Abstract
In any book, the first chapter sets the scene for what the reader is going to encounter as they progress in their reading. This book is no different and in this introductory chapter, I succinctly establish the main components of the coming essay in such a manner that, I hope, will reduce later surprises that are potentially confusing and enhance the reader’s sense of accumulative discovery and knowledge development. I start by considering the idea of categories of art and art experience including notions of aesthetics and figure ground relationships. In order to achieve clarity in my claims I then go on to define the major terms that I use including: mapping sentences; ontology; hermeneutics and hermeneutic consistency; mereology; facet theory in general and in particular qualitative facet theory and the mapping sentence (as this relates to notions of a flexible hermeneutically consistent template); three-dimensional abstract art. The overall aim of this chapter is to prepare the reader for my enquiries into viewers’ experiences when looking at three-dimensional abstract art.
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Notes
- 1.
If we are asked what it means to cause something, we may initially think about the physical world in which one physical object hits or bumps into another and causes a reaction in the object being hit such as damage. We may also think about the instance where warmth may cause us to sweat or the cold may result in us shivering. These are simple examples of causation but causation has been thought of in ways that are somewhat different to these common conceptions. For example, if we resist from stopping something from happening, (i.e., letting it occur) is also a behaviour that may be understood as causing an outcome. There is little consensus in metaphysical definitions of causality although there is a widely agreed bifurcation of causation. Here, notions of causal relata ambody enquiries into: immanence; individuation and adicity. The alternate branch of causation research addresses causal relationships (such as the cause and effect relationships I have spoken about above). This form of research is concerned with: ways in which the connection of causally related sequences of events may be differentiated; differences between the direction of cause and effect sequences and the distinguishing of cause from contextual factors. The reader interested in reading more about causation is guided to: Beebee et al. (2012) and Paul and Hall (2013).
- 2.
Figurative art is the contrast of abstract art. Figurative art is art that is representational of amongst other things, an object, place or setting although abstract art can be seen to be derivative of the real world but its representation is less literal. Therefore, the term figurative art is a description of artwork (usually sculptures, drawings or paintings) that are clearly related to some real object. These categories may however blur and non-representational art, non-objective art and abstract art are often used synonymously as the antithetic foil of representative art. It is important to note that figurative art does not necessarily embody the human or animal figure.
- 3.
Later in this book I devote considerable space to consider the Klein Group and how Rosalind Krauss incorporated its structure within her theorizing. However, it will be useful for the reader if, at this juncture, if I present an extremely brief description of the Klein Group model. The manner in which Krauss uses the Klein group is quite specific and is rooted in the sense of the symmetry of relationships that exist across the group. Terms that designate the content of interest are written at the four corners of a square. All possible links between these terms are then considered. The two pairings between opposite corners are counterpart to each other and the links around the edge of the square also possess specific meaning. By specifying the relationships between all possible pairings of the terms at the corners of the square, it is hoped to achieve a complete understanding of the content bounded by the square. I will write extensively on the Klein Group later in this book.
- 4.
In 1970 Robert Smithson created Spiral Jetty, an earthwork on the shore of the Great Salt Lake, Rozel Point, Utah. The jetty is 460 metres long and 4.6 metres wide and is constructed from salt crystals, mud and basalt rocks. The jetty forms a clockwise spiral that reaches into the Great Salt Lake. The degree to which it is visible varies due to the Lake’s water level.
- 5.
In 1977 sculptor Walter de Maria created the Lightening Field. This is a land-art work situated between Quemado and Pie Town, in New Mexico, composed of 400 pointed tip poles made of stainless steel. De Maria positioned the poles as a grid in a rectangle space of one mile by one kilometer. The poles are of irregular length to enable the tops of the poles to be on a level plane. The installation still exists and was renovated in 2012. The installation has become a tourist attraction run by the Dia Foundation.
- 6.
Fifty-three renown sculptors took part in the seminal exhibition located in Spoleto, Italy in 1962. The artists displayed works around public areas in Spoleo’s Città dei Due Mondi.
- 7.
Skulptur Projekte Munster was initiated in 1977 as an outdoor exhibition of sculpture. The sculpture was not located in a single location or at a single museum, rather, sculptures were exhibited in different places across the town of Munster. The free exhibition is held every ten years with the next show being in 2017.
- 8.
When Attitudes Become Form was a Post-Minimalist exhibition of American artists that was held at the Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland in 1969.
- 9.
Bulgarian installation artists, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude, created large-scale environmental artworks. Christo and Jean-Claude created many land-based works or installations that I could have included in this book. However, I provided three examples to illustrate the extent and variation in their work. The enormous nature of the work they produced was spectacular with the aim of making an immediate visual statement. Amongst their creations were the following examples: The Reichstag in Berlin involved the wrapping of the Reichstag with almost 100,000 square metres of polypropylene and aluminium. Running Fence involved constructing a 5.5 m high fence that ran 40 km through California. The fence was constructed of fabric stretched between 2050 steel posts and held-up on 145 km of steel cable. The Gates in Central Park constituted the erection of 7503 gates straddling paths in Central Park, New York City. Each gate was covered in saffron fabric and were 5 m high.
- 10.
In Gordon Matta-Clark’s installation in a house next door to the Museum of Contemporary art in Chicago, the artist made a series of circular incisions into the walls and the floors of the house.
- 11.
Richard Long has created many pieces of land-art. However, I am referencing Long in this essay specifically for works that are based around one of his his walks: he has undertaken these in a variety of locations. He also constructed pieces as a result of, or as a response to, the environment he traversed during one of his walks (an example being the 1967 work: A Line Made by Walking 1967). On occasion Long also made sculptures from the materials he found on a walk. He constructed these sculptures in the place he found the materials and then recorded these phographically. He also wrote about, took photographs of and mapped the landscape though which he walked.
- 12.
The term ontology has a wide variety of slightly different meanings when used by different disciplines that have each developed precise and specific understandings for the term ontology as part of their lexicon and way of thinking. Examples of these different usages include: in philosophy—ontology is a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature of being; within logic—ontology is the set of entities that a given theory assumes beforehand; within information and computer sciences—ontology is the rigorous designation of existent components (sorts, characteristics) and their inter-associations.
- 13.
I could have proposed even more specific definitions for the term ontology. However, the ones I have listed suffice to illustrate the varied usage of the term.
- 14.
I am using meta-ontology in the sense of theory that underlies a generic framework for the constitution of interpretative consistency of a research domain, whilst not imposing an external structure to either the content under investigation or to the interpretation itself.
- 15.
The writing of both Heidegger and Gadamer displayed considerable concern with knowledge and truth. The phrase hermeneutic consistency refers to the ability to achieve a coherent explanation of an informational source.
- 16.
- 17.
For example, within metaphysics mereology is defined as: “… any theory of part hood or composition.” (Harte 2002, p. 7).
- 18.
I employ term meta-mereology in the same sense as earlier I used the term meta-ontology.
- 19.
Thus, facet theory and the mapping sentence may be conceptually defined under the terms structural meta-ontology and structured meta-mereology. Furthermore, I use these structural entities in order to develop hermeneutically consistent knowledge about the experience of three-dimensional abstract art.
- 20.
Motion parallax is a monocular depth cue, a cue which operates with a single eye rather than both of the eyes together. Motion parallax comes about when we view objects that are at different distances from us and where we are aware that the closer objects appear to be moving faster than objects that are further away from us. Motion parallax is one form of more general parallax which is an effect the apparent difference in position when we look at an object from slightly different positions, such as the positional difference between the right and left eye.
- 21.
Retinal disparity is a stereoscopic aid to depth perception also known as stereopsis (I briefly commented upon this in the previous footnote on parallax). Retinal disparity is the distance between the eyes which causes two slightly different images to be transferred to the cortex and which allows for creation of binocular vision.
- 22.
- 23.
In facet theory the term qualitative has been used to mean a qualitatively arranged facet rather than a linear or quantitatively ordered facet: This is not the sense of the word that I will employ. I use qualitative to imply rich observational, non-numerical information. I also use qualitative in reference to the employment of facet theory to interrogate one individual person's opinion. Subsequently I analyse data to establish reliable and valid interpretative hermeneutics.
- 24.
Adopting a facet approach also possesses the implication that knowledge that arises from the social sciences and humanities may best be understood in terms of such categorial understandings.
- 25.
I have carried-out qualitative analyses of specific research domains using mapping sentences as a framework for the conception and design of research projects. I have then progressed by analysing qualitative and conceptual data within a facet theory mind-set in order to facilitate theory development. This has required me to use facet theory as a philosophical perspective that I have taken when viewing the subject matter of my research into human behaviour (Hackett 2013, 2014).
- 26.
A mapping sentence is a formal statement of a research domain which includes the respondents, sub-categories of the research content along with the range over which observations will be made, in the structure of a sentence written in normal prose.
- 27.
As I stated in Hackett (2016a) the mapping sentence is a mereology and forms an artworks’ compositional identity, where composition is the relation between a whole and its specific parts, and where these parts of the composition form the whole of the artwork and where the whole artwork is nothing more than its compositional parts: the whole artwork is its compositional parts and the compositional parts may only be understood within the whole artwork (also see, Cotnoir and Baxter 2014). It must also be remembered that both the mapping sentence and the artwork possess compositional elements that include context, materials, history, etc.
- 28.
Aristotle’s categories are: 1: Substance (οὐσία); 2: Quantity (ποσόν); 3: Quality (ποιόν); 4: Relation (πρός); 5: Place (ποῦ); 6: Time (πότε); 7: Being-in-a-position (κεῖσθαι); 8: Having (ἔχειν); 9: Action (ποιεῖν); 10: Affection (πάσχειν). From these Categories I developed a mapping sentence for Aristotle’s categorial system (Hackett 2014).
- 29.
Lowe’s ontology has appeared in several slightly varied iterations which Lowe portrayed as an ontological square. Lowe’s ontology embodies the notion that the world may be understood as comprising three distinct types of objects, two kinds of events, two modes and three attributes. Lowe settled with this structure as he believes that this four-category ontology provides “a uniquely satisfactory metaphysical foundation for the natural sciences” (Lowe 2007, p. 16).
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Hackett, P.M.W. (2017). Introduction. In: The Perceptual Structure of Three-Dimensional Art. SpringerBriefs in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48452-5_1
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