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Mass Technology, Mass Appeal, and Emotion in Mass Art
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- Author / Creator
- Yang, Yuan J.
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My goal in this dissertation is to identify the essential features of mass art and provide a definition of mass art in terms of a set of necessary conditions which are jointly sufficient. To achieve this goal, I will provide a conceptual analysis of mass technology, mass appeal, and emotion in mass art, and address problems arising from previous discussions of the topics. I will start my project by discussing three preparatory but important questions: how do we identify mass art? Why is “mass art” a useful category to identify? Why mass art is “art?” And then, I will discuss the main theme: “What is mass art?”
One of the distinctive features of mass art is the use of mass technology, which is a kind of technology capable of producing aesthetically identical copies for audiences at widely different sites. Another important feature of mass art is mass appeal. Mass art tends to allow enormous audiences around the world to enjoy and understand the artwork without difficult requirements.
Noël Carroll's influential theory of mass art grasps the two distinctive features mentioned above. I suggest that his theory is a good starting point for a contemporary analysis of mass art. He provides three necessary conditions for mass art which are jointly sufficient. First, mass art is multiple instance art; second, it is produced and delivered by mass technology; third, mass art has accessibility, which means that it can be easily understood by untutored audiences. However, Carroll’s theory is not without problems.
The first problem arises from the accessibility condition. I will argue that Carroll’s overly “cognitivist” account of accessibility fails to properly explain emotional engagement in mass art. To solve this problem, I suggest that we should pay attention to what I call "emotional accessibility." I argue that R. G. Collingwood's discussion of expression and emotion is particularly useful here (in light of Kantian aesthetics). I will focus on a Collingwoodian distinction between individualizing and generalizing emotion. Based on Collingwood’s insights, I will provide a useful author-centered account of emotional accessibility. Reconciling this account with Carroll’s cognitivist account, I will propose a new accessibility condition for characterizing mass appeal of mass art.
The second problem lies in Carroll’s ontological condition. For Carroll, mass art has to be a type-template artwork produced and delivered by a technology which can mechanically generate aesthetically identical tokens of the same type. To refute, I will argue that this view is too limited because it does not allow different human actions and aesthetic variation among multiple realizations of a mass artwork. Here, I will discuss some counterexamples such as video games or street artworks. As an alternative, I will provide a new ontological condition of mass art which can include not only type-template artworks, but also other type artworks whose tokens are generated by a range of human actions. Finally, I will provide an inclusive definition of mass art. -
- Subjects / Keywords
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2018
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.