This work is a result of organizing
and making some sense out of a pile of marginal notes - thoughts about
the image in the last 5 years or so. Even if it grounds itself in the composition
of photographic image, its contents are so undeniably abstract and general
that they are applicable to almost all visual arts.
Based on the so called
"pure photography" (formally minimalist, rejecting all of the semantic
content not essential for the photographic medium itself), the thought
already starts on a quite abstract ground, and develops as an deductive
organism, dealing with final, absolute, rejecting any hypothesis. I still
do hope to avoid the trap of becoming dogmatic - even at the price of seemingly
contradictory lines: sometimes a complex system of ideas does not translate
well to the linear language we speak. That's where formalism has to give
up, just so that something gets to be written at all. I am saying all this
as an recommendation for the best reading approach: logic should, at least
to some degree, be left aside.
Just the same as enjoying the images themselves,
we should read this beyond our rational comprehension, using those intuitive
visual thoughts of ours which exist only before they get grabbed by the
prudence of our intellect. This is also a denial of fear that uneducated
eye might miss something in here - it's all about primary biological functions
of first our senses, and then our spirit as well. Problems are of the opposite
nature (and that is somewhat sarcastic) - in deformations our senses and
spirit experience through ill education, deadening, pollution by some not
quite natural usages.
Therefore, it is much more likely, that every time
we embark on exploring the primary visual we'll have to throw something
of our "knowledge" away, than to learn anything radically new. It's all
in our eye, already. |
introduction |