20th CENTURY NEW EXPERIENTIAL INFO FORMS

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A qualitative change of experience, on the scale of, analogous to, and as unpreconceived as that from 'Gothic' to 'Renaissance', opened near the beginning of the last century.

Between 1910 and 1920 were developed means of experiential forming which equally and simultaneously mediated outer object and inner meaning - thus restating experience as a continuum of physical event and mind content conjoined in the action of realising a work. These artifacts differ from those of the previous culture (Renaissance to 19th C) whose identity as external physical things was not an aspect of their content but simply a medium for mental forming.

The experiential potential released in the early 20th century is characterised by the fully independent 'thing' status of the physical aspect of its experiential forms. First realised as 'art' it increasingly transforms the structure/content of all modes of mediation/information.

The following Section dicusses the content and affective operation of this new forming//new experiential paradigm in art and advertising images:

PART 1:

Part 1 elucidates and discusses one of the generative objects of this new structuring of experience and compares it with a mature example from the previous 'Renaissance' culture:

EG 1:

PICASSO - COLLÉ: VIOLIN, GLASS, NEWSPAPER, BOTTLE - (1912/13) - (TZARA)

     [plus other Egs between 1910 and 1914 as needed]

Analyse its structure and functioning:

The picture's 'reality aspects' are manifold:

-  The illusionistically rendered appearance of objects (paint >< skill) evokes internal 'recognition' and associations (NB: the only 'reality level' of previous culture pictures).

-  The physical 'picture'- made from glued paper, collaged fragments, charcoal and paint marks - is present in attention as an independent external thing.

(NB: EG 2: CLAUDE: in previous culture the physical picture is 'invisible' (except as the 'tromped' support of tromp l'oeil !)

-  Collaged fragments of objects whose independent status is equal to 'picture' itself. However as parts of the picture, displaced from their external context, they become mental 'images of themselves'. (Thus though the 'outermost' of the 3 layers they are also the most 'fantastic').

A consequence of the above is that such a picture is not, as in the previous culture, a picture of things but has itself ' thing­-status' (re: 'tableau-objet'). This 'thing-status' is the external limit of its content. Since this 'thingness' is itself a structural unit in the configuration of that content, it is not as in the previous culture simply the limit to the 'reality' of pictorial illusions, but is the conformation of the actuality of content.

The picture space is multi-valent (as in Cézanne):

-  Each pictorial-part is the 'centre' (of attention) of a particular structure of space-relations. Seen from another 'centre' it occupies a different place. The whole picture is organised differently around each of its parts.

-  The//This multi-spatial order mediates the relations between 'reality-levels':

Example of one such relationship:

The GLASS - looked at from the 'realistic' wood-grained VIOLIN side - takes a position behind the whole face of the violin which slopes back towards it. This mental 'illusion' is shocking to ones physical sense since the newspaper on which the glass is drawn, is cut away to leave the silhouette of the violin on the white paper beneath.

The physical picture and the visual-mental picture are thus in shocking contradiction! Their confrontation forces one to give them equal existential credence and to realise that they are the essential 'inner' and 'outer' aspects of experience. Such 'pictures' are experiential-forms.

Contrast EG-1 with a typical picture of the previous ('Renaissance') culture:

EG 2:

CLAUDE - "EMBARKATION  OF DIDO FROM CARTHAGE" - (16##) - (LON. NG)

- Analyse what it does and how it works, and in what ways the 20thC and 'Renaissance' forms differ:

Single 'reality-level', all one 'substance': an illusion of appearances (paint><skill):

-    A 'magic' dissolution of physical surface - an illusory place in mental space, completely unrelated to the physical painting or its objective context. The painting as thing is 'out-of-sight' covered by the illusion of its subject.

Singular space: arranged round one focal position:

-    The illusory space recedes from the picture edges in a simple diminishment towards the point of focus and disappearance - even of illusions! (A diagram that proves its existence by focusing an infinity).

-    Attention is drawn into this 'distance' and one is 'inside the picture' as in a dream, the only route to the outside' is admiration of skill.

-   For all its simplicity the 'dreaming' is cleverly articulated: the visual infinity focus, the picture's centre, is hidden behind the ship of embarkation - the passing out of the foreground world, the moment of the final loss of Cartage will be seen only from its deck. The false focus of the setting sun and the false goal of a distant island increase the pathos of discovering the hidden focal end!

In contrast, the Picasso is not a 'vision' - it mediates an active relating which progressively substantiates experience.  

PART 2:

Having established a basis for analysing and understanding the new information-forms there follows an analysis of Ads in relation to Art:

EG 3:

AD: "LIFE NATURE LIBRARY" - "EXPLORE THE MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE" - (SCIENTIFIC-AMERICAN MAGAZINE - c1970)

-  Though quite poor quality graphic-design this Ad shows characteristics of post collé form: multivalent space, use of picture-plane as 'reality confirmer', subject-quotations ('collage').

Analysis of its structure and sequence:

1: Left-centre - Einstein's face photo: Attention catcher - his gaze meets ours, asking if we share a profound concern for knowledge. This most familiar datum is flat on the page, as if floating on the surface of a shallow pool of text and images behind it. Einstein is our 'tour-guide' to "THE UNIVERSE" - he both blocks entry to the closed book (that like an opening door leads back into the Ad) and endorses, hovering over with his serious gaze, a specimen of its awesome content.

-  His is a 'Renaissance-type' image: a framed single-space, a centered 'stopped' subject:

EG:

REMBRANDT [&/or others]  

kjfhkfjhffh

2:  Attention moves across the sloping book into the page to the top-right photo on a new deeper 'page-surface', the same plane as the main text:
Top-right photo: "Scientists create the basic substance of life itself": a 'fragment-of-a-whole-picture': arbitrary framing and poor gestalt results in 'fascinating glimpses' of bits of lab and scientist - invoking real-life glances with added sci-fi fantasy.

      -  An 'Impressionist-type' image: the picture/event as a single act/moment of attention:

'Cut-Out' mailing-cupon - a piece of the real-page-surface: with obscured though 'fascinating' covers of "Life Library" books poking up 'behind' (cut it off and  you'll posess the book !).

        -  'Collage-type': a spatial joke: