User:SN/Essay 1

The Author: Creator, Thief, and Witness

1. Who is the author? Author and Authorship. Are these still exist? The definition in a general context of art and creative act, literary practice in particular. "The world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more" Goldsmith "Death of the Author" Barthes

2. Creator the creative act, idea/concept excogitation So the authorship correlates to the act of idea creation, and can be judged on its level. Jung and Freud. Collective unconscious and personal unconscious. Creation is the ability to extract and understand that lies in unconscious sphere. The same as to follow inspiration and find ideas that can be potentially devisable and describable. (What about undescribable? How to present concept totally new compared with the existing practice/example: no word exist?) Idea needs form. Descriptive nature of literacy: the author describes what he sees, what he feels, what he thinks using language and putting it on paper. ("Accomplice of nature" Vittorini). Using language strict rules, combining words in a certain way, the way that corresponds to his personality.

2. Thief Literature outside the concept of the idea and its descriptive function. Authorship in literary practice. So the Creative Act is the way "the artists goes from intention to realization through a chain of totally subjective reactions". And most of the ways is what differs one author from another. Goldsmith, the art of copy-paste, Italo Calvino (cybernetics and ghosts first chapter), Combinatory literature, narrative fiction, Oulipo, Structuralism. How to avoid? How to return to a concept of authorship its very meaning of uniqueness. Modernism and Futurism in literature. Zaum (experiments with language made by Russian writers at the beginning of 20th century). The result of creation act, that cannot be understood regarding linguistic logic and rules, but aimed to emerge emotions and be perceived in the psychological level. (different from "new concept that cannot be described" as there is no intention to make it conceivable).

3. Witness Witness as a coauthor. Rauschenberg "white paintings", John Cage. "the artist must provide the condition for the emergent and unforeseen, and the audience must bring this condition to satisfaction". ("Aesthetics of the Error" Tim Barker.)

Author as a witness. Author's role is to set up conditions, build up system, in what the art process will take place, set up "degrees of freedom". ("Aesthetics of the Error" Tim Barker.) The presence of the observer and its subjectiveness. (possible to add small bit of quantum physics, and Schrodinger theory) "Artist plays no role at all in the judgment of his own work; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act". Marcel Duchamp. There is no art without spectator. The perception of the art piece differs and depends on subjectiveness of witnesses. Each one has its own authentic view, outside author's intentions. This way the unique piece is created and spectator steps on the author's field.

4. Conclusion: I'm lost!