My tutor suggested this reading as part of the feedback I received following A2. It is not an easy piece to navigate, but the argument seems to run as follows:
- Contemporary thinking about art has neglected its aesthetic dimension and has not sufficiently taken into account its special nature of being both “a part of the world […and…] apart from the world” (O’Sullivan, 2001: 125).
- The interpretive frameworks of Marxism and Deconstructionism have viewed art from two poles: a historical approach based on the time of the work’s production (Marxism) and an ahistorical approach that views the work with little or no regard for its creator or origins (Deconstructionism).
- Although each approach has something to offer, both locate the import of the work in reason while “[a]rt, whether we will it or not, continues producing affects” (126).
- By “affect,” O’Sullivan does not mean something transcendent—or “beyond experience”—but something “immanent to experience”. Rather than being carried out of oneself, one is involved in “an event or happening” (126–127).
- Art invites us into a happening by showing us things we would not, or could not, otherwise perceive. A simple way of doing this is through the use of technology, such as very long or very short photographic exposures. More profoundly, O’Sullivan (referencing Georges Bataille) asserts that art functions as a “mechanism for accessing a kind of immanent beyond to everyday experience; art operates as a kind of play which takes the participant out of mundane consciousness” (127).
- In this way, art does not invite us to a transcendence beyond ourselves, but works “to switch our intensive register, to reconnect us with the world. Art opens us up to the non-human universe that we are part of” (128). Further, art is “[l]ess involved in knowledge and more involved in experience, in pushing forward the boundaries of what can be experienced (130).
Response
I wound up enjoying O’Sullivan’s article once I had had the chance to digest it. I think that there is a lot to be said for mounting a defence of “affect” as a way to approach art (how does it make me feel? does it bring me something different or new?) given that, for many people, there is an expectation that we will think our way through it (where does it come from? how does it mean? what does it signify?). I think that this may be particularly true in the developed world and that we may have cut ourselves off from other or more complete ways of appreciating the art around us. It seemed a little ironic to me, though, that O’Sullivan makes such a cerebral appeal for the importance of feeling.
I was also surprised by the extent of the religious language and metaphor in the text, from the contrast of transcendence and immanence to the use of terms such as “sacred” and “incarnation.” I imagine that many readers might either move past these quite quickly or categorize them as “spiritual, but not religious” (as the common expression goes). For someone with academic training in Christian theology, however, much of the language O’Sullivan uses has particular resonance and it would be interesting to map his usages against those of a theological aesthetics.
Without having time to do that now, I will limit myself to one question that occurs to me: if we follow O’Sullivan’s emphasis on the place of affect, is it necessary to make such a sharp delineation between immanence and transcendence? For example, if we are to take the concept of incarnation seriously (and it is O’Sullivan who raises it), Christian theology sees it as the very place where immanence and transcendence actually meet—in the person of Jesus.
I don’t expect at all that this is how O’Sullivan will develop his thought, but it is suggestive and meaningful to me. I will likely return to it in my thinking as I work through the OCA program.
Reference
O’Sullivan, S. (2001) ‘The aesthetics of affect: Thinking art beyond representation’ In: Angelaki 6 (3) pp. 125 – 135.
Context and Narrative 