Claim 1 – A person can never express his/her idea absolutely.
The fraction of the idea that gets expressed is limited by the medium of expression. This occurs essentially due to presence of friction in all mediums. The only medium that lacks friction is vacuum but it doesn’t support expression.
Claim 2 -The interpretation of an expression will vary for all receivers.
This variance happens because the analytical powers of receivers depend on their own unique combination of circumstances, conditioning, and inherent nature.
Claim 3 – Each receiver will interpret the same expression in a different manner at different points in time.
This claim is a direct corollary of Claim 2. As circumstances are known to vary with time hence the critical combination affecting analytical skills also becomes a function of time.
2 Responses
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My 2 cents –
I agree with claims #2 and 3 completely, but with Claim #1 only in part. Here’s my view -
Expression is always a function of the medium. Without a medium, there can be no expression. Let’s go a step beyond that. I believe that even the thought or idea or concept or emotion or feeling being expressed (lets call it the ‘subject’ of expresion) needs a medium to exist. Delivering the message accurately is about mastering the medium. Failure to do so reveals either lack of mastery, or lack of formation of the subject, but is not a shortfall of the medium. Success, on the other hand, is what makes art art and everything else just a mere attempt at art. True masters – be it in music, painting, literature, etc. – are the ones whose subject is well formed within themselves and they are able to capture it and deliver it through their medium of choice. The subject may even get formed in the process of delivery, but by the time they’re done, it is well formed.
All expression is through reference and metaphor. To express myself, I need to point to something within the audience’s own experience (or, if it is something totally new, then something which can be built using the existing building blocks within the audience’s experience) and allude to it as being similar to the subject of my expression. The audience may be purely hypothetical and just an extension of my imagination. But the expression needs a language that is understood by the audience. The medium of choice provides the language and every medium has its own language, its own grammar and semantics. Art is the skill of using everything the language has to offer, in order to express oneself. The language evolves as artists push its boundaries to include more, and to refine what exists. It is the search for precision and accuracy in expression that drives this evolution.
(If the above sounds like an obscure / ambiguous rambling, then its either because I havent formulated my thoughts clearly and/or I havent mastered the language!)
I was hoping that this hypothesis would be able to elicit responses like yours
I agree to what you are saying and I take it as a detailed view of claim # 1. From a Communications Design perspective, being able to communicate the intended message is the prime objective. However, claim # 1 is coming from a real analysis kind of a philosophy and is talking of the limit continuum of the prime objective being achieved.
I guess I could say that the fraction of idea that is expressed is also limited by the artist’s capability to utilize the medium, keeping in mind that the choice of the medium brings along its set of capacities and limitations i.e. friction.