well, i suppose it's my turn to initiate the lull.
so here's my contribution to the emotion-creations/irrational-rational discussion.

On the first day of seventh grade Art our teacher wanted us to define art. The result was of course a loud fray very much like the one we had on the same subject at TASP. Someone, I remember, stated the following:

"To express something!"

"Express what?" the teacher asked.

The answer he gave after some hesitation was "emotion."

If we entertain this seventh grader's definition, exactly what is involved in the creation of art, then in the viewing/listening/reading/performing (etc.) of art? The actual feeling of emotion is confined to the individual person. I can tell you that I'm sad beyond belief, and the only way you can imagine how I'd be feeling is to recreate the emotion you feel when you say you're sad beyond belief. Emotions are, as Eunice points out, irrational. The rational, then, belongs in the realm of the expressible.

Back to art - if the purpose of art has a communicative aspect to it (Creation with capital C), then this communication - the 'expression' - involves the translation of the inexpressible, irrational idea (a thought, an emotion, a mood) to the expressible, upon which the connections between the components of the idea are lost and you are left with art: words on a page, shapes and colors on canvas, individual chords played in progression. This we call the creative process.

The task of the viewer/listener/reader/performer (etc.) is to reverse this translation process, like breaking a code, by recreating this process in trying to assemble these rational components of an irrational whole together. When it comes to emotion and other ineffable creatures, we are ultimately isolated, separate entities, contained within ourselves; our chemicals, so to speak, are our own. The connections in between, we have to make ourselves as individuals. Somehow it works, sometimes.

I would ramble more but I have to watch my daily 15-minute dose of Harold and Maude. :)

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [9:11 PM]

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