(no subject)
Somebody put a fish head through my car's antenna and pressed it against the surface of my car!
Now, I'm not going to rant about it, I've done that enough. But I want to talk about the aesthetics or anti-aesthetics of placing this fish head on my car. This person put the fish head on my car with complete concentration on the nature of the act: whether for novelty, "dude, how funny would it be if we put this fish head on this car in such and such a way" or revolutionary "dude, how funny would it be if we used Duchampian method to subvert the established automobile aesthetic of the Hyundai Tiburon (meaning "shark" in Spanish) for a whole new set of found aesthetics."
I can link this to two examples in art: one is the surrealist concept of montage, and the strategic placement of the fish head on the Tiburon which immediately begs for the subconscious, "what am I? what does this fish represent in the context of its placement?" After the fish head incident I was at my friend's house and his dog came to me, a narrow, hollow face floating like a fish head. My subconscious was engaged by the fish head, so hideous, yet so suggestive. Is it a symbol for death? For misfortune? For virility? I immediately project myself and my fate upon the fish head.
The other example I can link this to is the William Carlos Williams method of the anti-aesthetic as a focal point for an entire poem. For example, if we take the poem “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus:”
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
Instead of using the contrasting image to suggest the thought process of the reader or viewer, Williams uses the anti-aesthetic to suggest the consciousness of the poem itself! The “ugly” word choice of “unsignificantly” and “quite unnoticed” lend attention to themselves in the poem. Here is Williams, so influenced by Eastern objective poetry, inserting his sense of self into the poem through the nuance of error. Wittgenstein said “grammar is essence,” in Williams’ poetry “ugliness is essence.”
Thus, the fish head’s placement on my car was ultimately an act of poetry.
Now, I'm not going to rant about it, I've done that enough. But I want to talk about the aesthetics or anti-aesthetics of placing this fish head on my car. This person put the fish head on my car with complete concentration on the nature of the act: whether for novelty, "dude, how funny would it be if we put this fish head on this car in such and such a way" or revolutionary "dude, how funny would it be if we used Duchampian method to subvert the established automobile aesthetic of the Hyundai Tiburon (meaning "shark" in Spanish) for a whole new set of found aesthetics."
I can link this to two examples in art: one is the surrealist concept of montage, and the strategic placement of the fish head on the Tiburon which immediately begs for the subconscious, "what am I? what does this fish represent in the context of its placement?" After the fish head incident I was at my friend's house and his dog came to me, a narrow, hollow face floating like a fish head. My subconscious was engaged by the fish head, so hideous, yet so suggestive. Is it a symbol for death? For misfortune? For virility? I immediately project myself and my fate upon the fish head.
The other example I can link this to is the William Carlos Williams method of the anti-aesthetic as a focal point for an entire poem. For example, if we take the poem “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus:”
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
Instead of using the contrasting image to suggest the thought process of the reader or viewer, Williams uses the anti-aesthetic to suggest the consciousness of the poem itself! The “ugly” word choice of “unsignificantly” and “quite unnoticed” lend attention to themselves in the poem. Here is Williams, so influenced by Eastern objective poetry, inserting his sense of self into the poem through the nuance of error. Wittgenstein said “grammar is essence,” in Williams’ poetry “ugliness is essence.”
Thus, the fish head’s placement on my car was ultimately an act of poetry.