Intermedia

Q1: Dick Higgins claims that traditional paintings "do not allow any sense of dialogue" (187), but that what he coins "intermedia" does. I don't understand how he can say that without thinking that some paintings may speak out to certain viewers on a more personal level that he himself cannot achieve. "Happenings" may speak out to him but not others; in fact, I'm a bit confused as to how this mixture of "collage, music, and the theater" (189) works exactly (perhaps an example would change this). Also, what does he mean by "The concept itself is better understood by what it is not, rather than what it is"?

Q2: In George Baker's "Photography's Expanded Field," he describes photography as being narrative, not-narrative, stasis, or not-stasis in a fashion similar to Rosalind Krauss in her article "Sculpture in the Expanded Field." How does one determine whether a photograph is a "talking picture" or not? I feel like different photographs can speak to different individuals, and don't see how one can claim a certain work to be stasis or narrative without someone else thinking the opposite. If this is true, then what is the point of Krauss and Baker making their mathematical diagrams, attempting to graph out these works of art as if their categorization is absolute?