Tricky Focus

 

(Or 'Being Framed')

 

 

Returning to the idea of Ambiguity –

in fact the prime type of Ambiguity we found in the story of Sarrasine above,

is to play on a commonly accepted binary opposition

 

(dead/alive; inside/outside; true/false; public/private; or as in 'Sarrasine', male/female),

 

of which the subject (a castrato) is in fact an anomaly, or disproof – something that is undecidable if

we choose to see the world in those (male/female) binary terms.

It is an Obstacle.

 

We have met this idea before,

as the oxymoron, under the advertising section above.

How can it be both 'draft' beer, and 'in a can'?

What are 'smart drugs'?

 

Cognitive dissonance, whether from an Anomaly to a Binary Opposition, or an Oxymoron,

provides a powerful enigma.

 

It is an Obstacle.

 

It hides a Secret.

 

It sustains the link with the target

of the work of art (or other communication), it is the point of attachment to its audience,

while the other meanings, or memes, are put in place in their consciousness,

whether selling a Balzac novel, or a can of beer

this Anomaly enables it to get its Treasure

too.

 

Like the cell wall of the virus, it

attaches itself to you,

and then it gives

you what you

weren't

expecting,

and

takes what it

wants

.

 

And of course, this is highly relevant to art, in any number of ways.

 

Like the Oxymoron or the Anomaly, the FRAME

gets your attention on behalf of

its contents.

 

But is it part of the work of art,

or not?!

 

[Binary Opposition number one.]

 

Or put another way, If we believe the work of art is

something separate from us (outside/inside),

[Binary Opposition number two]

 then what is its frame - part of us, or part of the work of art?

 

 

It encloses the work, so I guess it is outside us and part of the picture.

But it is also obviously not part of the picture, not inside it.

It is an anomaly to these binary oppositions. It is neither and both...

 

It communicates on behalf of the work of art with the real outside – it's shape says

'look at what's inside me'

 

We've met this before.

 

 

Yes, the concentric dark and light rings (this time rectangles).

They got your attention last time also.

 

OK, point made. Forget the wolf. Back to the Frame.

Once it has your attention, it can talk some more. Its form talks to you now, and says -

 

‘I’m Romantic’, or 'I'm Old', or ‘I’m important’,

 

 

or 'I'm Egyptian'

 

 

or, 'I'm hi-tech'

 

 

 

or ‘I’m only a frame - let the picture say it'

 

or maybe...

 

 

'I like Magritte'

 

 

Even the position within the frame has something to say...

 

 ‘oops...!'’

 

 or

 

 

 

and this is leaving aside, of course,  what's written on the label.

 

 

The Frame isn’t inside or outside, it

relates one to the other and is part of both and neither

at the same time.

It is an anomaly to the binary oppositions we posed.

And it gets your attention.

 

 

But lots of things do this. Not just Frames...

 

As Jeff Collins points out in his book ‘Introducing Derrida’,

if the frame is the species, then the genus is the ‘parergon’ – the work beside the work -

the colonnades of palaces, drapery on statues, ornamental adjuncts

of all sorts which are not 'part of the

work'.

 

 

Or are they?