IN regards to what was said below, well I don't believe we are that far
with Art and connection with the biomedical sciences. Imaging for example
can now at high, no longer super great expense tell one, kind of,
bearably good, what emotional state someone is in. Still lots of guessing
going on. However it is nothing like at the level of say "double blind
studies will tell you smoking is overall pretty deadly...." and it is
still pretty foggy out there. I can say show you a bunch of pictures and
get the general gist of your emotional reaction, but not all the details.
I can't quite come close to saying why you like or don't like something
without asking you. I can guess for example that most people don't
consider the images in "The Manual of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery" very
pleasant. I can sort of speculate: "Ever notice how movie monsters look
like people seriously injured, in fact some are stated to be explicitly
so, in states of decay etc..." And I can furthermore say that I think that
I think I know why. But this is a far cry from is "face a" more attractive
over all cultures all times than face "b". If we look at whole people,
then it becomes very different. Especially over time, the well muscled guy
of today would be an obnoxious brute to many Victorians.
So I can do a good job of guessing what your state and reactions are, but
I can't really tell how you got there. On the far edges, I can tell many
things: "Youth and Healthy looking is better than Been in a Car Accident
looking." But as far as universals well that is as far as I am willing to
trust it so far.
Now all this being said, it would be interesting to see what studies were
done in last years and how they were done. I haven't really searched that
literature and it would be interesting. I think one can say with a kind of
certainty "The person was afraid..." by just looking at images. But was
it, "In fear for their life", "afraid of Ghosts because they saw a ghost
story..." well that is hard to tell. So I would love to hear Art and
Imaging studies linked. But I think it is all just starting out unless I
have missed something big.
As far as arguments, about looks, fashion and deportment, and people do
read into them. It is hard to say with the certainty one wants: "These are
the Universals related to this..."
Have Fun,
Sends Steve
Glenn English wrote:
> David Zaig said:
>
> "Maybe the following example will make it clearer: only a few years
> ago, people felt free to eat foods high in fat. They simply ate the
> foods they liked, not knowing what the consequences were. These
> people thought they knew what they were doing--that their choices were
> rational. Similarly, artists today think they know what they're
> doing. They unquestioningly follow customs and trends that are set
> out for them by society's take on the role of the artist and
> activities appropriate to the role. In my opinion, artists must
> strive to get beyond the constraints of the given, to define a new
> role for art in relation to the new knowledge and the circumstances of
> the late twentieth/early twenty-first century."
>
> Hi David,
>
> Not to be difficult, I just had to point out an irony in your
> example. The USA has been obsessed with anti-fat propaganda for
> decades. Countless new studies point to the fact that higher fat
> diets are not always the cause of health problems, and are even
> associated with improved health, but people (like you) and even many
> nutritionists refuse to believe the new studies, despite their depth
> an breadth.
>
> When I went on a diet that drastically increased the amount of fat I
> ate, I lost 20 lbs. and my cholesterol went down. My mother had high
> cholesterol and she started eating tons of eggs and she's had low
> cholesterol ever since.
>
> According to your analogy, wouldn't the folks who believe the fat
> propaganda be the ones who "unquestioningly follow customs and trends
> that are set out for them," in spite of overwhelming evidence to the
> contrary?
>
> It is a fact that fat consumption drastically decreased in the last
> two decades and it is a fact that obesity and heart disease have
> greatly increased. If we are to utilize the "new knowledge and the
> circumstances of the late twentieth/early twenty-first century," we
> must question the aesthetic and scientific party lines of the
> culturati.
>
> Maybe next week, fat will be bad for us again, and that's fine. The
> point of my post isn't to tout the virtues of a high fat diet, your
> analogy just opened the door to make a point about the invisibility
> and potency of paradigms, artistic or not. The evidence may not
> always be what we expect or want to hear, but that isn't a compelling
> reason to ignore it.
>
> Best wishes, Glenn
>
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