I should have read this agreeable response on Michael's part before I posted
mine. I concur; I would only add that I think another misconception of art
is that it has to be capitalized. I.e., the "Art" that hangs in galleries.
HIGH art. Art is everywhere around us, in the foods we prepare, in the
houses we live in, in the ornaments we put on our walls, in the clothes we
choose, in the cars we buy... and who could do without music? Even if you
don't play a musical instrument, you listen to it. It's everywhere. It's
as old as the hills. It evolved with us and all our expressive and
linguistic developments. Now there is elegant and vulgar art--degrees of
discipline not easily mastered by the amateur; I won't deny that--but on
almost every level, our lives are enriched by some form of art... our
defense against "wilderness."
Love the notion that art is bi-communicational. Audience/consumers and a
creator who is conscious of the creative act--why, what, and for whom he is
creating.
Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."
----- Original Message -----
From: "michael poxon" <m.poxon@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 10:37 AM
Subject: Re: lexicon
> I think a large problem with the reductionist approach to art, language
and
> human culture generally is that it seems to be formulated by people who
have
> no experience of creative art or poetry. Thus we get sweeping statements
of
> the "language is communication" variety. While something of language may
be
> communication, a lot of these statements seem to imply that's all it is.
> Please note here that I'm talking about people who frame these theories,
not
> necessarily those who subscribe to them, so no personal slights are
> intended. A lot of early art, for instance, is obviously
magical/worshipful,
> but since these are not concepts with which reductionist theories can cope
> with, they are ignored. Surely, central to this discussion is the fact
that
> all art is a two-way process, implying an audience as well as a creator
who,
> importantly, is conscious of the creative act. So, marks made by chimps
with
> the medium of a paintbrush don't constitute art unless they realise what
> they're doing. If language is "Hard-wired" into our brains then maybe art
is
> too. And I think you'll find that art has nothing at all to do with free
> expression. It always involves a certain amount of self-discipline; though
> to be sure after you've been through that stage you feel more able to
break
> the rules that you've assimilated. Poetry regularly breaks rules of
> communication, but surely most poets must already have a
better-than-average
> command of their own language in order to get to that stage.
> Mike
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
> To: <CONLANG@...>
> Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2003 10:57 PM
> Subject: Re: lexicon
>
>
> > Let me clarify my position. First, although this is all tangent to my
> > original point, I'll say where I stand on the precedence thing:
> >
> > The *ability* to communicate must have preceded culture, because there
can
> be
> > no culture without communication. But since there can be no
communication
> > without someone to communicate with, actual communication and culture
> > probably developed about the same time.
> >
> > Language, specifically, is an advanced variety of communication. In
> > the usual definition it seems to be restricted to humans, though the
line
> > between animal communication and human language is not the great
dividing
> > wall some make it out to be.
> >
> > Art is an advanced variety of non- or meta-linguistic communication,
that
> > is much more strongly restricted to humans. Ape paintings and the like
> > have yet to show much of an artistic penchant in other animals. :)
> >
> > But none of that is what I was talking about. The thread to which I was
> > replying was discussing art as possibly the original motivation for
> > the development of language. I argue that this is incredibly unlikely
> > because of the fundamental differences in, well, how fundamental
language
> > and art are.
> >
> > The capacity for language is built into our brains; it's an instinct;
it's
> > hardwired. We're born ready to recognize concepts and categorize them
> into
> > groups roughly analogous to nouns, verbs, and prepositions. We're born
> > with grammar universals that are shared by every natural language.
> > Language must have been an incredible survival advantage;
> > that's the only explanation for its presence as such a fundamental
> > part of the brain's makeup. It also must have originated a really
really
> > really long time ago in order to have time to be specialized to the
> > degree that it has. Given the time involved, I find it incredibly
> > unlikely that our first language-using ancestors were sufficiently
> developed
> > to be artistic.
> >
> > No such fundamental blueprints exist for art; art is by its very nature
> > the ultimate in free expression, refusing to obey set channels or rules.
> > It is practically indefinable. And artistic ability varies dramatically
> > among human individuals, far more than linguistic ability. The
> > drive to create is an instinct; art isn't.
> >
> > Besides, every other medium used for art - painting,
> > writing, music - was originally utilitarian; only later did people
> > have the luxury of using these things for art. I don't see why
> > language would be any different.
> >
> > -Mark
>
>
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