rhphoto said:
My theory is simply that what we respond to viscerally in photographs is processed on the right side of the brain, and as such transcends verbal or purely rational thought. Stieglitz developed an aesthetic called "equivalence" which meant that he desired to create in a photograph the "equivalent" of certain feelings or impressions. No words, no title, are involved - just the communication from the artist to the viewer, and utilizing only the non-verbal side of the brain. In this way, I think photography, and all art, is "subversive". This might go a long way to explaining the otherwise irrational response of law enforcement and such toward photographers setting up tripods. Something about people wanting to create pictures threatens the authorities.
Well your theory is pretty much the same thing Nietzsche exposed in the "Birth of Tragedy" or what Antonin Artaud wrote in "Theater and its Double" (Le théâtre et son double). For these two guys, European civilization was essentially sclerosed by too much "civilization," too much psychology (for Artaud), too much logic, too much Socratism (for Nietzsche), and they were pining for a way to be reunited with a "primal unity."
Nietzsche argues that Greek tragedy was an instance of such unity with the primordial, amoral substance of life, whereas the introduction of Socratic thought linking virtue with knowledge was essentially "driving music out of art." Nietzsche was after trying to render conscious to his contemporaries the possibility of a metaphysics not predicated by the moral, i.e. that life was essentially amoral, that it had no good or bad purpose, but even though it was cruel it was to be celebrated as such. Joyce has an interesting word for that: "jocoserious." Of course Nietzsche is more torrid in his exposition, but the essential idea is that reason shields us from "the real thing" and pessimism, cruelty, rage, irrationality, can be a far more worthy window on the world than positivism. Everyone who ever read Comte may feel favorable to Nietzsche on that point.
Ditto for Artaud: he abhorred the idea of a theater based on character. Fascinated by the Balinese theater, but also completely ignorant of what it meant, he fashioned the idea of a theater (which he called the Theater of Cruelty) in which mise en scène, not dialogue, was the important item. For him, the impossibility to repeat a gesture was the true expression of unalienated life, compared to the repetitive potential of dialogue and language. He favored sound, the voice not as speech but as a concrete entity, movement, the body, etc. 20thC theater is hugely indebted to him in reconsidering the approach to the spectacle. When you think of it, even a Metallica concert or a Pink Floyd show is a kind of Theater of Cruelty: your senses are attacked from everywhere, the distinction between peroformance and audience is lost, etc.
What I want to point out to you after this lengthy exposé is where your theory stands from a historical perspective. You're grosso modo coming from a critique of the Enlightenments that started with Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, and that continues today with post-modernity or whatever the hell it's called now, embodiement theory (in cognitive science and cultural studies), performance art, etc. We've been dissatisfied with rationality since the late 19thC for its role in tyranny, global war, class subjugation, and we show growing dissatisfaction with it.
However i don't think we can get rid of it, even if we wanted, even if that would perhaps avoid disasters if that was possible at all. It goes the same with art: the Western world is in a situation where it's sick of its rationalism, and it fetishizes the East or the past for models of non-rationality. I would warn you that interest in Eastern philosophy and its emphasis on the void (Buddhism), the emotions (Indian rasa theory), or the non-verbal may open you up more to your OWN preconceptions than to salvation and de-alienation. Have a look maybe at Edward Said's "Orientalism," it's the summa on the fancy that the West created of the East.
Regarding subversion, I will admit that while I think it's important, I am growing more and more frightened by the ease with which it gets co-opted. Abstract art, subversive in the early 20thC (because people were still extremely gung-ho on rationality, so the contrast was strong), has become worst than musak in terms of flaccid impact. I think the critique of rationality has been done, and that we can't be subversive anymore just by going for the non-verbal, the immediate, or the Dionysiac. The Dionysiac is on the page of People Magazine when Paris Hilton exposes her new antics every other week. I watched the "Yes Men" the other day, which shows a pair of smart guys posing as WTO members, and actually going in congresses and delivering the most insane speech with a straight face. Well, guess what? No uproar from the WTO itself. Instead, they manage to be featured in the "hoax" section of the newspapers.
Corporations are the EXACT opposite of rationality: they behave insanely, almost schizoidly if you follow the thesis put forth in The Corporation, and I think THEY are the totalitarian regimes of today. You can put them down with rationality, legal proofs, tv reporting, blogging, critique, whatever. You can also play their own logic against themselves, use their craziness and turn it around, but you'll need also good old logic and proof of fact. If you must be subversive today, in art or in politics, I'm afraid you'll need at least SOME rationality.