Weekly Reflection 2: Art as the 'Unfamiliar'

Viktor Shklovsky, in Art as Technique, says, "The technique of art is to make objects "unfamiliar," ... to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged" (Shklovsky 16). To Shklovsky, natural human perception is important to even our own very identities - as if, without perception, we might slip off the face of the earth! It sounds crazy, but Shklovsky makes a great point. Much of our daily routines are habituated to the degree that we may do things unconsciously, such as cruising down an open freeway. When we are unconscious of our actions, it's as if they weren't ever even perceived - we have no recollection of them. Shklovsky rightfully fears, if too much of our lives go unperceived, we will be completely lost to history.

Art, Shklovsky says, forces us to perceive by making the familiar unfamiliar - essentially un-habituating our perceptions, and this is why we like art (Shklovsky 16). The following is a clip of artist Alex Grey, a man whose art has inspired a near cult following, discussing his art, his method, and his art's purpose. His discussion is unusually representative of Shklovsky's ideas.



In particular when Alex Grey discusses his work Sacred Mirrors, Grey is keenly aware of Shklovsky's 'habituated' and 'un-habituated.' In Sacred Mirrors Grey has directly contrasted the two. He depicts the familiar outer appearance of a person's body, which we are very habituated to. Then, he depicts 'the mirror' of that person as a physical representation of the spirit of that individual - something that I doubt anyone can be habituated to.

Grey hopes that, by showing people in their 'spirit form,' we can see that, behind our outer bodies that many have applied much arbitrary importance to, there is something more to humans that may thrive, and which is not based on our skin. It is a message of equality. Mikhail Bakhtin, based on his Discourse in the Novel, might add here that Grey's language is socio-political towards the social and political inequalities between race and gender experienced today (Bakhtin 674).

Works Cited_

Shklovsky, Viktor. Art as Technique. Edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology Second Edition.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Art as Technique. Edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology Second Edition.