Contextual language as a political statement?
Think Marcel might turn in his grave at the thought of political links via context alterations?
Perhaps more like turn a smile?
How is it that altering a context is political anyway?
Well.. One of the things contextual language claims that by yanking stuff out of context, we get new, altered, or yet-to-be-known meanings. The bed in a gallery might mean something very different to the bed in a bedroom. Is it not a little bit like claiming that red as in red light, and red as in red apple are not just different objects with red, but the red in them – its meaning – has altered by the objects?
Sure.. So..?
Now.. How might one go about keeping a meaning for from “red lights” to be “stop” and “red apple” as linked with the christian “original sin”?
Do these meanings need to be kept? Do they not come all natural?
What might be a natural meaning?
Bubbles?
Because the term is the sound?
Yes! But, if indeed the meaning sprang spontaneously – aka natural – how come the words for air pockets within liquid alter among languages?
Even if we assume that indeed there are Some meanings that might be said to be natural, is it not safe to say that there are a fair few other meanings which do not come “naturally”?
And when the meanings are only context dependent, they require to be kept?
Well.. Lets try?
I say: pimookiux is light under water. Shall we agree to say that “pimookiux” is light under water?
Oh! What if I disagree?
Then perhaps we might need to argue, no?
So the question of power is whether or not we fancy arguing?
I don’t think by necessity. We might argue about pimookiux without resorting to a power struggle, right?
But if I don’t have the time and energy to argue about that?
Then since i said initially that pimookiux is light under water, the meaning will indeed persist, no?
I see.. So at some point, to alter the meaning, or make the term “piumookiux” be seen in a different way, someone will, by default, be challenging the power of whoever to give that term a particular meaning?
Maybe by having a language that is contextual oriented we get a process that keeps cultivating from the question of how meanings are being kept, are given, aren’t fixed?
Sounds very exciting, no?
What do you mean?
Exciting to challenge power no?
Might be very exciting, but when you are within power relations, it is just a temporary challenge that fail to offer something radical no?
Not radical?
Not radical in the sense of a new stem, a new direction, a different search to evolve with a from?
But isn’t this presisly what makes the contextual language so much “art”?
Art?
Artists always opened other ways to look at things, no?
So the contextual language in art is actually a very traditional kind of perception of artistic practices?
In terms of the concept of art?
But another way might be totally without meaning.. A bit like science, no?