Earlier this week I responded to Cory Doctorow’s daily post about AI, art, intention, Brian Eno, and everything (you know, the usual). Here is what posted on BlueSky in response:
Peter Sagal has already brought some pressure onto Cory’s reliance on ‘intention’ as a conceptual lever. I’m with Peter on this — Cory can carry his point forcefully without invoking ‘intention’, almost always a hostage to fortune.
I’m with Mr Sagal because ‘intention’ muddies the waters by ascribing it the status of a phantasmic feature of art with which an artist intentionally imbues the work. But where is it? What is it? Is it one of those ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ characteristics like ‘authenticity’?
Occam’s Razor would favour an explanation of what Cory‘s getting at, one that doesn’t rely on an invisible force, especially when it always comes attended by significant debates about what the alleged intention is. Save yourself the headaches, Cory! Skip over the ‘intention’ boobytrap.
Sure, there are aspects of the art interaction that resemble the ‘figuring out intention’ model Cory takes as paradigmatic. But that’s just one thing, one way we interact with art. One of the most precious aspects of art involves effects or interpretations that are manifestly not intentional — far more than just encoding a secret ‘intention’ message into oil paints or a bass clef or ceramic glaze. Indeed, the stronger the ‘intention’ behind a form of expression, the less art-like it will seem. That’s one basis for the historic resistance to allegory as a mode: It threatens to constrain the liberty of the reader’s imagination.
(For the record, I am a proponent of allegorical interpretation.)
An artist is a gambler. They take a shot at doing something, estimating based on how they suspect, or hope, an audience will react. The artist may have an inchoate notion of how they expect people will respond, but even if they want to imbue an expression, a chord, a brush stroke with intended meaning, there’s no way to ensure that it will come across. Except, perhaps, by writing out a statement that instructs people how to respond… (assuming that the instruction itself is interpreted correctly, according to the artist’s intention).
This connects to Eno’s talk and the intensity/fidelity grid — except that the whole ‘fidelity’ aspect presumes a fidelity to something, and here the phantasm of ‘meaning’ or ‘authenticity’ or ‘authorial intention’ returns to haunt us again.
Exorcise it, once and for all.
Just discuss art, or sunrises, or whatever you want, in terms of effects, reasons, connections, affects, intensities, and any other aspects of the observation/appreciation/interpretation complex. There are no invisible, secret reference points, no occult qualities. We’re all just responding to the world, and art, as best we can. And that’s amazing, it’s great. We’re positive engines of imagination, association, and signification. It’s our glory — don’t trammel us with the bogeys of ‘intent’.