In that previous Anime Diet roundtable I asserted that perhaps ultimately it is the artistic experience that one identifies with, and this experience of art which ought to be the focus of attention. The problem is that this leaves art even more ill-defined, if such a thing is possible. Apparently, Kaiserpingvin and Pontifus agree above, using slightly different terms.

The problem ultimately may be linguistic: language deals best and most clearly with objective truths, not subjective experiences, and art is far on the subjective end of human experience.

I figured out today, that the aesthetic-emotive affect may be said to be the feeling of appreciation for something being done well. It does not quite capture it, but it’s some road to some sort of clarification of my vague nonsensical terms.

Mmmm. Gnostics <3

But that is mere conjecture from my aesthetic-pluralist musings and the repeated failure of definitions to capture what is being said. A falsifiable but not quite provable sentiment.

I’d say that appreciating the chair’s comfort, its practical application to a sitter, isn’t appreciating it as art, while appreciating its beauty would be. You could certainly do both, though it’d be harder to do the latter from the perspective of a sitter, both due to the point of view and (maybe less so) the distraction of the chair’s active “chairness.”

In the case of music as warfare, I’d assume that someone harmed by it would have a difficult time appreciating it as art. I suppose I don’t think of art as a thing, or a set of things, so much as a way of experiencing things. In that sense, it seems that context would be of far more importance than the object in itself; I think I was trying to get that across, yeah, though I didn’t especially push it.

Maybe I should make an intermediary post between this one and the next explaining the things I’ve figured out from talking to you all.

Oh, and bring your guro research to my next post. It might be relevant (gods forbid, perhaps…).