What Does the Work (of Art) Do?

[Vincent van Gogh's Peasant Shoes and A Pair of Shoes]

[Follows "Technology"]

[Based on Martin Heidegger’s “The Origin of the Work of Art,” as interpreted by Greg Schufreider]

Dis-close a particular cultural-historical world for a people (das Volk), grounded on the earth. Dasein is no longer the opening up of being; the world is opened up in the clearing. Dasein no longer opens up a world; the opening takes place in a cultural-historical context as it is determined by the particular way of life of a particular people, a particular community and its institutions–as outlined by the conflict instigated by the work of art.

A work is an ontological category, a particular mode of being, a particular way in which beings show themselves (like they do (which are their other modes) as, e.g., objects, equipments, resources, etc.). Unlike an instrument, however, form-matter does not apply to the work (especially of art) since it (matter) does not proceed already with an end (form) in mind. Rather, a work is figured out, worked through, takes shape (dynamically, like the fracture in the conflict) in the work itself, i.e. by working (more like an artisan rather than an architect and his slaves). Thereby, work reveals hylomophism for what it is: itself a (limited) model imposed from above to govern all the models by which we think things.

Moreover, unlike equipment (which disappears in use, e.g. if you’re using your shoes for walking, you don’t notice that you’re wearing shoes–you simply walk), a work manifests the equipmentality of equipment (when you’re looking at the peasant shoes painted by Van Gogh, well, you notice the shoes–as the equipment that peasants use when they walk in the fields, earn a living, etc.) or the objectivity of the object (if you were looking at the shoes in terms of one-sided perspectives, well the painting, the work of art, reveals the shoes in some of their perspectives, i.e. reveal them as the object that they are). That is to say, a work (and this is what makes it a work, what defines work as a mode of being, i.e. if this is how something appears, then we can say that it is appearing as a work, that it is, as it were, currently functioning (for us) in “work mode”) shows the being in its particular mode of being, i.e. allows the being to emerge in whatever mode it happened to be (functioning, operating, being) in. That is the nature (that distinguishes it from other modes) of the work (of art, especially): it reveals the being in the particular mode of being it happens to be, the mode in which it appears.

We can apply the same mechanism to the work itself, i.e. look at the work as a work, let manifest the workly nature of the work. Here, according to Heidegger, we discover that the work appears as a work when it opens up a historical world for a particular people. That is what art does. It reveals the particular Gestalt configured in the conflict of world and earth for a historical people.

History refers to how different beings appear in cultural-historical shifts, the ontological (un)concealment happening to (at work with) a people at a particular time. In other words, history is but a (type of) temporality (like Husserl’s pregnant present, or the everydayness of objects, or Dasein being towards death). Temporality is now under the name of history: a collective temporality wherein the past, those who have been, is primary, the focal point–but nonetheless leads to a collective temporality of the future, i.e. what we can be given what we have been (which, since collective, is different from individual, finite Dasein).

Unlike with Dasein, in which the human being is defined by his pre-ontological ability to switch from one mode of being into another (since s/he does not confuse being with the particular beings), in history, since it is a collective determination, we cannot make a sudden switch. A people does not see all the different modes of being it has experienced in its history or can experience in the future (so there are, in effect, two types of concealment: either because this that is being unconcealed hasn’t been unconcealed yet, or what was previously unconcealed is forgotten, no longer applicable). Nor can a people necessarily be in a historical mode of being that another people is in. We cannot just make a particular world go away, recall an earlier world, or call a new world into being.

Dasein is thus no longer just an individual facing death: s/he is born under specific time conditions, a specific generation, in a specific situation, with a specific historical mode of being. Dasein, in other words, is already delimited by historical conditions, bigger than it (hence the opening is not it, but the clearing). We thus cannot attach the understanding of history to an individual; instead, we need a collective framework, an institutional model.
Thus, unconcealment is now institutional. Truth, in this collective framework, is truly an event: it is not something simply evident (like in a proposition), but the rendering of something evident as an experience of evidence. Truth eventually happens: it shows what the current notion of truth is concealing, clarify this notion through a happening (rather than a proposition). The notion of truth changes, unconcealment happens, truth happens not by some whim of Dasein—but through concrete works, particularly for Heidegger through the work (of art).

The work (of art), in other words, contributes to the determination of a cultural-historical world. The determination happens not by itself, but in the work; thus creative activity is needed. The work (of art) establishes a space/dwelling on the earth: the prehistoric earth sets conditions, which the work (of art) then configures into a certain historical world. The work (of art) does this by instigating the conflict between world and earth, by reopening the rift, causing breaches, opening breaks, causing new fractures. The work (of art) leads to ecstasy that then takes a people out of its current range of disclosure (the current historical mode of being) into a new world.

The artist plays a role in this reopening, but s/he does not determine its settling. Truth is thus not tied to subjectivity, but is a historical configuration between a historical world and the earth, with the result of the world resituated on the earth. The conflict works out the character of the work, sketches the rift design, attunes the relationship of world and earth. Hence the artist is not the origin (the signature only works when the work (of art) is already working, to confirm that it is working); rather, the work (of art) is the origin. The work (of art) is the origin (of truth) since truth originates, wouldn’t be obvious if we didn’t look at the work (of art). The work (of art) is Ur-sprung, the primal leap, the instigator (of the conflict (to reopen the rift (that causes breaches (breaks (fracture (attunement (a new historical world))))))). Thus, the truth of Heidegger’s words: the origin of the work of art.

Is there anything to which hylomoprhism applies less (This is perhaps exemplified by abstract art, which is misunderstood because it does not conform to any image, any idea–which in that way actually only shows how concrete abstract art really is)?

In this way, the work (of art) is doing something that philosophy is not, which philosophy would benefit by following the model of (the work of) art. Poetry, Heidegger then claims, is the prime art. It is above all arts (not just because all art is poetic, but because poetry is a making, creation). Poetry works in language (taking terms and giving them new meaning), which, isn’t that the primary means of unconcealment? True, the other arts have their own way of unconcealing, but they do it within a clearing already opened up by language, by naming beings for the first time. Language can thus be said to be the prime unconcealer.

Especially creative language, i.e. poetic language. Language itself is poetry in essential nature, which, through the telling word, brings something into being, brings it in a certain way. Again, not any language, but language as manifested in the work (of poetry), in the original naming, in language having its being as language. Philosophy is related to poetry in that, like it, it is a work of the word. Thus, philosophy, after all, like poetry, occupies a special place (in the unconcealment of beings). It is just that there were things that the tradition was not able to think through, thus leading to instances when it worked with semblances (rather than truth).

The work of art, then, is not the artist’s. Instead, it itself works the conflict (while it itself is worked out in the conflict). The artist, once working, signs the work (of art) to the world, which then determines the cultural-historical world of that people, determining its destiny. This destiny is not fate, but a setting of letting take place, a calling to task, i.e. a call for people to serve as preservers, to conserve the truth (which it let take place) happening in the work. Truth, then, institutional collective historical truth, instigated and revealed in the work (of art), goes on from generation to generation by being handed down through concrete, material works (of art, but also others: politics, culture, etc.).

The operation that the work (of art) instigates, however, is a dynamic: generations do have the task of forwarding the specific cultural-historical world configuration by handing down the great works, but at the same time this particular configuration, Gestalt, can change again with the advent of a new great work (of art) (that perhaps expresses the new cultural-historical world configuration that this people is in but which it hasn’t thought out yet; it can be said then that the work (of art) expresses (in addition to originating) this new configuration for the people). Art as both the originator and the expression of what it originates, both the preserver and transformer of truth. (The total opposite of technology!) Art as the origin. The origin of the work of art.