No More Learning

" An observer can once again distinguish between object and process when selecting this distinc- tion as the form of observation. This is why it takes an observer to raise questions about objects; a system simply starts operating. It takes an ob- server to see the paradox of a beginning that presupposes itself, to recog- nize the self-implicative structure of the distinguishing act, and to plunge
--all of which obscured the issue. In the calculus of form,
Disregarding the preference
32 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
himself, at least logically, into confusion. Only an observer can run into paradox and be forced to admit that paradox is always presupposed--in mathematical and even more so in logical operations--as the blind spot
72
that makes distinction, and thus observation, possible in the first place. Operations, on the other hand, including observing operations, simply happen. A distinction discriminates; its mere occurrence creates a differ- ence. To become relevant as form, the occurrence must be observed (retro- spectively by the same system, simultaneously or later by another system); only then does the unity of the distinction become apparent as the blind
73
spot that enables observation.
tinction is used--this holds for all distinctions. It is as indisputable as our certainty about the world, a certainty based on inaccessibility.
The first distinction posits everything it discriminates and indicates
against the unmarked space of the world. "Everything else" is left on the
other side of the distinction and remains necessarily undetermined. A nar-
ration opens with the phrase "once upon a time . . . ," which demarcates
an imaginary space for the unfolding narration at the exclusion of every-
74
thing else. In the same way, an enclosed field is prepared for a painting,
which can emerge only within the boundaries of this primary form. Or a
stage is prepared for a yet undetermined performance. The rising and
falling of the curtain draws a boundary around the performance, allowing
the actors to step out of their roles and in front of the curtain to receive
75
This unity remains invisible while the dis-
The purpose of writing--as one can read (! ) in Derrida--
the ovations.
is to mark absences for absent readers, that is, to permit the withdrawal of
76
die author.
the negative formulation indicates), but effectively bounded. Of course, once the painter has projected the plane for his painting, he can lean back and have breakfast, but doing so requires other distinctions that exclude an "unmarked space" on their part. The operative activity, in other words, goes on inside the form, but in the course of its execution, it can link forms to forms, distinctions to distinctions--for example, by drawing a line and observing its effects on a drawing in process, namely, the line it- self and what is to be expected if the drawing tolerates the line. The emerging forms have a two-sided connectivity; an operation on one side affects and changes the other. But the unmarked space in which the oper- ative sequence takes place remains an inaccessible precondition. Every use of form, every crossing of a boundary in a certain direction, regenerates the unmarked space of the world in the sense that further operative possibili-
The unmarked space outside the text remains inaccessible (as
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 33
ties remain open--that is, in the sense of a future. The world remains the world, sustaining itself behind the forms that establish themselves, natu- rally or artificially, in it. The world remains invisible even when, and pre- cisely when, it is laced with forms. (When one draws a circle, the world is not just outside but also inside the circle; it is what is severed by the cir- cle. ) The world enters into the play of forms only as the paradox of the in- distinguishability of the distinguished, and it tolerates this paradox as a kind of placeholder that represents the world as unobservable. This is why artistic praxis (production and apprehension) can only be comprehended as a modification of this paradox, as an activity of creating and deleting forms, rather than as a matter of applying principles or rules, which would presuppose an initial situation without paradox.
One can translate this insight into a systems-theoretical formulation by
saying that the sequence of operations closes itself off and in so doing ex-
cludes other things. Or one might say that it draws a boundary, which im-
plies that only internal operations are henceforth possible--operations
that are capable of observing this boundary, that can, in other words, dis-
tinguish system from environment and make indications that refer either
to themselves or the outside world. To the unattainability of the world
corresponds the closure of the work of art--and, ultimately, the closure of
77
the art system.
The same insight has been formulated in similar ways in quite different
theoretical contexts. Following Gotthard Gtinther, Eva Meyer speaks of a choice of "contexture" when a distinction is selected that indicates some- thing by excluding a third. The excluded third is evacuated into the con- texture's "surroundings. " Every choice of contexture generates a sur-
78
rounding space, the unmarked space of Spencer Brown's formal calculus. Bernard Willms illustrates what he calls the presence of the excluded in politics in conjunction with the problem of freedom and the sovereign's
79
obligation to master the state of emergency.
tion "potentializes" by reproducing the rejected as a possibility and by in-
80
corporating it into the recursive network of the system.
Interpretations
of the Talmud routinely transmit dissenting opinions to keep the future
open; after all, the text has been revealed for all times, for written as well
81
as oral tradition.
For Jacques Derrida, in his reading of Husserl's tran-
scendental phenomenology, form indicates an absence--"form in itself al-
ready would be the trace (ikhnos) of a certain nonpresence, the vestige of
82
the un-formed, which announces-recalls its other. "
Focusing on works
Yves Barel shows how rejec-
34 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
of art, Danto speaks of interpretations, but it is evident from his analysis that he is talking about the discovery of (visible or invisible) difference;
83
what matters is not what a thing is in itself but what it makes visible.
can summarize these and similar statements as follows: the world of meaning [Sinn] is a closed world (meaning, in other words, is a universal medium that cannot be negated), so that exclusion can happen only in the world and--just like any indication--only by virtue of a distinction. But if this is true, the act of exclusion is also constitutive of determination as such, and this is why we need to scrutinize ideas--especially those ex- pressing a maximum or ultimate constitutive principle--with an eye to what they exclude and render invisible. Their foundational effort serves above all to make namable as antiform (or antimatter) what can be pre- sent only in its absence. At this point, we may be broaching the topic of religion.
A work of art that holds its own as a work of art in a differential rela- tion to everything else initially excludes everything else and divides the
84
world into itself and the remaining unmarked space.
of art as a (produced) object endowed with certain attributes makes sense only when focusing on the work itself. It is of no particular artistic inter- est to cross the work's boundary for the sake of indicating something else; doing so and then returning to the work amounts to never having crossed
85
or recrossed the boundary.
art is nothing but an object. Subsequendy, one can ask how an art object distinguishes itself from other natural or artificial objects, for example, from a urinal or a snow shovel. Marcel Duchamp used theform of a work of art to impress this question on his audience and, in a laudable effort, eliminated all sensuously recognizable differences between the two. But can a work of art at once pose and answer this question}
This object-oriented perspective led to endless debates on the nature of such objects and how they can be distinguished and judged, until it was fi- nally realized that the question itself is incompatible with the universalistic claims of the art system {everything can be art). Today, the work of art as communication appears to collapse under the weight of questions and an- swers, provoking nothing more than "so what? " Tracing this question, we return to art as if from the outside. What matters when an object is pro- duced as a work of art is that the internally employed forms constrain the possibilities of their respective other sides. These constraints result neither exclusively from the material qualities of the medium (for instance, the
Situated within this distinction, the work of
To observe a work
We
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 35
density or weight of the material, the minimal duration of audible tones) nor solely from the purpose for which the object is used. The emphasis here is on "neither exclusively"--that these kinds of constraints do play a role, as in architecture, for example, should not prevent the work of art from coming into being. However, a work qualifies as art only when it em- ploys constraintsfor the sake of increasing the work'sfreedom in disposing over
further constraints. As an object, considered within the boundaries of a thing or process, the work of art opens up the possibility of a compact communication. In calling it a work of art, one arrives at a clear-cut dis- tinction from which to proceed. Communication may come to an end here or begin to concern itself with the network of distinctions that consti- tute the work and identify it as art. As for the inner side of the form "work of art," this compact communication communicates its readiness for fur- ther analysis. It is a kind of communication on credit, it authorizes further
86
elaborations, its predominant message is: "One could show t h a t . . . "
The external side of the form "work of art" remains unmarked space. Disposing over this side--by making decisions that affect what now func- tions as the other side (our initial starting point)--becomes possible only when the forms to be realized internally are observed. The chances of dis- covering something fitting are dwindling; going on becomes increasingly difficult. The beginning loses its momentum in an effort to salvage what has already begun. But the determination that indicates one rather than the other side of its form always constitutes that other side along with it. As a result, further determinations are needed until the forms close them- selves off in a circle, where they comment on one another and reaffirm the
beginning.
In the tradition, the circle that returns into itself was considered the
perfect form. There is no need to reject this idea, but one can certainly raise further questions: What becomes of the outside? What does the cir- cle make invisible by virtue of its self-perfection? Or further, how com- plex is that which the circle includes? How abundant are the forms it con- tains? And yet further, how complex must a circular structure be to include the possibility of a reentry of the form into the form--the possi- bility of a play within the play or of the "comme si" episode in Mallarm^'s "Un coup de des"?
Under the condition of sufficient structural complexity, which presup- poses the law of crossing, the law of crossing no longer holds. Like any cir- cular structure, such complexity presupposes both familiar and unex-
36 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
pected elements. If, upon performing operations on the other side, one re- turns to the side from which one started, then one finds it altered. But this does not change the underlying proposition that a distinction can be ap- plied only to specific sides, never as a unity. The unity of the distinction is not a unit capable of operation. One can, however, use a distinction to observe other distinctions. The result is a work that becomes a (distin- guishable) form by virtue of consisting internally of forms (distinctions) capable of specifying one another on either side: "The form within the
87
form frames the enclosing form. "
The distinction between cases in which the law of crossing applies and
those in which it does not apply, along with the insight that the law's au- thority is the precondition for its suspension in the work of art, defines in a theoretically rigorous sense the differentiation of the art system in a world that remains operatively beyond its reach.
These considerations set us apart from two other possible approaches
to theoretical aesthetics: dialectics and semiotics. Taking differently con-
structed theories into account might nonetheless be fruitful, so long as we
remain aware of the differences. The concepts of distinction and form do
not imply negation. The other side remains presupposed when something
determined by that side is indicated. We are dealing with mathematics, if
you will, not with logic. Hence, our goal is not an aesthetics of negativity
88
in Adorno's sense. Such a project places too much of a burden on the con-
cept of negativity, particularly when it is held accountable for the difference between the aesthetic and the nonaesthetic. In our view, the positive/nega- tive distinction is a specific form that must be introduced with caution.
Nor do we think of the work of art as an arrangement of "signifiers" that refer to corresponding "signifieds. " This distinction too--which generally
89
defines the concept of the sign--is only one form among others.
using the distinctions of semiotics, we need to remind ourselves that the signifiers of an artwork refer solely to signifieds within the work itself. Each time a determination specifies certain aspects of an artwork, it creates an open flank that requires further decisions--determination means noth- ing else. But if this is true, we might as well use the language of the formal calculus to begin with. The conceptual repertoire of distinction/form/ observer thematizes a precondition for the introduction of indications into a world that is and remains undetermined. This is where a theory of art must begin, if it wants to do justice to art's claim that it has something to do with the world.
When
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 37
VII
Theoretical figures as abstract and suggestive of paradox as these should help us conceptualize in sufficiently precise terms what happens when a work of art is made and observed. The notions of making and observing substitute for the traditional role-oriented distinction between the pro- duction and reception of a work of art. The conceptual pair "operation
90
and observation" is meant to relativize this distinction.
tinction to what both concepts have in common--namely, the operative use of a distinction for the purpose of indicating one (and not the other) side--in other words, we trace the distinction to its use as form. We shall call such a use of form "observing. "
Observing is a real, albeit prelogical mode of operation. It is prelogical because it does not distinguish between affirmation and negation; in this regard, observing (like the world) cannot be qualified. Observing presup- poses a distinction, which it affirms through what it selects and indicates. At the same time, observing de-actualizes the other side of the distinction, including the distinction itself as what it does not indicate. The logical ambivalence of observing and the fact that it allows for no further qualifi- cation correspond to the impossibility of negating the medium of mean- ing [Sinn], the medium in which observation creates its forms by virtue of an operation that includes as well as excludes. Only what is indicated as included in the form's internal side can serve as a starting point for further operations. Only from this point--assuming one appends predicates of existence, of validity, modalizations, and so on--can positive or negative propositions follow. Any coding in terms of negative/positive is therefore secondary, which means it can attain only the status of an interchangeable distinction.
To be sure, every observation is an operation, or it could not happen. But not every operation implies that the other side is perceived as well; not every operation is an observation. The production of forms generates observational possibilities. The observer is not the form; he cannot ob- serve himself while executing the operation. But his observing is bound by the form (when it is used), and, according to the formal calculus, it is bound tightly, that is, without alternative. In this sense, one might say with Spencer Brown that the observer, in the act of observing, is identical
91
to the form he uses.
determine, the form to be used by an observer in such a way that the ob-
A work of art, too, determines, or at least strives to
We trace the dis-
38 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
serving operation--in a self-forgetting (or, as the tradition believed, pur- poseless) manner--is nothing but this form. This argument disregards the fact that only systems can observe. The theory of forms is not yet a theory of systems.
At any rate, the activity of operating and observing (of indicating some- thing on the basis of a distinction) is going on not only when a work of art
92
is made but also when it is perceived.
tion only through observation; he must, so to speak, let the emerging work show him what has been done and what can be done further. The theory
93
of sketches has been a locus classicus for discussing this problem.
A
painter needs to draw several sketches to record his ideas and determine
the ones best suited for his purposes. This process can be contracted into
an accelerated sequence of painting, stepping back, and observing. The
same holds for the writer; he is always also a reader--how else could he
94
write? The making of an artwork cannot be understood--or can be un-
derstood only in a manner that remains insufficiently formalized--as a
means to an external end that is apparent from the start. It escapes plan-
ning and programming; this may explain why, since early modern times,
it has been necessary to separate artistic activity from craftsmanship. Artis-
tic production amounts to observing distinctions whose empty sides need
, to be filled, or, to use Henri Focillon's beautiful formulation, it is a "poetry
95
of action. "
as in understanding (or misunderstanding)--since observing amounts to operating in a special manner that does not just generate differences but also reproduces itself from moment to moment with the help of indica- tions that are bound by distinctions.
What sense does it make to differentiate the roles of maker and be- holder when both sides are conceived (observed) as observers? The con- ventional presentation of these roles in terms of the active/passive distinc- tion misses the point; observing is always active. In most cases (even the art of writing is not completely exempt), the producer must deploy his body as a primary observer. He must rely on bodily intuition, teasing out the distinctions that matter, and in so doing, he must differentiate un- consciously. Eyes and ears can dispose over only what has already occurred and perhaps motivate corrections. The artist's genius is primarily his body. The observing activity that guides production distinguishes itself from the one that views the product in yet another respect: the former happens
only once, whereas the latter repeats. Repetition always means repetition
An artist can control his produc-
Observing an artwork is an operation as well--in perception
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 39
under different circumstances and, strictly speaking, repetition as another. An incalculable number of observers, among them the artist, can partici- pate in observing the work, each of them as a "nontrivial machine" that assumes a different state or reconstructs itself as a different machine in each operation. It is the ultimate test for the quality of artworks that, de- spite our awareness of their "uniqueness," we can perceive them again and again, each time with different eyes.
This point becomes even clearer when the form of participation is con- sidered primarily from the viewpoint of perception and only secondarily in terms of thinking judgment--that is, against the Baumgarten/Kant tra- dition and generally against the neglect of perception in the description of consciousness (of what, traditionally, sets humans apart from animals). While thought is highly aware of its obligation toward intersubjective agreement and deviations from this principle are considered mistakes, per-
96
ceptions are "equivalent" only "in a weak sense. "
that perceptions are intersubjectively different and always new.
Of course, operations (and observations considered as operations) are always unique. They always take place for the first and for the last time. Only observations, when based on the same schema of differentiation, can be repeated and recognized as repetitions. We take the distinction between operation and observation to be fundamental, which is evident from its self-implicative structure. On the one hand, the distinction is the instru- ment of an observer; on the other hand, it indicates an operation--a mere operation, one could say--on one side of the distinction and an observ- ing operation on the other. An analysis of these intricate conceptual rela- tionships is beyond our present scope. What interests us here is merely mat they help clarify how artfunctions as communication.
Observing works of art as art, rather than as worldly objects of some other type, succeeds only if the beholder decodes the work's structure of distinctions and infers from this structure that the object could not have emerged spontaneously but owes its existence instead to the intent of con- veying information. The information is externalized in the work; the communicated content results from the artificiality of the information, which reveals the information to be contrived. Perception in this case no longer results from our worldly familiarity with objects (which does not mean that one cannot be content with registering the mere fact that a pic- ture is hanging on the wall). In order to succeed as an understanding of communication, that is, in terms of understanding the differencebetween
But this simply means
40 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
information and utterance, perception requires the perception of percep- tion. Psychologically, this means that the normal externalization of con- sciousness takes place. Rather than being suspended, it is modified by the
97
questions "What do I see? Am I seeing correctly what I see? " This means
that social communication is dealing with a self-generated difficulty of understanding to which open expectations concerning its meaning can at- tach themselves: "The . . . life of a poem is the way it performs itself
98
through the difficulties it imposes upon itself. " The artist must therefore
observe his emerging work in anticipation of its observation by others.
99
There is no way of knowing how others (which others? ) will receive the
work through their consciousness. But he will incorporate into the work fvays of directing the expectations of others, and he will make an effort to Surprise them. This is how, to borrow a phrase from antiquity, the work of art is created for the sake of astonishment. This is how it surprises with in- formation about itself. This is how it unfolds the self-generated paradox of creating and disrupting illusion. And this is how it incorporates the blind spot--its own unity as unfolded paradox--that renders the work
100
incomprehensible to whoever focuses on this spot.
The artist might go astray in the process, projecting more into his
work--or less--than others might be getting out of it. This is not the point, since it holds for every communication. Nor are we dealing with a teleological process that strives toward consensus or adequate understand- ing. This goal, too, may or may not be reached in any communication. What matters instead is the autopoietic organization of an activity that processes distinctions within the frame of self-generated uncertainties, in- dependendy of the desires, impressions, and feelings of those who partic- ipate in it. In other words, for communication to come about, it is irrele- vant whether or not systems of consciousness are capable of figuring each other out. Communication occurs whenever the utterance of an informa- tion is understood--which may result in acceptance or rejection, consen- sus or dissent. Moreover, communication through art is not concerned with automating understanding. Rather, it is inherently ambiguous (Semi- cologists speak of polyshnie) independently of whether or not the diver- gence of observational possibilities was planned in the sense of an "open work. " The fact that observers cannot agree on a single interpretation of a given artwork may even count as evidence of its artistic quality. This is an inevitable and often deliberately cultivated aspect of "differentiation. "
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 41
VIII
We can recapitulate and deepen our analysis by returning to the para- doxical structure of the distinguishing indication or--which amounts to the same thing--to the arbitrariness of all beginnings. This is a general law of observation: whoever wants to observe must observe somethingznA distinguish it from other objects. He must indicate and distinguish, hence be able to distinguish between distinction and indication. But how can he execute this distinguishing indication as an act? How can he operate if op- erating presupposes a built-in difference that needs to be distinguished prior to the operation, namely, the distinction between the indication and the distinction that is presupposed in the execudon of this indication? The question leads to an infinite regress in search of the first distinction and therefore cannot be answered--one would have to start distinguishing in order to do so. This is why one needs to begin. This is why Spencer Brown's formal calculus--unlike the older cosmology--does not start from the assumption of a chaos waiting for love in order to assume a form or, in the manner of Hegel, from an immediate relationship to the world
101
that requires determination.
distinction or a code. Instead, it starts widi an injunction--"Draw a dis- tinction! "--that requires no justification, since it generates all further op- erations. Even chaos is created by a distinguishing operation. But the im- perative conceals the fact that a prior distinction has already been made, namely, the distinction between distinction and indication.
One might ask how a distinction can be employed as distinction, if only one of its sides and not the other functions as indication--if, to speak widi Spencer Brown, the distinction is to be used as form, or, as semiologists might say, if we are always moving within the realm of signi- fying signs (of language, for example) without ever arriving at the signi- fieds presupposed in language use. There is always a prior asymmetry--a break of symmetry that is put to operative use--while the original sym- metry remains unobservable.
Indicating both sides simultaneously neu- tralizes both the asymmetry and its difference, canceling the very distinc- tion required in order to indicate one thing rather than another.
Such formal problems point to the original paradox of the unity of the distinguished--they can be indicated but not employed as such. Paradox arrests the observation that wants to refer to or indicate it in the form of an
Nor does it begin with an authoritative
42 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
102
instantaneous oscillation.
itself. Since observation depends on distinction, it must dissolve and make invisible the underlying paradox of the unity of the distinguishing activity, it must replace this unity with operatively useful distinctions, it must un- fold the paradox--there is no other way of arriving at identities capable of operation.
Whatever can be observed in art is thus the unfolding of a paradox that, for its part, escapes observation. But even if the unobservable remains un- observable, it is important to keep in mind that this is so. The unobserv- ability of paradox legitimates the arbitrariness of beginning. The first caesura, the first cut into the unmarked state of the world, must be exe- cuted, and not just to generate two sides. Rather, the cut must yield an asymmetrical use of these sides, which allows for connecting operations on one side but not on the other. This is how sequences are set in motion that reproduce the problem in the realm of already executed distinctions in such a way that further observations can follow. What emerges and be- comes visible as a work of art is the unfolding of its own paradox, the sub- stitution of interrelated forms for what cannot be observed. The work of art is unobservable as a unity--unless it is distinguished from something else (or everything else). The point, in other words, is not to make visible what cannot be observed (the world), nor is it a matter of symbolizing, representing, or revealing its hidden order, as the traditional doctrine of signs would have it. The problem is similar, but the solution is different. The only option is to observe forms instead of the unobservable, while knowing that this happens by unfolding a paradox.
Consequently, the unity of the work of art is beyond description. De- scription requires decomposition. To put it differently, the nexus of dis- tinctions that articulate one another cannot be generalized. This is what makes each work of art unique and creates the impression that the net- work of interconnected details has come about ad hoc. This is, of course, no objection against the rationality of these interconnections or their de- liberate nature--they can certainly be justified and understood--but we need to adjust our criteria of judgment as well as our concept of rational- ity to a situation that precludes generalization. Despite the built-in, local, and context-specific rationality of its decisions, the work of art itself, be- ing neither the sum nor the aggregate of individual features, is not ratio- nal--in this respect it resembles the world.
The proposition that the work of art unfolds a paradox corresponds to
Paradox lacks connectivity; it revolves within
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 43
the historical fact that the art system has become autonomous. Within the traditional framework of imitation, concepts such as distinction or difference played a limited role. They accomplished the task of imitation, of replicating natural differences within the work of art. There was an awareness of the unobservability of unity, but it was expressed in enig- matic forms, in terms that explicitly or implicitly referred to something external--such as religious inspiration, the natural talent (genius) of the
103
artist, or the necessity of representing nature on a smaller scale.
by contrast, one begins with the paradox of distinguishing--understood as an operation--art appears as an articulation of its own self-reference. Accordingly, it can do whatever it wants so long as it produces self- referential connectivity.
Our exposition acknowledges that the artist and the observer of art are equally dependent on forms. To observe the work as a work of art, they must be able to perceive the forms that direct their observations. To both, forms appear as asymmetrical and two-sided, as forms that mark one side by indication and thus constrain what can be specified on the other side. This is not to say that both will arrive at the same judgment, nor that they bring to bear the same orientation of taste or the same aesthetic prefer- ences. But their dependence on form and on the determination of the for- mal nexus that makes up the work provides--just as in the case of lan- guage--enough of a common ground to speak of communication between artist and viewer. Even under normal circumstances, the condi- tions of possibility of communication keep open the question of whether or not our judgments agree.
Focusing on the observing operation, one recognizes that artist and viewer are both engaged in judgment, albeit in different ways, at different times, in different operational sequences, and perhaps with different crite- ria. We are always dealing with a historical process that consists of opera- tions, that is, with an evendike process which can realize itself only in time. The observation accompanying the creation of a work differs from the ob- servation of the beholder in that the former can occur only once, whereas the latter can be repeated (and is thus subject to variation). With respect to the operativity of its observation, the artwork must therefore be a tempo-
rally abstractedstructure. It is a program for repeated usage which--like to- day's complex computer programs--blocks access to what is actually going on during the execution of the operation. To put it differently, the artwork itself offers no clue as to what happens in the process of understanding the
If,
44 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
work. It leaves open how artist and beholder are coupled by the work, while at the same time it guarantees that this coupling is not entirely ar- bitrary--this is what makes art a medium of communication. Physicists would perhaps speak of nonlinear structures of coupling; at any rate, they would exclude tight coupling and noncoupling.
Finally, we should emphasize that our difference-theoretical approach --the idea of tracing art to die unfolding of a paradox of form--implies a radically historical mode of observation: "If words and concepts receive meaning only in sequences of differences, one can justify one's language, and one's choice of terms, only within a topic [an orientation in space] and
104
an historical strategy. "
like everything else, that it comes into being and vanishes. Rather, it ex- plains why works of art must be constructed with an orientation toward time, why they must be new, following the requirement, in place since early modernity, that diey distinguish themselves from everything that has been done before. The demand for novelty means not only that no two things are the same but also that the difference between them motivates both the work's production and die interest of die beholder. Only novel works can please. This is how art exposes itself to die effects of a self-consummation of forms. It positions itself historically. And this is why die future of art be- comes increasingly problematic--to die point where die claim is made and refuted daily that art has no future in the posthistoire.
IX
To determine how art defines itself, one needs to rely on what can be known about works of art. What is it that characterizes art in relation to everything else (to its unmarked space)? The tradition offers a number of specific distinctions. Works of art are made, in contrast to natural objects. Once artificiality as such no longer defines what counts as art, a second distinction is added: works of art serve no externalpurpose; having such a purpose is precisely what disqualifies a work as art. This raises the ques- tion what else could qualify works of art as art. With this question, the theory of art receives its admission ticket to the art system--until die the- ory of die avant-garde will proclaim that art is whatever we call art, thereby accomplishing the dual purpose of making works of art exemplify theory while at the same time relieving itself from the burden of further reflection.
This does not simply mean that art has its time
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 45
For lack of a convincing alternative, we shall draw repeatedly on this historically exhausted theoretical framework. However, our considerations concerning perception and communication may yield a somewhat more complex treatment of the topic, particularly via the concept of form.
To say that artistic forms call attention to themselves as being made and without purpose circumscribes the reentry of the form into the form. Any artwork displays talent, no matter whether its figures are beautiful or ugly, distinguished or ordinary, benevolent or malicious, profound or nonsen- sical. The work displays, one might say, itself and its own self-description. It executes the paradox of "reentry" and shows that this is possible, what- ever mathematics or logic may think.
The work of art draws on sensuously perceptible media for its own self- explication, no matter what is subsequently presented as an internal play of forms. It exploits evidence based on such media. Even if one knows that this happens only for the sake of communication, the fact that art draws on perception is not irrelevant to understanding how it happens. The question, then, is the following: How does an individual work of art - present itself to perception in such a way as to be recognizable as art and to provide, by virtue of precisely this recognition, an opportunity and a motive for participating in communication?
The concept of form suggests that two requirements must be fulfilled and inscribed into perception: the form must have a boundary, and there must be an "unmarked space" excluded by this boundary. How both of these requirements coincide and how they are fulfilled in one stroke may vary considerably in different artistic genres. Whenever we think of "marked space"/boundary/"unmarked space" in combination, the constitution of an imaginary space is at stake. However, since every artwork constitutes its own imaginary space, the question is how this space is constituted differ- ently in each case.
The typical case is a work of art enclosed within a beginning and end, within a frame or a stage, a work that ignores and does not interfere with its surroundings. In this case, the imaginary space is construed from the inside out, as if breaking through the frame or creating its own world be-
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hind the frame. The imagination is driven beyond the work.
at once see and think away the frame in order to gain access to the work's imaginary space. The guaranteed repeatability of observations might be of help in performing this operation.
Sculpture or architecture presents an entirely different case. Here, the
One must
46 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
boundary does not draw the viewer's attention inward but instead directs it outward. The work permits no view into its depths, no penetration of its surface (whatever the surface may betray of the work's mass, volume, or material). The imaginary space is projected outward in the form of dis- tinctions suggested by the work itself. Here, too, space is work-specific space, visible so long as the focus is on the work and disappearing from view when the focus shifts to surrounding objects--to the weeds in the casde garden.
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The boundary cannot be perceived,
rects our attention inward or outward. The boundary itself can be shaped as a form--as a portal, an ornament, or a movement on the sculpture's surface, as the gorgeous frame of a painting or merely as a well-chosen one. Once we recognize this, however, we no longer see the boundary as boundary but observe differences between forms, which--one thing lead- ing to another--we attribute to the work itself.
Classical aesthetics, which presupposed a creative or receptive subject in all of this, had no difficulties with these problems. Everything could be ex- plained with reference to the enigmatic nature of the subject. The strict distinction between perception and communication, which dissolves the subject, changes this situation. Now it becomes important that, and in what ways, the boundaries of the individual work of art mark the struc- tural coupling between perception and communication. Boundaries, however, cannot be observed in their capacity as structural couplings, since neither the perceiving consciousness nor communication can ex- plode their operative closure and reach beyond their own systems into the environment.
Giving up the notion of the subject requires reconstructing the object,
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which loses its opposite.
"unmarked space," objects appear as repeated indications, which, rather than having a specific opposite, are demarcated against "everything else. " Objects are forms whose other side remains undetermined. The unattain- ability of its other side accounts for the object's concreteness in the sense that determining its unity "as something" becomes impossible. Every analysis remains partial, depending on further specification of the other side--for example, with regard to color, magnitude, purpose, consistency.
George Herbert Mead (following Whitehead) assigned a function to identifiable and recognizable objects, whose primary purpose is to bind time. This function is needed because the reality of experience and actions
unless we know whether it di-
If one starts out from the counterconcept of the
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 47
consists in mere event sequences, that is, in an ongoing self-dissolution. Since the experience of others must be assumed to occur simultaneously if communication (Mead: interaction) is to take place, the reality of the other's operations remains in principle inaccessible; it can, however, be
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symbolized via the identification of objects.
Michel Serres suggests that the stabilization of objects (identification,
recognizability, and so on) is more likely to contribute to stabilizing social
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relationships than the famous social contract.
Heinz von Foerster arrives at the notion of objects as eigen-behaviors of
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recursive calculations.
cursive self-application of communication contribute more than any other kinds of norms and sanctions to supplying the social system with necessary redundancies. This may be even more true of objects that have been invented for the sake of this specific function, such as kings or soc-
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Presumably, the objects that emerge from the re-
cer balls.
to this function. They assume a sufficient amount of variance, of recog- nizability in different situations, to keep up with changing social constel- lations. In contrast to concepts that are determined by specified ant- onyms, such quasi objects maintain their concreteness as objects--in the sense of excluding the unmarked space of all other events and conditions --throughout changing situations.
Works of art are quasi objects in this sense. They individualize them- selves by excluding the sum total of everything else; not because they are construed as given but because their significance as objects implies a realm of social regulation. One must scrutinize works of art as intensely and with as close attention to the object as one does when watching kings and soccer balls; in this way--and in the more complex case, where one ob- serves other observers by focusing on the same object--the socially regu- lative reveals itself. The object relation thus helps differentiate recursive connections between observations--the court, the soccer game, the art scene--which subsequently construct their own guiding objects.
This is how the exclusion of the unmarked space is carried along--and forgotten. It might as well be left to religion.
X
Consciousness cannot communicate, communication cannot perceive --this is where we began. Correspondences between modes of operation
Such "quasi objects"
can be comprehended only in relation
Via a different route,
48 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
as disparate as these must be formulated in a highly abstract manner. Af- ter all, we are dealing with two entirely different, operatively closed sys- tems that do not interfere with each other. With concepts such as the self- referential event, distinction, form, and paradox, we have gained the necessary level of abstraction. This conceptual background, as we sug- gested earlier, permits conclusions concerning the specificity of art. Art
j makes perception available for communication, and it does so outside the standardized forms of a language (that, for its part, is perceptible). Art cannot overcome the separation between psychic and social systems. Both types of system remain operatively inaccessible to each other. And this ac- countsfor the significance of art. Art integrates perception and communica- tion without merging or confusing their respective operations. Integration means nothing more than that disparate systems operate simultaneously (are synchronized) and constrain one another's freedom. By participating in communication via perception, the psychic system might generate in- tensities of experience that remain incommunicable as such. In order to produce such experiences, it must be able to perceive differences between the forms created in the social system of art for the purpose of communi- cation. Communication through art must present sensuously perceptible objects without being able to reproduce itself within individually encap- sulated psychic systems. The need for structural coupling and the oppor- tunity to establish such coupling impose rigorous demands upon the forms that specify and determine a work of art at the boundary between psychic and social systems.
A kind of quantum mechanical solution to the problem of integration
is conceivable if one thinks of forms in terms of a distinction between two sides. One can always count on the other, operatively inaccessible system to operate in a binary manner, as a system that indicates one side of an ac- tualized form and excludes (for the time being) the other. That much one can expect from communication with regard to perception, and from per- ception with regard to communication, although the rich, reference-filled inner horizons of these systems remain mutually inaccessible. Forms, in other words, ensure identity and difference at once: identity through their fixed outlines, and difference through the recursive system reference of the op- erations that actualize these outlines--in the form of a contrasting per- ception or intuition, or of a place where communication can continue by understanding and reconstructing its connective possibilities.
Since works of art are objects that bind time, such an integration can be
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 49
synchronized. It outlives the sheer eventfulness of system operations for as long as a consciousness is occupied with the work of art. Since the focus is on an object, this can happen recursively, that is, by recapitulating and anticipating other perceptions of forms. Recursions of this type generate so-called "aha" experiences, sudden flashes of insight that reveal the or- dered nexus of the artwork. In this case, the coupling is unique in that it does not require a merging of psychic and social systems. Consciousness
remains entirely within itself.
Our analysis has reached a point where it becomes apparent that, and in what ways, communication through art tends toward system formation and eventually differentiates a social system of art. In the following chap- ters, we shall deal both with the historicity of this inner-social process and with its consequences. For the time being, our concern is to show, on the basis of our analysis of artistic communication, that, and in what ways, system formation is possible--much as the spectacular individual exis- tence of artworks and the diffuse heterogeneity of observer perspectives may speak against such an approach.
The problem of system formation is connectivity, the recursive reusabil- ity of events. Operations (conscious perceptions as well as communica- tions) are nothing more than events. They cannot persist, nor can they be altered. They emerge and vanish in the same instant, taking no more time than is needed to fulfill the function of an element that cannot be decom- posed any further. The art system has no reality except at the level of ele- mental events. It rests, one might say, on the ongoing dissolution of its el- ements, on the transitory nature of its communications, on an all-pervasive entropy against which anything that persists must organize itself. Concepts such as connectivity or recursive reusability indicate this process, but they do not explain it. They only show that the stability of a system based on time-sensitive events must be a dynamic stability, a stability that depends on the continual change of the system's resources.
We shall call this state of affairs an "autopoietic system. " This means that the elements of the system are produced within the network of the System's elements, that is, through recursions. A communication cannot occur as an isolated phenomenon, as a singular event brought about by a combination of physical, chemical, living, and psychic causes. Nor can it proceed through simple replication, merely by substituting disappearing elements for one another. It is not enough--and it wouldn't work, any- way--to repeat what has been said (shown, perceived, or thought) once it
50 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
dies away. Something else, something new must follow, for the informa- tional component of communication presupposes surprise and gets lost in
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repetition.
art--once it is differentiated as an autopoietic system--must always pre- sent something new, something artistically new; otherwise its communi- cation breaks down or turns into general social communication about artistic quality, prices, the private life of artists, their successes and failures. Operative closure, in other words, requires information in order to move from operation to operation. This is why artworks must convey informa- tion not only in themselves but also in relation to other works--by their novelty or by virtue of the fact that the viewer's observations are not de-
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Consequently, as we should note in view of what follows,
termined unambiguously and can vary with each observation.
ultimate reward for the complexity of formal arrangements that they pro- vide an opportunity to discover something new, something that strikes us as more astonishing every time we look at them. Conversely, a work that lacks complexity is compelled to offer more conspicuous or, to put it bluntly, more scandalous forms of novelty. Another feature of autopoietic systems is that they are limited to one type of operation, which they must employ for the dual purpose of producing further operations and of creat- ing structures that serve as programs for this production and allow the sys- tem to distinguish between system-immanent/system-external events. An autopoietic system reproduces both its reproduction and the conditions for its reproduction. The environment cannot participate in the reproduc- tion of systems; the manner in which it affects the systems reproduction is never instructive, only destructive. Of course, structural couplings be-
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tween system and environment are presupposed.
plings, the system could not exist. Works of arts need a material existence. Artists must breathe if communication through art is to be possible. But the effects of dissolving these structural couplings can only be obstructive or destructive. The persistence of such couplings does nothing more than prevent these effects from obstructing the continuation of autopoietic re- production. The evolution of complex systems of this sort displays the complicated structure of a surplus production, of a structure that inhibits
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and de-inhibits possibilities. We shall take up this point subsequently,
speaking of medium and form.
Taken by itself, the concept of autopoiesis explains very little. It implies that any specification of structures (here, any determination of artistic form) is produced by the system itself; it cannot be imported from the
Without such cou-
It is the
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 51
outside. Moreover, the explanation of certain structural developments de- mands further analyses that must take into account structural couplings between autopoietic systems. One cannot derive the existence of worms, birds, and human beings from the singular invention of die autopoiesis of life. The autopoiesis of communication does not tell what kinds of social formations will emerge in the course of evolution. Nor can one infer from die autopoiesis of art which works will be created. The concept's lack of explanatory power stands in disproportional relation to its revolutionizing effect. (This insight could have avoided much controversy. ) Instead of pursuing an ontology or a theory of essences, we follow the injunction: "Indicate the system from which you want to observe the world, draw a distinction, and distinguish yourself from what you observe while ac- knowledging the autological implication diat the same holds when you observe yourself (rather than the external world). "
Needless to say, the autopoiesis of life and the autopoiesis of conscious- ness come about without art, although they may be influenced by art (the brain, for example, or the fingers of a piano player). Neither life nor con- sciousness depends on art in the sense of being unable to reproduce itself without art. The same is true for the communication system of society. We can certainly consider the structural consequences of a society without art. The regeneration of art is autopoietically necessary only for art itself. This is a matter of general agreement, even in aesthetic theories of quite
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different orientation.
come about without society, without consciousness, without life or mate- rial. But in order to determine how die autopoiesis of art is possible, one must observe the art system and treat everything else as environment.
In the following, we adopt the communication system of art as our sys- tem reference. When using compact concepts such as "observer," "be- holder," "artist," "artwork," and so forth, we are always referring to con- densations of the communication system of art--to the sediments, so to speak, of an ongoing communication that moves from one condensation to the next by means of circumscribed recursions. Artists, artworks, and so on serve a structuring function within the autopoiesis of art. They bun- dle expectations. This is why they are less ephemeral than the basal events
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of artistic communication.
which operate as events--can reach back and forth while remaining fo- cused on the same thing--on the same work, the same artist, or on the educational qualities of an informed observer. This is not to say that com-
Of course, artistic communication could never
They make sure that communications--
52. Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
munication reaches down to the physical substratum, to life or conscious- ness, or to the sum total of structural couplings that make such a con- struction of order possible. One can certainly speak of artists as human beings or of artworks as material artifacts; indeed, one would need to the- matize such matters if one's ambition were a complete description of the object. Such a description, however, would have to deploy another system reference or switch back and forth between different system references.
Against this theoretical background, the question of how art communi-
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cates is no longer trivial. The answer is obvious: by means of artworks. Artistic communication distinguishes itself both from communication that relies exclusively on language and from indirect communications that are either analogous to language or unable to secure the autopoiesis of com- munication, because the communicative intent of conveying information can always be denied. Artistic communication, by contrast, employs per- ceptions that it prepares exclusively for its own use. In so doing, artistic communication realizes specific forms of structural coupling between con- sciousness and society. It communicates by means of distinctions located within the work or by means of forms, for the concept of form, in the sense we use it here, implies a two-sided form, a distinction that can be dis- tinguished.