Do you know this paradigma of describing art, especially in “scientific” branches like history of art ? It goes like this: First, you should objectively describe what you see (Yes, they think that it’s possible and that there is a sharp gap between objective and subjective description!), then you are expected to interpret the matter of your interest, what is thought to be the truly subjective side of your scientific description (but only scientific if carried out this way). For the picture above, the introduction of the “objective” part could be accomplished as follows:
This picture shows a herb, which is partly rotten and sere, and a couple of little insects, both placed on a irregularly, wooden surface.
So long, cowboy. But what about the following, isn’t this objective, too?:
The shown photography depicts a rotten, sere bunch of parsley and a row of firebugs walking along it, both on the surface of a press board plate.
The next one sounds as objective as the first:
The picture shows a green-brown plant and a couple of little animals, both placed on a patchy brown surface.
And this scheme can be varied ad infinitum. You see what the problem is: The paradigmatic division in objective and subjective description is not only difficult to implement, but completely impossible to carry out especially when used on something that could be called art. It’s just bullshit: What should be an objective description of a picture? Or a painting? Or a sculpture? When applied to the photography above, one must say that there can be – objectively – watched nothing more than pixels of different colors, and even that could easily be shown as being not objective enough.
- “I’m watching something.”
- “Really?“
Perhaps one would end up with that objective dialog.
But instead of trying to figure out what might be objective in a piece of something (call it art, if you want to), what could be the intended message of the artist and messing around with the predictable “What’s objective in this description” -debate there’s a better way of watching the article of interest: Just watch and enjoy it. Stupid theorizing about a whatever fucking message will always do nothing more than just corrode the first quality of perception, the as far as possible undisturbed and uninterrupted relation to the watching. I don’t think the commonly-called-art is made for being interpreted.
So watch out and feel convenient! And download the full size picture here: Full size (right click, → “Save as”).
