Art Forms - Relations to Space and Time

Use this forum to have philosophical discussions about aesthetics and art. What is art? What is beauty? What makes art good? You can also use this forum to discuss philosophy in the arts, namely to discuss the philosophical points in any particular movie, TV show, book or story.
Post Reply
User avatar
Burning ghost
Posts: 3065
Joined: February 27th, 2016, 3:10 am

Art Forms - Relations to Space and Time

Post by Burning ghost »

Through various artistic means the artist creates something - be it “poor” or “rich” in subjective/objective value - to some/many/all in various degrees due to individual taste and aesthetic sensibilities. The act of artistry in this way produces an “artifact” - a product of the artistic endeavor. The muscian produces “a song”, the painter “a painting”, the photographer “a photograph, and so on.

These items are of some magnitude. My concern here is with the comparative magnitudes through “time” and “space” with each medium of art - that is not merely the physical magnitude, but the human experience of the art temporally and spatially.

For example if we take “a photograph”. This is clearly not a item that stretches across time. It is an instant captured. Whilst on the other hand we can think of some movie we’ve seen recently and quite obviously understand it as being drawn out across time not experienced in a single instant.

My observation here shouldn’t be anything extraordinary I hope. I hope we can all see that experiencing every musical note in an instant would render a musical composition meaningless. For these briefly outlined reasons I am proposing that art that manifests itself in an instant (such as a photograph, sculpture, or painting) aims to essentially have the viewer of the “artifact” stretch the instant out across time from a singular instant captured in space, whilst at the other pole works that span temporal experience (films, poems, novels or musical compositions) aim to essentially bring the viewer to compress the experience into one instant.

The “photograph” is meant to be taken as positioned in time and thought of in reference to the past and future, whereas the “play” is meant to be taken as a stretch of time with a beginning, middle and end, that is to be captured in a singular position in time once the performace is over.

If you can bolster this idea do so. If you find it questionable then question it and offer counter arguments to this brief analysis. If however you understand the gist of what I am saying the I would like to know what you believe to be the “middle ground” and for what reasons? To be clear I mea whether you regard something like “a sculpture” to be the most appropriate “middle ground” between the “photograph” and the “play”? Or the “painting” to be the “middle ground” between the “muscal composition” and the “painting”? Basically what for of artistic medium has one foot in both the “instant” and a “span” of time?
AKA badgerjelly
User avatar
cavacava
Posts: 55
Joined: October 12th, 2018, 11:10 am

Re: Art Forms - Relations to Space and Time

Post by cavacava »

Questions of space and time as they relate to great works of art, are answerable only in respect to their use in those works, which is not to say that hermeneutically it is not be profitable to understand how such use changed historically. I think that Kandinsky was right in trying to make the invisible visible and that it is in accomplishing this magical feat that all great works of art differentiate themselves from kitsch.

Photography is a good example because I think it is one of the most difficult mediums to produce a work of fine art, because the camera leaves such a narrow space within which the imagination can create a work of fine art that can affect the viewer. [The camera must be one of the most disbursed tools of image capture in our times, I've read that 45 billion cameras are projected by 2022.]
For example if we take “a photograph”. This is clearly not a item that stretches across time. It is an instant captured. Whilst on the other hand we can think of some movie we’ve seen recently and quite obviously understand it as being drawn out across time not experienced in a single instant.

My observation here shouldn’t be anything extraordinary I hope. I hope we can all see that experiencing every musical note in an instant would render a musical composition meaningless. For these briefly outlined reasons I am proposing that art that manifests itself in an instant (such as a photograph, sculpture, or painting) aims to essentially have the viewer of the “artifact” stretch the instant out across time from a singular instant captured in space, whilst at the other pole works that span temporal experience (films, poems, novels or musical compositions) aim to essentially bring the viewer to compress the experience into one instant.

The “photograph” is meant to be taken as positioned in time and thought of in reference to the past and future, whereas the “play” is meant to be taken as a stretch of time with a beginning, middle and end, that is to be captured in a singular position in time once the performace is over.
The internal versus the external, where the visible or external or spacial arts such as photography, painting and sculpture present their particularity, their story immediately, while the poetic or internal or temporal arts develop their narratives into stories. Each is effective in so far as they are affective, a photo can be more affective than a narrative (a picture is worth a lot of words ;) ) Clement Greenberg said:

"The art in photography is literary art before it is anything else: its triumphs and monuments are historical, anecdotal, reportorial, observational before they are purely pictorial. Because of the transparency of the medium, the difference between the extra-artistic, real-life meaning of things and their artistic meaning is even narrower in photography than it is in prose. And as in prose, “form” in photography is reluctant to become “content,” and works best when it just barely succeeds in converting its subject into art—that is, when it calls the least attention to itself and lets the almost “practical” meaning of the subject come through.

This is why there are so many pictures made with documentary intent among the masterpieces of photography. But they have become masterpieces by transcending the documentary and conveying something that affects one more than mere knowledge could. The purely descriptive or informative is almost as great a threat to the art in photography as the purely formal or abstract. The photograph has to tell a story if it is to work as art. And it is in choosing and accosting his story, or subject, that the artist-photographer makes the decisions crucial to his art. Everything else—the pictorial values and the plastic values, the composition and its accents—will more or less derive from these decisions."

There are a few photos that have made a difference one that hit the viewer, going beyond their content or form of the image, such as the image of Phan Thi Kim Phuc the 9 year old Vietnamese girl whose was pictured running naked from her village, her back severely burned by napalm. It is said (NY Times) that this picture changed the course of the war. There are many photos from this war and that period that still haunt the American imagination, of the boomer generation.

So, I can only agree in a very limited sense with Leonardo Da Vinci's “Painting is mute poetry, and poetry is blind painting”. Painting is not superior to poetry, nor the other way around. Only specific works can be compared, and in doing this only in corresponding registers, not in terms of magnitude or superiority.
Post Reply

Return to “Philosophy of the Arts and Philosophy in the Arts”

2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise
by John K Danenbarger
January 2023

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021