Annotated text No.1 R.Watkiss
Subjects v. Objects
JJ Charlesworth & James Heartfield First published in Art Monthly, March 2014
For this essay, the authors offer us a linguistic experience of relationships that concern the subject
which in this case is the viewer and the object. They consider how human culture has invested in
things that the collection of objects/things has led to notions of the fetish of objects.
Recently, objects seem to have taken on a life of their own. This man thinks another slice of cake will make him happy. That woman thinks that a better school will get her son good qualifications. This man has thousands of girlfriends stored on his hard drive. This girl thinks that a Hollister top will make people like her. Goods fly off the shelves. Exports boot Britain.
Although I can accept the sentiment here the examples given are generalistic and labelling and could
have been articulated in another way. The essay's purpose is to communicate theoretical paradigms
and philosophical approaches to what they consider are the loss of subjectivity and questioning the
agency of subjectivity, subject-object distinctions. Which they conclude that philosophy has found a
new hero in speculative realism. This is attached to an article by Maria Walsh in her article ‘I Object’
where she records that ‘the subject position is being given up and handed in. Autonomy and control
are being ceded and artists are rushing to become objects or side with objects’
What is the future for subjectivity a philosophical concept, related to consciousness, agency,
personhood, reality and truth? Does the subject still retain feelings, beliefs and desires? Is the agency
still wields the power of the object These various definitions of subjectivity are sometimes joined
together in philosophy? The term is most commonly used as an explanation for that which influences,
informs, and biases people's judgments about truth or reality; it is the collection of the perceptions,
experiences, expectations, personal or cultural understanding, and beliefs specific to a person. Though
the boundaries of societies and their cultures are indefinable and arbitrary, the subjectivity inherent in
each one is palatable and can be recognized as distinct from others. Subjectivity is in part a particular
experience or organization of reality. which includes how one view and interacts with humanity,
objects, consciousness, and nature, so the difference between different cultures brings about an
alternate experience of existence that forms living in a different manner.
The essay continues to debate the political, from left and right perspectives as well as the anxieties
about the human impact on the world derived from environmentalism. The authors record the works
of Berardi ‘global recession and the acceleration of the environmental decay seem to suggest that
human evolution is over’
Their conclusion is political covering the paradigm of economic growth the accumulation of things
and unless society shifts from this to a different conception of wealth the situation will not improve.
I've read this essay a number of times, mainly to allow me to explore the subject v object dilemma
and reinterpret it into my practice. It can be simplistic at times as opposed to the impenetrability of
some texts but it has been a useful tool in my development.