this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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I don't think it destroys art as a form of communication any more than the possibility of being misunderstood over texting or even in person destroys those media.
The chance for miscommunication exists in every form of communication, it's the consequence of letting an idea out of your own head and into the world. And art is inherently less clear a method for communication than something more straightforward would be.
If you create a work that nazis can see a bit of their worldview in, congratulations! They see their worldview in the world, so you've created a decently accurate facsimile of reality. Shitty people seeing their own shitty ideas in your art doesn't say anything about you, y says something about them. The same "death of the author" that lets them have that take insulated the author from that take.
But the reason I like it is that it also allows decent people to come to decent conclusions about art made by shitty people. Even if I didn't like it, I know it exists. Art can speak to someone about experiences the author didn't imagine, and that can be powerful and significant and beautiful, even if it can also be shitty.
The fact that you used the word misunderstood means you understand that an interpretation can be wrong.
Death of the author means there is never misunderstanding. If you send a text and I misread it, you are wrong, not me. I can ignore any attempts that you might use to correct the misunderstanding because my interpretation is just as valid.
If you are attempting to use art to communicate, then that can be understood as you intended or understood differently, i.e. misunderstood.
If you send me a text that says "Take the frogs over to the bank" and I take some amphibians to the river, that isn't a wrong reading of that sentence even if you wanted me to take some roads over to the money storage location (a valid, if unusual, way to parse that sentence). I misunderstood you, but my reading is not any less valid than yours.
The difference is that I couldn't correct the misunderstanding because you believe your interpretation is valid no matter what the author says. What I intended is irrelevant to you.
The interpretation is valid. But that doesn't mean communication hasn't broken down. In the case of a text message, the "true purpose" isn't to entertain or to elucidate deep truths about the world (usually), it's to convey a message.
Art with the goal of covering a single message is, in a word, propaganda. Propaganda that succeeds at being art may or may not succeed at being propaganda, but as art, the message intended by the author is not as important as the interpretation of the audience. Tolkien said he hated allegory, but it doesn't make Lord of the rings not allegorical, it only makes it not deliberately allegorical.
Guernica is propaganda? If you remove the "misleading" part of the definition of propaganda then all communication is propaganda. A Maths textbook is propaganda.
You state that as a fact when this is the problem being discussed!
The author is trying to tell you something and you are saying, "I don't care if you try to correct me. You actually meant amphibians go to the river and your attempts to correct me are wrong."
I'm using sense 1, here, and yes, Picasso's Guernica is propaganda. It was commissioned explicitly to raise awareness and funds for a war. It is also, and separately, art.
I don't think all communication is propaganda, but I also don't think all communication is art. If you're choosing to create something and call it "art" while also trying to push a particular message, it is (at least almost) certain that you are also intending to convey an emotional and influential message. Perhaps there need not be an agenda, except your own desire to send the message you hope to.
Edit: formatting