Towards a polyphonic desirability and unfinalizability of the visual

“..it is quite possible to imagine and postulate a unified truth that requires a plurality of consciousness, one that cannot in principle be fitted into the bounds of a single consciousness, one that is, so to speak, buy its very nature full of event potential and is born at a point of contact among various conciousness”-M.Bakthin in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics.
Mikhail.Bakhtin in analyzing Dostoevsky’s Novels tells that truth is not a statement, a sentence or a phrase. Instead, truth is a number of mutually addressed, though contradictory and logically inconsistent, statements. Truth needs a multitude of carrying voices. It cannot be held within a single mind, it also cannot be expressed by “a single mouth.” The polyphonic truth requires many simultaneous voices. Bakhtin does not mean to say that many voices carry partial truths that complement each other. A number of different voices do not make the truth if simply “averaged”, or “synthesized.” “It is the fact of mutual addressivity, of engagement, and of commitment to the context of a real-life event, that distinguishes truth from untruth.”*
The attempt in this writing is not to describe the works as generally the rituals of the exhibition prescribe, but is to again articulate another set of signage which would try relating to this “event” in its material presence/present. It is also to understand how the individuals have articulated/uttered their subjectivities which are but the material carriers of the ideology they represent through the responses of the viewer. Here again I am not in an attempt to read the entire body of the works which are presented but rather would try to generally understand the structures and read into what I desire out of viewing these art works. The intention to read this event through the occurrence of the Bakthin is that he reads language as living only in the dialogic interaction of those who make use of it. Since the viewer perceives and understands the meaning of the visual, simultaneously taking an active responsiveness towards the work. He either agrees or disagrees with it, and the chain may continue. So a viewer adopts a responsive attitude towards the work/visual which the person who creates also expects. Since the artist doesn’t expect the same kind of passive duplication of his intentions in the viewers mind, rather he expects a response, an agreement, may be even an objection. “Therefore each utterance/ (articulation) is also filled with various responsive reactions to other utterances of the given sphere of speech/ (visual) communication.”* A spontaneous response is required which is necessarily not calculated and rational. This is because the activity would be a joint and collective one where we all are part of it. So any activity done by any individual moves from his individualized self and becomes a collective act where no one person needs to take complete responsibility since its is shared by many. So it depends on all those who are involved and who make a responsive activity and generate significant meanings out of it. So each event occurs as a responsive reaction to the previous events. Thus it continues as a rally without stopping at a singular incident.
So emerges our next problem regarding the question of the unfinalizability of the visual. Can a visual be unfinalizable? Yes, because its meaning never gets fully understood and each visual contains the uniqueness of itself and its relative surrounding within which it has taken shape of from. Its context of formation i.e. the subjective formation etc. never gets completed with just the artist. It reproduces and multiplies as long as the viewers actively read different meanings into it as ever present. This also removes the problem as truth only emerging only from the author’s visualizations. It makes the relation more dialogic by creating the new kind of work which is “no longer as a direct expression of the author’s truth, but an active creation of truth in the consciousness of he author, the signs and the viewer in which all participate as equals”.
Will such attempts from the viewer alone suffice the unfinalizability of the image? I think the structures that define art, including artist themselves need to take up this responsibility. As in the case of the monologic mode where it is addressed to single (no) viewer it restricts the generation of meanings and doesn’t grow to infinite productions. So the attempts must be towards a dialogic active mode which is all inclusive. This dialogic position which the artist takes will be a new position in relation with his works and the viewers. This position will be “a fully realized and thoroughly consistent dialogic position” as Bakthin says. The artist’s position requires a new creative process where occurring in “the real present” and not as an objective/mechanical observer removed and just inscribing details and withdrawing himself once the creation is finished. This would enable the signs within the creation to engage freely without the interference of the artist’s authority thereby making them not only as objects of artist authority but also as signs which have their own free signifying discourse. The significance of the polyphonic mode in the visual language over the monologic one is that, the rituals of the art field already inscribes certain functions through its structures for the artwork to be consumed. So if it is just giving away only to its object hood and restrains addressing itself in a monologic mode the purpose of dialogue doesn’t occur. And it falsely projects a sign system which is authoritative and professional in its surface. It doesn’t enter the realm of the rhetoric or the fictional; thereby, takes only the official and standardized prescriptions without any resistance. This exclusiveness of the visual could be resisted only when everyone participates in the responsive act and allow its dissemination further. This then would be the polyphonic truth of the visual where the individual (meaning) would not be labeled as something fixed rather as something which can change. Also the meaning no more stays within the ambit of ones authority or control. Therefore each representation would be distinctly individual and also equally representative of the other voices along with it.
As mentioned earlier the attempt in this writing is not to have a blanket concept of generalization about the presented works. It’s also not to undermine the individual struggles and contributions that have gone into these specific creations. But it is an attempt towards a desire to “act”. An act which may probably include every participant (artist, work of art, viewer) even if antagonistic but allow the concept to “rally” further in all possible realms both real and virtual. It’s a desire for such “events” to recur infinitely. An event where individual voices are respected for their specific subjective orientations, but yet collective formations are desired in their varied possibilities and combinations which is inclusive yet dialogic.
* Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, M.Bakthin.
V.Divakar,
Art writer, Bangalore.