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@janna
Stephen Shore on the distinction between structure & composition. There are certain kinds of photography where this is less true but I appreciate the insight of bringing order to the world. Storytelling is about what you pay attention to. A way to characterise the difference between media is how to draw that attention
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@vt
is it more about decisions made to reveal one/some particular orderly interpretation/s (among many possibles)?
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to me, it's all part of the same thing! those decisions are driven by what the artist pays attention to (consciously or not) or wants the audience to pay attention to. that focus defines the order/interpretation/narrative. 'attention' might sound trivial; I mean it in the sense of that which constitutes reality for you
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@vt
yea — same. i share (i think) your pragmatist view of how reality is constructed structure often seems to imply 'objective' reality, vs interpretation which forces the subjectiveness of attention and meaningmaking to the front
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how do you see art in relation to reality? imo meaningmaking is linked to objectivity — attention can be drawn to the illusory (meaningless) or the real (meaningful). illusion begets chaos, tho this can also be an interpretive choice. i do think there is a structure to reach for which might not quite be pragmatism(?)
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@vt
wrote a bit more about meaningmaking here: https://vaughntan.org/what-makes-us-human-for-now
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@janna
thanks for sharing!! v on board with meaningmaking and humanness; I think it's fundamental to who we are as humans. not sure if you're familiar with John Vervaeke, but his series “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” has influenced me greatly https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ
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I like your idea of meaning being irreducible. I distinguish between (i) X being meaningful to me and (ii) what it is to find X meaningful, which imo relies on alignment with some kind of truth. & I think that’s not the same as saying in art that X means Y, though they may be linked. Interpretation ≠ meaningfulness
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@vt
my view is that, for anyone making something new (artists and other kinds of creators included), the decision to say at X means Y is a vision of a truth that is may not yet exist but can be imagined (sometimes only by one person — who is then a visionary)
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what happens to the status of that truth if the vision never comes to pass, or if the person can't bring it into existence? I imagine it's still real to that person but not necessarily something real in the world. not all visions are true, but they appear as true to the person with the vision
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@vt
yes that's it — which is why i think meaning is inherently subjective luck and skill are needed to make meaning intersubjective (convincing others to believe/consume based on the same meaning) meaning doesn't always go intersubjective immediately (think of artists whose greatness is discovered after they die, etc)
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@janna
To build on that, it seems to me that personal subjective meaning might need additional qualities to be intersubjective. I think all meaning is held subjectively in some way but intersubjectivity requires some kind of “generalisable” quality. Some example distinctions:
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