a natter about form-content
I’ve heard the word content quite a bit these last few days, particularly in relation to that other word, form. The words have tended to be used as if content is the stuff of a choreography that help us figure out what the work is about, and form is the structural method by which this content is conveyed or presented.
I strongly resist this rather simplistic distinction or binary.
In Thomas McEvilley’s Art and Discontent there is a section called 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. In it, McEvilley argues for the breadth of ways in which content is added to a work. For example, content added to a work over time, content arising from the genre or medium of the artwork, and content arising from the context of the work. Critically, he also talks to content that is added to a work by its formal properties.
To talk about form as if it is not contributing to the ‘content-producing’ aspects of a work is misleading.
