residual value (pt 2)

I was going to write a post on residual value, then realised that I was plagiarising - badly, and without much thought - from post-structuralists I don't even have names for. All I wanted to know is this: does a work of art have any residual value, beyond that invested in it by the reader/observer. If not, then what's the purpose of the critic. If so, then surely that value is a construct, artificial - no better and no worse than a popularity contest.

One reason I dislike the perfect '10' that Pitchfork gave Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation is the unspoken arrogance implicit in such an action, for - if we can all be agreed upon the fact that the merit of a work of art needs to judged upon both the author and reader's roles - not only does this assume that the work of art is the most 'perfect', flawless ever but also that the judgment passed upon it is from the most 'perfect', flawless critic the world has ever witnessed. The relationship is inter-dependent.

Like most of the western world, I prefer to read an interpretation rather than the 'original' (if it exists). The individual voice becomes all-important in Web 2.0, and how it relates to your paradigm.

It takes a panel of six peers to recognise an expert. Otherwise that expert does not exist. I sometimes feel this can be applied to my own role as music 'critic' and Australia.

Post-structuralism (strategy)

• no essential meaning
• no solid foundation
• no original (no use in searching for origins)
• reality constructed by discourse
• denotations and connotations – no final meaning
• knowledge is a construct

• IMAGE-MUSIC-TEXT (Barthes) (audience rewrites the meaning of the text as they read it – the death of the author) (no clear divisions between criticism and creation)