The operations of the art system are observations oriented to works of art.
The communication of art requires objects produced specifically for that purpose. While everyday objects are (or can be) observed simply as what they are, objects observed as artworks are perceived as artificial objects, which were produced by somebody and must be observed in reference to the observations of the creator. Both the observer and the artist realize second-order observations [⇒ Operation/Observation (Operation/Beobachtung].
The artist must observe the artwork to be produced in reference to the way in which others will observe it; she must try to guide and surprise the expectations of the observer through the art-work. The observer, for her part, must decode the structure of distinctions in the artwork and recognize that they were produced in order to bind observations. Through the directions given in the artwork, the observer connects herself with the (coordinated or uncoordinated) observations of others.
The function of art is to establish in a reality of its own in the world, i.e. an imaginary or fictional reality. The work of art brings about a duplication of the real in a real and an imaginary reality and gives it meaning by combining removed or unrealized possibilities. Art can do this by exploiting the difference between perception and communication: perception, unlike thoughts and communication, can produce astonishment and recognition at the same time. It can describe the world as a re-entry of the difference between perception and communication into communication.
Art shows how, in this fictional domain—in this domain of unrealized possibilities—, an order can be found: beginning from an arbitrary Starting Point, the simple sequence of mutually limiting operations produces an order that appears necessary. The real reality is set against a domain of alternative possibilities in which another order is valid, which nevertheless is non-arbitrary. Within its specific (fictional) domain of reality, art can experiment with different forms; it can imitate reality with reference to an ideal of perfection which has never been realized as such; it can criticize reality; it can appeal to the observer as an individual and lead her to observe in a different way than she does in her everyday context (as is the case of a novel). In other words, the function of art is to offer the world a possibility to observe itself—to let the world appear in the world. Therein also lies the specific paradox of art, which it generates and resolves at the same time: the paradox of the observability of the unobservable (or of the necessity of what is only possible).
In order to fulfill this function, art requires a →symbolically generalized medium, which (like money) corresponds to a constellation of attributions in which alter’s action is experienced by ego. The artist acts, and the spectator experiences. The situation becomes problematic when it gets difficult for ego to accept as meaningful what alter produces as action, i.e., when the art-work is presented as an object produced by someone without a recognizable purpose.
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The question of the purpose of the artwork becomes particularly relevant when art is differentiated as an autonomous function system [→Differentiation of Society] and therefore rejects external motivation and support. The purpose of art is thus no longer to refer to something that is directly accessible or to imitate nature, but rather to experiment with new combinations of forms. Unlike other artificial objects, artworks have no external use. They are ends in themselves.
The communication medium of art serves to make an improbability more probable, i.e., the improbability that certain objects are observed according to differences located exclusively within the artwork itself. Art strives to reactivate precluded possibilities. It refers to those possibilities that, due to the realization of certain things, have been reduced to mere possibilities, and attempts to show how an order with its own necessity is possible in this domain. We must observe how, in a non-arbitrary, combinatory game, the distinctions within the artwork lead to other distinctions and thereby generate an order that cannot be attributed to an external order. Every decision made by the artist in producing the artwork (a brushstroke, the selection of a tone, the beginning of a novel) limits the possibilities available for further steps. However, this is not due to the material properties of the medium used, but exclusively to autonomous internal limitations.
The observation of art is based on a specific code, which in traditional aesthetics is expressed according to the difference beautiful/ugly. Today, this difference is reinterpreted as the alternative fits/does not fit. Within the work of art, each new form must be compared with the previous forms to determine whether the new form fits or does not with the previous ones, whether or not it produces connectivity within the artwork. Once this has been achieved, the artwork generates its own order with its own necessity. We are dealing here with communication, because this order contains information that is disseminated and must be understood.
When what is demanded of artworks is novelty and not simply the correct application of certain rules, art needs specific programs that allow each difference to be determined in terms of whether it fits or not. We can speak of self-programming: each artwork programs itself in the sense that the necessity of the order produced by this programming results from the decisions made within the artwork itself. The rules followed by the artwork in the selection of its forms are generated by this selection, which gradually binds itself. Therefore, the ties do not come from external laws, but from the way the artist began the work of art. The program is the result of operations that themselves perform the programming.
Although each work programs itself, one does not need to start from the beginning each time. Styles create connections between different works of art. They make it possible to connect artworks to one another and to establish art as a system. In attributing a style to a work of art, its belonging to the art system becomes recognizable; what cannot be subsumed under any style loses its meaning as an artwork and cannot be observed as art. Style, however, is not a meta-program, since it delivers no exact instructions regarding the differences to be drawn. It is not enough to follow a style in order to generate a work of art that presents itself as new; rather, what is demanded is self-programming and the genesis of new combinations of forms. Style thus protects the autonomy of the artwork, but delivers no general instructions that may or may not be followed. Moreover, the existence of a social system of art demands that individual works of art are placed within an autopoietically reproducing network, so that every artwork is realized within the recursive connection to other works of art, and within a written or orally disseminated communication about art.
In this sense, the autonomy of art is always operative Autonomy, therefore self-limitation of the work of art. At the same time, however, autonomy is also the object of the reflection of the art system [→Self-reference]. With Romanticism, reflection manifests itself as artistic criticism and gives the theory of art the status of self-description of the system. Criticism is not a program for creating works of art. It is a program for second order observation that formulates the autonomy of art as a constant negation of art itself, as a necessary and impossible transcending of imagination.
In order to allow the recognition of art as art, specific institutions become necessary, where works of art are presented as such. This is the function of exhibitions, museums, theatres, galleries [⇒ Gallery], public debates with art experts and so on. However, this does not change the fact that it is the work of art that must prove to be concrete and unique. [E.E.] – (Unlocking Luhmann, p 27–30)
The Work of Art and the Self-Reproduction of Art (1985); Weltkunst (1990); Art as a Social System (2000).
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