Ellul Jacques: Carstvo besmisla

Jacques Ellul: The Realm of Nonsense

Art and Technical Society

"… Therefore, there is nothing left to say. And that is why we say nothing. Let us write, let us paint, by sticking to the very act of writing or painting - which is a perfectly technical attitude. Finally, today is the one that completely prevails: everything has been said and everything is too late. It is a strange attitude, if we consider how little was known in this epoch everything that was said before it is the final truth. And the artist is blocked in advance by that message and meaning? A justification is needed. This is why it is declared (this is a new step of the theory) that in fact there is nothing more to "say"; that one should not say or want to say anything, because, metaphysically, meaning does not exist. One can no longer have any intention. Although this art seems perfectly subjective, there is at least one part of subjectivity that is condemned, and that is precisely the intention, the search for meaning, reason, opinion. An artist must strive to say nothing. It is a perfectly negative asceticism. But it also includes the last step: it is not enough that meaning does not exist; there is still the possibility of escape and, in spite of everything, it may happen that meaning leaks out, like gas from a badly closed bottle. You have to be careful, because there must be no sense. The meaning is dead. But maybe not quite. It is therefore necessary to kill it."

"The break between what is created today under the name of painting, sculpture, music, etc., and what was traditionally called that, is so radical that there are no points of contact between them. ... in art there is the same total rupture as in all other activities. Technology introduces us to a radically new universe, never seen before, never thought about before. Previous knowledge is no longer useful. We could rightfully call it the end of logocentrism: for five hundred thousand years man was above all a talking animal and everything he produced was dictated by logocentrism, especially art. Now 'abstract' painting and 'concrete' music mark the end of that primacy. This is not just about one school opposing another, it is a break with the whole culture born from logocentrism. Painting and music are dead (as well as philosophy!) and now we create something else, which has nothing in common with words, but arises exclusively from means of action. The logo and the word are over. Now it is an Act and a Mechanical Act (no longer the personal, heroic one). From now on, we need to think whether the Good, the Beautiful and the Humane, which were gradually built, are worth defending at all, or if the entire history should be erased with one stroke of the pen and start from scratch... Well, that's the question."