Thank for your insightful comment, Michele. And, thanks for reminding me of the Appadurai article. I read it a long time ago. Time to read it again.
You make a good point about giving a river or mountain legal rights. I think it would be similar to how some cultures view a tree, mountain, lake, or volcano as sacred. The people have made it special according to their own values and will have certain rules and conventions around how one is to treat this natural form. We could understand assigning legal rights to these natural phenomenon in the same way, as a set of rules and conventions that sustain the specialness of the object. As with art, there are always institutions and people who have the power to maintain this specialness as long as the others in the society are willing to accept the premise.
This was so interesting Marie. I really enjoyed it. It got me thinking about another person who has thought about this 'what makes things different' and that is the Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai. His paper - The Thing Itself - says a lot of this as well, including how things are categorized - as commodity or singularity. I'm sure you are familiar with this paper, but just in case: http://www.arjunappadurai.org/articles/Appadurai_The_Thing_Itself.pdf
Appadurai is a favourite of mine, and I have loved reading his papers and books.
Another thought I had was more related to my own work. This term I had the students look into the ideas of rivers and mountains having rights. (In other words, turning one thing - inanimate object, into something else - a legal person with legal powers including the right to sue). How does this happen? Or is it just symbolism? Well, someone has to speak for the rivers and mountains - someone else becomes their advocate. In the case of rivers, someone is appointed. In the case of the readymades, that was the art world that accepted it as art.
Thank for your insightful comment, Michele. And, thanks for reminding me of the Appadurai article. I read it a long time ago. Time to read it again.
You make a good point about giving a river or mountain legal rights. I think it would be similar to how some cultures view a tree, mountain, lake, or volcano as sacred. The people have made it special according to their own values and will have certain rules and conventions around how one is to treat this natural form. We could understand assigning legal rights to these natural phenomenon in the same way, as a set of rules and conventions that sustain the specialness of the object. As with art, there are always institutions and people who have the power to maintain this specialness as long as the others in the society are willing to accept the premise.
This was so interesting Marie. I really enjoyed it. It got me thinking about another person who has thought about this 'what makes things different' and that is the Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai. His paper - The Thing Itself - says a lot of this as well, including how things are categorized - as commodity or singularity. I'm sure you are familiar with this paper, but just in case: http://www.arjunappadurai.org/articles/Appadurai_The_Thing_Itself.pdf
Appadurai is a favourite of mine, and I have loved reading his papers and books.
Another thought I had was more related to my own work. This term I had the students look into the ideas of rivers and mountains having rights. (In other words, turning one thing - inanimate object, into something else - a legal person with legal powers including the right to sue). How does this happen? Or is it just symbolism? Well, someone has to speak for the rivers and mountains - someone else becomes their advocate. In the case of rivers, someone is appointed. In the case of the readymades, that was the art world that accepted it as art.
I look forward to reading part 2 next!