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Welcome to Intentism!
Welcome to the Intentism forum! Feel free to introduce yourself and if you have any comments or questions you can ask them here. Please login to join in any of the discussions. If you are a new visitor, click on 'Join us' at the top for your free account. If you are an existing member please login above.
6 36 Vittorio
12 Jan 2010 17:33
Nicholas Penny and 'effective history'
Nicholas Penny and 'effective history'
Nicholas Penny and 'effective history' - Nicholas Penny, Director of the National Gallery in conversation with Jonathon Jones of the Guardian (March 27 2008) said that paintings that survive for centuries change their meaning again and again. Gadamer called this eine Wirkungsgeschichte or the 'effective history' of the work. Does the work's meaning really change or is it fixed the moment the artist decides to stop?
1 1 Vittorio
13 Dec 2008 14:54
Intention and fiction
Intention and fiction
How do we distinguish fiction form non-fiction? There is no form of writing or vocabulary that distinguishes between the two. Anaximander's early Greek map of a flat earth was simply bad science not fiction. Is the best approach to side with what the author was intending - fiction or non-fiction?
1 1 Sarah
15 Dec 2008 19:03
Intention and accountability
Intention and Accountability
An artist declines to give any intended meaning to their work, holding fast to Barthes,'Death of the author.' If the work is considered offensive or inflammatory by others, does the artist's view of authorship remove accountability?
3 1 administrator
03 Feb 2009 18:59
Beardsley's arguments
Beardsley's arguments
Beardsley and Wimsatt wrote the seminal paper on the subject of intention 'The intentional Fallacy'. His key arguments against intentionalism are set out in an essay published in the book 'Intention and Interpretation.' 1.Some texts that have been formed without the agency of an author, and hence, without authorial meaning, nevertheless have a meaning and can be interpreted, for example, certain kinds of verbal mistake...When Hart Crane wrote' Thy Nazarene and tender eyes,' a printer's error transformed it into 'Thy Nazarene and tinder eyes'; but Crane let the accidental version stand. 2. The meaning of a text can change after its author has died. But the author cannot changen his meaning after he has died. Therefore, the textual meaning is not identical to the authorial meaning. The OED furnishes abundant evidence that individual words and idioms acquire new meanings and lose old meanings as time passes... 3. A text can have meanings that its author is not aware of. Therefore, it can have meanings that its author did not intend. Therefore, textual meaning is not identical to authorial meaning. These are his three main arguments. What do we think? Are they watertight?
1 11 Vittorio
29 Dec 2009 00:08
Can knowing the story behind a painting explain it?
Howard Hodgkin
In The Independent on Friday 16th of January 2009 Christina Patterson in 'The Big Interview' spoke to celebrated painter Howard Hodgkin. She asks Hodgkin if '..there is any particular reason why any artist other than a writer, maybe including a writer, should be able to speak particularly well, or illuminatingly, about their work...art and language are, after all, entirely different mediums.' Hodgkin replies ' I couldn't agree more.' 'Five minutes into the interview, we have both agreed on the uselessness of what he has called in the past 'the tyranny of words.' Finally, and perhaps most worryingly, is this last paragraph on the subject: So the critics who want to argue for complexity want to know the stories, because how can you understand a painting if you don't know the story behind it? But what, in the end, has a story got to do with a painting? A painting, surely, is like a poem. It's an experience which undergoes a long, painstaking, often painful process of transformation- alchemy if you like- to become something else. The story behind it might be interesting to a biographer, or a voyeur, or an art critic, but it's ultimately irrelevant because it's a different thing. Isn't it? 'Yes.' says Hodgkin 'it's something totally different.' Any thoughts?
1 0 John3
10 Jul 2009 00:22
Roland Barthes 'The Death of the author' and 'Systeme de la Mode.'
Barthes and self-image
Roland Barthes wrote about the semiology of fashion in his work 'Systeme de la Mode.' Barthes makes the point that nobody can dress innocently. Someone who dresses in casual jeans, thinking he is simply dressed naturally for comfort is following just as much a carefully coded set of conventions as a soldier's uniform. We all make a statement about ourselves and our preferences. If this is true then does it have consequences regarding Barthes 'death of the author.'? Fashion designers regard themselves as artists or authors of their work and according to Barthes we make conscious decisions about our choice of clothes; choices that involve how we want to be seen in shape and colour.Choices that signify our personality and interests to the world. Barthes is clear that nothing is unintentional in our choices of clothing and you cannot separate the clothes we wear (and our decison on colour, shape, design)and the person who wears them. Yet, he in his article 'The Death of the author'(1968) argues that the term auteur as a personality that is expressed through the work should be rejected and replaced with scripteur (someone who writes) The scripteur has 'neither passions, humours, feelings nor impressions.' The work is separate from the scripteur; the writer's life is irrelevant. Is his position consistent with his work on self-image?
0 0 No posts yet
Altermodern - Your views
Exhibition at The Tate Modern
What do we make of Altermodern at the Tate Modern? The term was invented by Nicholas Bourriaud, Gulbenkian curator of contemporary art. It 'suggests that the period defined by postmodernism is coming to an end...'altermodernity arises out of negotiations between agents from different cultures and geographical locations. Stripped of a centre, it can only be polyglot...The archipelago and its kindred forms...function here as models representing the altermodern.' It has been criticized by many and by one critic as '..not the beginning of anything, but the fag end of something.' It runs until April 26.
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Articles on Intentism
Intentism-'Resurrection of the Author' Your views
This essay was originally written for arts and culture website www.culturewars.org.uk and has since been published on www.metamute.org . It can also be found under 'Articles' on this website. It outlines the main foundational thoughts of this movement. Please feel free to add your comments here.
1 0 YousefA
17 Nov 2009 07:08
Music and Intention
Composer's intention versus performer's intention
Where does the meaning lie in a musical composition? Should a performer be concerned with the composer's intention? In Gene Lees' Singers and the Song, songwriter Lee speaks about his admiration for various singers due to the fact that they are faithful to the meaning of the song. This is a quote about Peggy Lee: Like Sinatra, she has an almost uncanny ability to find and bring out the meaning of a song..she performed one of my lyrics, Yesterday I Heard the Rain....that song has a meaning few people have ever caught...(it) refers to The Sacred Heart icon of Catholicism...Peggy gave it a reading of astonishing religious intensity...' Lee then explains that after the performance he spoke to a monsignor and a priest who, having heard the performance, asked whether the song was about the loss of God. 'I think my mouth fell open. I confirmed that this was indeed its intent and meaning.' It is interesting that Lee links the words 'Intent' and 'meaning.' In another part of the book Lee speaks about Sinatra's reading of his lyric This Happy Madness.'The lyric is mine, and I think I can claim to know what the intent is - what the 'undertext,' as actors and directors say, is...I sat in openmouthed amazement as he caught every nuance of the words...I intended the first two lines as a sort of self-mockery, as if the 'character' in the song finds himself resorting to an abysmal banality, a dreadful cliche (the reference is to the old song Childhood in the Wildwood), and a false rhyme. Sinatra caught this.... What do we consider the relationship to be (if there is one) between composer and meaning, and performer and meaning?
1 1 Vittorio
10 Aug 2009 20:50
On The Death of The Author by Stephen Carter - Stephen Carter's essay on Barthes' Death of the Author
On The Death of The Author by Stephen Carter
Stephen Carter (www.stephencarterpaintings.co.uk) is course director of Byam Shaw School of Art, which is part of Central Saint Martins, London. This essay is found under the hyperlink Articles, above. It is a very well thought out response to many of the questions surrounding Barthes infamous pronouncement. There is much here that Intentists would agree with and no doubt other areas that Intentists would take issue with. Please feel free to add your thoughts!
0 0 No posts yet

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