Because so much of an our time is tied up in creating the art, it can often be difficult to switch gears and fully recognize the very real ways in which our art is creating us-- molding our values, shifting our attitudes, directing our interests and altering our perceptions.
Primarily these kinds of insights come from looking at our own artworks in ways other than as their author. The most common approach is to try to distance ourselves from the work, ideally adopting a stance of neutrality and cool objectivity. Some approximation of this stance usually what is asked of us in the typical critique setting. While this can prove to be a quite useful approach, it does have some striking limitations, not the least of which is that it is impossible, at least in the purest sence. There is no ideal outside, no rarified alpine summit of reason from which we can objectively survey the landscape unsullied by our subjectivity. Objectivity asks of us that we stand outside of ourselves, outside of our personal history, our culture and its conventions. It asks a lot. It asks no less then for us to stand nowhere. Archimedes, as though realizing the impossibility and irony inherent in the ideal of objective detachment lamented, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world.”
However, there are, in fact, places to stand, methods of analysis that unlike objectivity do not ask us to relinquish all that we are and know. Critical distance can be achieved in ways other than moving away. It can be the measure of a meander, a total accounting of the terrain that’s traversed, not just the measure of the separation between two points as the crow flies. Critical distance can be established by moving toward, in, around, and through. All that distance requires of us is that we move, that we keep the odometer ticking. All that criticality asks is that we stay alert and vigilant during the trip. Rather then attempting to suppress or limit our mental activity to well worn analytical and evaluative schema wnen we engage in critical dialogue, we can instead expand our subjectivity in the service of a creative imagination that allows us inhabit foreign bodies, intimate spaces, grand vistas and alien viewpoints. While standing in such places might not give you the leverage to move the world, they may provide you with insights that can tip the axis of your own mental universe.
Primarily these kinds of insights come from looking at our own artworks in ways other than as their author. The most common approach is to try to distance ourselves from the work, ideally adopting a stance of neutrality and cool objectivity. Some approximation of this stance usually what is asked of us in the typical critique setting. While this can prove to be a quite useful approach, it does have some striking limitations, not the least of which is that it is impossible, at least in the purest sence. There is no ideal outside, no rarified alpine summit of reason from which we can objectively survey the landscape unsullied by our subjectivity. Objectivity asks of us that we stand outside of ourselves, outside of our personal history, our culture and its conventions. It asks a lot. It asks no less then for us to stand nowhere. Archimedes, as though realizing the impossibility and irony inherent in the ideal of objective detachment lamented, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world.”
However, there are, in fact, places to stand, methods of analysis that unlike objectivity do not ask us to relinquish all that we are and know. Critical distance can be achieved in ways other than moving away. It can be the measure of a meander, a total accounting of the terrain that’s traversed, not just the measure of the separation between two points as the crow flies. Critical distance can be established by moving toward, in, around, and through. All that distance requires of us is that we move, that we keep the odometer ticking. All that criticality asks is that we stay alert and vigilant during the trip. Rather then attempting to suppress or limit our mental activity to well worn analytical and evaluative schema wnen we engage in critical dialogue, we can instead expand our subjectivity in the service of a creative imagination that allows us inhabit foreign bodies, intimate spaces, grand vistas and alien viewpoints. While standing in such places might not give you the leverage to move the world, they may provide you with insights that can tip the axis of your own mental universe.
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