Philosophy Discussion Forums

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 10th, 2020, 8:11 am

Greta wrote: ↑January 10th, 2020, 6:33 am I have explained myself clearly enough and don't need to labour the point. You either understand what was said or you don't.

But you didn't even directly answer simple questions I was asking.

As you did not try to understand what I was saying, taking a rather odd and unexpected angle that made no sense to me. We cannot help expressing ourselves in everything we do.

So I see no point pushing forward until I have a sense of how you see what I think is a basic and obvious premise. Otherwise it'll just be just back-and-forth babble running at ephemeral cross-purposes.

Greta wrote: ↑January 10th, 2020, 6:33 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 10th, 2020, 8:11 am

But you didn't even directly answer simple questions I was asking.

As you did not try to understand what I was saying, taking a rather odd and unexpected angle that made no sense to me. We cannot help expressing ourselves in everything we do.

So I see no point pushing forward until I have a sense of how you see what I think is a basic and obvious premise. Otherwise it'll just be just back-and-forth babble running at ephemeral cross-purposes.

The whole reason that I'm asking you the questions I am is that I'm trying to understand exactly what you're claiming. They're clarification questions.

Don't you agree that we cannot help but to express ourselves in everything we do? That everything we do to some extent is influenced by our morphology and mentality? Simply, we cannot help but to be ourselves.

Greta wrote: ↑January 11th, 2020, 12:21 am Don't you agree that we cannot help but to express ourselves in everything we do? That everything we do to some extent is influenced by our morphology and mentality? Simply, we cannot help but to be ourselves.

Yes, I agree with that, but "All art represents something" doesn't say the same thing as what you're saying above. "Representationalism," with respect to visual art, music, etc. refers to a much more specific idea than the fact that the art at hand is going to be influenced in some ways by the artist's particular body, including the mental aspects of our particular body.

Okay, it's a matter of language.

SubatomicAl1en wrote:Visual art tends to be easier to express thought in my opinion.

All art forms carry form and content, and both of this are carriers of meaning. But this is also true for a newspaper or a scientific article, and perhaps they're more effective in expressing ideas unambiguously, so it doesn't look like expressing clear ideas is the main function of art, or what makes it distinct from any other human expression. It is on this basis that I find plausible criticism of contemporary conceptual art, many times focused on sending a message requiring very little interpretation effort. In any case, under the modern conception of art, at least high-end art, understood as a autonomous practice with its own ethos, the link between expression and serving other non-artistic purposes (including the communication of semantic contents) is almost completely broken, unlike ancient and medieval times, where art was subordinate to other practices, especially religious ones. Paintings and sculptures in cathedrals, for example, were meant to illustrate the gospels to the illiterate masses.

The distinctive feature of art lies not in content, but in form. Content, as per the author's intentions, can even be lost in time, or evolve along with culture and produce new interpretations, while the form prevails in the public's experience of the artistic object. And the most relevant contribution of form to such experience is the aesthetic dimension, which blends an intellectual response with an emotional one, in different degrees. So even when we experience an artistic object exclusively for the emotional response we obtain from it, it is almost impossible to disconnect ourselves from the "how it is made" that allows such response.

SubatomicAl1en wrote: When you listen to songs, the information passed through is mainly expressed by lyrics instead of the melody.

Some people might do that, but I'm not one among them. I often pay less attention to lyrics than to musical ideas, in other words, I care more about form than about content.

SubatomicAl1en wrote: When you listen to lyric-less music, what it expresses is more emotion than information.

Again, information can be comprised of both content and form. Although it is widely accepted that from all art forms, music is the one that most appeals to our emotions, in other words, creates an emotional response, not necessarily that means that it represents, in its content and form, emotions. Music from the European romantic period (19th century) is often regarded as an artistic program that avidly sought representation of emotions and producing such effects in the public. It is also widely accepted that today's western popular music is a heir to that tradition. But not necessarily it has to be that way, there are other artistic programs that look to distance themselves from that tradition, for example, dodecaphonism, which explicitly avoided the comfort zones of tonality and the responses associated to it.

Certainly there is a processing difference . People who consume severe drugs sometimes realize the interchanging of sense, like listening and seeing .This interchanging somehow gives no real clue for the persons what is percieved so the processing of the data is totally different. The higher auditory regions of the brain are the wernicke broca areal on the gyrus supramarginalis and the brodmann areal , meanwhile the processing of optical data reaches from the corpus geniculatus laterale as the parietal and temporal lobe , important for them is the retinotopic organisation of the visual part of the human brain. So somehow there seems to be just from the way the data is processed a severe difference.

Greta
Okay, it's a matter of language.

Is it? It's curious question, whether music can be representational, in any way. Clearly, music is not so explicitly representational as it is even in the most abstract art. Pollock's Autumn Rhythm could be just about anything tumultuous, but then, take away the explicit idea that it is a representation of the rhythms of autumn, these rhythms remain there as a possibility of interpretation that makes sense because of certain clear and overt features in the objective idea of rhythms, and the violence, if you will, in the piece does as well present something consistent with a windy day, chaotic and wild.

The point is that representation in visual art permits far flung associations with the original. Now, are there not such far flung possibilities in music? Is the sound of a violin so off the mark from the way the world presents itself naturally? The French horn and the bluster of traffic? Mahler's 9th symphony opens in a way that could be suggestive of many things, but is not suggestive of all things. Its gentle, it has "conversations" between the instruments in contrapuntal play, and so on. So does this not suggest that, if we can see unproblematically the representational features of abstract visual art, may we then also accept representational features in music? Not that listening to music is conceptually clear, but that in that objectively unsettled space there is a possible relation that is comparable to representational abstraction in art.

detail
Certainly there is a processing difference . People who consume severe drugs sometimes realize the interchanging of sense, like listening and seeing .This interchanging somehow gives no real clue for the persons what is percieved so the processing of the data is totally different. The higher auditory regions of the brain are the wernicke broca areal on the gyrus supramarginalis and the brodmann areal , meanwhile the processing of optical data reaches from the corpus geniculatus laterale as the parietal and temporal lobe , important for them is the retinotopic organisation of the visual part of the human brain. So somehow there seems to be just from the way the data is processed a severe difference.

Not only people on drugs hear color, but it comes naturally for some. Synaesthetics I think they're called. But if I can see a sound, does this have any bearing on whether musical sound represents what is seen? Surely, the color blue is arbitrary to the sounds my printer might make. But on the other hand, isn't there something of a possible representation if I narrow play erratically on the trumpet in a way that imitates the printer? In Wagner's Rings there are bells. Sleigh bells?

Hereandnow wrote: ↑April 6th, 2020, 12:43 pm

Greta
Okay, it's a matter of language.

Is it? It's curious question, whether music can be representational, in any way. Clearly, music is not so explicitly representational as it is even in the most abstract art. Pollock's Autumn Rhythm could be just about anything tumultuous, but then, take away the explicit idea that it is a representation of the rhythms of autumn, these rhythms remain there as a possibility of interpretation that makes sense because of certain clear and overt features in the objective idea of rhythms, and the violence, if you will, in the piece does as well present something consistent with a windy day, chaotic and wild.

The point is that representation in visual art permits far flung associations with the original. Now, are there not such far flung possibilities in music? Is the sound of a violin so off the mark from the way the world presents itself naturally? The French horn and the bluster of traffic? Mahler's 9th symphony opens in a way that could be suggestive of many things, but is not suggestive of all things. It's gentle, it has "conversations" between the instruments in contrapuntal play, and so on. So does this not suggest that, if we can see unproblematically the representational features of abstract visual art, may we then also accept representational features in music? Not that listening to music is conceptually clear, but that in that objectively unsettled space there is a possible relation that is comparable to representational abstraction in art.

Had to think about that. I don't see rhythm in Pollock's piece, only in his strokes. The piece looks like brown leaves and dust being blown willy-nilly in the wind with no broader sense of rhythm.

The point I'd made earlier was that, even if an artist is aiming create piece purely for the sake of design, with no intended meaning, aspects of the artist's mind and character will always be conveyed in her or his interpretation. Certainly that's the case with most music I play these days, being instrumental and lacking (intended) message. It is impossible to extract one's character from one's creative work entirely. Even the most derivative work will tell us much about an artist, .

Focusing more sharply on the thread's question, human visual bias matters, with a considerable percent of our sensory processing power being dedicated to vision. So we can more clearly glean the inner workings of a visual artist than that of a musician or a perfumer.

Greta
Focusing more sharply on the thread's question, human visual bias matters, with a considerable percent of our sensory processing power being dedicated to vision. So we can more clearly glean the inner workings of a visual artist than that of a musician or a perfumer.

That would be the inner workings that is revealed by the art work. I would beg to differ: visual arts are so complex, usually, that is, they have this representational dimension that, as you say, constitutes much more of the interpretative playing field in our lives than sound simply because we are perceptually structured this way. Hearing music is not nearly as richly associated with "proximal" meaning, for when we see a house or a tree it is in contexts of settings and surroundings and these are part of implicit references freely associated (btw, this kind of thing is what Derrida was on about: my implicit references, traces of the words used that ground meaning, are not yours, some but not really, for I am a massive clutch of thoughts and feelings that is only tangentially and arbitrarily associated with what is put out there in public) to produce meaning. But because visual meanings are so complexly associated, my ability to know what you think via your painting or sculpture is weakened, for the more complex, the more that is unsaid, hidden, outside the public statement. This makes visual art much more rich and interpretatively interesting, for there are so many different ways to contextualize, but on the other hand, more undefined. Music, on the other hand, is not nearly as embedded in otherwise extraneous possibilities. It stands as what it is more so, appreciated for its form more purely. So when I hear Keith Jarrett's Kohn Concert, the aesthetic is not as cluttered and with visuals.
Sometimes visual art approximates music in this, as with Rothko or other minimalist works free of associations.

Hereandnow wrote: ↑April 7th, 2020, 2:46 pm

Greta
Focusing more sharply on the thread's question, human visual bias matters, with a considerable percent of our sensory processing power being dedicated to vision. So we can more clearly glean the inner workings of a visual artist than that of a musician or a perfumer.

That would be the inner workings that is revealed by the art work. I would beg to differ: visual arts are so complex, usually, that is, they have this representational dimension that, as you say, constitutes much more of the interpretative playing field in our lives than sound simply because we are perceptually structured this way. Hearing music is not nearly as richly associated with "proximal" meaning, for when we see a house or a tree it is in contexts of settings and surroundings and these are part of implicit references freely associated (btw, this kind of thing is what Derrida was on about: my implicit references, traces of the words used that ground meaning, are not yours, some but not really, for I am a massive clutch of thoughts and feelings that is only tangentially and arbitrarily associated with what is put out there in public) to produce meaning. But because visual meanings are so complexly associated, my ability to know what you think via your painting or sculpture is weakened, for the more complex, the more that is unsaid, hidden, outside the public statement. This makes visual art much more rich and interpretatively interesting, for there are so many different ways to contextualize, but on the other hand, more undefined. Music, on the other hand, is not nearly as embedded in otherwise extraneous possibilities. It stands as what it is more so, appreciated for its form more purely. So when I hear Keith Jarrett's Kohn Concert, the aesthetic is not as cluttered and with visuals.
Sometimes visual art approximates music in this, as with Rothko or other minimalist works free of associations.

All of these differences, of course, are relatively minor. As with politics, gender, animal-to-human intelligence and so many other aspects of life, the overlap between the categories is far greater than the variance. The arts, be they visual, aural, kinaesthetic or olfactory, are amongst the finest expressions of humanity, like gemstones gleaming in vast mounds of rotting excrement.

Visual art is less obtrusive and insistent than music. You can escape problematic visuals so much more easily than you can escape problem sounds. So music penetrates more deeply into the unconscious than visual art. Visual art tends to speaks more to the intellect, as you suggested, and so it speaks less to the gut (literally) than music. Still, that depends on how complex the piece is in either idiom but I accept your point that art can carry more possible meanings. Our brains devote more energy to visual cues and can more readily glean greater explicit detail from the art. The McGurk effect makes this visual primacy clear, showing how visual stimuli can so override audio input that it is impossible to consciously alter one's perception even after being made aware of the deception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ81LLxfHY8

It just occurs to me that the concepts of this thread are rapidly becoming dated. Art and music as separate entities are moving towards the fringes, becoming ever more specialist interests. Today audio-visual is king. The explicitness of visual stimuli for the human brain has won out, with music being largely relegated to soundtracks (being arguably much of the best modern music being produced today).

Greta
All of these differences, of course, are relatively minor. As with politics, gender, animal-to-human intelligence and so many other aspects of life, the overlap between the categories is far greater than the variance. The arts, be they visual, aural, kinaesthetic or olfactory, are amongst the finest expressions of humanity, like gemstones gleaming in vast mounds of rotting excrement.

Visual art is less obtrusive and insistent than music. You can escape problematic visuals so much more easily than you can escape problem sounds. So music penetrates more deeply into the unconscious than visual art. Visual art tends to speaks more to the intellect, as you suggested, and so it speaks less to the gut (literally) than music. Still, that depends on how complex the piece is in either idiom but I accept your point that art can carry more possible meanings. Our brains devote more energy to visual cues and can more readily glean greater explicit detail from the art. The McGurk effect makes this visual primacy clear, showing how visual stimuli can so override audio input that it is impossible to consciously alter one's perception even after being made aware of the deception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ81LLxfHY8

It just occurs to me that the concepts of this thread are rapidly becoming dated. Art and music as separate entities are moving towards the fringes, becoming ever more specialist interests. Today audio-visual is king. The explicitness of visual stimuli for the human brain has won out, with music being largely relegated to soundtracks (being arguably much of the best modern music being produced today).

Not so sure the McGurk effect shows so much the primacy of the visual over the auditory as a tendency of the mind to make gestalt wholes out of parts. While it is true that we are led to think the 'baa' is a 'faa' when prompted by the facial cue, the same occurs in cases when the visual and auditory parts are not mixed, but the same: observe only parts of words of sentences in a paragraph, and we can determine the whole easily, and the same is true for sounds of a voice speaking. The mind reconstructs the whole out of the parts, and this likely is true for all phenomena as long as the anticipation of meaning is familiar enough.

I am also thinking of bad lip syncing, in which the inserted words match, somewhat, the lips, and the general effect is a seamless coordination between the two. Here, the auditory dominates and retranslates the visual.

Regarding audio visual, I'd have to agree that they have become somewhat joined at the hip with movie making, and this I find fascinating as it identifies the powerful presence of music, as you say, more striking and deeply meaningful. Sitting quietly, doing nothing is transfigured by the presence of a dramatic or romantic score. I used to live in Korea and the armed forces TV channel AFKN were generally propagandistic and encouraging of the aggression these soldiers had committed themselves to. But then they started showing clips of men in action to rock and roll music, and this had a startling effect on the aggressive mentality, even within a tame puppy like me: It was like movie violence that we all enjoy in the thrill of being vicariously THERE. The music made it exciting, but then, it was always assumed it was unreal. This, in South Korea, was real.

I felt AFKN stepped over a line. Real violence should be a terrible thing to the understanding. AFKN made it a fantasy.

Hereandnow wrote: ↑April 12th, 2020, 4:04 pm

Greta
All of these differences, of course, are relatively minor. As with politics, gender, animal-to-human intelligence and so many other aspects of life, the overlap between the categories is far greater than the variance. The arts, be they visual, aural, kinaesthetic or olfactory, are amongst the finest expressions of humanity, like gemstones gleaming in vast mounds of rotting excrement.

Visual art is less obtrusive and insistent than music. You can escape problematic visuals so much more easily than you can escape problem sounds. So music penetrates more deeply into the unconscious than visual art. Visual art tends to speaks more to the intellect, as you suggested, and so it speaks less to the gut (literally) than music. Still, that depends on how complex the piece is in either idiom but I accept your point that art can carry more possible meanings. Our brains devote more energy to visual cues and can more readily glean greater explicit detail from the art. The McGurk effect makes this visual primacy clear, showing how visual stimuli can so override audio input that it is impossible to consciously alter one's perception even after being made aware of the deception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ81LLxfHY8

It just occurs to me that the concepts of this thread are rapidly becoming dated. Art and music as separate entities are moving towards the fringes, becoming ever more specialist interests. Today audio-visual is king. The explicitness of visual stimuli for the human brain has won out, with music being largely relegated to soundtracks (being arguably much of the best modern music being produced today).

Not so sure the McGurk effect shows so much the primacy of the visual over the auditory as a tendency of the mind to make gestalt wholes out of parts. While it is true that we are led to think the 'baa' is a 'faa' when prompted by the facial cue, the same occurs in cases when the visual and auditory parts are not mixed, but the same: observe only parts of words of sentences in a paragraph, and we can determine the whole easily, and the same is true for sounds of a voice speaking. The mind reconstructs the whole out of the parts, and this likely is true for all phenomena as long as the anticipation of meaning is familiar enough.

I am also thinking of bad lip syncing, in which the inserted words match, somewhat, the lips, and the general effect is a seamless coordination between the two. Here, the auditory dominates and retranslates the visual.

Regarding audio visual, I'd have to agree that they have become somewhat joined at the hip with movie making, and this I find fascinating as it identifies the powerful presence of music, as you say, more striking and deeply meaningful. Sitting quietly, doing nothing is transfigured by the presence of a dramatic or romantic score. I used to live in Korea and the armed forces TV channel AFKN were generally propagandistic and encouraging of the aggression these soldiers had committed themselves to. But then they started showing clips of men in action to rock and roll music, and this had a startling effect on the aggressive mentality, even within a tame puppy like me: It was like movie violence that we all enjoy in the thrill of being vicariously THERE. The music made it exciting, but then, it was always assumed it was unreal. This, in South Korea, was real.

I felt AFKN stepped over a line. Real violence should be a terrible thing to the understanding. AFKN made it a fantasy.

Good point about bad lip syncing. Maybe, in simple cases, the visual is dominant but, if there is too much complexity for the visual cortex to "translate" in real time, it surrenders to audio input?

An eye-opening story about your experiences Korea (no pun intended). It called to mind Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange" and how Beethoven's 9th was conditioned to be associated with violent visuals and nausea drug. In this instance, violence was associated with music that was popular, uplifting and light-hearted. Then again, rousing music has always been used to push underlings to greater effort - from drummers on dragon boats, to military music, to slave songs and church services. The enervating qualities of music are worthy of discussion in their own right.

Visuals too, can be used to drive and inspire, as in grand old churches. Yet music seems more potent, more accessible. Great expense and effort is needed to build grand places with enough space within to inspire, while achieving equivalent volume in music is much more easily achieved. As in the Spinal Tap movie, and eleven foot high model of stonehenge has rather more capacity to inspire than an eleven inch version!