Re: [-empyre-] Nothing is Real?

[saul ostrow <so5@nyu.edu>]

Sean Cubitt wrote:

> 
> There are artists who attempt to recreate the Real: Lyotard sings
> their praises in the essay on acinema, Krauss in the Informe. There
> are those who ring the changes of the Imaginary: Duchamp, Beuys,
> warhol and the core tradition of late 20th century insitutional art.
> And there are those who undertake the utopian task of the Symbolic:
> to render open the relational, communicative zone.
> 

> 

Actually, I believe that Lyotard, Krauss, Foster do not sing the praises of
artists who attempt to recreate the real, for there is nothing to recreate --
instead they comment on those artists whose works do not attempt to suppress the
real by giving it symbolic form/meaning -- as such their work does not  veil the
real -- but gives us access to its indeterminacy. This  achieved by intervening
in the hegemony often attributed to the symbolic order. --Some methods  are the 
surrender to chance -- mis-registration  or incomprehension -- Consequently, the
sublime for Lyotard (building on Kant) is an effect of our confrontation with
the real it is a moment of awe and horror -- it is the moment when all things
become incomprehensible.