After reading the responses to my last post, Wrap Your Mind Around Radical Change, I began to make connections between this somewhat confusing theory and slow reading as an art form. It seems that I, and all of my classmates in ECI521, had strong reactions to the poem Skeleton Sky. Some questioned the validity of this piece as an art form, which brings me back to the theory that art originates in the mind. The physical presentation is craft. Those who found value in the poem also expressed taking the time to really engage with it. I wonder if this resulted in slow reading and, therefore, in the creation of art within the mind of the reader.
This discussion about identifying real art reminds me of the debate about the validity of modern art. In my experience when people fail to connect with modern art it is because it doesn't visually make sense, or it fails to reach them on an emotional level. I heard this sentiment echoed in many posts about Skeleton Sky, including my own. Often in galleries I've heard the comment, "I could have done that, and I'm no artist!" This is where the theory that art originates in the mind comes into play. Perhaps the observer could duplicate the piece, but could he or would he have thought of it? I can get totally lost in Rembrandt's works. The faces on his subjects are utterly amazing. Likewise, I've been moved to tears by the primitive art of Rousseau. I frightened my children by bursting into tears in front of La Charmeuse de Serpents at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. I don't think I've ever had that experience with a work of modern art, but some pieces have engaged me in long periods of reflection. Viewing Jackson Pollock's The Key is an all-consuming experience that produces an emotional response that I would have to work hard to articulate. Perhaps that is modern art's greatest accomplishment. It moves the observer past passive appreciation to the creation of some sort of new knowledge or understanding.
So, that brings me back to Skeleton Sky. Is it art? I think the answer is yes. Is it good art? I don't know yet. I do know that, when I finally stopped trying to make it fit into a time slot on my schedule, I began to enjoy the experience. I had to read this poem slowly. I had to pause to consider how the pieces fit together and to make sense of the recursive quality of the piece. As with modern art, interaction cannot remain intellectually passive. Furthermore, I think that no two readers will have the same experience. Like modern art, I think this type of Radical Change poetry will always be controversial.
I think you nailed it, Jen. Whether you're engaging with text or images or musical notes or bodies moving through space -- the "slow" mental process is reflective and highly interactive (I'd vote with Rosenblatt and Dewey on the choice of transactive because I think the work and the viewer create a one-time, mutually altering effect. Yes, recursive is an apt description).
ReplyDeleteI like your term "intellectually passive" and wonder if this failure to engage can have as much to do with resistance to change as it can to that elusive thing called taste. I'm reminded of Aronson's call for us to grow beyond the "literarist/artist" and the "moralist" and encourage our teens to create new types of arts and become thinkers.
I'll keep thinking about this connection you've made. Thanks for the inspiration to transact.