[Xmca-l] Re: Re-search Testimonio and Hermeneutics

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Hi Larry,

I am skeptical about making a work into an object, because by making it an object I must decontextualize it. When I decontextualize it, it is no longer a work situated in an environment to be enjoyed in its cultural setting. 

The act of removal is an act of destroying original meaning. Sometimes this act of removal is inevitable, as when a work takes on new meanings, such as the Mona Lisa as a "work of art" in the Louvre, as opposed to being a portrait of a woman painted in the Renaissance by Leonardo for King Francois I of France (or however the story goes) and hung in a chateau, even though the Louvre was once a chateau, now it is a museum. So the work has a new meaning. 

Object for me signifies a loss of context and that is why it is now an object. So I possess a particular definition for "object."

Still, I think we have more that we share in agreement on this than disagreement. 

Testimony is one means of knowledge and why we give it such stock in a courtroom. Of course it is up to be challenged by adversaries in that context, so I don't think challenging testimonio is what is being pursued here, but acceptance of it as a product of experience, or an undertaking of meaning-making.

However, I cannot say that this is actually the case (regarding testimony), but just my own sense-making about it.

Kind regards,

Annalisa