Stranded Jellyfish, Granite Bay
Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa Classic MCC 111 VC FB photographic paper, image size 24.5cm X 19.3cm, from a Kodak TriX 4x5 negative exposed in a Tachihara 45GF double extension field view camera fitted with a Voigtlander Heliar 21cm f4.5 lens.
A mandala shaped animal lies in a mandala shaped tomb as it traverses its mortal journey.
Photography:first utterance. Sir John Herschel, 14 March 1839 at the Royal Society. "...Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation,..".
Excellent Maris!
It describes ambiguity if you flip the sign and signifier around. If in overdetermination, there are more causes present than are necessary to cause the effect, the effect would be the words present on the page; the cause would be possible meanings expressed by the words. This use isn't standard, as the uses are standardized in science and mathematics. It's just a way of describing a kind of indeterminacy.Originally Posted by Struan Gray
If ambiguity corresponds roughly with overdetermination, vagueness corresponds quite closely with underdetermination. In an underdetermined system, there is either no possible solution or an infinite number of possible solutions.
Indeterminacy plays an important role in philosophy an linguistics and criticism. These borrowed phrases from math and science, I suspect, are really metaphorical descriptions of its different flavors.
That's a neat way of looking at it.
Rasputin was poisoned, shot, clubbed, shot again, and drowned.
Science would say he is definitely dead.
Art would say we don't know how he died.
Science does odd things to words. I once tried to convince a room full of historians that strain is not just a bit different from stress, but is a fundamentally different quantitiy. I didn't make much progress.
This photograph was taken by one of the students during session of "pin-hole" camera workshops.
The circumstances and conditions of the "making" of this photograph would have to be considered,
and in a certain way can explain how equivalence roots connections among the print, the viewer and the original scene.
I have not yet myself, clearly understand this phenomena !
This photograph is called: Oh..., July !
During the workshop session,the student (X), seeing July (see picture) in the middle upper window, (X)took immediately his wooden tripod and pin-hole camera box to point in that direction to make a photograph of July.
He(X) got everything set for the making of "July" on the window and started to expose film.
When July saw she was being the star for the photo session, she started to arrange herself, her hair, clothes etc...
She kept moving back and forward for a short time and finally went away.
Our student keep counting the minutes and continued his task, holding his tripod and camera in place, exposing film for the long necessary time !
... 20 minutes later, picture was done. Took the pin-hole camera to the dark room and things where ready for developing sheet film.
Developing done, film was wash and hanged to dry.
It is important to clear my story by saying that this workshop was running once a week in a Hospital for people with mental disorder.
So, one week later, I came back for a new session. The student was very excited waiting to see a result.
I was very worried of what I have to show, it was a contact print from the negative exposed the week before...
I was also afraid with the unexpected reactions that the print could generate on my student !
Finally, I give a close envelope with the photograph inside.
The student precipitate and open it...
A long silence followed and suddenly the student turning his eyes to me, with a tender expression on all his body, he exclaims:
Oh..., July !!!
I tried to explain to my dad that in physics, a car slowing down is a kind of acceleration. He's a Harvard grad; I didn't get anywhere.
Language is funny like that. A word means something completely different to specialized tribes than to the general population. You've probably heard rock climbers use "formation" in a way foreign to geologists. Electric musicians and string musicians mean something totally different by "tone." Philosophy is full of technical language made out of everyday words. You might even think you understand what they're talking about ...
This reminds me of the drawing of the sheep in "The Little Prince."
Jonathan,I was digging through my scanned images trying to find a shot that exemplifies White's notion of "equivalence." I think this one qualifies, in that the shape of the light is rather blatantly suggestive of something other than doors and carpet, and, uncharacteristically for me, I had this duality in mind when making the image.* Does it succeed based on White's definition? I really don't know.
Jonathan
*This image is not large format, but I hope the moderators will allow it for the purposes of this discussion since it is the most illustrative example I could find.
A self rebuttal and additional comments if you will. In intially considering this image I was striking my years of parochial education which for me would emboss a certain prejudice onto its interpretation.
But the image has cast a long shadow and here are my afterthoughts:
This could easily be construed as a benediction with a the backlighting of a monstrance during a transfiguation event. What is so compelling is the line vertically through which suggests a line on pavement ("the pavement grey" to quote Yeats). Yes meaning could be extracted to show a miraculous event in a city environment. A compelling image which I dare say might pique the interest of believers. Again, context can enlighten many compelling images and in this case it is what I bring to the image that provides a symbolic interpretation. Whether or not it was intentioned or Jonathan had a sublimital construction to his own belief structure is perhaps irrelevant. The image has imprinted itself.
See Gustave Moreau's use of similar light in "The Apparition". Powerful stuff.
PDM
Ahh, Yeats is music to my ears. (Quite literally, as I find him to be one of the most musical of the modern poets and perhaps my favorite writer of all time.) Thanks for the commentary.
J.
Very interesting.
I spent the better part of two semesters studying Yeat's plays and his collected poems and have read him forever since it seems. The Yeats Reader has a nice selection including prose and discussion of A Vision. There should be a recording on youtube of Yeat's reading the Lake Isle at Innesfree. His upward inflection at the end of each stanza is somewhat unique. If you haven't experienced, check it out.
Great to share this stuff with you.
PDM
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