Bill Kubina

Section 004 Fall 2015

Art as Dialogue

In Goutam Biswas's essay "The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience", he argues

that in order to come to a proper theory of art, we must examine the nature of arts as a whole.
He says that many theories of aesthetics attempt to deal with either the subjective experience of
art or conversely with the art objects as external physical objects. Despite the advancement of
many good theories, perhaps the most needed are is the study of "relationship with the
spectator or the artist is a fundamental or universal phenomenon which has its own ontology'.
The solution he proposes is to elucidate a phenomenology of aesthetic experience. He says we
should step back and look at the entire human experience of knowing in order to apprehend
what is going on with art, but that the contribution phenomenology offers is the most holistic
view. The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience questions the perceptions we take for
granted when considering artwork. Phenomenology challenges the methods of empirical
observation and argues that a theory of dialogue can greater explain the experience of art.

Take a piece of music for example. Say, "The Beatles - Abbey Road". You put on your
headphones, press play, close your eyes, and then immediately the sounds of "Here Comes The
Sun" are painting pictures of sunny skies in your head. Phenomenology doesn't really seek to
explain why this music is beautiful, but it does beg us to investigate just "What the hell is going
on?". Rather than thinking that we are "just listening to 'the music'"; there are philosophical
questions regarding the perceptions taking place in the activity. Goutam says that the many
aesthetic theories present philosophies of art forms but, they are incomplete to explain the
totality of art experience.

For example, listening to music through ear-buds means that soundwaves are directly
vibrating your eardrums and transducing acoustic pressure into neurological and mental energy:
the process deserves more scientific explanation in its own right, but I digress. In layman's

Bill Kubina
Section 004 Fall 2015
terms, what happens is that the sound of the music does not exist "in the world", not as acoustic
waves in your room or a concert hall, but in your mind. A 'left signal' and a 'right signal' usually
combine from two different speakers in an acoustic space to make the sum total sound, yet in
this case the acoustic phenomenon is directly bypassed as the headphones directly stimulate
your nervous system and creates a 'phantom image' of music in your own mind. The Beatles
guitars, in this case, do not exist 'outside' of you, nor do they exist in ear earbud, but the content
of the artwork is directly perceived within the person. This make its difficult to study some
popular traditional forms of Aesthetics. Where does the sound end and your imagination begin?
Is there a clear boundary between the music in itself and the musical reaction your mind has to
the sound? Hence, its difficult. However, phenomenologists do not take these factors for
granted.

Goutam's phenomenology doesn't propose an explanation for aesthetic beauty, there are
already philosophies for that, but instead offers a challenge to investigate our own relationships
with art. Some questions he begs are, 'do you see artwork as an external thing?', 'what is the
nature of the subject-object perception?', 'what is the ontological status of a work of art?', and
'what is the relation between the artist and his creations?'. First of all, he shares that this
dichotomy of subjective/objective is only one way for us to handle the materials at hand. There is
a justified necessity to see various objects as external to ourselves. However, a greater
exploration may come by engaging in a personal dialogue with the material. We can understand
that while seeing the thing, hearing the song, or reading the poem, our perception gets mingled
with our imagination. Thus, we are encouraged to question what and how we really know a
piece.

Goutam simplifies this awareness by explaining the notion of "Art as Dialogue". The
various elements of the phenomenologist pursuit can be summarized in this way. The
presumption that art-things can be grasped from a cursory glance is ignorant and absurd.

Bill Kubina
Section 004 Fall 2015
Music, again, is an artform that is temporal in nature and literally takes time to receive. That art
can even be criticized without bringing the object into intimate communion with your own
consciousness is questionable. What human being can be known simply with a cursory glance?
We must interact, communicate, and have patience to understand someone. Just the same; we
must really try to know art-objects. There is so much more than meets the eye, than simply
whatever seems to meet the eye! Kant is brought up here. Biswas shows that he influenced all
art theorists to come by transcending the objective empirical viewpoint with dominating
subjectivity, but he did not transcend the dichotomy.

When we choose the subjective approach, we seek "knowledge of" the piece in
question. At some point, we may think we "know it". In Biswas system, the subjective/objective
dichotomy of "I verses it" consciousness is also regarded as faulty. We have everyday
experience of this. To see an artwork as an 'it' is not exclusive to or philosophers or critics. It
seems that in regards to artistic appreciation, the average American museum goer has a low
stock of aesthetic common sense. In some ways we think we know it all. Walking through a
gallery can often be an exercise in ignorance. We may walk though the entire museum and not
stop at one piece for longer than five minutes. Even then our judgement may be based on
arbitrary instinctive stipulations. Yet, w decide if we "like it" or not. Anyway, not everyone has to
take art seriously. So it is very say that, in my experience, the worst victim of our cheap
relationship with art is often the potential creators themselves. For example, with all the
technical training available, there is very little aesthetic training available. Most music and art
instructional books only deal with the way to play a chord or how to draw a figure, and there is
relatively no where to learn how to "perceive a sound" or "know a shape". Aesthetics is taught,
but it is still often in the realm of objective empiricism. I sincerely regret that in all of my 20 some
years of studying music that I am only just now receiving tuition on how to listen. But, alas it gets
worse. Many creators instinctively develop an overly critical relationship of others artwork.

Bill Kubina
Section 004 Fall 2015
With art making, subjective preferences are a necessity, but the subject-object
polarization still presents problems to the knower of a piece. Personally, when I view another's
work, my mind acclaims certain the elements of my preference and disdains the elements
against my bias. I can pick out every flaw. I see "it" as an option in my life, and I can discard it,
and find something else. This approach seems to jump back and forth from a subjective view to
an objective view at my convenience. I am not really even aware of what is going on. I take it for
granted that I "know" the facts about the piece based on my own knowledge of art. This is so
common that amongst fellow artists we have often spoke about how knowing "too much" about
our craft to still enjoy it. My film maker friend finds it hard to enjoy most people's movies
because he cannot stop thinking about what choices the director made. This is a type of "natural
attitude" towards art that presumes much about the way "it is". This approach is rampant today.
Everyone has an opinion right? However in my own creativity, I find unconsciously applying
these mental processes can keep creativity at bay. Phenomenology in aesthetic experience
encourages us to not take our knowledge of an artform for granted; I can explore the sounds of
notes that I know are wrong without scaring off the delicate muse.

So instead of the fragmentary dichotomy Goutam says that people can pursue a living
dialectic relationship with a piece, as it is. The human consciousness does not just acquire
knowledge *of* things, (a subject/object polarization or "I-It" relationship). But we humans can
also acquire knowledge *between* ourselves and something, (an "I-Thou" relationship). This
relationship necessitates that the thing can continue to offer new information within the dialogue.
Goutam says art works definitely offer this,

".. in the sense that the objects in a painting are not actually the objects from real life
themselves, then they are not "spoken facts".
For instance, the content of a poem is sparks a sense of awareness within us that is distinct yet
indeterminate. This indeterminate quality will vary in time, because unlike with prose which is

Bill Kubina
Section 004 Fall 2015
spoken in fact, in the realm of art, art objects do not have fixed meaning. Therefore, we can be
in a relationship with the artwork that is active within our consciousness. Unlike prose's spoken
fact, with art it possible to experience new understandings within the dialogue. If we participate
in this conversation experience, then the meaning of an artwork is a dynamic experience of life
itself.

Therefore, to define "Abbey Road" once and for all time is impossible. To speak about it
simply must reduce it. We have to listen to it again; hear from it again. The empirical object is
not the same as the experienceable object. No facts about it can ever replace it. "The proof of
the pudding is in the eating". There is an oceanic spectrum of possibilities to explore between
what we know about art and what art is. Suspending my judgement can allow me to hear this
record anew even though I have heard it possibly thousands of times. Goutam Biswas's
aesthetic method also gives us a chance to explore the phenomenological method. Aesthetics is
valuable here because art offers many realms of discrete human experience to study. In that
pursuit it is exciting to know that Hume or Kant's ideas can fit nicely within the phenomenologic
process and can only further educate us to learn whats really going on. This book introduced
me to a whole new process of thinking and art appreciation, and now I want to spark a new
dialog with my records over and over again.