Symbol's Risks: A Note on the Interrelationship of Art and the Use of Symbols

Schmücker Reinold

Abstract

In this note on the interrelationship between art and the use of symbols, it is argued that artworks can be best understood as media of a discontinuous communication, i.e. a form of interaction through symbols, i.e., media that are structurally not allowing for achieving an intersubjective agreement or mutual understanding. If symbols are characteristic, if not constitutive, of art, the question arises why we should communicate through works of art: Why should we accept the risks of the use of symbols, namely that the recipient of a work of art might not understand what an artist intended to let him understand, when it is possible to communicate in other, less risky ways? The question is answered by referring to different moments of the concept of symbol stated at the beginning. Firstly, communicative acts do not always serve to transmit information,and the joy of giving up puzzles and guessing and of grasping the peculiar brevity and conciseness of symbols can enrich and enliven our existence. A second reason as to why it may be worth accepting symbol's risks is provided by that strand of modern symbol theory which attributes to symbols the ability to represent ‘higher' contents. One should not exaggerate the criticism of this way ofspeaking, which reflects ideas of content hierarchy that may seem obsolete today. For it aims at a very essential point: Symbols can also represent contents that cannot be represented in everyday language at all. Therefore, even if we cannot grasp their contents with the same certainty as those of conventional signs, they give us an inkling that there are contents that cannot be translated into everyday language. Thus, for the price of accepting the risks of using symbols, one gets something that is not available at a lower one.