Questions and Comments of Week 3 (May 8)

1. In response to the question of "what are automatisms", I got this paragraph out of Cavell's book  (p103), "One might think of this as the task of establishing a new automatism. The use of the word seems to me right for both the broad genres or forms in which an art organizes itself (e.g. the fugue, the dance forms, blues) and those local events or topoi around which a genre precipitates itself (e.g., modulations, inversions, cadences). In calling such things automatisms, I do not mean that they automatically ensure artistic success or depth, but that in mastering a tradition one masters a range of automatisms upon which the tradition maintains itself, and in deploying them one's work is assured of a place in that tradition." It seems to be his term for all the "givens" of a particular medium of artistic practices, not just materials or method but also genre, and methods of distribution, etc. (from Hack)