In this short essay, I would like to introduce the concept of ‘Critique by works’ as an alternative meta-critique for reviewing general critique. By employing some notions from a Japanese perspective, I would like to discuss how technological change influences critique and the limitations of critical language. This essay is not meant to discuss only literary criticism, I would also like to discuss the cycle of creative activities and appreciation from an integral point of view in the domains of arts. There is not enough space here to discuss the interaction of each artistic domain. However, it is becoming more difficult to treat each artistic domain separately in today’s diversity of arts where interactions of multiple domains form very complicated web in a single piece of artwork. For example, a film can contain various factors from any types of art - novels, paintings, photographs, music, dance, and other films. It should be useful to argue from a greater, integrated perspective than a view confined in a conventional field. Such perspective may yield an entirely new scope by treating heterogeneous domains from a common standpoint.

First, I would like to consider how recent technological development had a great impact on critique. The ways we express ourselves have experienced dramatic changes because of the technological evolution, especially in the field of information technology. The advancement and rapid diffusion of personal computers in developed countries has enabled many amateurs the creation of various literal works, thanks to the word processor. In addition to literal works, it has never been easier to create audio-visual works easily, including motion pictures. Information technology has expanded the possibilities of ways of various expressions and changed the meaning of citation. For example, hypertext used on the World Wide Web may be considered one of the ultimate forms of citation. It cannot be better in terms of preciseness, since we can directly refer to the original by means of hyperlinks as far as it is available.¹

The change brought by information technology has an impact on the world of critique. Today may be a difficult time for professional critics. First, information technology produced not only new creators, but also new critics. Although they may be not trained as professional, both are not negligible in quality and quantity. Creators do not need established authority necessarily in their creative activities for their own satisfaction, nor for the appreciators. If the authority depended by critics is watered down, they may not be able to criticize. The world of critique suddenly open to the numerous users of the Internet in last few years, even though their opinion may not yet become visible pressures on the professional critics. Many people have their own home pages and eagerly express criticism on various subjects. The world of critique will be rapidly decentralized, since the need of professional critics as delegates of the opinions becomes less important. As Murakami Haruki showed an extraordinary example on Murakami Asahi Do home page for a year and half², people can directly contact with the creators if they wish, and they can judge by themselves. Mere language of the critics may not gain attention from the people, because they also have power to express their opinions now. People will seek for more substantial products than words.

Second, before now, critics need not expect a refutation from the creator. If the creators were not alive, no one could refute against the critiques.

As Murakami writes;

(Translated by Yamamoto Yuji)

Even if the creators were alive, their refutation against criticism would take a long time before it was published, or more likely, the creators would ignore the critiques. Some critics have been considered as authorities that talk, but do nothing. We cannot deny that the one-way traffic of critic has aggravated this tendency. However, today, there is a greater chance that a critics may have refutations from the creator directly within a few minutes, even if the critic lives on the other side of the World, in a discussion on the Internet. This situation will further contribute to diminish the authority of the critics.

I would like to refer to a possible limitation of critical language in this section. The world of language is unique and closed in on itself. Language catches and tries to confine everything pass our consciousness like a black hole. It assaults like a vampire that does not afraid of light and it makes the victims to be his subjects and accomplices anytime and anywhere. Some people even believe that language is everything. But should we stay in the world of language?

In order to compare the commitment of language in art in general, I would like to divide various kinds of artworks into three major categories, lingual art, non-lingual art and composite art. I choose the adjective ‘lingual’ but not ‘verbal’, as the latter rises various problems such as biased impressions toward spoken words or verbs. Some examples of the lingual art are the novel, prose, and poetry. This category is almost the same as literature, however, we need to use this category to separate it from literary tradition in order to treat it at the same level to the other kinds of artworks. On the other hand, we can take paintings, sculptures, music (except songs), dance and architecture as examples of non-lingual art. If language is treated as just one part of the motifs among the latter, it is still non-lingual art. Lingual art and non-lingual art are relatively easily distinguished from the rest of art from apparent dependency or the lack of relation to the language. The art contains language as indispensable, but only as a part, such as songs, films, play, and some other performing arts will form the third category, composite art. We should note that the word ‘composite art’ is used in relation to lingual art and non-lingual art. If a play has a precondition to be performed is included in composite art rather than lingual art, since language is the essential part, although it cannot stand only by language. The artworks in this category often have lingual element in the form of story. Composite art prospers in modern times since it is not merely composite of language and non-lingual elements, but often a highly complex integration of multiple media, and requires the technological benefits.

When one imagines a cycle of creators - artworks - appreciators, there is a persistent tendency to try to verbalize the ‘creator’s intention’ on the appreciators’ side in this cycle, especially among those who have naive views on arts. According to this perspective, first, creators have their ideas in words, such as ‘unimaginable joy’. Then they embody and encode the words into materials, into an object of non-lingual artwork, such as a sculpture; then the appreciators decipher the ‘creator’s intention’. Such appreciators would look at a ‘mysterious’ sculpture, and say ‘This stuff doesn’t make any sense! I don’t understand what the artist wanted to say.’ They hardly notice that an artwork is not a piece of puzzle. They will not be satisfied until they succeed in ‘reading hidden messages’. Thus, they believe that the world starts from words and ends in words. This cycle that is based on language’s part can be called re-verbalization. This futile effort, if all artwork are truly puzzles, reminds me of everlasting struggle between encoders and decoders in the novel, the Hardboiled Wonderland and The End of the World by MURAKAMI Haruki. The process of re-verbalization will be increasingly difficult, if not entirely nonsense, as the amount of total information in a work increases, such as a film made after a novel. Words are incompetent against a huge pile of media. One should be also aware that a creator might not necessarily have a concrete ‘intention’ or theme.

We cannot avoid referring the concept of citation in the arguments of meta-critique. What is citation? Proper citation is to borrow the parts of others’ works showing uniqueness with explicit reference and utilize it as an integrated part of one’s creation. Citation can contribute to develop a domain of art by deepening the meanings of the precedents. In art, we frequently encounter ambiguous references to the precedents. Because, in a broad sense, citation is not only applied to the concrete, easily recognizable elements, but it may also include intentional adaptation of ideas. In this case, identification of the source of ideas will become very difficult.

Language is a primary, but by far simpler signal system in terms of information when compared to intricate non-lingual signal systems. Language can be easily and precisely cited. Therefore we often find citation in lingual arts such as novels. Of course, citation occurs not only through language, but visual images or sounds. In this case, not many works show the extent of citation explicitly except when it is not intended to be as a dramatic effect. This may cause a trouble, but it is a merit of non-lingual artists in terms of polysemy as I will refer to in Section 4.1.

The explanation of works by non-lingual artists themselves need not be verbose if they were confident of what they had produced. The works should convey what had to be expressed. Matisse said:

However, in many cases the artists couldn’t resist the temptation to explain their works and Matisse was one of them.

As Benjamin argued fifty years ago,⁵ the development in technology of reproduction not only contributed to the mass production of goods, but also enabled the citation of complicated, non-lingual artworks with ease by means of photography, or the use of magnetically recorded sound and visual images. We may wish to justify our time by attaching a new type of aura to the works of the ‘Age of Mechanical Reproduction’. Wide spread media reappear over and over, and facilitate citation in jazz or producing collages. Further more, the notion of ‘information’ developed after it was given its precise meaning by Shannon (1948). The idea enabled theoretically complete duplication by reducing almost everything (so we call the most elaborated application as virtual ‘reality’ now) to 0’s and 1’s. Today, unlimited citation and re-citation is possible through digital data by the media such as digital music by sampling of sounds, especially in rap music, CG (Computer Graphics), digital composite photographs, digital composite motion pictures etc.

Is it appropriate to criticize non-lingual art and composite art by using language? To be specific, is it sufficient to criticize in language the works using multimedia, such works can hold thousands of times richer than conventional media, such as a literary work, for example, in terms of the amount of information? Have we reached the limitation of critical language? Criticism of lingual art in language can be very long compared to its subject, especially if applied to comparatively the shorter form of lingual art, such as a short poem. The Japanese style short poems, haiku and tanka are widely known as the shortest forms of any literature, which consist of 17 syllables and 31 syllables each. It would not be surprising if the criticism or interpretation of some haiku could eventually form a book. However, how is it possible, or what is the meaning of criticizing a film that lasts 125 minutes in a few paragraphs?

If the symbolized information in a work is immense, it is may not be suitable to analyze the components of works one by one. What can we do when we are exposed to the excessive information of signs beyond application of a structural approach? The purpose of critique is not elucidation of cause and effect in works. A lingual sequence is supposed to have single coherent logical sequence, or an impeccable narrative. It seems almost an instinct, or a natural work of consciousness to seek an well-organized story within disorder. But if we were ignorant of what had been left, it would mean to abandon the rich, tacit world that had sifted through the coarse winnow of language.

Is it not another non-lingual work that is able to truly criticize a non-lingual work, rather than words?

Barthes maintains that we are able to read artworks as text.⁶ Although he does not affirm that painting is a lingual activity, his attitude of employing the notion of text is not very different from the conventional approach of reductionist application of language to non-lingual works. What Barthes is really referring may not well perceived by the word, text. What is the problem of the notion of text?

First, it is weak in sense of autonomous integration. Anatomically, an animal can be described as being made up of muscles, bones and organs etc. And this is the way some critiques look and analyze artworks by dividing and reducing them into parts. But these are just parts; merely assembling these will not create an integrated whole. It would be necessary to consider what linking these parts is.

Second, it cannot escape from the curse of language. After all, creating the notion of intertextuality is not enough - this approach still starts and ends with texts. Autopsy by the scalpel of language is not the sole way to criticize artworks. There is a necessity to start from and end with image. Understanding with direct images - but not language - is the way to connect the dried up text. Artworks mentioned in this thesis are not conventional frames. They are continuous streams. Text may be useful to generalize various arts, it always verbalizes non-lingual works, or symbolizes, but what is lost by articulation cannot be recovered by other articulation. Whereas image exists as water given to withered plant tissue of texts. In other words, emphasizing on non-lingual approach is to thaw the ice of signs into the hot liquid of images.

Third, the notion of text refuses ambiguity. Textures are woven, while fluid flow out as streams without unnatural ‘intention’. By receiving works in the metaphor of text or texture, we may ignore the unconscious nature of the process of creation and appreciation. The approach by stream of consciousness should be reexamined as a mean to non-lingual critique. I do not mean to completely abandon the metaphor of texts, however, it may be necessary to seek the possibility of other metaphors ... that of fluid and streams.

I have argued the limitation of critical language in the precedent sections. I would like to propose an alternative approach to critique in the following sections. It is called ‘Critique by works’. There are two possible approaches. First, we may perceive existing works as critique toward precedents. Critique must contain some kind of reference to, at least, a work since critique is always ‘about work’. Although Barthes said that criticism was a ‘secondary language’ functioning as a ‘comment applied to a primary language’, there is no reason that they have to be languages. Similarly, all artworks can be seen as a form of criticism of their precedents. Even if it is not apparent, any creator reflects their own personal experiences in their works, at first foreign to them. There are three major types of critical attitudes toward precedents: parody, hommage, and neutrality. The first two, parody and hommage represent sarcasm and respect each. A parody is distinguished from neutrality by its offensiveness. If it is not apparent sarcasm, a hommage is also clearly different from a neutral attitude.

What is the meaning then of, at first glance, a neutral reference? Simply paying hommage or making parody of works is not sufficient to be critique of works. When we discuss a work we often talk of ‘influence’ that is considered as an unintentional action. Why and how are we influenced? One of the reasons may be because we cannot resist imitating. When we are influenced by someone, we don't have much conscious choice. We are often influenced by someone unacceptable to us. Creators may be utterly unaware of the influence they received. Therefore the appearance of influence by unconscious citation may look neutral, but it would hide contradictory attitudes toward the ones who influenced the creator.

The second approach to ‘Critique by works’ is that we may express artworks as critique. Both creator and critics can try this approach. In critique, the products of creative activities themselves should be directly used in place of the comments on the product, which is language. Creative activity and critical activity should be ideally identical.

An artwork is a result of cumulative decisions. The creator reaches a certain form after rejecting other possible forms. Most artworks are completed after careful consideration of adding or removing its certain elements. The creators must know what is the better way. Finally they give acknowledgement to their own work by being the ‘best critic’ as far as they are concerned at the very moment of finishing a work. They will not need a critic’s tongue, but they certainly need a critic’s eyes, ears, nose, or hands. (In the case of the art of cooking, a tongue is needed, too.) In other words, a creator must be, at least, a silent critic.

It is not difficult to find artworks already serving as critiques. Some type of art developed recently show typical examples of ‘Critique by works’. Some artworks often take the form of hommage, or dedication to some artist’s memory, as Jane Birkin recalls in the song ‘Ex-fan des sixties’ or ‘“Eungenio” Salvador Dali’ by MECANO, a Spanish rock group, in the world of pop music. We should note that parody originally derived from paroidia, a Greek word means burlesque song. Or an exhibition at a museum is an independent form of critical expression. By determining how the works should be treated, and in which order, it serves as a critique by works. However, most of these works over-clarify the attitude toward the precedents, and lack rich equivoque. I would like to show examples of ‘Critique by works’ from Japanese pop visual culture in this section.

There were times when Japanese art, notably, painting and wood printing, ukiyo-e, were highly appreciated by Western artists and had great influences over the Western artistic movements such as Art Nouveau, impressionism and post-impressionism, while being underestimated and severely restricted by the shogunate in Japan. Stevens, the Goncourt brothers, van Gogh, Whistler, Monet, Degas, Gauguin, Lautrec, Vallotton, Beardsley, and Cassatt were some of the artists who were aware of the originality of the Japanese art. Ukiyo-e were considered as vulgar and not recognized as ‘proper’ art by the Japanese critics of that time. The reinstatement of the true value of ukiyo-e as art by the Japanese was done after all the great masters had disappeared.

Yet today, Japanese critics are again not fully aware of the possibilities of these media. Although the national newspapers have some regular columns on manga, they are not always conscious about how these media can be rich in complex story composition, highly stylized, vivid and full of unique expressions. Japanese have maintained a certain tendency of hesitation and lack of confidence in their own culture after an impetuous acceptance of the Western influence.

These media are very good examples of ‘Critique by works’. Since they are composite arts and not only stand on language but visual images, intentional or unintentional ‘citation’ are observed in the form of narrative, pictorial, and onomatopoeic expressions. The massive heap of works eventually formed grammatical equivalents in these media. They require certain knowledge of visual grammar on the readers’ or audiences’ part. One cannot appreciate the essence of media without accumulation of previous experiences in reading the unique cultural signs, just as some modern artworks are easily misjudged without proper knowledge, such as Picassos.

Although many attempts have been made by the younger critics in Japan, these media are not yet fully recognized. The destiny of manga and anime may be inherited from ukiyo-e, with the various, in some cases pornographic and violent natures of the subject, the traditional technique of monochrome line drawing, its popularity with the masses and suppression by the authorities.

The recent Neon Genesis Evangelion by GAINAX may be noted as a turn in the history of modern art in Japan. This TV series, which was later appeared in films, rendered a broad socio-cultural impact. It is essentially a summit of the accumulation of Japanese pop visual culture, and it is full of references to the previous visual works. What makes the work remarkable is the polysemic, paradoxical citation. It is not simple mimicry nor parody nor hommage. But it is the equivocal presentation of the rich references to the accumulation of the precedent Japanese visual culture. More than twenty books have been published as critiques to this one series in attempts to analyze the work, but they have never succeeded or brought satisfaction through critical language.

The power of conventional critique or authority has been undoubtedly diminishing. The advancement in information technologies will not easily allow critics to resort to simple lingual expression. The critics may be required to show the problem without depending on their rhetoric. One way to do this is to push themselves to creative activities. By committing creative activities, which has never been easier than before thanks to the technology, they will reinstate the right to be a critic. At the same time, the creators have more opportunities to act as critics by expressing themselves, for example, on the Internet. They will welcome substantial help from the critics, not just complaints.

Eventually, the importance of ‘critique by (non-lingual) works’ will gradually increase, although it does not exclude critique in language. Fluid and stream will serve as useful notions to treat artworks from non-lingual point of view. Expressing critical opinion in the form of artwork is more persuasive and constructive than critical language. It will be accomplished by further integration of theory and practice in art. By encouraging direct communication from work to work without the intervention of language in non-lingual art, we may be able change the nature of the rigid conventional cycle and the relationship between creators - artworks - critics and appreciators.