Josef Chytry, “The Aesthetic State” (1989): This text examines the aesthetic dimensions of Marx’s theories developed in connection with his vision of a post-capitalist society. Chytry explores Marx’s reworking of Hegel (and Schiller) to arrive at a definition of the aesthetic as a concept of creative labor that has the capacity to unify distinct aspects of human experience: man and nature/reason and spirit/mind and body/individual and community.
Working beyond a perception that particular dimensions of Marx’s work may have limited applicability today, Chytry maintains that the enduring power of Marx lies within his imaginative reworking of the aesthetic. Creative labor, as an aesthetic experience, becomes the foundational aspect of a post-capitalist society. According to Marx as read through Chytry, creative labor operates as a form of “free-life expression,” provides enjoyment, and evidences uniqueness or individuality. It moves from the particular to the universal as its authentic modes of production necessarily cultivate all five human senses, unify individuals with communities, and provide a critical space for personal or social freedom.
Chytry hopes to persuade contemporary scholars to reexamine Marx’s work and identify ways that Marx’s thoughts on the aesthetic might help to shape current debates regarding what it may mean to achieve personal fulfillment and social harmony in an alienated, transnational, globalized world. I think Chytry’s project reads Marx to fully humanize or “concretize” the aesthetic, moving this concept away from it strong connections to mind or spirit, and re-defining the aesthetic as a very particular, and a very universal kind of bodily experience.
I would like to explore aspects of Chytry’s discussion that address techne, technique, and art—how these three terms inform, work against, or complicate Marx’s notions of the aesthetic and creative labor.
****************************
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Production” (1936):
Benjamin is writing to an audience that is growing increasingly concerned about the rise of repressive, totalitarian political regimes, particularly Nazism and Facism. He notes that through photography and film, art can become unmoored from its temporal origin (with its entire cultural heritage, including ritual) and begin to serve as a political instrument in order to reach larger and larger audiences (the masses).
Working beyond a perception that particular dimensions of Marx’s work may have limited applicability today, Chytry maintains that the enduring power of Marx lies within his imaginative reworking of the aesthetic. Creative labor, as an aesthetic experience, becomes the foundational aspect of a post-capitalist society. According to Marx as read through Chytry, creative labor operates as a form of “free-life expression,” provides enjoyment, and evidences uniqueness or individuality. It moves from the particular to the universal as its authentic modes of production necessarily cultivate all five human senses, unify individuals with communities, and provide a critical space for personal or social freedom.
Chytry hopes to persuade contemporary scholars to reexamine Marx’s work and identify ways that Marx’s thoughts on the aesthetic might help to shape current debates regarding what it may mean to achieve personal fulfillment and social harmony in an alienated, transnational, globalized world. I think Chytry’s project reads Marx to fully humanize or “concretize” the aesthetic, moving this concept away from it strong connections to mind or spirit, and re-defining the aesthetic as a very particular, and a very universal kind of bodily experience.
I would like to explore aspects of Chytry’s discussion that address techne, technique, and art—how these three terms inform, work against, or complicate Marx’s notions of the aesthetic and creative labor.
****************************
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Production” (1936):
Benjamin is writing to an audience that is growing increasingly concerned about the rise of repressive, totalitarian political regimes, particularly Nazism and Facism. He notes that through photography and film, art can become unmoored from its temporal origin (with its entire cultural heritage, including ritual) and begin to serve as a political instrument in order to reach larger and larger audiences (the masses).
Benjamin discusses the ambiguous nature of these new technologies, for he notes that, unlike lithography or the printing press, these new forms of reproduction cause an absence of original presence which means that the unique “aura” experienced when one encounters any particular object of art is lost. Nonetheless, there is so much at stake at this point in human history that the ability to reach/influence the masses is a critical project; communism must respond by politicizing art, by using the aesthetic as a political weapon to establish new political, social, and economic structures. Film is particularly useful because it is transportable, mutable, addresses individual concerns, and remains universally engaging.
No comments:
Post a Comment