Active reading

There are some potential problems with trying to understand a piece like this.

Much of the time when I write, I’m inspired by recent events and happenstances in my life. Sometimes those experiences are translated clearly in the text, sometimes they are indistinguishable from the symbolism and representation. For example, the first line Reading words of heavy worth is a reference to reading the first few pages of a book I purchased last night before my dance lesson, while the line much later, Paper bags of merchandise refers to me actually purchasing it, along with another book which is referenced in Images of imagining and literal inspirations. That line actually refers to a book that contains absolutely no text, with the illustrations being blends of literal real-life images and things imagined by the creator.

Ultimately for the average reader, it’s all a bit vague.

When artists create, even though they may be inspired by something recent, they create with their entire personality and personal history. Everything I write contains twenty years of backstory, and not merely the events of the past themselves, and not only my perceptions of them, but my ongoing thoughts and evolutions of ideas that are part of my working mindset. If I have something specific to say, more often than not I’ll express it directly – most of the time here in this diary rather than under the moniker of Vroenis. Sometimes I express my creativity with more focussed representation, and the writings will resemble much more straight-forward narratives. Much of the time though, to audiences who are perhaps still maturing, my writing along with a great wealth of artistic work in all of the mediums, will seem like a haphazard collection of almost random statements or images, with only fleeting glances at meaning.

The idea behind representative art is to totally forget trying to decipher the artist’s intention as we’re taught academically, and instead bring your own life history and ideology to bear on your interpretive process.

I’m sure many have come across that ideology before; it’s a very simple thing, and perhaps the single most important key factor when experiencing art. I put twenty years of meaning behind my pieces, but if I wanted that experience to have an effect on how the audience received the piece, I would have written it at the tail end of a biography. What I present is an abstract of my thoughts, how you receive it is entirely up to you. All in all, as far as the age-old academic principal and elusive question of ‘What is the artist’s intention?’ goes, I have absolutely no intention at all. I have no statement to make to any audience by writing an abstract piece. I might have several things to say to and for myself, but no markers have been included in the piece itself that would seek to influence the audience to the same thought progressions.

In this sense, now would probably be a good time to introduce the idea of active reading. Commentators often discuss at great lengths the idea of authorial control; it can come up when authors write biographies for other people, or perhaps when two authors write a work as a joint effort. For the sake of our example though, I’d like to put the idea of authorial control in context to being reader or audience. If we want to talk about active reading, then autohrial control is something that the reader actually begins to exercise. Of-course it’s wildly different to how an actual author crafts a narrative, but what indeed we do craft is our perception and interpretation of it. If we are passive readers, we might be tempted to make such comments as ‘I don’t get it’ when experiencing a work of expression, or perhaps ‘It is unclear, I don’t know what the author is trying to say’. This I think can in many cases (of-course not all), be attributed to this habit we sometimes have of trying to decipher the artist’s intentions. If we are active readers though, we can exercise a little bit of our own authorial control and translate the events or images we are reading/seeing/experiencing into a context that is relevant for us. Because of this, I’m a great believer that almost all art is rich with meaning that the creators themselves indeed may never have directly intended, if at all. Even art that is a clear expression of the creator’s experience, photographic journalism for example, can have its meaning expanded and personalised in this way; our relationship with art becomes much more intimate, and dramatically increases in meaning.

Beyond all of the eloquence though, is the fact that of-course not everyone will connect with every piece of art. There will be countless works one will encounter that simply hold no meaning in any translatable form. I think that what we have to understand in these cases is that this doesn’t invalidate the artwork. There are many works that I’ve been exposed to that not only do I have no connection with, I’m extremely critical of, but I fully appreciate that I am simply unable to translate the work for whatever reason. Of-course we will all have works that we deem as absolute rubbish, and that is our right as people with opinions, and there are many cases where this can be easily argued in a totally objective way, but I suppose I’m focussing on some of the more seemingly vague works that many seem to struggle with.

Of-course to many, this entry will be largely redundant: you’ll wonder why on earth it needs to be said. Ideas like active reading and authorial control will already be working elements of your perception, and you may well simply assume that it’s a natural process that everyone exercises; if only this were the case. More and more in recent times I’ve begun to see greater confusion in commentary between lack of skill or measurable elements such as production values, and lack of comprehension. What I don’t like is someone saying a work is bad simply because they didn’t understand or connect with it. ‘Because it makes no sense’ is not a good reason to have a negative response to something. It is entirely possible (and in many cases often the intention) that some works are intended to give you a feeling of disorientation and a lack of closure, such is their power. Many people often only look for the easy to pin emotive responses when experiencing art: joy, comedy, warmth, disgust, horror, sorrow and grief etc. Many abstract works have the ability to expand on some of these basic emotions and reach into some very subtle corners of our psyches, yet because some of us aren’t well acquainted with those parts of our thoughts, we may be tempted to feel uncomfortable and confronted rather than enthusiastically challenged.

As I’ve said many times before: just read/watch/experience art, and let it mean whatever it will mean to you. Become active in the process of response and inspiration, don’t simply just sit passively and wait to see if something happens. Passive art-experiencing leads to a dulling of sensitivity to new ideas and expressions. If you really challenge yourself and try translating abstract ideas into your own life, you may find that many artworks are much less elusive than they may seem.