Compartmentalisation

<p>A very simple post, based upon a very simple, yet I hope observation of some significance. Like our photographs that follow established trends we have adopted, we tend to compartmentalise (or compartmentalize, for some) our thoughts. Case in point. When a thread has attracted comments for a certain time, it becomes moribund. Dead. Nothing new is added, and weeks go by without rebuttals or new elements, yet the subject often remains as dynamic and as open to discussion and question as when it was first posted. Why is this?</p>

<p>Is it a sign of our times that when one has posted his or her opinion there is no need to reformulate or revise it? Is it a consequence of our age, our impatience or disdain for the continued probing of ideas and our satisfaction with simply moving on to others? Do we also tend to compartmentalise our manners of photographing, to just repeating the same approaches we have grown with? Is our aesthetic and objectives compartmentalised, hermetic? How free a photographer and thinker are you? I fight with this sense of "completeness" that I know keeps me from seeing things differently. Do you?</p>

<p>I think you're reading too much in to the limiting technical structure of these Forums. The issues that you say concern you aren't any more "signs of the times" than they would have been with published article, snail mail, or telegraph. ... - - - ...</p>

<p>As well, I think you're neglecting the diversity of writing skills and intentions here, which span scatter-brained-bloviation, argumentation-for-its-own-sake, grumbles, sniping, and cheery vapidness, along with occasional flashes of brilliance. </p>

<p>Given all that, this Forum explores some interesting turf. Threads properly die.</p>

<p> I don't see any virtue in being "free" of the values and ideas we've developed painfully, joyfully, and with the help of others, not to mention our own intentionality. </p>

<p>Philosophy has always been, for me, a stimulant rather than a fulfillment. My follow-up or answer to many of the discussions here is in my photographs. Philosophy and such discussions have always left a gnawing hole in me . . . in a good way. The sides taken and the solutions posed were always of much less interest to me than the arguments themselves and the elegance and profundity of the smaller ideas presented along the way. It's why I first sought out music, then making photographs as my response to the bigger questions that seemed ultimately unanswerable.</p>

<p>These discussions are like Escher prints or Bach fugues. They advance through various levels and twists and turns only to seem to wind up where they started. Yet there is a sense of a journey having taken place, perhaps one without a destination. Even the bickering provides a certain energy that can be useful and productive. That energy gets filtered back into my own photographic process. I think discussion itself will always become moribund after a time. That's when the discussion can appear to rest quietly on the page but a different kind of energy can take over. Perhaps I don't really DO philosophy. I USE it.</p>

<p><strong>Arthur</strong>,<br>

what I like about our "philosophical conversations" is the fact that they develop, regress, deviate, get abstract and then concrete again.</p>

<p>I very much agree with <strong>Fred's</strong> positions: having come to the conclusion that in photography we don't have a Cartesian way of getting answers, reading through each thread leaves little, "sticky" concepts and ideas in my thoughts.<br>

Nothing rational, nothing (too) conscious.<br>

But in the end these little "sticky" ideas stay in me and pop up.</p>

<p>I'm not a philosopher like Fred, so I don't claim to "do" philosophy. But I definitely "use" it!<br>

This is combined with my "crafting" experience (<em>Fred, thank you for that marvellous thread!</em>) changes my photography in directions I like.<br>

One of them is consciousness.</p>

<p>In addition to <strong>John Kelly's</strong> post: let's not forget the cultural diversity, which impacts on approaches and opinions. My Italian background is different from the American, the Canadian, the Dutch and it has a bearing on how we see and how we react. And on how we conceptualise.<br>

And then there is our own personal background and attitude.</p>

<p>Arthur, all of the above, and the structure of the software of PN. You're right, while responses cool, and the thread fades, by no means is it exhausted as a topic. Maybe we are. If you go back over the PoP forum archives, you'll see the same topics pop up again and again. One could say that we're behaving like locusts, or spending our energies on a topic, and after a while we come up for air, and a new thread or two appear. Seems natural to me.<br>

Lucas' point about cultural diversity is significant.<br>

As to your last question, I believe in creative cycles and petite mortes at the transitions. Historically, I also have some idea of the transience of ideas and technology in photography. Some truths about ourselves, human nature, the medium, etc. do linger or seem useful. While it's nice to think we could morph into anything, we're still who we are at any given moment, specially when releasing the shutter -- or writing a post.</p>

<p>Growth is a process of accretion and erosion. While many of us would like to be totally free, many photographers of note have openly acknowledged this was not true in their case. Ernst Haas (who btw said that he used Leica because the lenses "were not too sharp, like the human eye") remarked on a compositional trope he came to realize he used over and over. So did William Eggleston (though many thought he was joking). Ansel Adams said near his death that he had only had three (maybe it was four) good ideas in his lifetime re: photography.<br /> [This kind of admission seems to bear some relation to the size of one's ego at the time.]</p>

<p>With too much baggage, it's impossible to travel, with too little, one is unprepared.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><strong>JK - "</strong>As well, I think you're neglecting the diversity of writing skills and intentions here, which span scatter-brained-bloviation, argumentation-for-its-own-sake, grumbles, sniping, and cheery vapidness, along with occasional flashes of brilliance."</p>

<p>Nice riff, John. :-)</p>

<p>Nice flash, Luis. :-)</p>

<p>Louis, next time someone starts a thread let's opt for "cheery vapidness" sort of contributions and nothing else. I might then understand what that is for a sort or fish!</p>

<p><em>"creative cycles and petite mortes"</em> ... Yes. </p>

<p>Yes, using philosophy, rather than making or doing it, is good for photography. Perhaps it offers one option to decompartmentalize our approaches that might otherwise remain static or too much conditioned by society, rules, etc.</p>

<p>Luis' expression "creative cycles and la petite mort" is interesting, but ambiguous to me (perhaps I am missing the knowledge of its original context). I think he is referring to the latter definition below, and if so, it has something to do with decompartmentalizing or freeing of one's spirit (in the sense of disambiguation) after (or by) a period of creativity.</p>

<p>Apart from the feeling after sexual intercourse (original definition?), one definition of "la petite mort" is wrapped up in Sondheim's song: « Every Day a Little Death ».</p>

<p>"Every day a little death,<br /> In the parlor, in the bed,<br /> In the curtains, in the silver,<br /> In the buttons, in the bread.<br /> Every day a little sting<br /> In the heart and in the head.<br /> Every move and every breath,<br /> And you hardly feel a thing,<br /> Brings a perfect little death"</p>

<p>The other definiton of the expression "la petite mort" seems to be related to "disambiguation" or "the clarification that follows from the removal of ambiguity", or the action "to make (an ambiguous expression) unambiguous", and usually applies to writing, but is possibly also applicable to the state of mind of the photographer in "the removal of ambiguity." Create and dis-am-bi-gu-ate.</p>

<p>This forum *could* be titled <em>The Philosophy of Philosophy of Photography Forum</em>, with a subforum or two on Writing about the Philosophy of Photography Forum and about The Philosophy of Philosophy of Photography Forum, and maybe also a Critique on Writing in <em>The Philosophy of Philosophy of Photography Forum </em>forum for enhanced compartmentalization !</p>

<p><strong>Anders - "</strong>Louis, next time someone starts a thread let's opt for "cheery vapidness" sort of contributions and nothing else."</p>

<p>A cheerily vapid tread might be interesting in a banal, PoMo manner. I doubt we could do it. What a challenge, <em>a humorous, self-mocking thread on PoP? </em></p>

<p>[bTW, Anders, it's L-u-i-s.]</p>

<p>_______________________________________</p>

<p><strong>Arthur, </strong>there is no referent for my wee deaths, because I muddled it up myself. This may belong in a separate thread, but after studying the lives of artists, and what many have written about the process, I'm with the 'cycles' camp, and the transitional deaths (one can think of them as partitions and/or gestations between cycles) are what one might call a 'rite of passage'. The postcoital glow, er...in my post, is a far better kind of passage (is that something we can finally <em>all</em> agree on?).</p>

<p>It was tied to the baggage quote, which I stole from someone so long ago, I've forgotten who. The death part refers to the artist reincernating part of himself to start anew on another work/project/series. Going back to your original theme, the cyclical nature of the process could be regarded as 'compartmentalized' (but it's not).</p>

<p>_________________________</p>

<p><strong>Phylo, </strong>Yes, like artery-clogging, stacked pancakes, teetering and syrupy.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Sorry <strong>Luis</strong>, for mispelling your name? Don't be frightened though. I will not start numbering you - Louis XIX ! ! you would risk your neck !</p>

<p>May I suggest that we come back to our core concern, as far as I have understood it.</p>

<p>Are we going to treat these threads as listening to Bach's fugues, as Fred so precisely described them and "compartementizing" them thereafter to be forgotten about as <strong>Arthur</strong> writes in this thread , feeling good because we have been through a process of exchanges, or are we going to take up the challenge that somehow came out of the good/bad discussion of <strong>Luca</strong>. I would suggest to opt for the latter.</p>

<p><strong>Who volunteers </strong>for starting a thread by uploading a photo so that we can test our ability to exchange appreciations and analysis. I would suggest that I do not start - you would risk that I come back with my abstract of a dome....</p>

<p>On these light notes, how about creating co-existing MoM and PoP forums, the former vapid and cheery (pleasant but maybe nonetheless a Mastery of Meaninglessness) and PoP as a modern day religious confessional for philosophy and the devils of intentional photography? I think compartmentalised can refer not only to a linear thought processes, not always progressive if not freed of paradigms, as well as to the circular process of Luis, unless the rebirths after little deaths are imbued with freshness of thought and so become "decompartmentalised." </p>

<p>While you reflect on my suggestion you might take pleasure listening to this <a href="http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=18935523">fugue of Johann Sebastian Bach</a> played by Glenn Gould.</p>

<p>As soon as I can figure out how to combine "photographic appropriation" and "video as the future of photography" I intend to simultaneously resurrect and kill two birds with one scatter-brained bloviation. </p>

<p>Anders, have you seen Francois Girard's film of 1993 (screenplay by Girard and Don McKellar of "The Red Violin" fame) entitled "32 short films on Glenn Gould". An interesting photographic (cinematographic in large part) essay on the greatly missed pianist (especially as a Bach musician), inspired by the "32 variations".</p>

<p>If you or someone goes ahead with your thread suggestion elsewhere, it would be good to have an option of presenting an image without prior analysis by the photographer himself, such as to leave the viewer unencumberd by the "other" view. After all, once our image is out there (as a sale, or by someone spontaneously appearing on our site to critique it), we are not in a position to influence the interpretation of the viewer. I believe that to be important. If an image cannot speak for itself to the viewer it is often not the best sign.</p>

<p>Anyways, I am off topic on my own thread...(not a good example of compartmentalisation)</p>

<p>Arthur, by virtue of your own topic starter, maybe a good time to reformulate, revive and revisit, now that even you went off topic? ;-)<br>

<em>(in fact Luca's first reply mentioned Dutch, I felt called upon. I've got nothing useful to add, but could not resist all the same) </em></p>

<p>Arthur, in your OT I had the sense that you were dancing, not-so-cheerily, around a photographic version of "writers block." Your use of "free" suggested that.</p>

<p>Yes? No? Maybe?</p>

<p>By "petite mortes" ("les petites mortes" ?) I thought Luis was referring to the necessity of termination to rebirth. </p>

<p> </p>

<p><strong>John Kelly - "</strong>By "petite mortes" ("les petites mortes" ?) I thought Luis was referring to the necessity of termination to rebirth."</p>

<p> Exactly. And, Arthur, cyclical does not necessarily equal circular. For example, a wave has cycles, but may not be a circle.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>[Arthur P]: <em>"...When a thread has attracted comments for a certain time, it becomes moribund. Dead. Nothing new is added, and weeks go by without rebuttals or new elements, yet the subject often remains as dynamic and as open to discussion and question as when it was first posted. Why is this? ..."</em></p>

<p>Because of the unique software used by photo.net, this is not the best example to use for the point on compartmentalization that you are addressing. </p>

<p>Specifically, it looks like no one has mentioned the fact that that threads in the forum index pages of photo.net are ordered by date of thread inception, not date of last post. This is unlike ANY other Internet forum that I have ever participated in. The consequence of this choice is that all threads are guaranteed to roll off the bottom of the forum thread listing after a very short period of time. Unless you have signed up to receive email notification of activity in a thread, no one casually skimming the forum listings will have any idea the thread ever existed, even if the thread is still very active because of continued discussions among the original participants in the thread. Another consequence of this is that the same questions get asked (and answered) over and over again.</p>

<p>In a private discussion with Josh on this subject, he stated some reasons for this choice, but I'm not sure I could do justice to his arguments, so perhaps he might chime in. </p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p><strong>Tom Mann - "</strong>Because of the unique software used by photo.net, this is not the best example to use for the point on compartmentalization that you are addressing.<br>

Specifically, it looks like no one has mentioned the fact that that threads in the forum index pages of photo.net are ordered by date of thread inception, not date of last post. This is unlike ANY other Internet forum that I have ever participated in."</p>

<p><strong>Tom, </strong>I agree, re: the effect on compartmentalization. I thought the same thing, and although I did not go into detail, I alluded to it here:</p>

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=977570">Luis G</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Aug 12, 2010; 06:47 a.m.<br>

"Arthur, all of the above,<strong> <em>and the structure of the software of PN.</em></strong>" (Italics mine)</p>

<p>It's one of the core bits of DNA in PN.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><em><strong>"</strong>By "petite mortes" ("les petites mortes" ?) I thought Luis was referring to the necessity of termination to rebirth."... JK</em><br /><em>"Exactly...cyclical does not necessarily equal circular. For example, a wave has cycles, but may not be a circle." ... LG</em><br /><em></em><br />Yes. To infer "circular" from a dead thread suggests hope...hope for something one has not received from the thread: perhaps has not received the agreement for which one was fishing.</p>

<p>Threads end because most of "us" have tired of them.</p>

<p>Often, the Original Question was actually a sort of "push poll" ...a secret question is buried in a "word salad" that seems intellectual but is ultimately intended to push an idea.</p>

<p>I prefer intellectual honesty:</p>

<p>"Here's what I think: ...." or "This has been on my mind: ...."</p>

<p>"What do you think?"</p>

<p><strong>John</strong></p>

<p>"I thought Luis was referring to the necessity of termination to rebirth."</p>

<p>Can you clarify this, so I can better understand better what you are saying in regard to "Les petites morts" (note the unnecessary dropped "e"). I have trouble with the inclusion of "to" in this sentence, which gets roadblocked in my humble brain.<br /> Do you mean "....the necessity of termination <em>prior to</em> rebirth", "...the necessity of termination <em>of </em>rebirth", "...the necessity of termination <em>rather than</em> rebirth", or "...the necessity of termination <em>and</em> rebirth". Each has a different meaning. Not meaning to nit-pick, but it makes a difference to the meaning of Luis' sentence.<br /> No, a personal creative block is not my reason for my discussing "approach paradigms", but rather what I think is our need to renew one's viewpoint rather than compartmentalising a constant photographic approach. This is the aspect of compartmentalisation in the OT that is for me the more important one to address, but having said that I do acknowledge (Luis' point) that photography's notables have not needed to have too many tools in their mental accessories bag. That statement may skate around the issue, but may also be very true (notwithstanding the bias a big ego may have in making such statements).</p>

<p><strong>Wouter,</strong><br /> you are definitely not wrong in admonishing the tangential or off-topic repartee. However, in answer to your question, the only thing I can do at present in reformulating this rather clumsily stated OT is to simply state that my feeling is that ideas and photography are essential bedfellows and that compartmentalisation or limiting of such ideas may be something we should be fully aware of.</p>

<p>In the other sense of the OT, I was perhaps a little discouraged to see so many good threads evaporate in mid-life. Fred is absoutely right about the fact that philosophy does not provide ultimate answers (and that is not what is valuable in the discussions) and that PoP allows us instead to add or receive little slices of thought or argument that marry well with our photographic approaches or intentions. Confronting different positions is valuable to us. When "the game is called for rain" and a continuing discussion is put off, or dead before its time ("mort-né") it is surprising. But as one of us has said here, these discussions are recurring.</p>

<p><strong>Tom and Luis,</strong></p>

<p>Your points about the software of PN and the manner of referencing former discussions, and the diminished ability to search the archives, is no doubt a good one, although I must admit I was unaware of it. I guess I do not research former discussions enough (except for the PN search tool, prior to posting an OT), but I was impressed at how dead certain OTs were in the currently visible listing. If philosophy does not have an end point it would seem that certain posts, even a month old, might entertain on-going discussion. I've tried that on occasion, only to find that most if not all of the posters had already tuned out. The fact is not important, but rather the question of why we feel a need to compartmentalise (or limit) our attention to the most recent posts.</p>

<p><strong>Luis,</strong></p>

<p>You're right, I erred in comparing a circular process to your cyclical example, although I did appreciate the importance of a cyclical process in the stepwise evolution (often by iteration) of the photographic approaches and work of a photographer. It is important, replete with it's "petites morts" and readjustments and regenerations.</p>

<p>Arthur, yes, my "to" was part of a contorted sentence. Also, thanks: "les petites morts"</p>

<p>Rebirth is impossible without death. I think both Jesus and the Buddha would agree (to escape the "eternal meat wheel" I think a Hindu also wants to escape that circularity). In PC terms, sometimes one needs to reboot and do a disc cleanup. More personally, I've found that good things may be birthed when I, at long last, <em>quit </em>. It's a gamble to quit, but the relief that's usually won can be refreshing (<em>can allow rebirth</em>).</p>

<p>Death or having quit are not mere points on a circle, IMO.</p>

<p> </p>