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Doug Bowker's avatar

"...the object encompasses itself."

Jean-Paul Sartre: Surely "Frenchiest" of all Jean-Pauls! I do love the way his words have a way of both confounding and enlightening the mind of the reader. But does "the object encompasses itself" really? Physically yes, but then it just becomes a collection of materials; paper, graphite, etc.

Is it not our perception that that does "real" encompassing? We perceive not just marks, but a drawing. Not "just" bits of graphite on a flat surface of dried wood pulp, but a portrait of a man sitting at a table, with a window behind.

We perceive, we interpret; both we and the artist delineate the boundaries.

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Franklin Einspruch's avatar

Because our current Asynchronous Studio Book Club title is breezy, I'm also reading Phenomenology by Chad Engelland. Of course Sartre was in that crowd as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Nothingness

That collection of materials also has a configuration, and the configuration records what Husserl would have called adumbrations, evidence of consciousness, thought, and felt existence. So the object does encompass itself, but the collection includes phenomena beyond the material. That collection becomes a presence when the viewer reaches out to it with perception.

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Marek Bennett's avatar

Oh yeah! I love it when a drawing explodes from empty space like a fish from the depths. 😁

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Franklin Einspruch's avatar

Imagine the sound

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Marek Bennett's avatar

💭 A gentle BLOOPING and SPLOOSHING throughout the gallery...

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Jack Miamensis's avatar

Sartre? Meh. Sounds like someone who likes hearing himself "wordsmithing," and I'm not in the mood.

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