art essays
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SIGNS
- language of art -
Naohiko Watanabe
1. JULY 1996
CONTENTS
Preface ……………………………………3
1. SIGNS AND CONTEXTS
1.Visual communication………………..5
2. Art and context………………………..7
3.Jenny Holzer……………………………8
2. BODY AND GAZE
1. The gaze…………………………………..10
2. The invisible body……………………..11
3. TIME AND INDEX
1. Texts of Jenny Holzer………………….14
2. Index………………………………….15
3. Time lag………………………………16
4. New subject…………………………18
Epilogue: Virtual reality………………20
Notes…………………………………………..21
Bibliography…………………………………..23
Preface
When I came to England 1994, I was not so surprised at the cultural differences. Now, two years past, I feel some cultural gaps that are mostly characteristics or attitudes of people. However, how about fashion, food, life style ,etc.? They are mostly the same. Therefore I was surprised at the fact that Japan and England are so similar each other even though they locate almost the opposite on the earth.
I know that Japan is now Americanised and also Europeanised. It is a hybrid culture. It consists of a lot of copies of their styles and ideas as well. It is surprising that copying the styles make human change his/her thought as well. When I found England similar to Japan, I had an illusion that as if England copied Japan. Because Western style was already Japan itself. And it is true that England also imported Japanese things in some part (food, technology, computer game ,etc.). It is ambiguous that which copied which. And the origin becomes unsure; for example, are computers Japanese original?
I recognise this structure as a “domination”. Japan has been dominated by America and Europe and now it is dominating other countries. This structure is also applicable in the contemporary art world. For example, some Japanese artists (including me) use English in their works even though they live in Japan and exhibit in Japan. They are dominated. In case of American or British artists who use English in their works are dominating.
I am using English in my work and they are also copies of public statements on social signs. I copy not only images but also some styles of famous artists. I used to mimic the style of Andy Warhol. After I understood his concept, I could not escape from his method. Now, I have a tremendous interest in Jenny Holzer’s work and mimicking her style. My notion behind is: Contemporary art works are the layers of stylish copies of previous images and ideas. And art works reflect the culture and society because the artists are parts of culture and society in their age. Their individuality also made of their everyday lives and their backgrounds that is influenced by the society and its culture. Andy Warhol made clarified this fact through all of his works.
However, I am always questioning my individuality. By considering myself through my work and Jenny Holzer’s work, I noticed that why I use English in my art work and I could not avoid mimicking her work.
Before I came to England, I was dominated by Western contemporary art world. There are Euro-centralism exists. I came to England and used English to join the class and would like to misunderstand myself as if I am on the same level with Jenny Holzer by mimicking her style. I am dominated, but also I am dominating someone who cannot understand English and who cannot understand contemporary format.
I could not criticise Holzer at all because she was my “mother”. This is an answer of my psychoanalytical approach to myself. I need a god. It was my mother whom I corresponded to before I was born. I needed a substitution as a perfect model whom I can copy because of the lack of my self-consciousness. This is also a reason why I tried to find her body.
What I am writing here is a result of my research about Jenny Holzer’s work. Through my research I noticed myself because talking about someone is also showing my viewpoint. After all I still have interest in Holzer’s work. However to try to escape from my obsessions, I really would like to look at her as the one of artists, the one of human, not a Mother. Therefore this essay is a record of my fight against my obsession to get my own vision and to become independent from my mother.
1. SIGNS AND CONTEXTS
1. Visual communication
Communication by visual sign can also be considerable as same as communication by language. I am going to start from the point that language of art as a visual sign, although now art is involved in any other ways of perceptions; sound, touch, smell and taste. But visual sign has much more long history in fine art than any other sense organs. Still now it is extremely main communication tool of art.
Semiotics is a theory to make sure of our communication system by signs. So that I must define what the sign is, at first. The sign used in semiotics means wider than ordinary used signs. I call later ones “symbol mark”. Semiotics distinguishes them from signs. Sign is something that expresses something else. Each sign is connecting to its meaning. The meaning is what the sign expresses. Ferdinand Saussure called this expression “signifier”, the meaning “signified”. The connection between sign and its meaning consist of rules. Semiologists call this rule “code”. In language they are grammar and dictionary. If a sign does not obey its code, it loses its function.
To think about interpretation, here is a basic problem of “understanding” and “misunderstanding”. If an artist uses the sign that has made by new code (we have not recognised yet), we usually cannot understand or easily misunderstand. To avoid misunderstanding we must realise it from its context. Only context can make new code understandable.
Above this basic idea, I would like to quote the idea of Yoshihiko Ikegami. In his book; Introduction to Semiotics……1, he demonstrates two different communications. One is “ideal communication” and another is “human communication”.
“If the meaning of message that messenger had in his head, and the meaning of message that receiver read and recognised in his head were exactly same, there were not any lack or extra information in between them. It was an ideal communication.”₁
However, “In fact this ideal communication is much more suitable in the case of communication that both messenger and receiver are machine and it send some fixed information than the case of human’s communication. ……….Machine obeys its code perfectly, but if some signs are out of the rule (code), it rejects them.”₂
”However this is not applicable in the case of human. If receiver is a human, he does not reject the sign only because it is out of code.”₃
“It is because human being behaves more subjective.”₄ “Human is not only an existence who behave “under control of rule” but also an existence who “change the rule” or “make a new rule”. Besides we cannot settle in which direction the rule may change or what kind of new rule may be made.₅
Above all, I would like to introduce the notion of Norman Bryson (born 1949). He uses the theory of semiotics to analyse paintings standing on a basic point of painting as a sign. It has meanings.
To make sure of the meaning in visual communication we must be very careful and must know that there are two different aspects of “meaning”. By Bryson, one is “discursive” (describable) and another is “figural” (indescribable). “In discursive sign one signifier adopts mostly to one signified. It is clear, on code and describable sign.”₆ On the other hand, figural sign exists out of (social) code, or if it is on code, it is very weak. One signifier has many signified. It is ambiguous, unclear, thick, unfixed and indescribable sign.
He criticises the stylistic art history as the advantage of Perceptualism. In his book “Word and image”…….2, he stands on this basic point. And he clarifies the meaning of painting from the complication of discursive and figural meanings. As the image is a sign that signifies both discursive and figural meanings, the word also has these two types of meanings. Poetry is an example. And I understand the contemporary art works which include the texts in it from this aspect.
Bryson says in “Word and image”; “Speech derives its meaning from an articulated and systematic structure which is superimposed on a physical substratum. Its signs resolve into two components…………..with the linguistic sign, interest in the sensuous materiality of the signifier is normally minimal except in certain highly conventionalised art situations; we tend to ignore the sensual “thickness” of the language unless our attention is specially directed toward it.”₇
He tried to turn round the advantage of the discursive meaning to the figural meaning in language. And he pointed out that the weaker side was normally ignored. I would like to do a psychological approach to the system of our perception and recognition that we have already had by our nature. I can say it is a culture. However I assume that there is a blind spot in its system, and it is our unconscious that is always influencing its system.
I would like to go back to Yoshihiko’s notion that “communication depending on code” and “communication depending on context”. Except for the extreme case, communication normally depends on both code and context. Discursive meanings are signified by code and figural meanings are signified by context. But we must know one sign can be signified in different meaning by its context. Now I must certify what the context of art is; “art in context” or “context in art”.
Notes
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₁Yoshihiko Ikegami / Introduction to Semiotics / Iwanami (Japan) 1984, p40 #
₆Masayuki Tanaka, Michiro Hayashi / The sign called painting – Norman Bryson: Art History Now: BT Jan. 1996 / Bijutu Syuppan (Japan), pp132-133 #
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2. Art and context
Word and image are both “signifier” in that sign system. The meanings of them are “signified”. But as I described already, one signifier does not always relate to one specific signified. It is not fixed, it is flexible. It can change by time, space and all kind of social fragments. We call these contexts. Context was thought as an environmental “fact” and, it specifies the meaning of art work, they thought.
However there are some problems of this notion that Norman Bryson has pointed out. I would like to quote here the summary by Masayuki Tanaka in his essay, “The sign called painting – Norman Bryson”……….3.
“1. Context is not an existing fact, it is presented by an interpreter.
2. Context itself is one text. It is as complex as art work, include ambiguous element. It should be interpreted and it is impossible to separate context and text completely.
3. We can point out contexts without limit. We cannot stop it. But work seems to have its end. For that we misunderstand that the context is regulated by the work and we delete the context that seems to have no connection to the work from the first.
4. Thus in fact, the work takes context. Work makes its context, but in the art history, they say that as if context makes work. And even though we chose the context, they think the chosen context is absolutely certain thing by using the work as its estimate.
5. Sign is repeatable. At the moment when the work has finished by the artist, it leaves from artist and context (environment at the time when it was made). After all it appears in any time and any space. The work cannot avoid its context at time when it is seen by viewers or interpreter. It cannot exist out of its context at the moment.”₈
In the next chapter I try to analyse the work of Jenny Holzer by standing the notion of Norman Bryson in two points.
1. To read the meaning of her sign from both discursive side and figural side, being careful about the advantage of them in both word and image.
2. To clarify the context of her work at two times and by two positions. Two times are; 1.when she made it and 2. when we see it. The second context must be thought in each time when presented. Two positions are; 1. where she put her work in and 2. where we perceive it. And it also includes; 1. what she put into her work and, 2. what the viewer chose from around her work.
Notes
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₈op. cit BT Jan. 1996, pp144-145 # |