Printers That Do Not Print

"How can even the perfection of a work of art, its being finished, be conceived? Whatever else is made or produced takes the criterion of its perfection from its purpose, ie is determined by the use that is to be made of it. The work is finished if it answers to the purpose for which it is intended. How is one then, to understand the criterion for the perfection of a work of art? However rationally and soberly one may consider artistic ‘production’, much that we call works of art is not intended to be used, and none derives the measure of its completion from such a purpose. Does not, then, the work’s existence appear to be the breaking-off of a formative process which actually points beyond it? Perhaps it is not at all completable in itself."

-Hans-Georg Gadamer

In “The Retrieval of the Question of Artistic Truth,” Hans-Georg Gadamer proposes that a “work is finished if it answers to the purpose for which it is intended.” And for most objects, that purpose is to be useable, and until it can be used, an object is incomplete. A pair of shoes is not complete until the soles are put on. Until then, they are not useable. Sharp rocks would tear up feet, socks would get wet walking through shallow puddles, hot cement in summer would burn heels. A printer is not complete until it has ink in it. Until then, it is not useable. Sheets of paper would go in blank, and return blank. Sheet upon sheet would pass unchanged through whirring machinery. A shower is not complete until the drain is put in. Until then, it is not useable. The water would clean, the water would rinse, the water would pour—and it would fill the shower, climb up the walls, into the nostrils, down the lungs.

Hans-Georg Gadamer does not ask art to be useable. Hans-Georg Gadamer writes, “Much that we call works of art is not intended to be used, and none derives the measure of its completion from such a purpose.”

So, what then of shoes that do not protect? That invite cuts, scrapes, burns, calluses? What then of printers that do not print? That spill papers onto the floor and into wastepaper baskets? What then of showers that do not drain? That choke and drown and spill over and down the hall and over the stairs?

There are galleries of masterpieces in garages, at yard sales, in the corners of basements, in a spare kitchen drawer. Here are the piles of objects sent to stores with missing parts, whose blades were bent, who lost their screws, who never really worked at all. Here are the piles of objects without a use. But perhaps they still have a purpose. Perhaps they are art.



(Assignment for Expository Writing. My Professor responded, "OK I'll buy that--esp. the 'perhaps' at the end." Big compliment coming from Hosh.)