Just giving myself a moment of distraction while reading Adorno's Metaphysics: Concepts and Problems. He has it that all concepts initially arise as abstractions from matter, and therefor, concepts refer to the residual material world - the two are tied, and when we conceptualise, conceptualising does not occur at the cost of the material it supersedes (idealism) but is in fact a result of the material. Things, materiality, the natural, particularities and that which changes, are accordingly elevated by this schema, without our schema merely replacing those things' materiality with another set of concepts. The material is left to exist as material, whilst not being relegated to an inferior status in relation to the immutability of concepts.
These images come from a recent trip to HMS Belfast on the river Thames in London. I managed to utterly fail at learning anything about the ship and its life at war, nor much about the lives of the men who lived and worked in it. I did get very excited about the fixtures though and took a lot of photos that I'm excited to work on. In this philosophical dualism of form and content, I wonder at the role of photography. Does the camera impose a form upon the matter? And where is the matter - in the material of objects' physical makeup, or in their relationships to human activity? I like this thought that the concept refers to its material content - it is as if the form of these objects bring with them the memory of the industry and functionality of the warship.
The title "things-in-themselves" can be go in two directions. On the one hand the matter as in-itself which expresses itself in concepts and extending itself in the concept as its reality; concepts which submit themselves to the fragile dialectic to derive their reality from the originary matter. All of it refers to the literal idea of the abstract, to draw out, also the empiricists sense of fade out. But one must wonder if it remains within Kantianism or not.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand the image as the thing itself which tantalizingly retains a Kantian atmosphere especially when we think of Cassirer. But even for Kant image retains a difficult freedom. Which is why "the camera impose a form upon the matter". It frees itself from its matter by framing, composition. That is, the image (referring to your work) produces its own space and not necessarily the space of its history--not any more "about the ship and its life at war" but "about the fixtures".
This separation, reconfiguration of regions of space, sensuality of gut like wires is perhaps a reality that the image alone can possess. There are resemblances. But how far do they go? In these two images one can see the freedom of the matter of the image and not the abstracted image.
But a certain feeling always surrounds art "it is as if the form of these objects bring with them the memory of the industry and functionality of the warship". This feeling of course is free. One can also go to the Alien series with them, another future, another past.
They are extraordinarily beautiful.
And never liked "who are you?".
I find myself liking the idea that "the image produces its own space and not necessarily the space of its history," as the images seem then to exist or be complete for themselves, which seems a kind of success. But it's problematic too, in that the social aspect of the work is less secure. I think this is a wider problem within the field of aesthetics and especially formalist works (whereby the shapes - forms - seem to take precedent, despite 'form' not needing to always mean 'the shape'), and anything which manages to be beautiful. If politics are part of the intention, then the objects which are being photographed need to be perceived as being firmly entwined with the human, social, historical sphere. The freedom of images to exist outside of mundane and historical is a difficult one; freedom, in this context seems to suggest a lack of politics, which would be an interesting point to raise with a political philosopher. Of course, I could just leave the politics to look after itself...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the compliment regarding the work.
I ask who are you because I think 'anonymous' has turned into a cover that leaves me forever on the back foot, being lead around by your suggestions and I don't like it. It's more polite to introduce yourself. But thanks as ever for the comments.
Politics is certainly not some other thing, another domain. It does look after itself and the looking of this after is us as well. But it will take such a long while to say something about art and politics. There are those who manage it with their art or certain philosophers who manage it in a few words. The problematic is something you have said "entwined with the human, social, historical sphere".
ReplyDeleteSorry about the annoyance caused, not the intention in anyway. As I said earlier I'm just one of your tweet followers and you can follow me back. But I haven't figured out how this thing twitter works to be able to send a hello. Thats the truth!
Aha. Well that's ok then. It's easy with twitter - find me (BecomingFish), click on my profile and on the right there should be a little envelope which you can use to send a message. Then I'll follow you. I am however rarely on twitter these days so I am not much of a follower!
ReplyDeleteDone glookin
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