Umberto Eco

derive a new way of seeing

“Every reception of a work of art is both an interpretation and performance of it, because in every reception the work takes on a fresh perspective for itself.” Eco, quoting Henri Pousseur, defines the "open" work as one that "produces in the interpreter acts of conscious freedom, putting him at the centre of a net of inexhaustible relations among which he inserts his own form"

can we categorize conscious freedom?

openness is a fundamental part of perception
openness is an interpretive freedom
open work is freedom

This is reflection upon the ideal. Open work represents an evolutionary difference in the whole experience of the world. It reflects the relativity, subjectivity and discontinuity of our contemporary world. Eco contrasts this concept with the traditional closed work, which allows the viewer far less choice in interpretation. The categories are ideal--no work can be completely open or closed--but they function well in making distinctions between different kinds of art. What is more important, adopting the proper attitude toward an open work has political and social ramifications: the open work denies conventional views of the world, replacing them with a sense of its discontinuity, disorder, and dissonance. Eco considers this alienation as beneficial, since from this feeling of crisis, one may derive a new way of seeing, feeling, and understanding a social order in which traditional relationships have been shattered.

art and interpretations are shattered
every viewer derives their own meaning
we can observe and interpret, but essentially never exhaust

For artistic creation, the artist’s role is to start a work, and it is the role of the viewer to finish it. The completed work, which exists from the interpretation of the observer, still belongs to the artist in a sense, but must also belong to the viewer. There is an internal mobility to form which sets up a possible dialogue or interaction between artist and audience. An openness emerges and evolves

in creating and making there is taking and replacing

Arts and creative acts are merged under the influence of analog and digital, commercial and noncommercial. A "mixed ecology" emerges.

artistinction