(Untitled)

[paisleycat]

Art, life, and politics. I don't know how they should go together (obviously I'm speaking for me, I do not make these sorts of judgments for others

Comments

[beetlebot]

I don't think it is wrong to aestheticize this. It might be disrespectful if aesthetics did not have the very right and real function of serving to direct people's motivations. So I think it is still useful to study this aspect of things wherever you find them, with or without overt political meaning.

Also, I want to see what you are talking about.

[paisleycat]

I did not post the specific links because I did not want to pass on what sparked the whole uncomfortable spiral.

I do appreciate your take on the purpose of aesthetics though.

[ironwench]

The professionals taking those photos did so with art in their minds as well, so for you to recognize skill or art in them is just an acknowledgment of what is there. Depending on the emotion the photographer is trying to push through the picture, I think most times they want you to see the beauty in regards to how the photographer sees the situation and interprets it through film.

[paisleycat]

I guess I'm just not sure that I want to read/see the news through such an effectively subjective lens. Give me documentary/art that is less current and though I still have conflicting feelings about it, I am much more able to appreciate the skill and beauty of the images.

[ironwench]

Ah. All reporting is in some way artistic though...either through photography or journalism or video. People are trained to capture an emotion or certain feel through their media in order to portray an angle on a situation. You are just aware of this now....you maybe just "want the facts, ma'am, just the facts" hm?

[chron_job]

in a word.... whoa.

[paisleycat]

Both of the shots to which this post refers were in this group of photographs.

[chron_job]

I understand your ambivalence. Perhaps it comes from the strong linkage in our minds between aesthetics and enjoyment. To understand the aesthetic dimension of a picture that details human suffering feels like taking joy from suffering... or, if one is the photographer, manipulating and profiting from suffering.

But like Miss beetlebot mentions, if we have a political and human rights interest in the subject, aesthetics is a tool to amplify and spread that opinion... then the intentional use of aesthetics becomes as valid and personally meaningful as the opinion we attempt to embed in it.

I don't have an arts or aesthetics education, so my response is visceral and difficult for me to narrate, but I'm going to think about it some.

Think about the aesthetic appeal inherent in these...

[paisleycat]

This is good stuff upon which to think.

[paisleycat]

When you say that you question the writer in this way, do you actually think about the book's author or are you questioning the knowledge of narrators or characters?