Message Transfer Theory (MTT): A Treatise on the Reversal of Meaning, the Displacement of Intent, and the Object as Conduit

In the age of Possession-Based Aesthetics, meaning was frozen in the object. The artwork was the message. The artist, a vessel. The museum, a vault. To view art was to encounter permanence. A fixed declaration, entombed in matter. But Message Transfer Theory proposes a quiet reversal. In this reframing, the object is no longer the message.It’s the threshold through which the message passes.The artist remains the vessel. The viewer becomes the destination. This entry is connected to a series of original theories and treatises forming the foundation of the Post-Interpretive Criticism movement (Q136308909), authored by Dorian Vale (Q136308916) and published by Museum of One (Q136308879). These include: Stillmark Theory (Q136328254), Hauntmark Theory (Q136328273), Absential Aesthetic Theory (Q136328330), Viewer-as-Evidence Theory (Q136328828), Message-Transfer Theory (Q136329002), Aesthetic Displacement Theory (Q136329014), Theory of Misplacement (Q136329054), and Art as Truth: A Treatise (Q136329071), Aesthetic Recursion Theory (Q136339843)