(I've been reading both "The Postmodern Animal" and "Picturing the Beast" more or less at the same time.)
Here are some notes.
32 - he mentions how, in the "'postmodern' form of the novel (in which lists constantly fracture the narrative, and jokiness is more acceptable than seriousness" (which has something to do with something else he is saying, but is another example of people taking for granted something which I hadn't really noticed or identified for myself yet but which seems deeply true . . . about DWF and Dave Eggers and the like, who must very much be postmodernist novelists. I have much to learn. Also, makes me want to try doing things like that with writing, if only so that I can work through the phases of 15 years ago so that I can make something else now. :) At any rate, even if I never write anything ever, the idea of "fracturing narrative" with lists or breaks in the content would definitely be a useful strategy for me as well. If I made a narrative first, that is.
40 He talks about Csikszentmihalyi and then moves into the idea of the expert, and identifies how, in the postmodern world, its more favorable to the inventor rather than the expert (the continual dilletante? I wonder?) he uses the distinction between philosopher and expert . . . because there is "no creativity" in being the expert. It is not about knowing things, it's about finding out things, it's about creating a temporary break with order, breaking the rules, ignoring the "contract" and "seeing what follows from that." Which is certainly true of the kind of direction that we are encouraged to go in our art-making. Baker says this is the attitude of the postmodern artist. (This whole discussion of course surrounds where the animal fits into this, and I think he points out that the animal is in the position of the philosopher, by not knowing . . .) I think this is interesting in terms of my interest in knowing itself . . . in wanting to know, in wanting there to be experts and people who know, and then trying to resist this desire for things to be decided and to stop having to incessantly question. This un-decision, suspension of conclusion, which is pervasive in my life, doesn't seem to result in quite the kind of thinking that produces postmodern art in this way, but . . . it does seem that the more I learn about this kind of stuff, the more I realize how neatly I fit as a product of my cultural upbringing. Hmmm.
50 - 51 He talks about how the postmodern animal is most productively "thought of as embodied, and that this embodiment is felt in an encounter with them, so that it's most directly felt when the "confrontation" is "staged" in the work and it can actually happen between the person and the animal . . . so he goes on to say that visual arts have an advantage in staging this kind of confrontation over text, and that sculpture, installation, etc. are (3D work) an "edge" over painting, photos, etc. He admits that this sounds too prescriptive and that there are of course very "postmodern" encounters with animals in other work, but this does serve to explain a little why my professor said "I really can't think of any artists doing paintings or drawings of animals" in a significant way, and that "you are going to need to look at installation and sculpture."
This makes me think more about the way space is manipulated, or how to create an encounter (which I suppose happens in a painting, but not really since it's not "embodied" in that way.)
54 He talks about why straightforward, untroubling, pretty images of animals don't fit into the idea of the postmodern animal: "Why? Because the look of the postmodern animal--no surprises here--seems more likely to be that of a fractured, awkward, 'wrong' or wronged thing, which it is hard not to read as a means of addressing what it is to be human now." He says that another author describes the experience of people in the West from the 60's to 90's as "fragmentation" -- I think I am starting to be engaged with this in terms of breaking these images up into other things, and with the kinds of disjointed writing etc. It also seems a little too easy to put things together in a "purposefully" fragmented or unresolved way :) Anyway, "the postmodern animal appears as an image of difference, an images of thinking difficultly, and differently." and he talks about the heavy use of "botched taxidermy" as an example.
73 Later, another quote about botched taxidermy:
". . . as a whole, they might be said neither to be like what viewers do know nor to be like what they do not know about animals. To borrow a term from Derrida (a term he in fact applied to humans), these pieces might be called 'questioning entities.' In a field of many competing forms of knowledge and expertise--zoological, historical, anthropological, taxidermic, and more--these works are perhaps most usefully regarded as improvised knowledges, inexpert knowledges of the animal."
75 Even later, he describes the botched taxidermy as an "attempt to think a new thing" which, even out of context, I really like as a phrase.
93 He brings up Heidegger's discussion about "what is the world" from the 1920's in order to talk about it's attempt to "think non-hierarchically about the relation of humans and animals" . . . which I think sounds hierarchical, but I guess the eventual argument insists that it is not, but anyway, it's the delineation of groups as: "1. The stone is worldless. 2. The animal is poor in the world. 3. Man is world-forming." Anyway, I won't pretend to understand all that these three "theses" signify and the whole world of Derrida and other's use of this idea . . . but I do like these phrases as very poetic ones. And especially the idea that "man is world-forming" because I think this idea of the creative act (and I admit my clear bias in saying this) may be one of the enduring distinctions between humans and animals? And yes, I know, I keep talking about how our need to distinguish ourselves from animals is almost a pathology and probably something we should avoid and I continue to do it myself. Irony noted.
113 He quotes . . I don't even know . . . he might just be using quotes to signify that it's a casual phrase . . . but he says "You don't know . . . so experiment." talking about how the position of the artist or philosopher is allied with the animal in experimentation, trying things out, etc. I was kind of thrilled when I read that, though, because even though its such a simple set of words, it calls up this whole issue of KNOWING and wanting to know, and offers the sort of liberating: You don't know. With a solution for that.
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