Language, art, and the origins of creativity

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Music, and now photography, became my answer (or my outlet) to a lot of these philosophical questions, questions that became so many words. It allowed me to replace theory with practice and to fill in gaps that couldn't be filled in discursively.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>It also allowed me out of myself and to join in a way I hadn't before with others, subjects and viewers and artists here and now and those gone by.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Well since photography is an activity of a 'personal identity' then to talk about photography and art we need to at least agree there is such a thing as a person, a self which engages in photography. Assuming we agree self exists, we next can try to establish that a photograph is an expression of a self, that is, that a photograph is language. Language functions as dialog with self and as communication to others. By substitution, a photograph is something we 'say' to our self; and when shared, becomes something we 'say' to others. But what does a photography 'say'? Often I can't figure that out.</p>

<p>Can't 'figure that out' literally means: can't construct from a photographic expression a mental modeling, an internal re-con-figuration that would lay before me in clear view the meanings present in a photograph and how those meanings relate to one another. Some photographs are easy to figure out, to refigure. Others aren't. Mental modeling with images seems to be elemental to thinking, in part conscious, in part pre-conscious. So with a photograph, something elemental, a visual, is presented. Our language engine confronts a photograph as it would any other visual that by our conscious focus becomes an object for processing by our language engine. I add that it sure seems that the language engine requires visual inputs at its core. We send the language processor words, that is, we string together words that at base are pictures and then send those picture-words off for processing. Unobserved by us, the processor translates those words into their primitive visual parts, visuals the core elements used for raw processing.<br /> <br />My use of the word 'figure' is to intentionally call attention to the likelihood that our brains are wired to think in visuals and do visual processing (thinking) pre-consciously. Word production seems to be a higher order brain function where words eventually get substituted for [translated from] the pictures that the brain uses at its core to compute it's result, an idea, an answer. Another example is that numbers are figures. Numbers are useful because the language engine can accept figures as imputs and use those visuals to produce results. Our own logic can tell us that an answer is valid even though we can't make sense of that answer as a valid answer. We can't ourselves picture the result. An example would be action at a distance, e.g., attraction of one celestial body to another or the tides. Gravidty doesn't make sense to a brain that can't 'picture' the cause of the effect, can't see the connection between two bodies that could account for the motion of those bodies. (I had thought curved space provided that connection, again, a visual we can understand.) No accounting for, no modeling available for a complete photon. A photon can't be pictured as simultaneously both a particle and a wave. A particle can be pictured, a wave can be pictured. Those two pictures together can't make sense to a brain that developed to visually solve it's problems in the now, the world of lived experience, and to provide answers that relate concretely to 'the now'.<br /> <br />So I think that when we ask the question "Does my dog think?" we have the answer as yes if we understand that our own thinking at base level isn't performed by the brain with words. The brain deconstructs a word into a word's picture parts and then raw thought commences pre-consciously. The raw answer is a visual and that visual get's pre-consciously, or even semi-consciously, translated back into words. I may seem slow from my dog's point of view. His ideas may be purely visual, he having no need for a word before forming an action. Note that some visual thinkers report being consciously aware of visuals as operands. Visuals always are the fundamental operands, what, for sighted animals? Can a dog brain think with smells as a core input? Or sound? In our common sense world we don't need to be aware of the core processing of what for us is a visual language engine.<br /> <br />Once we understand images as core operands in what is mostly an unconscious process, we then gain a new appreciation for a photograph and for images generally. Since we aren't ordinarily aware that images are prerequistes for thought, becoming aware of just how unconscous we are of our own thought mechanisms can give us pause to consider the unconsious as an objective field internal to us and in which we are contained biologically.<br /> <br />Once we understand images as core oprands in thought, understand that thought is processed unconsciously, then we have to ask more seriously the question "What is a dream?" A dream is imagery ordered, imagery the core expression of the language engine, a dream is language, communicates meaning, and at base is the brain thinking about 'you' as an operand. A dream is language and language is both self-reflecting and communicative. A dream as language may be a brain thinking about itself and thinking about how you fit in to its picture of its self. With a dream we observe thinking in raw form, we see nature thinking about us.<br /> <br />So I think that part of the appeal of photography is that it is imagery that is a fundamental as a visual. Visual the core operand of the language engine. As a literal we understand it. But as a literal a photograph isn't an accidental that can be dismissed as without meaning. That's where further processing is by our own focus applied and it can be pretty hard for that visual processor to come up with anything.</p>

<p>So I think that a lot of problems, ontological, epistemological, practical, our relationship to nature, the mind body 'problem' - a lot of problems aren't really problems when we become aware of photography as imagery where imagery is the core input for thought in us and most probably even in very simple organisms. We aren't intelligent as much as it is nature that is. And I think that knowing we aren't alone here as an intelligent and thinking reunites us with both ourselves and with nature.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>The framework I use for approaching photography is not the self, and not myself. For me, whether making or viewing, it's a collaboration and one that's not only with my subject. Photos are not self-expressive, IMO. They are expressive. That expressiveness includes cultural expression, hisotorical expression, art historical expression, political expression. I don't think of the photos in my gallery as mine and when I'm viewing photos I don't think of them as mine either. I don't feel at liberty to see them any old way I want.</p>

<p>Whatever a photo says, it's the voice of a chorus, and the members are not all alive and not all individuals.</p>

 

[charleswood]

<p>I hear ya.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>that would lay before me in clear view the meanings present in a photograph and how those meanings relate to one another.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Meaning may be the problem. People love meaning. And they love interpretation (which is really a fancy kind of meaning, maybe a bit more personal, and I often read "personal" as "self centered"). Meaning and interpretation help people think they have taken hold of the photo. It provides a kind of ownership, IMO. I'm moving more to a constructivist* attitude about photography lately. A way in for me, rather than through meaning, is actually through the material and the make-up. What has the artist <em>done</em> rather than what does the artist <em>mean</em>. And just <em>how</em> has it been done.<br>

<br>

*I mean constructivist not only in the artistic "school" we think of but with a lower-case "c" here, really considering how the making took place, as an activity or an action. And why this way instead of that. Not so much what it means as what does it show me and in what ways can I interact with it? How does the work fit in or not fit in or both? How is the medium itself evident and reflected on? How do the elements fit into a whole? What are the internal relationships, right there inside the frame?</p>

<p>I think in some sense it's the difference between having the photo come to me, which seems more possessive to me, and my moving toward the photo, which may demand more action from me as opposed to understanding.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>What's the artist done, that's interesting. And a product of its times, as are we, along with other influences.</p>

<p>Phil had said something about ephemeral. In contrast to those fallen trees is continuity in our sense of self. Or continuity in that there will be more trees and I suppose a fallen tree also conveys renewal. From art I want to get some feeling about that sense of continuity. Another thing I like in a piece of art is when it gives me a view I hadn't conceived of before. Other times I feel like getting something else out of it.</p>

<p>It was hot this week, stuck inside. Those 10,000 or so words is what my mind does with new information. it's a pain. But out of that kind of mess I do get something usable, if little.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Great! I totally get that! And that's what I want to do too! At times. But there are other things too I want to do. (Like take a picture of my neighbor's yard that gives information about him that isn't a 'universal'.) And other things to photograph. So I do get value from images that people create that have many different intents. I suppose we don't need a reason to like something. It's just there is so much of it out there.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>Like take a picture of my neighbor's yard that gives information about him that isn't a 'universal'.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I get that. Specific and local pictures are important. But those type of pics and universality are not mutually exclusive. And your intent is only part of the story. I will see that picture of your neighbor and the picture may give me enough info to tell me something important about your neighbor, about you and your neighbor, about your neighbor and his yard or his dogs or his fence, etc. And I may get that. But, since I also have neighbors and my friends have neighbors and many people without close neighbors have fences or have seen cut down trees, or yards that are a mess, your photo will be bigger than just being about your neighbor, in a lot of ways. It can very easily become a picture about "neighbors" even though it's also a picture about your neighbor.<br>

<br>

It seems to me that's going to happen when we take 1/60 or 1/100 of a second and still it. The picture becomes, in a sense, larger than life, which for that picture only lasted 1/100 of a second. Now it's stilled and it's shown and so it takes on a kind of significance we might easily have missed in the original 1/100 second or that it might not even have originally had.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Fred "And your intent is only part of the story." Yep, I remember from that thread where I posted my neighbor picture.</p>

<p>One last biological musing:</p>

<p>My body can't be two places at once. An electron can be two places at once, which is spooky.</p>

<p>Spooky events can occur in consciousness. Déjà vu is spooky, feeling 'this has happened to me before.' Some report having been out of body, e.g., simultaneously being in a chair talking to their mother and in a corner of the same room watching that scene.</p>

<p>Is self-awareness a biological quantum effect?</p>

<p> </p>

[charleswood]

<p>Thanks Phil, that's kind of you to say.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Nice!</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>Self aware the superiority of our species over others. But then you could equally argue that other lesser aware species have some level of self awareness...so, we eat them and abuse them. Maybe in time they might achieve a equal level of awareness just like our monkey ancestors. But many would argue we have been touched by God which makes us special.</p>

<p>The latest research indicates we are governed by mathematical equations much like a computer game. A dragon can fly and breath fire the dude with the big sword cannot...is it all about the binary numbers, just like in the computer game..... just the same as the world we consider as real?</p>

<p>In our search for the mysterious God entity we believe in current knowledge and faith from books written centuries ago. Of course current knowledge is current knowledge much the same as we believed the earth is flat. Dark matter, inter dimensional theory, time as a fixed equation, the speed of light are all theories rapidly unfolding as just theories without any real substance. And other theories are presenting themselves and some will be proved others just lost in the backyard.</p>

<p>The reality is we really understand very little about anything....A believe in God is a matter of faith and it will always be. For those who proclaim they have received words from God....are just those who like to proclaim.</p>

<p>We understand very little if anything but we try hard to....perhaps that is our never-ending purpose.</p>

<p>One thing for sure a photograph is a frozen moment which makes it special....we have frozen time itself.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>An interesting thought the Hindu religion believes God is the zero.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>"...is it all about the binary numbers, just like in the computer game..... just the same as the world we consider as real?"</p>

<p>I don't think so. </p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p lang="en-GB">"I don't think so".</p>

<p lang="en-GB"> </p>

<p lang="en-GB">Why? Please elucidate.. not that your thoughts are anymore relevant than mine. Do you think we have a higher purpose….anointed by a God being. Or subject to mathematic fundamentals beyond our current comprehension?</p>

<p lang="en-GB"> </p>

<p lang="en-GB">" not any single moment in time that is frozen in a photograph but what's being frozen in the photograph is that by which time is measured, which is movement and / or transformation"</p>

<p lang="en-GB"> </p>

<p lang="en-GB">But that is our measure which makes it sort of special...</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"The aspect of digitalisation adds a new dimension to the concept of time and memory"</p>

<p>Technology improves....but revolutionary. A photo of a photo has been done from the time of time...new dimension, really.</p>

<p> </p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>Charles</p>

<p>All life on earth is much of the sameness it has all come from the same place. Your DNA is not much different from a Banana just different sequencing...sort of weird that we really are a single organism that feeds upon itself. Just about mathematic equations... you me and your dog...hey. even your mum.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Alan when I said I don't think that it is all about binary numbers etc. I suppose I meant that we don't know what the universe is made of. For example, we don't know what dark matter is. I'm more interested in what we can know. We know we are animals, for example.</p>

<p> </p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>This link might be of interest, Charles.</p>

<p>www.<strong>art</strong>news.com/2013/03/28/<strong>animals</strong>-making-<strong>art</strong> </p>

<p> </p>

[AJHingel]

<p>A pleasure to read your discussion since Phil mention Haiku above. Thanks !</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Let's quote Phil's Haiku remarks, merging them:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><br />I really like <a href="/photo/14092612&size=lg" rel="nofollow">this image</a> in your portfolio Charles. The particles of dust floating in the sunlight and the little bird on the branch is like a visual haiku.</p>

<p>Similar to a haiku it's a good example of finding the universal in the small and fleeting detail. The 'universal' is often an abstract feeling and not something that's being revealed in an image but something that's being unconcealed through the image, something that was always there and known.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Allen then remarked:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><br />"One thing for sure a photograph is a frozen moment which makes it special....we have frozen time itself."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Phil then replied:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><br />"Yes, its connection with time and memory is what can make a photograph very special and almost mystical. But it's probably more correct to say that it's not any single moment in time that is frozen in a photograph but what's being frozen in the photograph is that by which time is measured, which is movement and / or transformation."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Allen then offered us a link to consider: http://www.artnews.com/2013/03/28/animals-making-art/<br /> <br /> <br /> And Phil quoted Andy Goldsworthy: "The very thing that brings the work to life is the thing that will cause its death" - Andy Goldsworthy Rivers and Tides<br /> <br /> <br /> Let's call my picture, <a href="/photo/14092612&size=lg" rel="nofollow">this image</a>, a visual haiku. That visual haiku, as Phil described his experience of it, contains a meaning, contains "...something that was always there and known." Let's call my image an expression of my E-Language. (E-Language is language used to communicate to others.) My picture is my communication to others. My picture is a visual expression, expresses a meaning visually. In effect, my picture is an image with embedded meaning. I embedded meaning into my image to communicate a meaning. Before I expressed that meaning in an image, that meaning was there in my head; it just wasn't communicated yet. That un-communicated meaning existed only in my I-Language, existed only in my own internal dialog. E-Language expresses what we have said in our heads that we may go on to express to others. What we say in our heads is I-Language.<br /> <br />Phil's viewing of my picture was Phil receiving a message from me, a communication from me. That message came to him in the form of a picture, a visual representation containing embedded meaning. Phil experienced my picture. He thought about the picture. A suggested meaning arose from within Phil's own thoughts. Once in Phil's thoughts, Phil translated that thought from his own I-Language into E-Language. That translation consisted of the words he wrote and posted above on P/Net.<br /> <br />What does it mean to say Phil experienced my picture? Keep in mind I don't really know what Phil experienced, so I am generalizing, guessing. Here's what I make of it then as a guess. Phil's experience of my picture was to think about it, to consider it. Upon consideration of my picture, he may have felt that from it an impression was made. In other words, upon considering it, his mind formed an impression of it. Let's say his mind formed that impression pre-consciously. At some point that impression became conscious. He received from the interiors of his own mind a formed impression, becoming aware that he had received that impression because he 'felt' something heralding that impression's arrival to his conscious awareness. His impression, formed after viewing my photograph, was another 'picture' with an embedded meaning. That meaning was initially concealed within the Phil's impression. The meaning concealed within the image revealed initially to Phil's consciousness as a feeling of "something that was always there and known." It was a 'felt embedded meaning that then Phil translated into his I-Language. Internally he noted it a 'universal', something universal in a small and fleeting detail. That 'something' was felt as a meaning that popped into his awareness similar to the way that from experiencing a haiku poem, a meaning concealed within the haiku just pops out as part of our experience of a haiku.<br /> <br />So to Phil, I apologize if in my generalizing I have in any way created a misimpression of you. I denounce myself and all that I said, I erase it all if my generalization caused you any trouble.<br /> <br />What I wanted to detail was a round trip for a communication, a round trip from my picture, to your mind, and back to my mind.<br /> <br />A lot can come from a moment frozen in time, from a photograph. I accept Phil's characterization of that frozen moment as a capture of movement, movement being that by which time is measured, that movement itself a transformation. Something similar then in the quote from Goldsworthy.<br /> <br />And Allen, I want to thank you for the link you provided. Among the photographs contained in that article is a photograph of a spider web. The question then becomes, is a spider web first an image in a spider's mind? Is in a spider's mind an image of a spider web that is a template frozen in time in the spider's mind? Is a spider web first an inner visual template which the spider follows when creating physically from his own motions a spider web that we can see? Does a spider web exists in the mind of a spider as a sort of I-Language that then becomes, by his movements, an E-Language, something that a spider expresses for all the world to see? And if so, it is a fact that a spider can not go on to herald itself by saying to us in a worded remonstrance (again paraphrasing the bard): "Have I not from thy eyes that gentleness, does my lack of words that gentleness from thee conceal? Does not my own language to thee my gentleness reveal?" Is nature, in our frozen images of it captured by our pictures, speaking to us in dance and pictures? Is life art?</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

I'd take issue with the idea that a photo is a frozen moment in time. I know this is not an uncommon sentiment, but I think

it limits possibilities. Photos are such moments and can also be more. They can be stories, they can be portraits, still

lifes, etc. all of which are more than mere frozen moments. A photo can be a fullness and can actually defy and deny

time.

[Norma Desmond]

I don't particularly take to the notion of "frozen." I understand it's being used, but it doesn't necessarily work for how I see

photos. Just a different descriptive approach.

[charleswood]

<p>Fred raises is an objection to the characterization of a physical photograph as a single visual representation of a moment frozen in time. That characterization is at best awkward, Fred's objection I judge as a valid objection.<br /> <br />Is it less awkward to characterize a photograph as a discrete physical representation of objects in motion? I'll then propose that a photograph is a physical representation of a particular moment. Consider that the term "frozen moment" is an oxymoron because a moment is understood to be a single instance drawn as a sample from our 'sense' of time's passing. As a single instant of time, a moment already is frozen.<br /> <br />Is time continuous or is time discrete? We don't know. What we do know is that we can physically experience a moment. Motion can be resolved by our senses into an experience of a moment. That 'moment' is a particle of what otherwise is just continuous time. A particle is a discrete object. Is it fair to say that a 'moment' is a discrete representation of a particular instant of time? Is it fair to say that the term "frozen moment" is an oxymoron? I think so.<br /> <br />An analogy helps. Light is a wave, a wave is continuous. An instant of time, a moment, is like a particle. Our brains are then able to 1), sense a continuous wave of light, and 2) adjust its instrumentation to resolve a particle from that continuous wave, a particle that is a moment of time. Metaphorically speaking, that is.<br /> <br />Time is sensed as the continuous movement of bodies. Bodies in motion measure time; and we don't really know what time is fundamentally. Nor do we know what a body is fundamentally.<br /> <br />So is it less awkward to characterize a photograph as a discrete physical representation of objects in motion? A photograph then becomes a physical representation of a moment. Time is directional, so time consists of an infinite series of movements that as a whole move in a forward direction. Let's express the concept of 'moment' more formally.<br /> <br />Let’s say that our eyes create within us a physical representation of continuous motion. That physical representation plays before our eyes as continuous motion. Let's propose that our brains are able to take a single sample from that continuous visual sense of motion. That single sample is then a physical object capable of being stored in visual memory. In effect, a brain can take a photograph and save that picture in visual memory. As a physical discrete object stored in memory, a visual moment is a physical object subject to contemplation.<br /> <br />More formally, our brains are able to take a picture of a moment that can be physically stored as a visual memory. Let's set some boundaries, a lower and an upper limit. Let's call the duration of an imagable moment X. Let's set the value of X equal to the number 1. For X = 1, then 1 is defined as the 'time interval' that our sense of sight can resolve into a single, storable discrete, interpretable visual representation whose duration is a moment. The interval (1 + n) sums to the time it takes for the brain to record an impression, an impression that is a visual representation of a moment whose duration is defined as equal to the number 1. The expression (1 + n) is the time it takes for the brain to take a picture that is a capture of a 'time interval' of length 1. Values of X that are less than the number 1 don't last long enough for the brain to meaningfully image. Values of X that are less than the number 1 are too dark to fully interpret. As to the upper boundary, let's just say for discussions sake that any value for X that is greater than the number 1 are blurry, not fully interpretable. Some degree of blur is interpretable, but let's just ignore that fact for now. Let's also ignore the fact that a 'too dark' image of an object is still an interpretable visual representation of that object.<br /> <br />So I've analogized visual memory production by the brain to a photographic process. There isn't anything particularly profound in saying our brain takes pictures and stores them in visual memory. Which moments get stored in the brain and why? Beats me. When does the brain decide that there is something to image and remember among all that otherwise would be a void of darkness or just un-interpretable noise?<br /> <br />Overall, without a brain's representation of a moment, all there would be is a brain experiencing darkness and noise. We think in order to make sense of that noise. To think, we need an object of thought. Yet without a particular [particulate] mental representation drawn from all that continuous noise, there literally isn't anything for the brain to contemplate except it's experience of life as one wide un-interpretable continuum between infinite darkness and infinite noise. The existence of a mental representation of a moment, it's particulate physical existence in the brain, is evidence of a brain attempting to make sense of all that darkness and noise. Without a mental picture taken of that noise, there isn't particularly anything that can be made sense of by a brain. Below the lower limit of our brain's 'impression making' is an information-less void. Above the upper limit lies an endless din of un-interpretable information. Poetically speaking, we exits in that space between endless darkness and nerve wracking noise. I'm sure there are photographs expressive of the idea of that space as our lived experience.</p>

<p>So I'm not being philosophical, I'm trying to approach the topic of thinking, language, photography and art from the perspective of natural philosophy, of science. And from that perspective also trying to create some poetry. Also in play, from the perspective of a natural philosophy, is, as Phil expressed it, the question: "Are we an intelligence looking for its self or are we a self looking for an intelligence?" I think there is an answer expressible to some degree by a natural philosophy.</p>