tuesday, february 27, 2007
What is this trolley? An internal joke.
In the Proustian scheme of things, a work of art is an object that implies something that it cannot directly represent. The thing in question is the associative network that guides the stream of thought of the artist. This network of relationships cannot be experienced directly, but it does control the entry of sensory representations into the focus of consciousness. By presenting us with an ordered set of sensory surfaces, the artist implies the structure of the mind that ordered them, and thus conveys an essential aspect of experience that would be otherwise inexpressible.
From “Consciousness, art, and the brain: Lessons from Marcel Proust”, by Russell Epstein (PDF).
