Wednesday 2 May 2007

Reality

Reality……….

Hmmmmm…… time for more of my thoughts about this abstract art/photography business. I been thinking a little, yes me, thinking….! Unheard of.

I’ve decided that all art, whether it be an oil painting, or a digital photo, is abstract in some way. Every time you take a photo, reality of what you’re seeing is being altered. What do I mean? Think about it, when you take a photo you may actively alter aperture setting, shutter speeds, colour setting etc, which contributes to the reality being altered. Even if it’s a completely recognisable photo, it still is abstract for the reasons I’ve just mentioned. When you load your digital photos onto a computer and view it on the monitor, that monitor has just gone and altered the image. Then all the Photoshop alterations you may well make also contribute to it becoming more abstract. Then the final print also alters what the image was originally. The printer, the ink, the paper etc, it all alters how the image will finally look. So that’s it I guess, any piece of art is abstract to varying degrees.

I’m going all philosophical on here and say to you what is reality. Our reality is simply what we perceive it to be, and we don’t question it. However the life in which we live could all be an illusion. We would struggle to accept it, if someone came along and said there is another world, a world of reality and you were told that the life you were living was all one big illusion. This is kind of touching on Plato’s “Analogy of The Cave” theory. If you’re into light reading you should definitely read it, or watch the matrix……

I don’t what came over me, my philosophy a-level all came flooding back, kind of. Is our life real let alone what we’re photographing? We will never know……….. Maybe in an after life, if there’s such a thing. As humans we’re too small and insignificant to ever understand reality. I often think to myself, well how did we end up here, on planet earth. I often look at the stars at night and wonder what is out there and it’s kind of scary really to think of the size and the power of the universe in which we live. In truth we will never find out the answers to life. People believe in the “big bang” or in God but this is because people need to grasp onto something to believe in, because that’s all we can do is believe. Wow I’ve just gone on a typing rampage, perhaps I’ve have digressed a little.

5 comments:

Lewis said...

mayb i did kind of waffle here a little.......

Lewis said...

Anti-realism?

Lewis said...

"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense" Tom Clancy

... said...

We're all searching for meaning and identity Lew. Making art is just one way of doing this. Some people work for a living and for them it's enough. Are they fools?

Wilfrid said...

Hey there, thanks for dropping at my website. I used to ponder upon the whole business of our existence, years ago. In fact, still do.

I suppose photography, or the result of it, is an art form. For some topics, we have to replicate in as much as possible the essence of what it was. For others, we have the artistic freedom to abstractly alter the form. Such is the beauty of photography!