Hyper-Reality in Postmodernism
JPCeja
I just need help in grasping a term found in postmoderist lingo: that is, the
concept of hyper-reality.
I was reading Jean-François Lyotard's work, 'The Postmodern Condition,' or,
actually, I was remembering it in detail. Lyotard states, at one pont, that
Kasimir Malevich, in 1915, 'presented the unrepresentable Sublime' when he
painted a white square on a white background. (In 1919, Malevich seems to know
very well what he was doing: he was conscious of it, as he writes somewhat
grandly in the Manifesto of Suprematism.)
What we can concieve of (such as the infinite) but not represent, is a
definition of the Sublime. In a series of paintings, Pietro Mondrian made trees
into abstract compositions of interconnecting, interweaving curved lines. He
changed line and color to ones not really found in nature, deliberately purging
all that was "illustration of reality."
Mondrian and Malevich were working on the problems of representation. This is
where I am confused: the 'concept', I am told, is elevated to a Sublime
Reality... That is, all traces of reality are eliminated from the
(re)presentation of the unpresentable. The concept is rescued by it's
'elevation.' The concept, it is stated, in and of itself, is inadequate to
represent reality. Sublime Reality is, thus, I am told, Hyper-Reality (in
postmoderist parlance).
What does all that mean? I have some idea, but I am not sure... Perhaps someone
could restate it for me.
So, with Modrian, what would the abovementioned 'Concept' be? Trees? or the
Abstraction of Trees? And with Malevich, what would the 'concept' be? Was he
after the Sublime itself with those squares?
Perhaps all I'm backwards-on are the mere terms. It can become confusing.
Perhaps my conception of some of these terms is not correct.
Serious responses only, please.
My Best Regards,
Pablo Secca
br...@wralaw.com
jpc...@aol.com (JPCeja) wrote:
> Hello:
> I just need help in grasping a term found in postmoderist lingo:
> that is, the concept of hyper-reality.
I'm dead serious when I say it probably describes nothing in
particular, the term was probably made up to be intriging.
Hyper-reality can describe a 4-D space, in physics space time
is described in these terms...
Here is a related example, though not exactly the same thing
which was up on another screen...(a closed expansive Universe
is described as being like a globe)
"One can give its metric in terms of coordinates, sigma, chi, theta and
phi. One can think of sigma, as an imaginary time coordinate, and chi,
theta and phi, as coordinates on a three sphere, that represents the
spatial size of the universe. Again, one starts at the north pole,
sigma =0, with a universe of zero spatial size, and expands up to a
maximum size at the equator, sigma = pi, over 2H. But we live in a
universe with a Lorentzian metric, like Minkowski space, not a
Euclidean, positive definite metric. " S. W. Hawking, from
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/hawking/open.html
> where I am confused: the 'concept', I am told, is elevated to a
Sublime
> Reality... That is, all traces of reality are eliminated from the
> (re)presentation of the unpresentable. The concept is rescued by it's
> 'elevation.' The concept, it is stated, in and of itself, is
inadequate to
> represent reality. Sublime Reality is, thus, I am told, Hyper-Reality
(in
> postmoderist parlance).
> What does all that mean? I have some idea, but I am not sure...
Perhaps someone
> could restate it for me.
Well verbally it isn't that clever, the use of the term sublime gives
a "underneath" term to the definition, hence hyporeality would
not be wrong. The term hyper- is henced used to give mondrian
some sense of superiority for not being able to paint a real tree
to save his life... But in a more moderate sense Mondrian is
attempting to paint some sort of abstraction that has the aesthetic
'tree' veiny, reaching, growing etc. -I formaly reject that this
aesthetic is possible since trees really don't have a monolithic
nor constant aesthetic nor essential aesthetic; However it is a
Idea worth Pursueing - what is the essential Idea tree?
In my mind PA, Pine trees do have the sense of a self-sustaining
self-replicating triangle, without something triangular I would not
recognize "qqc." as a "pine tree." However conversly a triangle
to me is not a tree, it therefore subscends both tree and pine.
Tree aesthetic? -this clearly varies from tree to tree and it
is ultimately weaker than the cultural meme 'tree' itself.
I would assume that the answere to this conundrum would be a
stick with a green-cloudish thing on the top, a B&W image would
probably need more "tree" detail to become a tree. The
interesting thing is how many different visual images become
"tree", everything from trees without leaves, to spaces where
one could not even see the individual "trees" -or maybe even
just the color of wood would suffice in some case.
> So, with Modrian, what would the abovementioned 'Concept' be? Trees?
or the
> Abstraction of Trees? And with Malevich, what would the 'concept' be?
Was he
> after the Sublime itself with those squares?
> Perhaps all I'm backwards-on are the mere terms. It can become
confusing.
> Perhaps my conception of some of these terms is not correct.
> Serious responses only, please.
> My Best Regards,
> Pablo Secca
Bryn
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Erik A. Mattila
I'm guessing that Lyotard wrote PMC around 1984 (the date of the Illinois
translation), but Umberto Eco wrote the original essay "travels in hyperreality"
in 1975 (later featured in his collected essays "Travels in Hyperreality" ca
1985). Since Lyotard pays a lot of attention to Eco in his writings, I would
guess if Lyotard uses that term, it is somehow related to Eco coinage.
What you are presenting here is a real mind twister - I just can't relate Eco's
term to issues of the sublime (and that's not to say it can't be done).
In Eco, the 'hyperreal' refers to our desire to create a reality that is 'better'
than the real thing - specifically he targets Disneyland. There's also an element
of Baudrillard's 'simulacra' in it - the endless repitition of something that has
no original. The TV 'spin-off' is a good example, all the subsequent Star Trek
spin-offs refer to the earlier ones. The "Friday 13th" movies refer to the
earlier renditions.
I would like to see where Lyotard uses 'hyperreal' in context (I have the book in
storage, otherwise I would look it up).
Here's a decent web page on Eco's "hyperreal' if you're interested.
http://www.transparencynow.com/eco.htm
As far as I know, this is representative of the use of the term in 'postmodernist
lingo.'
Erik Mattila
JPCeja wrote:
> Hello:
>
> I just need help in grasping a term found in postmoderist lingo: that is, the
> concept of hyper-reality.
> I was reading Jean-François Lyotard's work, 'The Postmodern Condition,' or,
> actually, I was remembering it in detail. Lyotard states, at one pont, that
> Kasimir Malevich, in 1915, 'presented the unrepresentable Sublime' when he
> painted a white square on a white background. (In 1919, Malevich seems to know
> very well what he was doing: he was conscious of it, as he writes somewhat
> grandly in the Manifesto of Suprematism.)
> What we can concieve of (such as the infinite) but not represent, is a
> definition of the Sublime. In a series of paintings, Pietro Mondrian made trees
> into abstract compositions of interconnecting, interweaving curved lines. He
> changed line and color to ones not really found in nature, deliberately purging
> all that was "illustration of reality."
> Mondrian and Malevich were working on the problems of representation. This is
> where I am confused: the 'concept', I am told, is elevated to a Sublime
> Reality... That is, all traces of reality are eliminated from the
> (re)presentation of the unpresentable. The concept is rescued by it's
> 'elevation.' The concept, it is stated, in and of itself, is inadequate to
> represent reality. Sublime Reality is, thus, I am told, Hyper-Reality (in
> postmoderist parlance).
> What does all that mean? I have some idea, but I am not sure... Perhaps someone
> could restate it for me.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D.
> > Hello:
>
> > I just need help in grasping a term found in postmoderist lingo:
> > that is, the concept of hyper-reality.
>
> particular, the term was probably made up to be intriging.
Can we state this more pithily:
"Hyperreality" is a form of hype.
>
> Hyper-reality can describe a 4-D space, in physics space time
> is described in these terms...
Are there any physicists out there who can help us understand
whether "4-D" space is "really" (whatever that may mean???) different
from 3 dimensional space, or whether it simply refers to
the coordinate vector space for doing calculations, and, e.g.,
I could change it to a "5-D space by adding (again, I am
picking one example out of many candidates:) Temperature,
such that the world is then seen as being in 5 dimensions:
X, Y, X, Time and Temperature ? Do physicists actually
intuit a *spatial* surround (in the commonplace sense, not some kind of
mathematical abstraction) manifold which requires more than three
basis vectors?
[snip]
> > What does all that mean? I have some idea, but I am not sure...
> Perhaps someone
> > could restate it for me.
>
> Well verbally it isn't that clever, the use of the term sublime gives
> a "underneath" term to the definition, hence hyporeality would
> not be wrong.
[snip]
I have coined the term: "Abwelt" for the social "space"
into which I was born. Such a less-than / crippled
"world" still has 3 spatial dimensions and one
[clock-]time dimension, but, in a way,
all measurements tend to give the same result, since everywhere is
pretty much the same as everywhere else (Of course the
*pain* dimension does still have a wide range of variance).
[snip]
Then there is "the other world" (or "other condition", as
Robert Musil frequently refers to it), which is this same
world, but experienced from the perspective of awareness
that it is constituted by us and is the "correlate" (Husserl) of
our conscious [world-creating] acts, rather than being
a homogenous, stolid pre-given lumpen. Better than
"hyper-reality" (which sounds like an infinite Charette!), this
reality might well be called: Leisure [which is the basis
of culture (--Josef Pieper)].
\brad mccormick
--
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bra...@cloud9.net
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
-------------------------------------------------------
<![%THINK;[XML]]> Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Alison A Raimes
<jpc...@aol.com> writes
>Hello:
>
>I just need help in grasping a term found in postmoderist lingo: that is, the
>concept of hyper-reality.
>actually, I was remembering it in detail. Lyotard states, at one pont, that
>Kasimir Malevich, in 1915, 'presented the unrepresentable Sublime' when he
>painted a white square on a white background. (In 1919, Malevich seems to know
>very well what he was doing: he was conscious of it, as he writes somewhat
>grandly in the Manifesto of Suprematism.)
>What we can concieve of (such as the infinite) but not represent, is a
>definition of the Sublime.
Hi Pablo: I think your last sentence above is a good spring board to
launch into the inquiry from. We *cannot* conceive the infinite, for
instance, anymore than we can perceive the *sublime* and this was the
cruz of Kant and Burke's work from which we have formed our now severely
corrupted *definition* of the term. There can be no definition, only an
ongoing inquiry in relation to the age we attempt it in, which has been
attempted before and will be attempted again.
Lyotard describes the Post Modern Sublime as a *gap* - an unspeakable
one that he compares to Auschwitz - both cannot be represented and both
speak unspeakable things in discourse - beyond normal experience. He
shows that the most common experience of *now* is in fact the most
uncommon - it is incomprehensible in terms of time-sequence events. That
sublime feeling is the feeling not of what happens but that anything
happens at all. Above all, Lyotard moves away from the mythologisation
of the idea of *spirituality* that has come to be synonymous with the
term and towards a new sensibility where there is an awareness of
unlimited experimentation and development of art as the deconstruction
of the natural.
>In a series of paintings, Pietro Mondrian made trees
>into abstract compositions of interconnecting, interweaving curved lines. He
>changed line and color to ones not really found in nature, deliberately purging
>all that was "illustration of reality."
>Mondrian and Malevich were working on the problems of representation. This is
>where I am confused: the 'concept', I am told, is elevated to a Sublime
>Reality... That is, all traces of reality are eliminated from the
>(re)presentation of the unpresentable. The concept is rescued by it's
>'elevation.' The concept, it is stated, in and of itself, is inadequate to
>represent reality. Sublime Reality is, thus, I am told, Hyper-Reality (in
>postmoderist parlance).
I sense a great deal of confusion connected with some rather ambiguous
terminology here. In an effort to unravel the knotted mass, it might be
interesting to consider what is NOT the sublime in art at this point -
as per Lyotard. It cannot be seen as a content-evoked *infinite*
presence, nor through magnitude or power as applied through artistic
terms. Nor can it be when the art is intended to *impress*, *touch*,
*frighten* or *elevate*. In other words, the artist cannot inflict the
feeling of the *sublime* on the viewer - the feeling must come
independently. That is part of the Kantian idea that the sublime is only
achieved through self-sufficiency and freedom. However, part of the
sublime feeling is directly connected with the feeling of fear and
Lyotard claims that a work of art brings *relief* and therefore deprives
us of the feeling. In _The Sublime and the Avant-garde_ he writes:
"the artist attempts combinations allowing the event. The art lover
does not experience a simple pleasure, or derive some ethical benefit
from his contact with art, but experiences an intensification of his
conceptual and emotional capacity, an ambivalent enjoyment".
The negative side of the sublime experience is seen by Lyotard as
displeasure. The positive is, for him, the idea that a work of art can
provide the viewer with a position in virtual space where the spectator
is invited to meet this *now* that makes up what Lyotard believes is the
Post Modern Sublime experience.
>What does all that mean? I have some idea, but I am not sure... Perhaps someone
>could restate it for me.
>So, with Modrian, what would the abovementioned 'Concept' be? Trees? or the
>Abstraction of Trees? And with Malevich, what would the 'concept' be? Was he
>after the Sublime itself with those squares?
>Perhaps all I'm backwards-on are the mere terms. It can become confusing.
>Perhaps my conception of some of these terms is not correct.
>
Malevich's terminology is problematic but basically both he and Mondrian
sought non-objectivety through art - rejection of mimetic and
representational imagery. Malevich does not, as is too often
misinterpreted, allude to *spirituality*, but rather to *nothing*. That
space in time and place that is inconceivable to the human mind and
which so many try to conquer - that silence that never happens. For both
of these artists the greatest artistic achievement can only be attained
when the work of art bears no relation to the existent. In so doing it
was imperative to reject all association with past art and to insist on
absolute detachment from all past aesthetic tendencies.
Please Email me if you would like to continue discussing this further.
Best regards.
--
Alison A Raimes
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Alison A Raimes
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>Pablo,
>I'm guessing that Lyotard wrote PMC around 1984 (the date of the Illinois
>translation),
I believe he wrote it in 1979.
mesken
<ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Malevich's terminology is problematic but basically both he and Mondrian
>sought non-objectivety through art - rejection of mimetic and
>representational imagery. Malevich does not, as is too often
>misinterpreted, allude to *spirituality*, but rather to *nothing*. That
>space in time and place that is inconceivable to the human mind and
>which so many try to conquer - that silence that never happens. For both
>of these artists the greatest artistic achievement can only be attained
>when the work of art bears no relation to the existent. In so doing it
>was imperative to reject all association with past art and to insist on
>absolute detachment from all past aesthetic tendencies.
>
I do not understand why Malevich and Mondriaan rejected mimetic and
representational art. Would it distract the onlooker? Bias him/her in
such a way the Sublime can't be experienced anymore?
When viewing Mondriaan's work I get a sense of balance in composition.
Malevich's work confronts me with high dynamics. Even though it's
obviously non representational, my perception will attach it to
meaning quite easily (Dan Fox stuff OTOH leaves me much more puzzled,
it's very neutral as opposed to Malevich and Modriaan, I don't know
what to make of it).
Isn't the Sublime just another perceptual level, one that is of a
higher organization? If this is the case then representational art can
just as well posses the Sublime even though on first looks it appears
to be something that just depicts something real.
br...@wralaw.com
"Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <bra...@cloud9.net> wrote:
> br...@wralaw.com wrote:
I x-posted to sci.physics so you could get a reply...
> > Hyper-reality can describe a 4-D space, in physics space time
> > is described in these terms...
> Are there any physicists out there who can help us understand
> whether "4-D" space is "really" (whatever that may mean???) different
> from 3 dimensional space, or whether it simply refers to
> the coordinate vector space for doing calculations, and, e.g.,
> I could change it to a "5-D space by adding (again, I am
> picking one example out of many candidates:) Temperature,
> such that the world is then seen as being in 5 dimensions:
> X, Y, X, Time and Temperature ?
What I meant to imply is that the term hyper-reality can denote
a 4-D space, famous 4-d objects are often prefixed as hyper, IE.
Hyper-sphere, hypercube, etc. Thats how I've heard the term used
and mostly in reference to Art. A physicist might call it a
hyperspace, instead.
Duchamp, of all people, covers this Idea in his writing and Art.
Salvadore Dali also attempts to paint some 4-D objects, in 2-D.
> Do physicists actually
> intuit a *spatial* surround (in the commonplace sense, not some kind
of
> mathematical abstraction) manifold which requires more than three
> basis vectors?
Theoretically there are superstrings that exist no less than 10
spacial dimensions. Therefore a real 4th dimension is either
true or false, not theoretically excluded entirely.
> [snip]
> > > What does all that mean? I have some idea, but I am not sure...
> > Perhaps someone
> > > could restate it for me.
> > Well verbally it isn't that clever, the use of the term sublime
gives
> > a "underneath" term to the definition, hence hyporeality would
> > not be wrong.
> [snip]
> I have coined the term: "Abwelt" for the social "space"
> into which I was born. Such a less-than / crippled
> "world" still has 3 spatial dimensions and one
> [clock-]time dimension, but, in a way,
> all measurements tend to give the same result, since everywhere is
> pretty much the same as everywhere else (Of course the
> *pain* dimension does still have a wide range of variance).
Is pleasure a negative *pain* coordinate? And are varying kinds
of negative *pain* described by expanding the square root of
negative pain such that laughter or ecstatic emotions can perhaps
be described as imaginary *pain* in such a sense that
ecstacy is -imaginary pain and comedy is positive imaginary
*pain*? Or am I way of base hear? Just reading in something
that isn't there?
> [snip]
> Then there is "the other world" (or "other condition", as
> Robert Musil frequently refers to it), which is this same
> world, but experienced from the perspective of awareness
> that it is constituted by us and is the "correlate" (Husserl) of
> our conscious [world-creating] acts, rather than being
> a homogenous, stolid pre-given lumpen. Better than
> "hyper-reality" (which sounds like an infinite Charette!), this
> reality might well be called: Leisure [which is the basis
> of culture (--Josef Pieper)].
Leisure the basis of Culture!
> \brad mccormick
Bryn Ayers
JPCeja
>hyperreality"
>in 1975 (later featured in his collected essays "Travels in Hyperreality" ca
>1985). Since Lyotard pays a lot of attention to Eco in his writings, I would
>guess if Lyotard uses that term, it is somehow related to Eco coinage.
I do think that I'm coming to a closer understanding of this "hyper-reality,"
although I do not think that the term is hollow, silly, or errant in
esotericism.
It seems to me that maybe it has to do with a sense-- an essence.
In Modrian's case, a tree-- 'treeness'. That, and maybe an allusion (if that 's
not too weak) or attachment (if that's not too moderate) or foundation (if
that's not too strong) to the Infinite, the endless which we can capt but not
really present or represent, that is, the Sublime (capitalized to indicate the
concept).
Is there somthing else, do you think?
Is there an aesthetic at work? In abstraction: form, line, color-- but here,
Mondrian stated that it was not enough for the lines of the abstraction to be
unique in his painting, unique from nature, that is, detached from all
'organicism,' but it was also necessary for the color and lines to be "composed
otherwise than in nature." Was Mondrian adding thiis aesthetic pursuit,
'exploring' colors, forms, shapes, lines, etc to complete a hyper-reality?
>What you are presenting here is a real mind twister - I just can't relate
>Eco's
>term to issues of the sublime (and that's not to say it can't be done).
I have to admit here that I am not as familiar with Eco as I am with Lyotard.
>In Eco, the 'hyperreal' refers to our desire to create a reality that is
>'better'
>than the real thing - specifically he targets Disneyland. There's also an
>element
>of Baudrillard's 'simulacra' in it - the endless repitition of something that
>has
>no original. The TV 'spin-off' is a good example, all the subsequent Star
>Trek
>spin-offs refer to the earlier ones. The "Friday 13th" movies refer to the
>earlier renditions.
Well, now the stew thickens.. I don't know where to begin. Perhaps with
Baudrillard:
I don't think that there's "just an element", as you stated. I think that the
simulacrum is a big part of it. The Simulacrum is reached in four steps:
1. the Reflection a basic reality of the image or entity
2. the Masking and Perversion of that basic reality
3. the point where the basic reality disappears, that is, the Absence of the
basric reality, yet there is still an attachment to reality in general
4. and the Simulacrum, where all reality has vanished, and it is for itself, it
is its own, pure, Simulacrum.
At the end, we have reached this 'Hyper-reality," where the image can multiply
('incestuously', one of my books says) without any attachment to reality and
with no meaning, whatsoever. Reality is nullified.
"Reality today has totally penetrated art," Baudrillard would say. Of course,
if you put a close ear to postmodern thought then language is an arbitrary
collection of signs whose relation to 'truth' is doubtful. This would seem to
draw doubt to much of the above.
Didn't the American Pragmatists say that knowledge like this has to have 'cash
value' as a proof and measure?
But, getting back....
>Baudrillard's 'simulacra'..... - the endless repitition of something that
>has
>no original. The TV 'spin-off' is a good example, all the subsequent Star
>Trek
>spin-offs refer to the earlier ones. The "Friday 13th" movies refer to the
>earlier renditions.
I have always understood simulacra to be, by definition, some thing that has
lost its connection to whetever it is evoked its creation. I am unsure whether
or not to accept your examples of television spin-offs.
Here's something hellishly interesting that you might want to consider: Matter
of fact, it might resolve the issue (at least this tiny part, at least for me).
If there is a 'real postmodernism,' then there are three items, three ideas in
it:
Reproductibility (Walter Benjamin [in the 30's, I think] thought that
mechanized reproduction was going to be the end of that 'aura' and
'specialness' of original works of art-- that is, "I own a poster of Starry
Night, the one in the Museum of Modern Art is much less of a thrill." Of
course, the opposite, more or less, happened-- because Van Gogh is, really,
such a reproduced cliché, a poster on so many average walls that the work that
hangs in MoMA is now worth a great lot, most likely inflated beyond what it's
significance is in, say, art-history.)
Consumerism ( A new aura-- why people would buy a Coca-Cola poster from the
twenties, or an art-deco lamp, or one of Marilyn Monroe's personal items at
Sotheby's... They have already been lived-- there only remains that
'cannibalized' image. It's either a nostalgia value [the Coke poster] or some
residue of the relic [a framed chunk of the Berlin Wall].)
Legitimation (this one has more to do with the art world, directly... But the
question here is whose taste decides what's what? If we, in these postmodern
times, are working without rules in order to recognize what we've done, who
will recognize what we've done?)
It will be interesting to see what effect digital art will have on the
postmodern world and those three aspects, if digital art does rise to
prominence. (I am very confident it will rise-- as surely as a man with lust.)
Best Regards,
Pablo Secca
Erik A. Mattila
> >I'm guessing that Lyotard wrote PMC around 1984 (the date of the Illinois
> >translation), but Umberto Eco wrote the original essay "travels in
> >hyperreality"
> >in 1975 (later featured in his collected essays "Travels in Hyperreality" ca
> >1985). Since Lyotard pays a lot of attention to Eco in his writings, I would
> >guess if Lyotard uses that term, it is somehow related to Eco coinage.
>
> I do think that I'm coming to a closer understanding of this "hyper-reality,"
> although I do not think that the term is hollow, silly, or errant in
> esotericism.
> It seems to me that maybe it has to do with a sense-- an essence.
> In Modrian's case, a tree-- 'treeness'. That, and maybe an allusion (if that 's
> not too weak) or attachment (if that's not too moderate) or foundation (if
> that's not too strong) to the Infinite, the endless which we can capt but not
> really present or represent, that is, the Sublime (capitalized to indicate the
> concept).
> Is there somthing else, do you think?
Well, yes, that's what Disneyland has always been for me. (joking)
> Is there an aesthetic at work? In abstraction: form, line, color-- but here,
> Mondrian stated that it was not enough for the lines of the abstraction to be
> unique in his painting, unique from nature, that is, detached from all
> 'organicism,' but it was also necessary for the color and lines to be "composed
> otherwise than in nature." Was Mondrian adding thiis aesthetic pursuit,
> 'exploring' colors, forms, shapes, lines, etc to complete a hyper-reality?
I can go along with that. If we start from the proposition that painting was
about representing the 'real' and it evolved/devolved into representing painting -
that would go right along with my understanding of the term 'hyperreality.' So
it's a second order reality, or a reality about reality.
The Greeks proposed the golden mean to be the underlying geometry of nature and
art. So when art no longer is about nature, it is reasonable to seek other
aesthetic ideas to define this new terrain. If Mondrian was looking at 'painting'
and searching for an 'aesthetic of painting' rather than adding to the already
established conventions of the 'aesthetics of nature' that aesthetic would be as
fresh as the paintings that expressed it.
> Well, now the stew thickens.. I don't know where to begin. Perhaps with
> Baudrillard:
> I don't think that there's "just an element", as you stated. I think that the
> simulacrum is a big part of it. The Simulacrum is reached in four steps:
>
> 1. the Reflection a basic reality of the image or entity
> 2. the Masking and Perversion of that basic reality
> 3. the point where the basic reality disappears, that is, the Absence of the
> basric reality, yet there is still an attachment to reality in general
> 4. and the Simulacrum, where all reality has vanished, and it is for itself, it
> is its own, pure, Simulacrum.
Excellent. Thanks for writing this down. Yes, the terms 'simulacra' and
'hypperreal' almost seem the same, but I think 'hyperreal,' at least as Eco uses
it, points to the social manifestation and 'simulacra' points to the objects
themselves. (this could be a pointless distinction - I haven't really thought it
through).
> At the end, we have reached this 'Hyper-reality," where the image can multiply
> ('incestuously', one of my books says) without any attachment to reality and
> with no meaning, whatsoever. Reality is nullified.
"incestuously' or 'asexually.' Maybe it's the collapse of the dialectic itself.
The 'synthesis' no longer requires the 'thesis' to act upon the 'antithesis', or
visa versa, as it can just be reproduced by virtue of it's own generative powers.
> "Reality today has totally penetrated art," Baudrillard would say. Of course,
> if you put a close ear to postmodern thought then language is an arbitrary
> collection of signs whose relation to 'truth' is doubtful. This would seem to
> draw doubt to much of the above.
Doubt is good. But it would only "draw doubt on the above" if you were interested
in truth in the first place. My understanding of the entire concept of
'postmodern' as a social historical category is that it is a demarkation point
which documents the collapse of totalizing ideologies. In my view, truth systems
belong to totalizing ideologies.
> Didn't the American Pragmatists say that knowledge like this has to have 'cash
> value' as a proof and measure?
> But, getting back....
Ditto
> I have always understood simulacra to be, by definition, some thing that has
> lost its connection to whetever it is evoked its creation. I am unsure whether
> or not to accept your examples of television spin-offs.
But you have provided a good test with the four steps to simulacra. Let's try it
out:
1. the Reflection a basic reality of the image or entity
The original Star Trek was science fiction, and in its time and place was good
social criticism, which what we expect from science fiction.
2. the Masking and Perversion of that basic reality
The second Star Trek was a critique of the original. Can Piccard successfully
fill in Kirk's shoes, can the first officer (I can't remember his name) fill in
Spocks, can Geordie(?) fill in for Scotty? If the original refered to our
social lives, what does this next refer to. It's as if the original became the
'object' for the second.
3. the point where the basic reality disappears, that is, the Absence of the
basric reality, yet there is still an attachment to reality in general
The third generation has these qualties. The original 'actants' are abandoned
altogether, yet there is an element the social left - how people interact within a
space station, with a lot of racial motifs played out in the inter-species arena.
4. and the Simulacrum, where all reality has vanished, and it is for itself, it
is its own, pure, Simulacrum.
I think the pure simulacrum comes with the Star Trek fandom. Probably the only
reason we don't have a Star Trek Theme Park to enjoy is because of copyrites and
intellectual property.
Well, that's my meisly attempt. But another author who writes about spin-offs is
Angela McRobbie, who follows Eco pretty closely. She defines this as a
specifically 'post-modern' feature, and uses the term 'self-referenciality' which
comes close to the 'incestuousness' that you have used.
> Here's something hellishly interesting that you might want to consider: Matter
> of fact, it might resolve the issue (at least this tiny part, at least for me).
> If there is a 'real postmodernism,' then there are three items, three ideas in
> it:
Oh, Boy. Hellish. Blast on, my friend.
> Reproductibility (Walter Benjamin [in the 30's, I think] thought that
> mechanized reproduction was going to be the end of that 'aura' and
> 'specialness' of original works of art-- that is, "I own a poster of Starry
> Night, the one in the Museum of Modern Art is much less of a thrill." Of
> course, the opposite, more or less, happened-- because Van Gogh is, really,
> such a reproduced cliché, a poster on so many average walls that the work that
> hangs in MoMA is now worth a great lot, most likely inflated beyond what it's
> significance is in, say, art-history.)
>
> Consumerism ( A new aura-- why people would buy a Coca-Cola poster from the
> twenties, or an art-deco lamp, or one of Marilyn Monroe's personal items at
> Sotheby's... They have already been lived-- there only remains that
> 'cannibalized' image. It's either a nostalgia value [the Coke poster] or some
> residue of the relic [a framed chunk of the Berlin Wall].)
Or buy the Van Gogh photmechanical reproduction. But I have a piece of the Berlin
Wall myself. This isn't infinitely reproducable. There's only so much concrete
to divide up.
> Legitimation (this one has more to do with the art world, directly... But the
> question here is whose taste decides what's what? If we, in these postmodern
> times, are working without rules in order to recognize what we've done, who
> will recognize what we've done?)
Personally, I don't think that the postmodern terrain is rule-less. The rules
have just changed. Again, they are not 'grand rules' like "A good communist
doesn't smoke imperialist cigarettes" but a lot of fragmented, local rules, like
"always locate yourself at the edge of a political demonstration, so you can
escape sideways." Postmodern rules require cunning.
Reproducablilty, Consummerism and Legitimization. Hmmm. I sense a disjunction
here. "Legitimization" as you have defined it, doesn't seem to fit with the first
two. Yep, it is hellish. I think we have to chart two geneaologies here, one
belonging to the Art World, and the other to Pop Culture. Both could incorporate
the three issues you've raised, but in different ways, and different magnitudes.
If you want to attempt to chart these out, I'm game.
> It will be interesting to see what effect digital art will have on the
> postmodern world and those three aspects, if digital art does rise to
> prominence. (I am very confident it will rise-- as surely as a man with lust.)
Good observation. I recently inquired about doing an Iris print with a local
company, and I had no material 'work of art' to reproduce, but just a computer
file. Immediate stumbling block. The company needed a physical representation in
order to do their color correction proccess. They required a grounding. Since I
had no physical object, no one knew what to do. So here it is, the 'state of the
art' of digital reproduction technology, and unable to perform in the context of
the cyber-hyperreality of art without an original - worrying about lawsuits,
guarantees, and these others gremlins of commerce.
Nice post, Pablo
Erik
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Pablo Secca
Alison A Raimes
<usu...@euronet.nl> writes
>I do not understand why Malevich and Mondriaan rejected mimetic and
>representational art. Would it distract the onlooker? Bias him/her in
>such a way the Sublime can't be experienced anymore?
Mondrian's work was clearly formalist in its progression into
abstraction - there is no evidence anywhere that he sought to convey the
idea of the sublime and I think his inclusion into this debate is a sign
of how we have become entangled in the sticky web of post-modern
theorising. There can only be one fate under those conditions.
Malevich did, however, have a specific agenda in his work that was based
on the move away from representation towards the idea of art that had no
relation to the existent. So in that sense he did see imagery as an
obstacle.
"But the image is something which has to be overcome, because the image
is a horizon which impedes my gaze and consequently there is something
in it which retards my progress, it is not transparent, but nor is it
solid, obstructing the entrance into a sightless world where *I* and the
*wasteland* will exist"
Malevich, _The World as Non-Objectivety_ 1922-25
>
>When viewing Mondriaan's work I get a sense of balance in composition.
>Malevich's work confronts me with high dynamics. Even though it's
>obviously non representational, my perception will attach it to
>meaning quite easily (Dan Fox stuff OTOH leaves me much more puzzled,
>it's very neutral as opposed to Malevich and Modriaan, I don't know
>what to make of it).
In placing Malevich work in its historical context it is easy to see
that his work has no reference to any previous artistic styles or
aesthetic tendencies. It radically differed from any other avant-garde
modernist movement. In contrast to Constructivism, where the artwork
was primarily the object, Suprematism denied any value in the piece of
art. He urged his fellow Suprematists: "try not to repeat yourselves
either in icon or in picture or in words. If something in your action
reminds you of something you have done in the past, the voice of new
birth tells me: wipe it off, remain silent; put it out quickly if it is
fire, so that the hems of your thoughts will grow lighter and will not
rusty." It was a call for the NEW.
When you look at works of artists where there is clearly reference to
artistic tendencies today - where, like Dan's work, they imitate styles
and adopt them as their own with no clear agenda, the pleasure of the
aesthetics of work that you know to belong to another era, where the
impulse is mimetic, tends to unnerve - hence your feeling of neutrality
in the work. The repetition of icons (in Dan's case the consistent
reference to the works of other artists like Tapies and Kline) does not
satisfy our demand for the new - for individuality - for authenticity.
On the other hand, for many there is a certain pleasure in being able to
identify new work with a historical artistic past.
>
>Isn't the Sublime just another perceptual level, one that is of a
>higher organization? If this is the case then representational art can
>just as well posses the Sublime even though on first looks it appears
>to be something that just depicts something real.
>
What do you mean by *higher organisation* ? It really depends what you
believe the Sublime to be. In this thread there are three different
approaches going on - one scientific; one philosophical; and one
theoretical. Each has its place in the debate and only confirms that it
is almost impossible to identify a definition of the term. That is what
fascinates me.
Cheers !
--
Alison
mark webber
(snip)
> > Reproductibility (Walter Benjamin [in the 30's, I think] thought that
> > mechanized reproduction was going to be the end of that 'aura' and
> > 'specialness' of original works of art-- that is, "I own a poster of Starry
> > Night, the one in the Museum of Modern Art is much less of a thrill." Of
> > course, the opposite, more or less, happened-- because Van Gogh is, really,
> > such a reproduced cliché, a poster on so many average walls that the work that
> > hangs in MoMA is now worth a great lot, most likely inflated beyond what it's
> > significance is in, say, art-history.)
I think it's true that reproductions have sapped the experience of looking
at originals. Reproductions do act as advertisements for a product that
isn't often for sale, so there is a greater familiarity. But the
experience of looking at the thing itself is hampered.
There is a guy in rec.travel.europe who, a couple of years ago, began
writing detailed articles abpout the individual arrondisements
(neighborhoods) of Paris. The other readers found them very informative at
first, and someone suggested he set up a web site collecting them. The
unfortunate thing is that the web site has photos of things like the
stained glass in Sainte Chapelle and reproductions of paintings. Many
travlers don't like to see photos - they want to experience the real
thing, in
person. This well intentioned guy may not understand that he has
sapped the experence, for some - maybe for everyone who sees the images -
by including them.
(This is one reason I prefer guidebooks without pictures. I try to avoid
the "yep, there it is, exactly as it appears in my book, here"
experience.)
But my point is that while *commerce* certainly isn't hurt - value
inflation, poster sales, publicity, etc - I think art appreciation
suffers. Art objects are reproduced, become souvenirs, trophies rather
than an experience to linger over.
> >
> > Consumerism ( A new aura-- why people would buy a Coca-Cola poster from the
> > twenties, or an art-deco lamp, or one of Marilyn Monroe's personal items at
> > Sotheby's... They have already been lived-- there only remains that
> > 'cannibalized' image. It's either a nostalgia value [the Coke poster] or some
> > residue of the relic [a framed chunk of the Berlin Wall].)
Exactly, and I'm not saying that consumerism and nostalgia aren't
interesting - I am saying, however, that at one time it was easier to
distinguish *why* a certain thing was deemed worthy of collecting - or
even looking at. I think these distinctions are blurred when a postcard of
Michelangelo's David is sold side by side with a post card of a Coke can.
This, of course, was Warhol's point - but that doesn't make it more
palatable for me, and I certainly don't think we're better off.
Being unable or unwilling to distinguish between great art and kitsch is
not a terrific position. My opinion, of course.
>
> > Legitimation (this one has more to do with the art world, directly... But the
> > question here is whose taste decides what's what? If we, in these postmodern
> > times, are working without rules in order to recognize what we've done, who
> > will recognize what we've done?)
If criteria have truly been suspended by some people, that can't and won't
prevent the return of the criteria. I think at least a small portion of
"tastemakers" have used very similar criteria for centuries. It is rather
presumptuous to think that the present generation has the power to remove
something that durable for ever.
(snipping to Erik)
>
> Reproducablilty, Consummerism and Legitimization. Hmmm. I sense a disjunction
> here. "Legitimization" as you have defined it, doesn't seem to fit with the first
> two. Yep, it is hellish. I think we have to chart two geneaologies here, one
> belonging to the Art World, and the other to Pop Culture. Both could incorporate
> the three issues you've raised, but in different ways, and different magnitudes.
> If you want to attempt to chart these out, I'm game.
I would enjoy seeing this too.
best,
Mark
br...@wralaw.com
jpc...@aol.com (JPCeja) wrote:
> I do think that I'm coming to a closer understanding of this "hyper-
reality,"
> although I do not think that the term is hollow, silly, or errant in
> esotericism.
How do you understand a term that as far as you know may be
an esoteric joke? Let me point out that it is clear to me
from what you wrote that you aren't sure. It is also clear
that you have given definitions that form contradictions.
To me it far dumber to follow a word that you do not know
the definition of as fact than to not know that definition.
Most artistic terms even if defined remain debatable as fact,
consider for instance that the truth of terms in other
fields like "god" or "superstring" remain debatable after
they have been defined.
I have no vested interest in you finding some sort of truth
here if it your nature to follow some sort of pretention it
might as well be postmodernism.
> It seems to me that maybe it has to do with a sense-- an essence.
> In Modrian's case, a tree-- 'treeness'. That, and maybe an allusion
>(if that 's
> not too weak) or attachment (if that's not too moderate) or
>foundation (if
> that's not too strong) to the Infinite, the endless which we can capt
>but not
> really present or represent, that is, the Sublime (capitalized to
>indicate the
> concept).
> Is there somthing else, do you think?
> Is there an aesthetic at work? In abstraction: form, line, color--
>but here,
I think my other post pretty much explains it. The Idea is neither
true nor false, profound nor too trite. With say a row of reads
we see a number of parallel lines, when can perhaps emulate that
by painting a number of parallel lines with certain colors and
a certain thickness and certain hues, if the attraction is to
the parallel lines and not the rest of the 2-d representation
on the retina, then a picture of just parallel lines will
suffice(but parallel lines will never encapsulate all possible
abstractions-which is the flaw of Mondrians reasoning).
As I stated the category "tree" is too vast to be represented
by any single abstraction device, -I think we could prove
this with photographs and a computer. I think using the
term "aesthetic" of "tree" is at this point confusing and
perhaps a red-herring.
br...@wralaw.com
> launch into the inquiry from. We *cannot* conceive the infinite, for
> instance, anymore than we can perceive the *sublime* and this was the
> cruz of Kant and Burke's work from which we have formed our now
severely
> corrupted *definition* of the term. There can be no definition, only
an
> ongoing inquiry in relation to the age we attempt it in, which has
been
> attempted before and will be attempted again.
I think from a Mathmatical/Logical standpoint such concepts are
derived from axioms and increasingly(exponentially) vast simulations
thereof. There are several Geometric patters by Escher that
start a pattern of the infinite, Escher obviously stops these
patterns on a small nearly invisible scale, but the Idea is there.
Conversly reality is maybe both so extremely vast that it
transcends our ideal conceptions of infinite and is universally
finite(but not defined) on an extremely grand scale.
> Lyotard describes the Post Modern Sublime as a *gap* - an unspeakable
> one that he compares to Auschwitz - both cannot be represented and
I'm curious as to why Leotards definition of "sublime" is given
precedence over the dictionary... They don't seem to differ much.
This also seems to be much of the atmosphere of recent artspeak.
And why the reference to Auschwitz?
> That
> sublime feeling is the feeling not of what happens but that anything
> happens at all. Above all, Lyotard moves away from the mythologisation
> of the idea of *spirituality* that has come to be synonymous with the
> term and towards a new sensibility where there is an awareness of
> unlimited experimentation and development of art as the deconstruction
> of the natural.
mexi
> > > Hello:
> >
> > > I just need help in grasping a term found in postmoderist lingo:
> > > that is, the concept of hyper-reality.
> >
> > particular, the term was probably made up to be intriging.
>
> Can we state this more pithily:
>
> "Hyperreality" is a form of hype.
>
> >
> > is described in these terms...
>
> Are there any physicists out there who can help us understand
> whether "4-D" space is "really" (whatever that may mean???) different
> from 3 dimensional space, or whether it simply refers to
> the coordinate vector space for doing calculations, and, e.g.,
> I could change it to a "5-D space by adding (again, I am
> picking one example out of many candidates:) Temperature,
> such that the world is then seen as being in 5 dimensions:
> intuit a *spatial* surround (in the commonplace sense, not some kind of
> mathematical abstraction) manifold which requires more than three
> basis vectors?
snip
4D space ... interesting example ... video still frame on screen 2D
(ignoring the monitor) ..play the tape 3D.... images moving though time
.... send the vision via satelite
to london radio waves moving though time 4D ..... if the return circuit
is open and signal is returned as soon as it is received the delay
between the two sent and received(function of speed of light /distance
) is in which dimensions as it zips though space forever one running 1/2
second ahead of the other ?????? or is it a case of nothing exisits
unless someone is there to hear -see- record -notice the spatial
differential
Tomi Holmberg
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does
not become a monster. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss
also looks into you"
~Frederick Wilhelm Nietzche~
... the more you taste your mind, the ticker the ice gets; otherwise
you have to hang in terms of Kant, Jung, whatever.. BUT then you never
get any deeper than just meaningless 'words'; alphabetical groups;
which also means 'it's waste of time' for true seekers of sublime.
welcome, psychosis :)
"A warrior has but one objective- to destroy the enemy by whatever
means neccessary" ~Miyamoto Musashi~
Alison A Raimes
>I think from a Mathmatical/Logical standpoint such concepts are
>derived from axioms and increasingly(exponentially) vast simulations
>thereof. There are several Geometric patters by Escher that
>start a pattern of the infinite, Escher obviously stops these
>patterns on a small nearly invisible scale, but the Idea is there.
I'll have to take your word on the mathematical standpoint - its all
double Dutch to me. As to the *Idea* of the Infinite there are many ways
the *Idea* is proposed, but there is no real way that the human mind can
conceive it - there will always be doubt because there can never be
proof. That is always a problem to the rational mind. When Escher
renders infinity, or Friedrich paints the sublime, they are presenting
their *idea* as part of the discourse that makes up what we know as Art
- but they are not *proving* it.
>I'm curious as to why Leotards definition of "sublime" is given
>precedence over the dictionary... They don't seem to differ much.
Is it given precedence ? Certainly not in philosophical terms. On the
contrary, Lyotard is a philosopher/theorist who describes present day
culture in terms of an unsolvable pluralism. This, for him, is a
liberation. Where there is heterogeneity of genres then one dominant
way of writing, thinking, or speaking over another is prevented from
creating a hierarchy. In this way we open the doors to new thinking -
and as we now know, a lot of confused verbalising based on unclear
guidelines and distorted meaning.
>
>This also seems to be much of the atmosphere of recent artspeak.
>
>And why the reference to Auschwitz?
Auschwitz has been cited as the twentieth century *gap* by Lyotard as
the unspeakable point in discourse - the word causes disruption in our
dialogues because of the respect that we have for it as the moment in
humanity where we faced our true capabilities as *rational* (irrational)
beings. It is a place that represents a moment in our civilisation that
will forever lie at the surface of humanity - where our references to it
cause shivers up the spine - the most inconceivable, incomprehensible
and unspeakable occurrence in Western History performed by human beings
which we feel compelled to conceive, comprehend and speak of. Lyotard
rejects this possibility. _Shindler's List_, for instance, has been
criticised because the Holocaust cannot be faithfully represented in the
way that Spielberg does and an attempt to do so is seen as misleading.
All of Lyotard's *gaps* cannot be faithfully represented and he writes
that they should be respected rather than conquered - they include
infinity; silence; nothing; and the sublime. In that sense an artist
cannot render any of those ideas they can only open the dialogue without
imposing their *idea* as absolute. The question then follows as to
whether or not a work of art can do that.
James Whitehead
>Are there any physicists out there who can help us understand
>whether "4-D" space is "really" (whatever that may mean???) different
>from 3 dimensional space, or whether it simply refers to
>the coordinate vector space for doing calculations, and, e.g.,
>I could change it to a "5-D space by adding (again, I am
>picking one example out of many candidates:) Temperature,
>such that the world is then seen as being in 5 dimensions:
>X, Y, X, Time and Temperature ? Do physicists actually
>intuit a *spatial* surround (in the commonplace sense, not some kind of
>mathematical abstraction) manifold which requires more than three
>basis vectors?
some use 'phase space' where every particle has a time line- so there as
many dimensions as needed for each particle - i think they have problems
then relating this to the QM wave function - though particle like things
can occur from superimposing waves- and they can appear to move, this
still (the particle space model) has old classical ideas - of space, if
you *imagine a single particle moving in space* you have imagined the
impossible, you need two particles - or perhaps three to begin
constructing space, in the first experiment you acted like a god -
created a space and watched the particle move across it relative to you.
This is not only suspect - i.e. basing your physics on a belief in god,
but in the macroscoptic universe this doesn't hold, there's another
(famous) thought experiment...
Its night i'm standing half way between two houses when i see *both
houses switch on their lights at the same time* meanwhile above you fly
in an aircraft in a direction moving from the first house to the second-
- you will see one house light come on slightly before the other. Others
moving in differing directions and speed will report differing times..
now it follows each person carries with them there own terms of
reference- and each is as valid as the other...
but what if i observe person in house *a* telephoning person in house
*b* who then shoots the person in house *a*, could there be a frame of
reference for someone who sees the shooting then the telephone call?
--
James Whitehead