mere description
This act of “really looking” is deceptive. It requires an almost “unlooking” to see closely, a kind of defocusing. Because: We tend to see in groups, not details. We scan an image or scene for the gist, but miss a richness of particulars. I suspect this has only gotten worse in recent years as our Daily Processed Information density has increased,... See more
Craig Mod • Looking Closely Is Everything
... See moreTaste is an abstract, ineffable, unstable thing. A listener to music or reader cannot truly tell if they will enjoy something before they experience it; pleasure in a piece of art is never guaranteed. So when encountering an artwork, we immediately evaluate it by some set of mental principles, and, hopefully, find the beauty in it, feel affirmed,
The artist Gina Malek had made a similar suggestion …. "Just walk up to a piece and try to think of five things that it brings up," she suggested. Not five things that the art is about. The observations don't need to be grandiose, like this probes masculinity in the postinternet age. Just, what are five things you notice, either in the work or in
... See moreBianca Bosker • Get the Picture
A phenomenologist cannot get away with listening to a piece of music and saying, ‘How lovely!’ He or she must ask: is it plaintive? is it dignified? is it colossal and sublime? The point is to keep coming back to the ‘things themselves’ — phenomena stripped of their conceptual baggage — so as to bail out weak or extraneous material and get to the
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