Confused Fusion

One needs the entire spectrum of sensory and imaginary tools to experience the empathy theory, and feel art in the complete and “true” aesthetic realm. For one to truly experience art, it must be done through all physical and psychological means, is an argument I can easily swallow. It tastes quite good and is filled with logical and palpable explanations. The issue becomes a little bit more problematic when I am offered a sense of false Symbiosis (Living together of unlike organisms) as the conclusion [apotheose] of the argument. The artwork and the self merging as “one hand claps another.”(104) My problem is not so much with the phenomenon itself but rather with the lack of explanation as to how it is taking place. When does this symbiotic experience occur? Is it organic? Voluntary? It remains unclear to me after reading Vischer. After all it is only theory and must be seen and read as such. Vischer states, “Thus I project my own life into the lifeless form (104) and “…I am mysteriously transplanted and magically transformed into this other.”(104) I remember using the word “Magically” in an art history thesis statement once. I received a response from my professor clearly stating that “magically” strongly weakened the validity and weight of my argument. Here Vischer uses both Magically and Mysteriously. Ah! The plot thickens!

Ok, enough of close reading and let me accept the theory at face value in order to unveil the issues that could possibly rise from it?
If the viewer needs to become “the object” in order to aesthetically “see it” then what is a work of art becomes in question too. When the line of what the artwork is becomes non-existent we fall into a notion that everything is art and art is everything. Which creates a problem when we talk of Aesthetics. This very fusion nullifies what the very notion of art would be to Vischel and confuses the argument itself.

In symbiosis the clownfish never becomes the Anemone, though they mutually benefit from each other’s existence. The clownfish protects the anemone with its bright colors and the anemone protects the clown fish with its ability to sting. The artwork benefits from the existence of the viewer (transmission to others of its meaning) and the viewer benefits from the experience of the artwork (transmission to his senses of the artworks meaning). To fuse the two becomes a confused proposition, no pun intended.
To project our “own physical form into an objective form”(104) can arguably help us to understand it but to “incorporate”(104) that same form would destroy it as something unique. If everything is unique then nothing is.


A good example of an artwork addressing this issue of symbiosis without stepping in the dangerous realm of nonsensical confusion is “Cloud Gate” (aka The Bean) by Anish Kapoor in Millemium Park, Chicago. This sculpture addresses the issue of the Chicago skyline and the reflection of the world in cotemporary times, but it also engages the viewer in a reflection of “the self” in this contemporary world. One becomes part of the artwork yet is still distinct and free from it. This temporary experience gradually dissolves when one walks away from the sculpture. But the mirrored mercury drop inspired sculpture concretely offers the opportunity to “incorporate our own physical form into an objective form” (104) if only for a time.