One of the significant messages Iain Chambers puts forth in his article Unrealized Democracy and a Posthumanist Art, is the existence of a constant disruption in the language, history, and culture of the Western world brought about by its own mechanisms of globalization, homogenization, and modernity. The difference that diverse culture brings to the western world, through migration, challenges the ideas of equality and acceptance in the historical western view of democracy. What is at stake is how identity is continually being shifted and influenced, through inclusion and exclusion, based on its level of disruption within the current system. Chambers points out that modernity was built on a framework of “inequalities” and that the west’s resistance to difference, but insistence on equality, is contradictory (Chambers 169). I think part of what Chambers is referring to as “Unrealized Democracy” in the title of the article is the sense that the idea of democracy does not mean equality (which it should), and that a sense of citizenship should include a person’s freedom to shape their own future while also being able to provide for themselves. This means that equality and opportunity for all should exist and be recognized, but seems to fall away in the event of things like increasing poverty in an unbalanced economic system. This can be seen in the current global economic situation where certain groups of citizens are so affected that they are not living and are merely getting by. These are consequences which affect identity, change the way in which a person positions themselves within the world view, and keeps equality at a controllable distance along with difference.
In his book, Migrancy, Culture, Identity Iain Chambers discusses...
... middle of paper ...
...ern world and its resistance to any breach in regard to its long standing framework of identity, and the fact that hybrid culture and globalization are its opposing forces. The inevitable arrival of a seemingly smaller and smaller world, I believe, is edging us closer and closer to Posthumanist ways of thinking, and art in a Posthumanist world is a tool that can be used to show how differences should be thought of as qualities that form each of our identities, as opposed to signifiers that dictate exclusion.
Works Cited
1) Chambers, Iain. "An Impossible Homecoming." Migrancy, Culture, Identity. London: Routledge, 1994.
1-13. Print.
2) Haraway, Donna J, "Situated Knowledges" in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. Routledge, New York: 1991
3) Herbrechter, Stefan. "A Genealogy of Posthumansim." Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. 39. Print.
Scarre, Christopher. The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2013.
Though people can look into color and composition, others can still even look into the source of the art itself. Cole goes deeper, delving into the source of the art, looking in particular into the idea of cultural appropriation and the view a person can give others. Though it is good for people to be exposed to different opinions of a group or an object, sometimes people can find it difficult to tell the difference between the reality and the art itself. Sometimes art can be so powerful that its message stays and impacts its audience to the point where the viewer’s image of the subject of the art changes entirely. Cole brings up an important question about art, however. Art has become some kind of media for spreading awareness and even wisdom at times, but in reality, “there is also the question of what the photograph is for, what role it plays within the economic circulation of images” (973). Cole might even be implying that Nussbaum’s advertisement can sometimes be the point of some media, and that sometimes the different genres of art can just be to make someone with a particular interest happy. One more point that Cole makes is that “[a]rt is always difficult, but it is especially difficult when it comes to telling other people’s stories.” (974) Truthfully, awareness and other like-concepts are difficult to keep going when a person or a group is not directly involved.
Over the decades, art has been used as a weapon against the callousness of various social constructs - it has been used to challenge authority, to counter ideologies, to get a message across and to make a difference. In the same way, classical poetry and literature written by minds belonging to a different time, a different place and a different community have somehow found a way to transcend the boundaries set by time and space and have been carried through the ages to somehow seep into contemporary times and shape our society in ways we cannot fathom.
The article Artists Mythologies and Media Genius, Madness and Art History (1980) by Griselda Pollock is a forty page essay where Pollock (1980), argues and explains her views on the crucial question, "how art history works" (Pollock, 1980, p.57). She emphasizes that there should be changes to the practice of art history and uses Van Gogh as a major example in her study. Her thesis is to prove that the meaning behind artworks should not be restricted only to the artist who creates it, but also to realize what kind of economical, financial, social situation the artist may have been in to influence the subject that is used. (Pollock, 1980, pg. 57) She explains her views through this thesis and further develops this idea by engaging in scholarly debates with art historians and researcher, and objecting to how they claim there is a general state of how art is read. She structures her paragraphs in ways that allows her to present different kinds of evidences from a variety sources while using a formal yet persuasive tone of voice to get her point across to the reader.
Whether it be writers, painters, sculptors, musicians, or photographers, artists all over the world have striven to show people their views of the world, of people, and even of the universe itself. Throughout history the creative urge of man to present to fellow men a different perspective or representation of life-or even the afterlife-has surfaced time and time again in the form of artwork. Sometimes it comes through genius and complexity, full of meaning and symbolism. Others, it is simple and void of any clear meaning at all other than that it is art. Soon, however, there became a point when the work of art was no longer something one could just look at and understand; the principle of the matter had changed. Art leapt from viewable understanding straight into the Modern movement where theory became art, and to understand it, one must know the theory it is based upon. Never was this more apparent than in the artwork of the abstract expressionist. Essentially, artwork is not art because of theory, and art based on theory cannot be creative or truly said to be art.
David Christian, This Fleeting World: A Short History of Humanity. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing, 2008; 120 pp. $14.95 (paperback)
Since its emergence over 30,000 years ago, one of visual art’s main purposes has been to act as an instrument of personal expression and catharsis. Through the mastery of paint, pencil, clay, and other mediums, artists can articulate and make sense of their current situation or past experiences, by portraying their complex, abstract emotions in a concrete form. The act of creation gives the artist a feeling of authority or control over these situations and emotions. Seen in the work of Michelangelo, Frida Kahlo, Jean Michel-Basquiat, and others, artists’ cathartic use of visual art is universal, giving it symbolic value in literature. In Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,
In art history, interpretation identifies the influences of time and place on the artist, thus images of the same subject may be created at different times or in different locations that may have little in common. Their differences reflect the contrasting personal and cultural traditions and values of each artist. Art helps one to analyze our peers by understanding the type of person one is interacting with, that is, the social skills that one needs to interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds. By observing the subject of art, one is able to access the subject on how it relates to the current
This art, like most, can be applied to the viewer in any way they wish. A person may look at one of the sculptures and see themselves. They may see a man who is going through challenges similar to their own; someone who is trying to free himself from these bounds. Such challenges may include an attempt to escape financial bounds or personal weaknesses. The interpretations are only limited to the comparisons a viewer
Pinker, Steven. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Viking, 2002. Print.
Although his illustrations are incredibly precise and thought provoking they still maintain a sense of ambiguity in the fact that the people are never given a sense of identity. A stereotypical outline of the figure is often used in a grayscale or black and white depiction and it leads the viewer to question whether the person is male, female, old, young, or of a different race. This is successful in portraying the fact that we all operate according to the same basic functions but this often leaves the work feeling emotionless and rather mechanical. We know now that this is simply not true, we are very much reliant on emotions to carry out certain biological processes within the brain and stray quiet far from the rigidity of me...
...p from the world they live in, a world of separation and indicate themselves with their own realities. Art is handed over into society’s hands, as in one movement it is suggested - to fixate what is real, live like you create and create like you live; in other – abandon media’s proposed ideas and take the leadership of life in our own hands.
Author Yuval Noah Harari has a unique way of reviewing the past fourteen billion years in his monograph Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. His intention for writing this book is mainly to bring up the conversation of the human condition and how it has affected the course of history. In this case, the human condition coincides with the inevitable by-products of human existence. These include life, death, and all the emotional experiences in between. Harari is trying to determine how and why the events that have occurred throughout the lives of Homo Sapiens have molded our social structures, the natural environment we inhabit, and our values and beliefs into what they are today.
Yates, Steven. 1997. Postmodern Creation Myth? A Response. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies IX (1/2): 91-104.
In the website http://www.wmd.org/about/current-challenges/current-challenges-democracy it states how Democratic progress has increased around the world such as; a downfall of authoritarian military regimes in Latin, the demolishing of the apartheid regime in South Africa, and the fall of the Communist System and Berlin Wall. All of these stories show that democracy does not come from itself; the website continues by showing how democracy grows within countries by progressively institutionalizing, constructing political processes, and distributing the universal values that are inherent ...