the blood and urine is enhanced by the cibachrome paper. The paper is ultra glossy, showing the depth of colours as seemingly three dimensional and liquid in appearance. For me the work generates the revelation that is necessarily entailed in the creative act and clearly demonstrates its integrity.

I doubt that art lovers seriously believe Serrano took it upon himself to mock the religious icon that so many cherish.  But when the work was displayed by The National Gallery of Victoria in Australia, the then Melbourne Archbishop George Pell tried unsuccessfully to procure an injunction to prevent the work from being shown arguing that it was blasphemous.  Of course only the title could be construed as blasphemous for the work, without a doubt, honours the Christ figure.  Still, even when the work was viewed some were driven to destruction and one patron is reported to have actually removed the work from the wall and kicked it.^[ii]  As a result of this and other incidents by outraged patrons the exhibition was closed. 

As it is absurd to think that a teetotaler would find Christ’s act of turning water into wine an impropriety, it is equally absurd to think that a religious apostle would find Serrano’s act of turning urine into a work of art an impropriety.

No doubt, religious apostles have become ultra sensitive to artistic endeavors for religious icons seem to be popular ‘fair game’ for artists who present what some hold to be shocking examples of art.  But I doubt that Ofili, Lopez, Cox or Serrano were attempting to parody the images they depicted.

If we are truly interested in art then we are forced to come to terms with what it is we believe art to be.  I can accept that a work of art is a speech act but what it says is itself.  As the philosopher Wittgenstein says; “The work of art does not aim to convey ‘something else’, just itself.  Just as, when I pay someone a visit, I don’t just want to make him have a feeling of such and such a sort; what I mainly want is to visit him, though of course I should like to be well received too.”  

Launt Thompson
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=Launt+Thompson&url=search-alias%3Daps&x=16&y=9

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^[i]Archbishop Michael Sheehan as reported by the Associated Press, 04/05/01 published by freedomforum.org

^[ii]  See Manika Naidoo, Vandal says he won’t repent. The Age Melbourne Online, Tuesday 14 October 1997.

What makes some art good?

Consider this state of affairs: Higher price 'makes wine more enjoyable'

January 15, 2008 - 3:31PM
Source: ABC

The wine study is the first to show that marketing has a direct effect on the brain (File photo). Photo: AFP

The more wine costs, the more people enjoy it - regardless of how it tastes, a study by researchers in the United States has found.

Researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the California Institute of Technology found that because people expect wines that cost more to be of higher quality, they trick themselves into believing the wines provide a more pleasurable experience than less expensive ones.

Their study, published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says expectations of quality trigger activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, the part of the brain that registers pleasure.

This happens even though the part of our brain that interprets taste is not affected.

The researchers say that “when 20 adult test subjects sampled the same wine at different prices, they reported experiencing pleasure at significantly greater levels when told the wine cost more.”

Is that strange or what?  Here you thought you had discriminating taste buds when, if the truth be known, your brain is modulated by the price of your purchase.  Your expectations dismiss or fog up your critical evaluation.

Now here is the stinger. Chances are ‘expectations of quality’ is not limited to wine tasting.  It will emerge whenever you rely on others to determine the quality of what you purchase or admire.  In other words the price tag reflects quality.  We all knew this didn’t we?

No doubt the appreciation of art is also susceptible to the marketing gurus who inflate both the quality and price of art works.  If the price is appreciable the quality of the painting is enhanced.  Consequently this work is the finest of the fine.

                                                    

This is  No, 5  (1948) by Jackson Pollock  which sold in 2006 for US140 million dollars. This work must reek of quality.  Forget about Velazquez’s Las Meninas or Vermeer’s view of the Delft this is the supremo work.  This brings up another problem for art lovers.  Chances are Las Meninas or the Delft which are now owned by museums, will never be sold so the price they would fetch will never be known.   To describe them as priceless undermines the quality seekers whose brains need a price to fully activate their pleasure neurons.

                                                           

Second in priceful quality is this work by Gustav Klimt; it's Adele Bloch-Bauer and sold for 135 million in 2006.  Doesn’t this just tickle your fancy?  

But anything governed by neurons and synapses of the brain must have a down side.  After all not every day is a great day for art lovers.  A Japanese collector purchased Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet in 1990 for 82.5 million. 

                                                           

It has since been sold for a little over 10 million.  Whoops, it has lost something of its quality. Obviously the collector suffered an expensive bout of the black dog and his investment waned. 

So there you have it, your brain makes decisions of quality for you.  All you have to do is insert the price and your neurons do the rest.  It is not unusual for persons to describe a work as good because it gives them pleasure but when you have a bad day don’t expect your art work to give you a little pick-me-up. It has no color in the dark and no quality when your brain is shroud in a cloud.

Launt Thompson
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Looking at the Mona Lisa in the Dark

If you’re not busy take a minute to consider these thoughts. I found a book the other day that was full of questions. It’s got more questions in it than a ten year old’s homework.  You know the kind I mean; questions like that hoary chestnut; ‘if a tree falls in the woods and there is no one about to hear it, does it make a sound?’  That’s an easy one.  The falling tree creates sound waves that vibrate in the air. If the tree was on the moon where there is no air that would be a different story. 

Here’s another one; ‘is a painting (lets say it’s da Vinci’s Mona Lisa that just happened to fall off the back of a truck) that you keep hidden in the darkest recesses of your cellar where no one can see it, a work of art?’  Now that’s a tricky question.  Do works of visual art exist in the dark?  I once saw a painting by a Russian by the name of Kasimir Malevich that was just large Black Square.  Wasn’t much to see. 

                                                                                

It wouldn’t matter much if that was in the dark but what about the Mona Lisa?  Who dares say it is not a work of art in the dark?  

                                                                            

Here’s a curious thing, visual works of art need light.  Painters often choose to work where they can use the sunlight for their painting because sunlight contains the full spectrum of colors. A few years back a fella by the name of Isaac Newton did an experiment.  He used a prism to reflect sunlight into a spectrum of colors and showed that all our colors exist in white sunlight.  Smart boy, I reckon.    

                                                                        

It’s strange when you think about it.  All our colors exist in white sunlight.  You’d think that some of the colors would dirty up the others but they don’t.   This is because individual colors are expressed as wave lengths which are a particular kind of electromagnetic energy.  The human eye can only perceive light wave lengths between 400 and 700 millimicrons.

Not only did Newton use a prism to show a continuous band of color from red through orange, yellow, green, blue to violet, he collected these waves by using a converging lens and projected a white light again.  Now you can’t do that with paint.  You can’t mix red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet pigments and get white. Why do you suppose that is?  Here’s the surprising thing.  There’s no color in pigments.  Wait a minute, that can’t be right.  If there’s no color in pigments, there’s no color in paintings.  What’s going on here?

I’ll see if I can explain.  You see that nice new red car sitting in your drive.  The one you just washed.  Why do you suppose we see it as red?  We see it as red because the molecular constitution of its surface absorbs all light rays but those of red.  The red wave length in the sunlight is reflected back at us.  The car does not have color in itself; light generates the color.  Color arises in the human eye and brain.

Painters are often concerned about how their works are hung in galleries and Museums because they want their work to be seen in the proper light.  While light globes cannot project the full spectrum of sunlight they come close.  Halogen lights and incandescent lights are the most common.  Fluorescent lights, while energy saving, are unsatisfactory because they project a limited spectrum.

So what about the Mona Lisa sitting in the dark; is it a work of art?  Well, if being a work of art has something to do with the colors the pigments reflect then the Mona Lisa is not a work of art in the dark.

Launt Thompson

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