What are the political implications of defining "distance" as an essential component of the aesthetic experience?
The way I understand distance is from looking at it in the middle of a continuum from under-distancing on one side and over-distancing on the other. Under-distancing, Bullough claims, is being "unable to separate the reality of an event from its mimetic representation." An example of this is watching a play and not being able to differentiate between fact and fiction, the real from the unreal, and thinking that the play going on before one's eyes is a real life enactment of tragedy. Over-distancing involves missing out on the aesthetic experience by "lacking both imaginative involvement and practical detachment" and focusing on only certain aspects of a production. Examples of this would include only paying attention to elaborate costumes (or the lack thereof) in a performance, or getting carried away by the set design, etc., At any rate, both under and over-distancing involves becoming too involved in a work in which the aesthetic experience is not had.
Distance, as understood by me, is being able to place one's self into the middle of this continuum, to realize that the production going on before them is not real-life, yet not becoming so involved in a critique to miss out on the actual experience. Distancing allows one to have an experience with the production, to appreciate its aesthetic qualities, and to have a moment in which they are taken outside of the real-world and are enveloped for a moment in the willing suspension of disbelief that performance creates.
The political implications of defining distance in this manner, then, lie in that distance suppossedly involves a detatchment from real-life to appreciate the aesthetic experience. If one is not able to be distanced, the performance becomes de-aestheticized. Performance scholars who argue that the purpose of theatre is to educate may take offense to the standpoint that one needs to be distanced in order to appreciate art because this distancing would entail falling into a spot on the distance continuum in order to be subverted and subjected to something other than the real world.
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I like your answer to the question. It is much different from my own. As, I argue that distance is not necessary for the aesthetic experience. The aesthetic experience is always going to be subjective. That is, individual experience can always have an affect on how the individual experiences or interprets art, culture, or nature. Further, the fragmentary nature of postmodern society does not necessarily support distance. The art itself becomes nothing more than a presentation of the art itself.
ReplyDeleteNice breakdown of the terminology, but I'd like you to have been a little clearer in you conclusion. Include a pair of examples that typify the stances you are describing.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your essay. I am an empiricist, so I just don't see any evidence for the notion of "distance". Sometimes the view is satisfactory in the front row, while other times it is better to be further back in the theater - that is how far I am willing to go with "distance". As you explained your concept of a continuum, however, I was able to conceive of more ideal "points of observation" that might lend something to the overall aesthetic experience. Maybe the focus of those concerned with distance should have been more toward the "state of mind" that occurs as we perceive a performance - and how best to achieve it? I think that this is what they were aiming for and perhaps their use of an ineffectively abstract concept such as "distance" was not the best tool for getting their point across.
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