process.gleuch

Our Ways of Seeing Illusion in Motion Pictures

    One of the longest arguments for cinema is whether the idea of motion in motion pictures is an illusion. For many, the argument comes from our conception of seeing, which itself has a long, storied discourse through the history of philosophy, art, and photography. V. F. Perkins in the book Film as Film, attempts to dissipate the idea of the reality of the representation.

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Zeno’s paradoxes — the arrow paradox:

"If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless." — Arisotle

In the arrow paradox, Zeno asks us to imagine an arrow in flight. He then asks us to divide up time into a series of indivisible nows or moments. At any given moment if we look at the arrow it has an exact location so it is not moving. Yet movement has to happen in the present; it can’t be that there’s no movement in the present yet movement in the past or future. So throughout all time, the arrow is at rest. Thus motion cannot happen. (Wikipedia)

Ideas:

• Column of wood cut and created with the prinicple of halfs. Shape could be formed in multiple methods, however there will be a point in which the material would not be usable (at such a small level).
• Video art piece documenting the cutting of wood into halfs.
• Length of wood with increments documenting the halfs, aimed at a point.

Comments from brainstorming critique:

• If video documentation, show a product from the form, i.e. this video.
• Try to incorporate a metaphor into the piece instead of just illustrating a philosophical theorem.
• Play with shape, in that not just a straight columnm, but expanding bases.

Branching Ideas:

• incoporate a second meaning to the piece or work on elements that is uses, such as time and space — introduction of "now", "past", "present"
• mix the video and progression together somehow
• introduce a counterpoint to the piece, i.e. some of the never-proven solutions to the paradoxes, such as the relativity of the "now"

Is art the pragmatic approach to a visual philosophy?

I now have an entire semester to understand the meaning of pragmatism and to develop ‘visual philosophy’.