The first time I encountered Wittgenstein was during my class in Art Theory, two years ago.  That was the semester where we had to understand the theoretical framework of visual language to communicate effectively as visual artists.

I didn't give much attention to the lecture and discourse of my professor as he introduced Wittgenstein to us.  Instead, I continued working on my vague paintings and obscured drawings and skipped classes.  The process of making art excites me more rather than constructing its visual language, and I didn't give a damn about language and logic, because the only thing that I knew was the common language that the heart could understand.

"In art, it's hard to say
as good as to say nothing."
-Wittgenstein

A few years later, I stopped painting and decided to drop out from art school.  This time, the influence of Guy Debord to my current outlook towards art has caused me an enormous effect.  I don't need to suffer now from the disease of Artist syndrome that creeps like a plague in the academe.  Quoting the early Soviet Dadaists, "Art is Dead', I gladly celebrate its death, and now I can do everything, because everything is art and I don't need to bother anymore with the concept of whether that is art or not.  My current works are not limited to paintings alone and fetishism of art objects as valuable by-products of creativity is no way important to me.

But wait, did I really challenge the visual language, after liberating myself from the confines of conventional art, i.e., Formalism?  This question made me go back to understand Wittgenstein.  Good thing that I saw a copy of Derek Jarman's film of "Wittgenstein" in a video store near my apartment here in Kamimachi.  There's no need for me to buy a "Wittgenstein for Beginners" anymore in a bookstore somewhere in Tokyo.

I hurriedly got the copy and watched it at home.  And I suddenly found myself smiling in amazement observing the minimal utilization of production design used in the film, I felt like I was watching a theatrical play.  This made me realize that Derek Jarman is an unconventional filmmaker who wanted to break away from the popular influence of outdoor production that is common to the French New Wave filmmakers of the 60's.  Neither, Jarman used the fantastic studio productions of the early Hollywood films.

Jarman's "Wittgenstein" is a crossover between Avant-Garde theater and performance art, documented in experimental filmmaking techniques.

"If people did not sometimes do silly things,
nothing intelligent will never get done."
-Wittgenstein

Okay, Wittgenstein was born from a filthy rich family, no wonder why he was able to pursue an academic career in Philosophy after finishing a degree in Aeronautic Engineering.  He became the favorite student of Bertrand Russel in Cambridge, joined the army and was imprisoned in Italy during the First World War.  After the war, he finished writing his book and was fascinated with logic.

During his heyday as a Philosopher, he was known to his colleagues as an obscured intellectual, and according to Bertrand Russel, Wittgenstein has a temper similar to an artist who easily gets irritated.  But for the students in the primary provincial school in Vienna where Wittgenstein has taught, he is a dreaded epitome of a Terror professor.  He seemed to be a really scary professor to his students.  And I can imagine Wittgenstein to the list of terror professor that I have encountered in my University.

"Philosophy is just a by-product
of misunderstanding language."
-Wittgenstein

Understanding the philosophical inquiries of Wittgenstein is remembering the discourse of my professor in Art theory about the image of a rabbit that looks like a duck.  According to Wittgenstein, the idea is obscured if we don't have a common language that is shared together between individuals.  No wonder why he stated that there was never actually a philosophical truth, only logical problems, mathematical solutions, language, etc.

That is why, Wittgenstein suggested that we should first make a common agreement to a certain idea for us to go forward.  Language game is the answer to this.

But, I do think that language game is only for those who consider each other differences as co-equals to reach for a consensus in determining a common ground for themselves.  Not in this present society that language is being imposed to us rather than a product of a shared effort to achieve understanding.

The images and symbols that we always see in our daily lives, from television, radios to billboards are nothing but an imposed language of consumerism that forces us to buy and sell our labor to accumulate more and more senseless possessions.

To contextualize Wittgenstein in the present era is to go forward reading Michel Focault's inquiries against Power and Structure.  So, did I really go beyond the total concept of visual language?  No, in fact I am still using the very concept of that language to communicate, but of course in consensual agreement with others who has the urge to go forward in stripping bare the authority of language.  And re-inventing language can be a really silly business, but we have to make intelligent things to get done.

To end this article, I want to leave this last silly quote for you:

"Be realistic, demand the impossible!"
-The Situationist 1968 Student Revolt in France.

Posted 10/19/04.