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02/13/2006 09:06:09 PM · #26 |
| you are making my brain hurt. |
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02/13/2006 10:16:03 PM · #27 |
Originally posted by obsidian:
..my only question is how it fits into the notion of being abstract - i.e. it is not possible to determine what it was/is.
In this sense, I do not believe it is abstract per se and therefore may not be entirely conformant to the spirit of the challenge. In the context of the challenge, therefore, I would have to say that the image did not meet the criteria defined.
As an image it is a real joy, almost something that one could meditate to as it has no ego and imparts no ego: it transcends the moment while capturing the essence of it. And there is no narrative, implicit or explicit... |
I'd have to somewhat agree with this view. The image does not conform to my notion of a typical abstract either. On the other hand, the subject is clearly not recognizable for what it is either without the accompanying (and invisible during voting) annotation. If abstract is understood to mean freedom from representational qualities, we're sitting right on the fence though, aren't we?
To me, this is yet another wonderful attribute rather than a point of worry.
Message edited by author 2006-02-13 23:32:40. |
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02/14/2006 05:09:37 AM · #28 |
Originally posted by zeuszen:
I'd have to somewhat agree with this view. The image does not conform to my notion of a typical abstract either. On the other hand, the subject is clearly not recognizable for what it is either without the accompanying (and invisible during voting) annotation. If abstract is understood to mean freedom from representational qualities, we're sitting right on the fence though, aren't we?
To me, this is yet another wonderful attribute rather than a point of worry. |
I think we are on the verge of moving into that delightful field known as semiotics - see //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics for a "fun" definition or even into an investigation into some of the precepts of Zen and maybe some of its koans - see //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan. Ignoring such brain teasing stuff, though, I think that if something does not have representational qualities then it is incapable of being rationalised into what it actually is but only into what the observer perceives it to be.
This last point is important to photography and any other visual media as there are significant cultural differences in the way "things" are perceived, thus impacting on the interpretation of the image in question. Crudely, the east tends to look at things in the terms of the whole (holistically) whereas the west tends to focus on the subject and the importance of the subject in the composition. Men and women also tend to see things differently, as I have discovered in the voting on one of my challenge entries.
I think I may now have sent the last remaining followers of this thread either to sleep or into taking up stamp collecting - if this is true then I apologise - but could not help participating in what I believe is a very important thread.
Sleep well!
Carl
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02/14/2006 05:45:17 AM · #29 |
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02/14/2006 08:25:58 AM · #30 |
Originally posted by zeuszen:
it deserves a 10. |
It is a melancholy masterpiece of magnificent insignificance.
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02/14/2006 08:48:59 AM · #31 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
Originally posted by zeuszen:
it deserves a 10. |
It is a melancholy masterpiece of magnificent insignificance. |
You were just waiting for your chance, weren't you?
R.
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02/14/2006 10:29:58 AM · #32 |
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02/14/2006 04:06:08 PM · #33 |
Originally posted by obsidian:
..I think we are on the verge of moving into that delightful field known as semiotics - see //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics for a "fun" definition... |
I really didn't intend for the thread to sprawl so far afield (a typical western disease, in my view, btw: the more we try to define a thing, the further the distance to the original), but since we're there, at semiotics...
one could say that a certain stance to art may grow out of the need to articulate a particular view of the world and of the social order of men. If we still lived in an age of splendour and privilege, we would find works either critical or celebratory of the existing social order as well as works concerned with apparently unrelated subjects. If we lived on the verge of social change or in a present-day western democracy we will find works concerned with its own ideals. This is perhaps easier seen from the vantage of a few decades or centuries.
When we look more closely, we find that an aristocratic stance is primarily concerned with aesthetics and subject. Here form, often, appears distinct from content. The various subjects are not likely to be drawn from an exclusively inner experience but rather from an external model. The result is an Art with a capital 'A', sometimes profound, often imitative, sometimes pompous. Artists are seen as cultivating a [i]wilderness (nature). Art, as some proponents of this model have claimed, civilizes. Man, God or both rank as king pins in a hierarchy of things.
When we examine (what I've chosen to call here) the democratic model, we find works stimulated by a view in which human existence is subordinated to nature (which is no longer perceived as an uncharted and ungroomed wilderness). Man sees himself now as an object of nature and, as such, approaches the external world with an appropriate degree of humilitas.
His 'art' is, decidely, lower case, in response to the prevailing impetus and whatever causations he may have, he'll unlikely perceive and project them as his own but will, instead, attribute anything he creates to a reality larger than himself in which he partakes.
The emphasis has shifted profoundly here: form and function become indistinguishable, content is form and the forms tend to be open, forward and explorative as opposed to the closed forms of the first model which were borrowed or inherited from preceding works (almost like a sort of stencil) into which to mold a content.
Perhaps, one could say, that the aristrocratic model has brought us unaffordable beauty in sets of antique amphorae of varying capacities, whereas the democratic model has returned us to their clay itself, so we may rediscover the very laws of nature and apply them, practically and energetically, each according its own, without either ignorance nor the arrogance of an ego.
This, at least, is the opportunity of the second model. The image that stirred this discussion would, in my view, serve as a fine example for it.
Message edited by author 2006-02-14 16:08:35. |
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02/15/2006 03:31:48 AM · #34 |
Originally posted by zeuszen:
I really didn't intend for the thread to sprawl so far afield (a typical western disease, in my view, btw: the more we try to define a thing, the further the distance to the original), but since we're there, at semiotics... |
Interestingly enough, I was trying not so much to move away from the "thing" but rather to set the discussion into a context that allowed the original "thing" to be seen more holistically, as part of the greater whole. Chuckle - the joy of words.
In a way this thread has now come full circle as we are now focused once more on the "essence" of the image, that which it sought to be. I rather liked the definitions of aristocratic and democratic art as they explain a lot of the progression one sees in visual as well as aural art, although I guess the "mavericks" such as Hieronymus Bosch are either apart from the old movement or the first part of the new.
What is clear from the discussion is the need for man to categorise, either loosely or explicitly. If categorisation allows us to put things in their place (relative to ourselves and our position in this "place") then the move away from categorisation based on the aristocratic perception of the world into the democratic perception may imply a lessened sense of self. Curiously, this would also seem to follow the drift of western thought away from the notion of an all powerful and omnipotent God into the concept of Gaia, nature, a connection with "oneness".
Inverting that, what can we therefore learn about perception from those cultures wherein there was no notion of an omnipotent figurehead? In a recent book (the reference for which currently eludes me - sorry) studies into the different thinking patterns inherent in the (so-called) Western and Eastern cultures showed that the Western thinking patterns were more centred on the notion of self while Eastern patterns were more centred on the notion of the whole and community.
So what does all of this mean in the context of the original image, and for the notion of abstraction in general? Maybe the picture of the web is an indication of the changing perceptions of the so-called Western mind set, a pictographic representation of the "sound of one hand clapping" koan. It was an image of nothing and everything depending on your perspective and the annotations for the image - when revealed - may have offered a sense of categorisation for those that needed it.
It has been a long time since I have had to think on these things and thanks to zeuszen - a brilliant contradiction of a name for me - for starting this one off.
Carl
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