Postmodern Art

My sister Sarah always wants me to do a blog post on something relating to my real life. Even though I maintain that all my previous posts perhaps have more application to real life than purely relating something that happened, I will reconcile the two approaches.

The last two months I have participated in something called "critical mass." It is a world-wide phenomenon (at least a western one) where a group of people gather to ride their bikes on a Friday evening through the busy streets of downtown London, New York, or...Provo. The group gathers rather abruptly and at the appointed time, floods the streets with their bicycles, taking up most, if not all of the lanes, and chokes traffic somewhat as they follow a route through downtown Provo. Here in Provo the group is quite tame and even though the procession goes through red lights, and makes left turns that stop oncoming traffic for several minutes, they try to leave a lane open so traffic can get by. The police are somewhat baffled as to how to react. They cannot really stop several hundred bicyclists who suddenly appear on the streets and can merely scatter when approached by a cop car. Plus, the biker has the legal status of a vehicle and has as much a right to the road as a car. They have resorted to merely trying to supervise, observe, and direct the flow of bicycles, despite being generally unsuccessful.

I find this phenomenon interesting in terms of postmodern art. It bears striking resemblance to other activities termed "flashes" I believe. A large group of individuals will be instructed to do something random in a public place at exactly the same instant. One instance was in a crowded square and at the given moment, half the people in the square froze for several minutes, to the shock, and consternation of those not in on the joke. Other examples include a large group of people suddenly running naked through a particular street and a lone photographer capturing the moment in a photo.

The reason why we could term these acts postmodern is their emphasis on immanence opposed to transcendence, and their pushing of what we term acceptable and lawful. That is, challenging authority.

Earlier art, in the form of a static painting, sculpture, photograph, or architecture, is long-lasting, and focuses on transcending the particular, and finite to access and project eternal, universal meaning and value. The beautiful sculptures of ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy sought to project the ideal body of man and communicate excellence. Postmodernism prefers to see meaning and value as immanent--projecting from the inner life and limited to the individual. It is likewise not meant to last. It is as if they are saying, "this expression does not go beyond itself or this moment." Thus these spontaneous flashes can be understood as having their meaning rooted in non-permanence, the moment, the individual, etc.

As for pushing authority, the connection is clearer. Postmodernists generally see the world not built on rational, universal principles, but on the preferences and values of a particular group. For us that would be dead, white, western, rich, European males. Since roads are made for cars (which themselves have taken on a bad rap as of late) the postmodern would want to challenge this seemingly benign and functional fixture. The "bike" (insert female, minority, etc) has its right to the "road" (insert civil rights, institution, etc), even if it is not designed for the "bike."

The Fleur de Lis and Semiotics

The Fleur de Lis traditionally symbolizes royalty, monarchy, and heraldry. Appropriated by the Frankish King Clovis in the 6th century as a sign of his Christianity, it was further appropriated by the French Kings to legitimize themselves through the connection with the first Frankish, Christian king, Clovis. From the end of the Middle Ages, throughout early and modern Europe, the Fleur de Lis was the symbol of the French Monarchy and by extension France. Later it specifically represented the house of Bourbon, and since Luxembourg and Spain are the last of the Bourbon monarchies, the Fleur de Lis remains their symbol.

It now is a disseminated symbol-as is the fate of all symbols-and we recognize it in connection with the Boy Scouts and Professional Sports teams. But the the history of this symbol reveals important discursive and rhetorical methods employed by different groups for creating and perpetuating an image, and therefore power.

I will not attempt to chronicle all the cycles of meaning that this symbol has been through (for that would be an infinite regression) but needless to say, the Fleur de Lis was at one point only a fleur de lis. Before man saw it and spoke of it, it was a Fleur de Lis. This changed at some point. It was appropriated by someone or some group to represent an idea greater than the object itself in order to enhance and project this idea. Scholars have shown it to be present in Indonesian, Sumerian, Mesopotamian, and Roman culture as a stylized symbol. As for the meanings it had in these cultures, there is little to go on. Before it became the symbol of French Royalty and heraldry, the Fleur de Lis was a Christian symbol. The three leaves interchangeably represented either the trinity, the virgin, or the dove.

The French Kings, beginning with Louis VII (1154-80)began putting the Fleur de lis on their seals and coat of arms to legitimize their claim to power and associate themselves with Christianity and piety since the legend was that Clovis had first received the Fleur de lis directly from heaven. It likewise came to mean Later, English kings who claimed the throne of France used the Fleur de lis to assert their right to the throne.

For medieval and early modern Europe the royal Fleur de lis meant perfection, light, and life.

For me, this example of how the Valois and Bourbon dynasties used an image to be a very powerful symbol of much larger ideas as power, legitimacy, royalty, and piety, reveals important functions that symbols have in socio-behavioral patterns. Scholars of Semiotics (the study of signs) posit that the way we communicate is purely through a system of signs. Words, body gestures, and the use of images understood to represent ideas is in fact how we communicate. If you think about it, these are indirect means of communicating. If the French King wanted to communicate that he was the legitimate king, why did he not merely say, "I am the legitimate King"? Why did he go outside himself, and appeal to an image? The image is an attempt at transcendence. To appeal to a higher source that everyone recognizes, or that we attempt to make everyone recognize as having a certain meaning and authority. Who controls that meaning could be reduced to physical power. But if they already have physical power, why do they appeal to symbolic power? Possibly because symbolic and physical power go hand in hand to perpetuate each other.

I think this has direct application to our everyday lifes and for cross-cultural understanding. Every position in society seems to have symbols connected with them, either in the form of images or linguistic. Our dress (suit, scruffy, doctor), our titles (Dr., Mr., Sir) or images such as the beehive, the eagle, and flags. We depend on other people understanding what all these symbols mean as they relate directly to identity and to the past to legitimize individuals or institutions. The founding fathers interest in using classical architecture depends on people understanding history and the fact that classical architecture symbolizes learning, power, stability, and early democracy.

So what happens when we encounter images from other cultures that we do not recognize? We will first have difficulty communicating and likewise assign our own meanings to the symbol. The rising sun of Japan in World War II is a good example. A symbol of Japan's divine birth was seen by Americans as obviously a sinister symbol.

It is interesting likewise how the same symbol is so differently used in different cultures. The Swastika, for example, is recognized by all westerners (and pretty much the whole world now) as symbolizing the Nazis, fascism, oppression, authoritarianism, racism, and mass murder. Ironically it traditionally meant (Buddhists still use the symbol extensively) life and good luck. The spoiling of an image has an important impact on the way we communicate. So the politicizing of images is problematic. It would be difficult now to invoke the imagery of a rainbow in a neutral manner. I would be communicating something very different, if unwillingly.

Hume and Experience Again

"For me it seems evident, that the essence of the mind being equally unknown to us with that of external bodies, it must be equally impossible to form any notion of its powers and qualities otherwise than from careful and exact experiments, and the observation of those particular effects, which result from its different circumstances and situations. And tho' we must endeavor to render all our principles as universal as possible, by tracing up our experiments to the utmost and explaining all effects from the simplest and fewest causes, 'tis still certain that we cannot go beyond experience; and any hypothesis, that pretends to discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical." (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, xxi)