Art after theory
Part 3 Getting radical….





How is it that idealities became a problem is resolved in their position as problems. Art - as art may function as some semiotic / philosophic or pseudo-philosophic tool, whatever art as art means, outside yet defending this tendency and such an activity might be socially very useful, but so might be our radicalization. we are after all trying. Whatever, I am not heading towards some wonderful derridaian autonomy, even if , and I doubt it, it happens. Ones own psychological position is difficult; which is symptomatic but in no way conclusive. Whatever. Is it like this or like that, whatever, it is specific. And here is something someone might say is an original and positive statement. Although specification is kind of boundary drawing. We must move on. we must avoid solutions, why? Why cant these equally become radicalized. This after all could be called a solution. this activity - which is art - is fundamentally illuminating in the nature of things. It might from outside validate its morphology.

So if we are not satisfied with this, how psychologically fatal this would be.



"doubt can exist only where a question exists" Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Firstly and historically, 'art' is the instability of its own definition, the instability of its signifier and the instability of its signified. Secondly art in late modernism - in conceptualism, is the instability of the ideas around its ontology.. Whether this reflects a cultural, philosophical , biological , or even cosmological - metaphysical - fact, is besides the point from an art point of view. The artist engages in the instability, is its actor. The mistake, and part of the de-stabilization , is looking for final definitions. And of course now here is such a mistake. But allusions to philosophy -biology - history - art history - culture - parody - humor - politics are even more besides the point. we do not define either negatively or positively, but create the instability, or rather point it out in the now present, now present text. This text's status as art is (then) essentially unstable?
Critically we are caught between logical certainties and methodologies - we note Nietzsche - heidegger and derrida's challenges, questioning of truth, logocentricism et al. - or something nonsensical, even poetic.

That there is a general epistemological instability is interesting,(outside or above and so inclusive of art), if art was to be descriptive it would certainly define this general - philosophical- metaphysical instability - elsewhere called deconstruction. I might even criticize the term if I was not principally interested here in art, and not here! interested in philosophy, ontology etc.. The prima-facie case I will go on to make isn't the historical instability but the inherent instability here now, and the nature of this, its proper naming, or inability to do so. The status of this work as art does not lie in its willingness to be uncertain, unstable, any critical position is in itself challengeable, I could imbed such a challenge here, but that it attempts to indicate that the problematic remains no matter what. Why this defacto or de jour cannot be realized is obvious- though maybe it should be re stated, its restatement can again be challenged. Remember Russell's remarks regarding the tractatus - it throws up an uncertainty as to truth. Yet here we don’t even have any given criteria as to the significance of truth, or whatever. We are left with the art and its ontology having a greater uncertainty, instability - if you like than philosophy, in Russell's sense, but perhaps not elsewhere. However its only psychologically reassuring to find oneself in company, there is no internal assurance as to right or wrong. Both absolute positions and any other are questionable. And so on and so on.

Perhaps at this point we need to say more about materials, however such a discussion would be a kind of anthropological investigation, texts as signs are simple in pragmatic terms. Specifically its the conceptual instability and not the physical instability which makes us artists and not physicists, galleries and objects represent places for the physics of instability to be demonstrated. And restoration does not restore art back to the object. so I would consider the method of writing firstly as pragmatic, though there are difficulties with this, in how we write, with regard to meaning as expressed in language as being casual or logical, problems with the idea of equivalents etc.

The legitimating of the art practice has to be in the first place with the artist, how do you know you are doing art unless you are questioning the activity , other wise you are probably doing something quite different and allowing some external definition- and so some external person as artist.
modern day impressionist painters are painters, modern day conceptualists are conceptualists

so we need to reject the idea of concept as art, but still accept the discussion. The Judd dictum about anyone calling anything art is an excellent example. It relates to a specific historical destabilizing, and the product of a new- and Judd’s- position, which is a new definition, or art object. Its truth or not is not as important as the ability to take up views about it. That is destabilize its objectivity. In a way he doesn’t know what he is talking about.
The recognition here is that we cant get answers which are in anyway fixed. Consumerism maybe demands a pragmatic art, and that has been typical of post-modernism but in our definition it isn’t art at all, as its taken the pragmatic step of making a decision, it enters the gallery- or re-enters- and so there is nothing more to be said , nothing more to see, nothing more to do, the artistic move here was - if any - the moment of curatorial decision, however in reality the curatorial position has already presupposed art and its objects. One does not re-discover America these days. One might discover something of it, but any object based curatorial or artist- move is now about objects, and I include concepts, politics, feminism, et al. And others. In other words not art. As artists brought in by questioning other things, so they are excluded - or else everything is included. the point of the pragmatic inclusive decision is we then have to either discuss it or not. The objects then are if we do, clearly not the same, we then maybe wish to back down from this position, but again so long as we are doing the thinking its us that is realizing the art. The object once this process is over returns to it original and pre-artistic state. Just as in aestheticism, once no longer beautiful the object returns to its original state. Once the Beautiful is separated from art by a questioning process, a raising of doubt in modernity of the qualification of a objects properties as art we move to other considerations. However even when the aesthetic was concerned as being an attribute its nature was also unstable. The de-stabilizing of the material object-art paradigm was the achievement of conceptualism.

This was only one in a series of destabilizations, of representation, of subject, of content etc which was modernity.
Conceptualists first engaged with the concept as object. Objectivity followed to a collapse in the ability to find a stable conceptual object at all. All this is history, and as such Belongs in a museum. The move was not made in which Not the concept as object but concept as process before the object was arrived at. Such a destination is of course outside of art, which explains why it was avoided.
But the alternative seemed to put an end to any activity at all, other than subjective and empty gesture. However if the radical move was made and the subjectivity of post modernity’s rush to make objects, again, is avoided we are not, as it was thought left with nothing, left with nothing to do. In removing the historical edifice of modernity we actually do expose something. At the very minimum a space for intentionality, which is not the excuse for objects.

The destabilizing process at this point does not collapse into nothing, for the same reason as the removal of a philosophical system does not remove its cause, there was a cause and before this cause gained its causality a presence, and in the absence of a presence the space for an intention. The failure of a logical system due to internal inconsistencies does not necessarily remove the reasons , the intentions for its use, and these need not be some other inconsistency. Logical, metaphysical, biological, cosmological etc. Its possible still to want to do something and until we say what it is we cant say its a mistake.



'Generalizations -in art and philosophy' where we can refer to 'this'. and not a specific- and this is maybe sufficient, so sufficient then that specific disciplines, activities and subjects must too be generalized. Intentionally - is a modified metaphysics, a modified process or even a modified theology, we are in effect dealing with de-polymorphic activities, pre conceptual attitudes
etc. - before specifics- is an interesting area in which to be. /sic/
Missing - this- as in a consideration of non presence and the need to now show that we can avoid missing premises is a possible tactic of both this activity and its simultaneous writing. These become specifics in themselves, and not dialectical subjects / objects/ we are not interested in dialectics.


'That nothing makes a difference.' - we do not need to consider the so called objects of communication in art which fail to make a difference to the psychological being of the phenomenological presence of what has been called the iconography of art - before its logos - and neither the appearances, images, texts grammars etc. - after the epoche - which is after this moment, - we would say prior to perception- are differences seen- these objects fail to difference consciousness- the phenomenology of being - present in the subjective subject which- this - we call here art, - rather the logical structures have been seen both in short terms and in its histories to change - and so articulate - signify - in this subjective revealing of their fictions as objects of the conscious field, of developing an ontology, in which case we see ontologies as pseudo-ontologies as subjects of private iconographies - which appear never to change.

We can as what others have called the / what we would like to call deep/ phenomenological epoche before sign and signifier - before ontology and metaphysics, history etc, this landscape of the particular before its actual description - before it particularizes itself - or is made into an event - as it in it's self consciousness is always identical - with itself- always different to anything else- even when it is an historical event - of remembering, could be considered as a iconographic act, it is - here called art - but elsewhere philosophy etc. and we might consider such an answer to be that its presence is not iconographically opaque - but resides as a universal potential.

This is not a drawn description, it is not a history, not a raw phenomenon , and that then goes for any signification, beyond the subjects subject - as art which could be described not in morphological terms - reusing the language of morphology etc, but in a new language which could be thought of as art as i.e. non signified private language activity- or not - but something far wider - far more complex.




'or should we consider art as a private language '

Essentially there is only one listener.

Who is it that listens and why, it might be said we listen to familiarize the self - lets compare this to game playing, entertainment or education, having 'pet' theories, and detailed knowledge of given facts. If we wish to explore truth, and thought, and why should we, what would be wrong in not doing so, - we need not to direct thought and consciousness at its own instability but use this as a method of experience of the general…., in any private language, a private language as language without a reader, the excuse for such thinking would validate itself now, which it does so, must do, the compromise occurs only in simple social communications - which legitimate the power of the word, sign, over the signified individual.

Given a reader what we then explore are the limits of communication at its most abstract, any audience revolves around the prospects of fascism, and these problematics - socio-economic -cultural. etc.
Removing these - we still are faced with the continuing problem - that is what as I can I do, and what difference this makes, what difference anything makes in some teleology.

Which is a solution to the working out of the problematic, far from being a sterile phenomenon it is productive, unlike the socio-artistic-conceptualist -etc which inevitably after failing logically - implicit or explicitly- abandons meaning for elegance.
The movement has been to amalgamate the synthetic in avoidance of the logical object to subjective narration, avoiding the hierarchies of questioning which supposed an answer, but a narration of the many problematics - which is both art and the life-world - cosmos,
avoiding metaphysics and such nonsense, which then is not complete but a mark, signification etc. but narration is only an excuse here at signifying the proto-world before objects, which is hidden by the sediments of language, logic and meaning, and against a belief in such devices with their teleological implications.


Where we might have said….A brief note to begin.. where or when such things developed is an historical interest- morphology, overloading- or hiding of the object, in theory - the synthetic productions of extreme parallelism et al. are historical events within some structure - both- all- generated out of a particular instantiation- and not of a class, or culture, as a productive, pragmatic , capitalist move- the devolvement of hierarchies - networks of various and varying topologies, being actively open to historicizing or being regarded as ontologically present in the past or present or not...-etc. There is yet to be information- this is defined from instances in the form of generalizations, which produces symbols, signs, language, formality and images, tautologies logics, aesthetic screens and finally in this process, this list, epistemologies etc. which is an attempt at a formal generalization- of a 'metaphysical' instance. Such a description in itself could be constructed by reference to an instance- in fact all such generalizations need to be made specific with regard to their genesis, and seen therefore less than they actually appear, language needs to degeneralize itself and rediscover its subject. Otherwise it becomes a legal instrument for the prevention of genesis. - life - experience- process creativity etc.


"Why a text of a particular subject would need to be seen as being empty is in order not to have a reflexive permanent content or even one which is or can be regarded in the light of future textual analysis. "

within this, our practice the text will always be open to its particular subject and in order to do so will need to empty itself, or maybe at least to a hostile reader appear to do so! - to be an abstract class for the subjects world space, it cannot then be either public, or static, which would remove, or allow removal, modification etc. of its particular instantiation , and so allow further reuse, reevaluation, interpretation , analysis and deconstruction- of its content - world space, and not just its abstract methods (there are non), as seen here. That the class, this class, container is deconstructable doesn’t effect the subject which is now separated to what might appear logically to have generated it, though in our case this reversed, logically or gramatologicaly, though not in the non history - pre history of the subjective phenomenon, the source of the text becomes a instantiation which is hidden to the empty generative class and others which it creates, which even generates itself, and as such can take part in a history of analysis etc. as well as safely instantiating its subject, to the extent that the subject is allowed to be itself, regarding itself as an instantiation of its own life world not determined by external logics, grammar, rules bases etc. For instance in relation to its class which it generates and which is so a generative class itself, of itself and others.


The nature of this class and its supposed inheritance and types in the subjective post- theoretical text is reversed, however this in an anti histro-ontological sense must also at some point have been or is the case. The move from subject - object - subjects- is its product, and here the original subject's content is removed or hidden to a critical or hostile reader. It is therefore not the case of demanding specifics if this is only in order to remove them - modify etc. we have placed a special signification in the instant, and one we have said is problematic, and here formally problematic, one then cannot be describable. Such descriptions are other objects, real objects, non problematic in form, in logic, in reality, in metaphysics, maybe, but our initial problematics form, here in this, can derive a class, narrative etc.- a generalized class, but not one capable of producing a critique of it, from some external and therefore illegality, or open it to illegal alteration etc, or even create it, as a text. The point here is the abstract nature of our subjects types of problematic.

The properties of these subjective classes, methods etc, is that they can have, and do have multiple different instances with their own life worlds unlike some universal overarching, and legitimizing, limiting , class or narrative i.e. a determinist object, typical of modernity.