Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

tionally recognized as the medium of the art-critic and art-historian. Perhaps I can explicate
the methodology of such a technique a little more. If it is pointed out in the theoretical frameworks
(used by Michael Baldwin and myself) that the situations are no more than synallagmatically
related to the internal introduction (i.e. inside the framework of what I call mention) of
new descriptive terms, etc. which provide a consistent and appropriate noneliminative context
for nomological implication (i.e. if there are any rules governing such a framework they are, in
consequence of the nature of the structure of the framework, open-ended and thus difficult to
identify as rules), then questions about objects made will, obviously, be seen to entail answers,
the natures of which will in the end only be cognizable with objects produced as a by-product
of the need to record the content of the idea, hence to consider the objects produced within
the framework (i.e. typewritten sheets) as “looking-at” objects rather than “reading-about”
objects is to look for 1st-order-visual information where there is no intention to produce
such information. 8
In view of the immediately preceding paragraph I wish to develop a few ideas and
thoughts with regard to another interesting postulation you have made in the “Dematerialization”
article. I quote, “that dematerialized art is post-aesthetic only in its increasing non-visual
emphases....”Nobody concerned with problems (pertaining to your article) that I know of
here in England is likely to want to make a major issue of argument over whether or not “the
aesthetic of principle is still an aesthetic”; 9 however, I have a few reflective notes which may be
of some small relevance here. Equations, formulae, theoretical entities, etc. are normally recorded
in written-sign-word form and obviously any aesthetic criteria applied to them are
usually related to how effectively the written format expresses the information relevant to the
state, situation, etc. it is seeking to describe/explain. If I may be allowed to pursue an analogy
here, consider the following. A man has in his possession a map which he knows contains the
information instructing him how to get from A to B, but because he has not had an adequate
course in map-reading he cannot read the map. If he then says the map has great beauty, then
he cannot be judging this map to have beauty according to the information presented by the
map as a map, but is talking of the map in some other way. Now when a scientist talks of the
beauty of an equation, his beauty is judged according to the nature of his course in equationreading10
which provides him with the basis for making judgements concerning how good an
equation is. If he is simply looking at the object “equation” rather than reading-looking at the
object “equation” then his judgement of the beauty of the equation is according some other
kind of beauty to it. If, for instance, the scientist is reading-looking at the equation, then if he
is reading it wrongly then he is not applying criteria according to another kind of beauty;
terry atkinson concerning the article “the dematerialization of art” 55