Response Papers
Questions, ideas, notes for discussion
- Buried in the first footnote of the "Technology of enchantment" article, Gell addresses the questionable primitive=non-Western equation in art history. I found it quite intriguing, since this is one of the critical questions we have in front of us when dealing with the ancient world and the world of colonial Africa. We addressed this a little bit with the fetish discussion. How would you characterize, or categorize the kinds of art-work/artifacts he is using as his paradigm in the article? Is he suggesting some sort of dissolution of the boundaries between ancient and modern, traditional/vernacular versus avant-garde, Western and non-Western, etc? How valid are these categories?
- What is the methodological philistinism that Gell is pursuing? Why do we need to distance ourselves from aesthetic values of the works of art to be able to talk about them critically? Defining the art object in his book Art and Agency, he gives the example of a fear-inducing shield (p. 6). How does this paradigm critique art appreciation?
- In my favourite quote from the Art and Agency book, Gell views "art as a system of action, intended to change the world rather than encode symbolic propositions about it". (6). Agree? Disagree? What would be the consequences of such an approach for archaeological study of artifacts, art historical analysis, understanding contemporary art?
- Gell writes "as a technical system, art is oriented towards the production of the social consequences which ensue from the production of these objects." (Gell 1992: 44). I understand this and his other statements along this line that art-producing technologies contribute to the collectivity and reproduction of societies, constitution of the social world. How does this relationship between technology and society work in the case of his examples? Let's consider not simply works of art themselves, or the production of the works of art, but also the organization of art-producing technologies. How is art production understood as a social practice, a social process? How does it affect the constitution of social relations?
- Gell tries to explain the power of art by means of his concepts of technology of enchantment and enchantment of technology. How do technical processes employed in the production of art make us see the world in enchanted form? Can we apply this idea to the early Mesopotamian artifacts raised by our three authors, especially the Uruk vase?
- Craft technologies are bodies of knowledge, socially shared and collectively produced and reproduced. (Do we agree on this at all?) I found Gell's discussion of this knowledge sphere rather limited, except perhaps in the last section on the Trobriand Garden. Can we discuss possibly his theory of the magical power of art-works and their efficacy in the context of the public sphere? If the magical power of works of art do not derive from their formal/aesthetic aspects, there must be a body of knowledge being shared by the artist/craftsman and their audience/public, no?
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