28 Critical Reflections: random 1 t0 7
River Form reminds the viewer of a pebble that has been gently shaped by the currents of a churning river. The piece is a contemplation of water, space and the sky. The artist’s interest in exploring the void and the interaction between positive and negative space is evident in the cutaway interior which gives the impression of having evolved over time.[1]
'Abstract' is a word which is now most frequently used to express only the type of the outer form of a work of art; this makes it difficult to use it in relation to the spiritual vitality or inner life which is the real sculpture. Abstract sculptural qualities are found in good sculpture of all time, but it is significant that contemporary sculpture and painting have become abstract in thought and concept. As the sculptural idea is in itself unfettered and unlimited and can choose its own forms, the vital concept selects the form and substance of its expression quite unconsciously.[7]
So, anyway, the people. Their clothes were shiny too, but lots of different colours. Skin-tight. They wore helmets with stubby aerials, and goggles. But the goggles had lines of information flickering across them.[2]
Carving is interrelated masses conveying an emotion; a perfect relationship between the mind and the colour, light and weight which is the stone, made by the hand which feels. It must be so essentially sculpture that it can exist in no other way, something completely the right size but which has growth, something still and yet having movement, so very quiet and yet with a real vitality.[7]
Even admitting that what happens in a camera obscura is something 'similar' to the phenomenon of the specular reflection (which is not questionable), what changes is the fact that an image remains traced somewhere, and any successive discussion about its iconic properties deals with the imprinted image and not with the process itself.[3]
But the first thing to make clear is that a specular reflection cannot be taken as a sign if one follows the definition given in this book. Not only can it not be properly called an image (since it is a virtual image, and therefore not a material expression) but even granted the existence of the image it must be admitted that it does not stand for something else:on the contrary it stands in front of something else, it exists not instead of but because of the presence of that something: when that something disappears the pseudo-image in the mirror disappears too.[3]
Oh yes, there were birds, but not like the birds you see today. Big as eagles and coloured like kingfishers. They roosted on the ledges of the towers, and under the ramps. Long curving ribbon ramps, with... Obviously these were too heavy to fly, so they had to go on the roads. Very fast. Automated, of course.[2]
28 Critical Reflections random 8 to 14
Back to Clive's home page
Sources
[1] http://www.neworleanspast.com/art/id62.html
[2] Ken MacLeod, Reflective Surfaces, New Scientist, 2009.
[3] Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics, Indiana University Press, 1979.
[4] Clive Fencott, Reflections on seeing River Form in Barbra Hepworth's garden in St. Ives.
[5] http://www.flickr.com/photos/nigelhomer/316548379/
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specular_highlight