No More Learning

Whether a work of art belongs to communication in our understanding of the term depends on whether a difference between in- formation and utterance must be assumed, and whether understanding the work turns on this difference. More accurately, the evolution of art re- alizes this criterion to the extent that it emancipates itself from externally imposed or outwardly directed purposes (for example, of a religious, po- litical, or pedagogical nature). Whatever is produced "artificially" pro- vokes the question: "What's the point? " Nature, in the old European sense, emerges and vanishes spontaneously, whereas art or techne is made for a purpose. At first, the opposition physisltechne, or naturalars, governs the semantics of the discourse on art. Religious timidity alternates with worldly admiration for what can be produced by deviating from nature while imitating nature or obeying its "laws. " After these models dissolved in the eighteenth century, their semantics prevailed, though art and the
43
beautiful were now declared purposeful without purpose.
that negates traditional patterns of differentiation without ridding itself of these models runs straight into paradox.
We shall postpone the question of the art system's semantic reflection or self-description to a later chapter. For the time being, it is important to understand how such descriptions obscure the special communicative role of art. The question of what the intent of an artwork "without purpose" might be enforces the distinction between information and utterance. But so long as one is mainly concerned with dissolving the distinction between nature and art in the paradox of an "end in itself," this particular function of art does not come into view. One could point out that understanding a work of art requires understanding its artistic means. Even this objection remains within the ends/means schema, and ends always point to external effects, that is, to the cosmologically or socially grounded service functions of a given activity. Perhaps the vexing question "What's the point? " really
Control of
A theory of art
24 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
aims at the information embedded in the work of art, and the finalizing
formula an "end in itself" only obscures the communicative function of an
understanding that must assume the difference between information and
utterance and make it available for further communication--otherwise,
communication fails. The same problem manifests itself from a different
angle. Most of the time, artists are in no position to provide a satisfactory
account of their intentions. A primary intention is necessary to pass from
the unmarked to the marked space; but the activity of traversing this
boundary--an operation that produces a distinction (delimits a form)--
44
cannot itself be a distinction,
ates, delimits) this distinction The first impulse is never the artist's "own" intention--in the sense of self-observed mental states--but something one attributes to the artist as intention when observing the work. One cannot reverbalize intention, at least not apart from the information one gathers from observing works of art. What presents itself to observation in the form of art is an independent contribution to communication that cannot be translated into any other medium. Even the artist can see what
45
he wanted to do only upon realizing what he has done.
the creation of the work primarily as observer or, physically, as a skilled
46
; handyman.
the work of art would not come about without the artist's involvement, which, however, is true for any communication. )
How one explains the emergence of a particular work of art--by at- tributing it to die signals and limitations it displays in the process of emer- gence, to the artist who creates it, or to the social system of art with its his- tory of styles, its determination of judgments, and an art criticism always ready to make history--is ultimately of secondary importance. Moreover, the situation looks different depending on whether one adopts a socio- logical or an aesthetic viewpoint. What matters is that in art, just as in all other types of communication, the difference between information and utterance serves both as a starting point and as a link for further artistic or verbal communications. "What's the point? "--tliat is the question. There may be no straightforward answer to this question, or answers may have changed in the course of history. This is no objection; rather, it is typical of powerful and significant art. What is at stake in art is not a problem to be solved once and for all but a provocation--the provocation of a search for meaning that is constrained by the work of art without necessarily be- ing determined in its results. In the beginning, there is a difference, the
except for an observer who observes (cre-
(We must keep in mind that, as far as causality is concerned,
He is involved in
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 25
cut made by a form that begins to regulate the following steps, a form that
structures what can be perceived and, as an "artificial" cut, establishes in
the world the difference between information and utterance. Even if this
form is introduced as random, indistinguishable from everyday life, or
47
the question remains why just this form is produced as art.
nonsensical,
Once intended and recognized as art, the difference cannot disappear
again. It is productive within the art system, or else it fails; it contributes to the autopoiesis of art, or else it ends up in the garbage. It distinguishes itself from verbal communication in that it operates in the medium of perception or intuition without drawing on the specific potential of lan- guage to produce meaning. Art may well take advantage of linguistic means--for example, in lyric poetry--but only to strike us in ways that do not solely depend on our understanding of what is said.
Since we began our discussion with perception, the reader might as- sume that all this holds exclusively for the so-called visual arts. On the contrary, it holds--much more dramatically because less evidently--for
48
the verbal arts as well, including lyric poetry.
A poem's "message" does
not allow for paraphrase, nor can it be summarized in a proposition that
49
can be true or false. Rather, connotations, not denotations, mediate its
meaning. It communicates not through the propositional content of its utterances, but (as we shall see) by virtue of the ornamental structure of mutually limiting references that appear in the form of words. Text-art distinguishes itself from more common forms of writing that aim at what in postmodern jargon would be called a "readerly text" and condemn the reader to the passive role of understanding. It distinguishes itself by de- manding a "rewriting," a new construction of the text. Text-art, in other words, does not seek automatically to repeat familiar meanings; although it must draw on such meanings, it instead aims at disrupting automatiza-
50
tion and delaying understanding.
scious participation in this process, subsuming it under the concept of
51
reading would be misleading.
Instead, we should investigate what kinds
No matter how we conceive of con-
of verbal sounds and references to meanings mutually illuminate one an-
other. We mean nothing else by suggesting that words are used as a me-
dium, rather than for the purpose of expressing an unambiguous denota-
52
tive meaning.
The specificity of text-art does not depend on communicating proposi-
tional meaning--if it did, then such meaning would have to be formu- lated in an easily accessible manner. This is why, toward the end of the
i6 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
eighteenth century, the author withdraws from his texts, or at least re-
53
frains from clarifying his communicative intentions. The point is to
avoid the impression that the author wants to provide information or ad- monish the reader to align his conduct with morality. Instead, the choice of words as a medium creates a compelling and unusually dense combi- nation of self-reference and hetero-reference running through the entire text. Words carry and "signify" their ordinary meanings, and this is why they refer to something other, not just to themselves. At the same time, however, they also carry and "signify" a special textual meaning, within
54
which they execute and propel the text's recursions.
self by means of self-referential references that combine elements of sound, rhythm, and meaning. The unity of self-reference and hetero-ref- erence lies in the sensuous perceptibility of words. The difference between these two types of reference can be pushed to the point of utter discrep- ancy--for example, when words in a poem come to mean the exact op- posite of what they mean in ordinary language. The articulation of differ- ence and unity is not, as one would think, mediated thematically (by such topics as love, betrayal, hope, age, and so forth). Occasionally they are, but the artistic quality of a text lies in the choice of words, not thematic
55
choice. Lyric poetry unites the work of art with its own self-description. All of this needs further elaboration. At this point, we only wish to em- phasize the triggering effect of a specific difference. When it succeeds as form, this difference sets in motion a special kind of communication that draws on the capacity to perceive or on the imagination and yet cannot be mistaken for the world we normally perceive. Because the work of art is made, it is unpredictable and hence fulfills an indispensable precondition for information. What strikes us in an art form--as, in a different way, does the conspicuous character of acoustic and optic signals--engenders a fascination that turns into information by changing the state of the sys- tem--as a "difference that makes a difference" (Bateson). And this is al-
ready communication. What else?
VI
Though at present its consequences are visible only in broad outline, the shift toward difference-theoretical analyses will affect and radically al- ter the concept of world. This alteration can perhaps best be demon- strated in conjunction with the concept of form. Until recently, form was
Text-art organizes it-
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 27
conceptualized (without much effort, for there were practically no alterna-
tives) in terms of an ordered nexus between elements. From the perspec-
tive of a certain immanence, it was defined by the distinction between the
56 finite and the infinite. Form, in this sense, is synonymous with Gestalt.
Psychologically, it corresponds to the possibility of perceiving form as a unity directly and without analysis. Chance is its counterconcept in the sense that the simultaneous appearance of elements not bound,by form was believed to be random. Earlier versions of information theory and cy- bernetics were still working from within this traditional understanding of form when searching for ways to quantitatively compute improbability in
57
terms of a link between redundancy and information.
matized form in relation to a recipient of information--that is, to an ob- server--but the only determining counterconcept available was the idea of chance.
A difference-theoretical reconstruction of the concept of form shifts the
emphasis from the (ordered) content of form to the difference it makes. It
extends and places on the "other side" of form the realm of what used to
be considered chance and thereby subsumes under the concept of form
any difference that marks a unity. This step was already taken by Kandin-
sky: "Form, in the narrow sense, is nothing more than the boundary
against another form. This is its external indication. But since everything
external contains something absolutely internal (which manifests itself
more or less strongly), each form also has an inner content. Form is the ex- 6
ternalization of this inner content. "'' Despite the somewhat awkward for- mulation, the explosive effects of such a concept of form or, more accu- rately, die novelty of the artistic intent it attempts to capture in words, are readily apparent. But we must push Kandinsky's point even further by asking what precisely he means by "externalization. " Is it the crossing of a boundary? An operation? Something that takes time? Today, the concept of form as limit, along with its operative understanding, is no longer shocking to artists and poets: "Form, in essence, is the way one part of the poem (one movement) thrusts against another across a silenced
Understanding difference as form (or, vice versa, form as a two-sided distinction) implies that the distinction is completely self-contained.
60
"Distinction is perfect continence. "
is meaning, the reproducible result of the operation that introduces form into the world. In search of something that could be called "meaning" (sens), Deleuze arrives at the same conclusion. Meaning presupposes a "se-
Such theories the-
Nothing external supports it. Form
z8 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
tics' on either of two sides and (without implying "existence") "articulates
61
difference,"
that is, a paradox. Distinctions participate in the world by
cutting it up, leaving visible only what is marked by these distinctions.
This notion of form is at odds with an ontology that conceived of every-
thing in the world as being supported and sustained by a comprehensive
whole. It is equally incompatible with a semiotic theory that thinks of
form as a sign referring to something other. We need to give up not only
the ontological unity of the visible world, which excluded only nonbeing,
but also a semiotic theory that locates the significance of signs solely in
their reference to something capable of validating their signifying func-
tion. As in ontology, a reference to "nothing" would deprive the sign of its
meaning. A difference-theoretical theory of form, by contrast, treats forms
as pure self-reference, made possible by the marking of the form as a
boundary that separates two sides--made possible, in other words, by the
fact that form is essentially a boundary. Form opens up the possibility of
62 transgression. The forma formans is the forma formata.
When distinctions are marked as forms, they can be distinguished and reproduced. Whereas perception can make do with unformed distinc- tions, communication requires articulated forms in a twofold sense: they serve as a condition for the cooperation of disparate psychic systems that perceive words or signs as differences, and they ensure the connectivity of communication. Communication must have recourse to past and future communications, that is, it must be able to identify something as repeat- able. This is not merely a matter of producing a temporal series of "fit- ting" successions. Recursivity must be present in each and every moment that generates another operation. This fact must be apprehended pre- cisely: already when dealing with language, but even more so when com- munication leaves the realm of linguistic articulation and begins to rely on other, self-produced forms in the sensuously perceptible realm.
Forms must be articulated asymmetrically, since only one of their sides (the internal side) but not the other (the external side) is needed for fur- ther operations (elaborations, increases in complexity, and so on). Forms are generated by a rupture of symmetry, which must be presupposed or posited as something that simply happened. This rupture exhibits a sim- ple positivity beyond affirmation or negation--concepts that already mark a distinction. Here we are dealing with a prelogical conceptuality for which logic supplies specific applications. In retrospect, and from the midst of actualized distinctions, symmetry may appear, as it does in
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 29
Schelling, as indifference, a religious (but certainly not artistic) symbol of the world which must be relinquished if one is to create forms.
A difference-theoretical concept of form therefore presupposes the world as an "unmarked state. " The unity of the world is unattainable; it is not a summation or aggregate, nor is it Spirit. When a new series of oper- ations starts from a self-created difference, it begins with a blind spot. It steps out of the "unmarked state"--where nothing is visible and we can- not speak of a "space" to begin with--into the "marked state," and it
63
draws a boundary in transgressing that boundary.
space of the distinction, the difference between "marked" and "unmarked" space. It (somehow) selects one of an infinite number of possible distinc- tions in order to constrain the work's further construction. The first dif- ference separates two sides so that the next operation can be executed in the marked space. Distinctions serve to control connecting operations. These might subsequently yield further distinctions. For example, one needs to decide whether an object belongs to nature or art. One cannot perceive an object simultaneously as nature and as art, unless one enlists yet another distinction--for example, by adding that both are beautiful rather than ugly, or interesting rather than boring. In other words, using a distinction to illustrate the lack of differentiation in the distinguished defies the distinction's functional purpose as difference. One could, of course, point out that both sides belong to a particular (and not another) distinction, but this distinction would have to be distinguished in turn. Whatever distinction is used at any given time cannot be indicated as a unity--this condition reproduces itself with every distinction. It merely displaces the blind spot, thus frustrating once and for all the Hegelian ex- pectation that eventually, after passing through a series of dialectical me- diations, the opposition marked by distinction will become transparent to itself--in Hegelian terms, become "Spirit. "
An arrangement of forms that claims to be art tends to strive toward "double closure. " A work of art must distinguish itself externally from other objects or events, or it will lose itself in the world. Internally, the work closes itself off by limiting further possibilities with each of its for- mal decisions. Ultimately, external and internal closure amount to the same thing; both are supported by the frame that is produced along with the work and cannot be transgressed.
This is not to say that the artwork cannot integrate forms that point be- yond it. A landscape painting presupposes that the represented space ex-
The mark creates the
30 Perception and Communication: The Reproduction ofForms
ceeds the frame. In a poem from his collection The Underwoods, Ben Jon- son hopes to present the "morning kiss" in such a way that his verse
64
should earn him another kiss.
however, is always produced within the artwork--for example, by self- quotation, as in the text just mentioned. The external frame reenters the work without--and this accounts for the appeal of die maneuver--being obstructed in its function of demarcating die work against the unmarked space of the world.
Regarding its external side, the distinction generated by an arrangement
(of any sort) entails a twofold possibility. One can leave this side undeter-
mined as an "unmarked space. " One might still reach the unmarked side
by crossing a boundary, but one would get nowhere, and upon return
everything would be die same as before. If, however, one looks for another
form at die undetermined side and marks this form, dien one can return
to the beginning and find it changed. It is now on the other side of the
other side. Its meaning has become more complex, and perception en-
counters a contingency diat was invisible in the first operation. The result
65
is a redescription,
Any form, however, whether it is situated inside or outside of a given dis- tinction, generates eo ipso another unmarked space and can therefore never fully comprehend or represent the world. Every distinction repro- duces die difference between marked and unmarked space.
An arrangement of forms creates an open flank. Despite its closure, a work of art can be observed adequately only in its relationship to time--
66
a topic much discussed since Lessing's Laocoon. Thinking of the work as
an arrested movement to be supplemented imaginatively does not suffice. Rather, the work's built-in temporality must be experienced as a recon- struction of its incompletion. One must observe forms as if the adjacent space were undetermined; then one recognizes how, and by what kinds of odier forms, this space has been utilized. In other words, one needs to re- construct the work's contingencies and the way in which they limit one another. A temporal scheme suggests that everything could be done dif- ferently--if not as convincingly as die actual work. A determined form al- ways promises something else without defining it. It dissolves die homo- geneity of the unmarked space--everything that is not form--into a space replete with suggestions, and it bifurcates this space in terms of die success or failure of further determinations.
George Spencer Brown's formal calculus provides a model for this phe-
Such a deliberate "confusion" of frames,
and perhaps a critical one likely to initiate a change.
Perception and Communication: The Reproduction of Forms 31
67
nomenon.
ean algebra under the condition that only a single operator may be used for arithmetic and algebra. This operator is introduced by the injunction: "Draw a distinction! " Without distinction, one would encounter the world only as unmarked state. Each operation creates a difference, and each operation discriminates. This does or does not happen--there is no other possibility. This is why the injunction requires a "motive," which be- comes irrelevant as the operation continues. Once a distinction is drawn, a sequence of operations is set in motion, as it were, spontaneously. The initial motive remains accidental--the theory of evolution confirms this point--and is of no relevance to the construction of order. Any random event would do.
The passage from the unmarked to the marked state is particularly
68
in order to begin?
And must not the distinction itself be distinguished 70
On the surface, the Laws ofForm appear to reconstruct Bool-
striking when the artist selects a new form.
for novelty that defined the historical differentiation of art in modernity, there is a symbolicfunction of novelty that needs no comparative dimen- sion to be recognized. The impression of novelty immediately signals the passing over from the unmarked to the marked state, as well as the simul- taneous creation of a marked space in which the work of art can unfold. But the work's context must be familiar enough to support and highlight the marking of novelty. A novel and striking work thus always has a dou- ble function: one of its sides is always overdetermined by the opposition marked/unmarked, the other by a combination of forms that incorporate familiar experiences (redundancies).
But how to begin without having begun, since one needs a distinction
69
from its indication so that the first distinction reenters itself? In the older
literature, this problem was treated in quasi-objectivist terms: by appealing
to divine inspiration, to the inscrutability of sudden insights, or to the for-
71
tune of chance
by contrast, object and creative process coincide (in this respect we are dealing with a kind of "constructivism"), since both emerge--simultane- ously--from the imperative "Draw a distinction. " 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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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-
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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
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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
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through the difficulties it imposes upon itself. " The artist must therefore
observe his emerging work in anticipation of its observation by others.
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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
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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
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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
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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.