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Posted by Tessa den Uyl
If we can say that every image offers us various possibilities for interpretation, placing itself before our thinking, then we can see images as providing a kind of balancing pole for our lives. This balancing element is rightly placed between the image and the viewer - like a bridge where imagination is free to flourish, for the bridge is the space of the unforeseen.
We might say that the very instability of the bridge provides the movement for our imagination. It is by using such bridges that human beings can deal with their existential selves.
Yet what happens when the unforeseen becomes foreseen?
When things are taken away from their natural environment and placed somewhere else, change occurs. When change occurs by a manipulative act, it is very much possible that the next act upon that will function to enforce that first one.
An image that originally handed to us a multiplicity of possible interpretations, offering to give sense to our lives, becomes meaningless. The image is placed behind the thought.
There seems to be a great mixing of distinctions in the photo. Perhaps, though, that drives (some of) us to be more thoughtful, just as clear-cut distinctions once did.
ReplyDeleteDear Thomas,
ReplyDeleteMaybe I don't follow your comment...
You mention a difficult word: distinction. Thus I question; on which do we place those distinctions? Into our knowledge? For example, the image of Christ I can see from a protestant or a catholic point of view, however that is not somehow my point of view, it is a learned view, in short, the meaning has not derived from my proper imagination. The question is wether we are capable to place the image into ourselves without having codes to define the signification for a personal meaning we might give to the image. Then the term distinction would change for we would no longer draw distinctions upon purpose, but rather in regard to experience and maybe that is something we lack in regard to images....
Dear Thomas,
ReplyDeleteMaybe I don't follow your comment...
You mention a difficult word: distinction. Thus I question; on which do we place those distinctions? Into our knowledge? For example, the image of Christ I can see from a protestant or a catholic point of view, however that is not somehow my point of view, it is a learned view, in short, the meaning has not derived from my proper imagination. The question is wether we are capable to place the image into ourselves without having codes to define the signification for a personal meaning we might give to the image. Then the term distinction would change for we would no longer draw distinctions upon purpose, but rather in regard to experience and maybe that is something we lack in regard to images....
Tessa, I think I just found one reason why I'm having problems understanding your essay. It is the question of the "various possibilities for interpretation", of the "multiplicity of possible interpretations". This is something I've heard often, but without really grasping it. It's not your essay in particular. I admit that I never dared to asked! How is the picture of the christ, for instance, open to that many interpretations, more than, say saying the word "Christ" or "Justice" or "proletariat". Words too, in fact many signs are open to interpretation, and at the same time seem to be relatively strongly tied to a fixed set of meanings. We can attach a personal "flavour" to a picture, but aren't we always aware of the tension between the subjective and (what appears to be) the objective?
ReplyDeletesorry, an extra note: purpose tends to make things small, thats how it obtains what it wants, but in your imagination there is no purpose, you don't have to exploit that imagination and things can flow (lets say) in large.
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