the erotic line

Chris Fynsk: Lecture 2 on Heidegger's "Origin of the Work of Art."

Art (through technology) is the lever into a "new beginning"-- the situation of humanity in the contemp. world.

How does truth manifest itself in a work of art.--> The truth would not happen without art.

Why is art a necessity for truth? The work precedes the artist in which the artist (be)comes to know oneself thru the work of art.

[art doesn't exist for itself. one could compare it to Barthes' state/moment of the 'zero degree'.]

"Lethe" obscurity, forgetting. "Alethea" a play of non-concealment entailing a dimension of a turning away or closure. Something unmasterable that escapes...

Technique is a process of putting everything (in the world) at disposal.

[This feeling that human beings are being mastered by technology.]

One arrives in a world that is already there. We can never master our selves. We have limits to this capacity and to this powerlessness. There can be a transcendental b/c we can't control it.--> to think the finitude of the human being!!! to think the powerlessness!!!

"Sacrifice" of one's life for one's country.--> [How Heidegger's view is speculatively connected to the purges of the Holcaust.] [Fynsk does not think there is a connection because Heidegger's notions of sacrifice was conceived in 1935. I think Fynsk does not see the potential or at least crucial connection between MH's notion of sacrifice and the act of purging as "self (or other) sacrifice" within the context of "ethnic cleansing" within WW2 Germany.][ This "event of truth" in the sacrifice is evident in the tens of millions of lives that were "used" to make this "event" a "truthful" one. It can be argued that Jews and the surrounding social minorities in fascist Europe were used as sacrificial lambs with reverence to "national socialism" within the religious apparatus. Strains of MH's fascist tendencies were poetically expressed philosophically.]

How does Art present itself?
-objectivity, presence-->hermeneutic circle. Hence, "All works have this thingly character."

-"Inscription of truth in a finite event..." What is at work in the work, the being of work in the work. In the art work, truth is at work (duh!).

[MH offers to art this sense of omniscience.]

[Michael Jackson as an electrical embodied work of performative art.]

-The way in which a human being crafts a world--crafts a world in relation to things.

[How this can be applied to cosmetic makeup.]

Where is art real?--> where truth is at work.

[Art is an expression of the propensity of the artist's truth.]

[Art as an expression of the truth of one's being.] The problem is in defining what being is. The attempt in defining is not necessarily a work of art. Forget the term "art" altogether and replace it with attempts toward being.]

Producing a world for itself.-->poesis, in itself and for itself.

The "thing" already gave itself to us-->the way its given to us.

-The projection of language into the thing.
-The utterance of human beings in relation to their things.

-A concept of the thing based on sensibility and asthesis. ( A process of schematization occurs in recognition of the thing in order to then evolve a sensibility.) There is a form of feeling which gives us a relation to things.



How we relate to the thingly character of art:

1. Too far from the thing.

a.) schtimung: mood, or way of being attuned which reveals our dasein in ways that are special. Capable of being touch, of being affected. A way of being moved, of being moody or responding in relation to our world.

b.) angst: a state in which we are most immediately attuned to the very fact of our being, without fear in the exposure in being given over to the world.

2. Too intimate with the thing or space.

3. Neither too close nor too far.
(Form & Matter distinction)--> Hence, the thing concept.--> Equipment and production. Tension between form & content. Binaries of Metaphysics. If Subject & Object is coupled, then representation has command.

What is the figural character of the art work?

MH wants us to see the artwork as a self contained thing, as a thing which stands apart in a special way, over-against us in its self-containedness; that which has a strange presence over us, an otherness in which truth is inscribed in the work. (True) Art & Truth are inseparable.

[When art happens, it displaces its context. The artwork is the origin of the content, whereby, the thing bears with it an event.] This event gives us the code.

[Imagine a culture with no mirrors.] --> The event character of the art work which redefines relations between selves, things, and world. Thus, the world is formed incessantly.

The force of the familiar (the everyday life) is too great. We must stay close to the event (or truth) to guide us in shaping the familiar.

(Stems from Greek notion of production; things of use, property, ownership, tools, objects of use; pragmatics--> used carelessly in relation to Art.)

[Purpose disappears in the toolness of it. Matter is used up in the tool, whereas, art is brought forth in the tool.]

["De-naturing of language in the typewriter..."]--> the materiality of ink and paper as earthly component of "art". This both true and bullshit.]

[Typing is a different gesture of approaching and relaying (poetic) language all together. Poetry need no longer be an "earthly" task if the earth also floats in outer-space.]

[Outer-space poetics via technology.]

[Technology can work to bring poetry into outer-space, can make us sensitive to this potential.]