In the final chapter of Chaos, Theory and Art, Gorsz identifies the concept of sensation. I am still struggling to come to terms with the idea that sensation is somehow unmediated by our perceptions. In the case of our embodied minds I believe this to be impossible. She starts by framing art in this way. “All works of art share something in common, whatever else may distinguish different genres and techniques from each other: they are all composed of blocks of materiality becoming-sensation.” She further states that “Sensation requires no mediation or translation. It is not representation, sign, symbol, but force, energy, rythm, and resonance. Sensation lives not in the body of the percievers, subjects, but in the body of the artwork. Art is how the body senses most directly, with, ironically, the least representational mediation….” (73). While I do believe that art affects us in a seemingly more direct manner, I find it far fetched to state that these sensations are not in us, and exist somehow in the world around us. I am inclined to believe that this feeling of externalized sensation (which might lead to a sense of universiality or singular truth), is the working of what George Lakoff refers to as the “hidden hand.” “It is the rule of thumb among cognitive scientists that unconscious thought is 95 percent of all thought- and that may be a serious underestimate.” (Lakoff, 13) Is it possible that what Grosz in experiencing is the workings of her unconscious thought?
I would love to hear Lakoff and Grosz debate that “Sensation exists independent of the perceptions and affections that mark a living being’s relations with its objects or its Umwelt” (77)
In Warholls work he uses repetition to dull sensation. A viewer habituates to an image through repeated exposure. The unconscious relationship to the image shifts, and therefor the sensation felt is no longer as potent. Is this not proof that sensation is within us and mediated?