Assessments over... Roll on the Summer Projects

So, having had my assessments for Studio Practice term two a couple of weeks ago, then my "theory" assessment for "Contemporary Art in Context" last Thursday, I can breath a little bit of relief now...

I've been doing some general sketching over the last couple of weeks whilst trying to write the contextual essay for my "in context" element of my degree.  By the way, I've posted the essay, based on ten of my favourite contemporary thinkers here;  10 Favourite thinkers in Contemporary Art

The sketching has really been carried out just to keep up practice as much as I can.  Now that the assessments are over, I shall buckle down and re-start my "drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" book, by Betty Edwards.

My Summer projects will be updated here;  HaddersSummerArtProjects2014.blogspot.com

Reading and Responding part XIII - More research

Just received the book "Shape of a Pocket" by John Berger from Amazon today, - it's a collection of essays in a paperback format, (not unlike "Ways of Seeing" by the same author).  I've not had chance to look at it though, it seems to be one for me to use when I'm in transit somewhere and have a 20-30 minute uninterrupted slot to loose myself in...  The concept is interesting though, in as much as the Author is referring to a 'pocket' as the pocket of resistance one finds in a human behavioural / social / political sense.  this is only a short blog, but I need to commit my time to continue reading and researching my ten favourite contemporary thinkers for my Art in Context essay / presentation in a few weeks...

Contemporary Art in Context - Semiotics, and Semiology

Today's excellent principle lecture by Spencer Roberts provided guidance and introduction to the field of Semiotics (also referred to as 'semiology' in Europe (under the origin of Saussure or 'Semiotics' is a result of one of it's foundations in the USA - CS Pearce).

The lecture was perfectly timely for our own Project 6, Reading and Responding, as it provided the key contemporary views to help read, and therefore gain 'a view' or an opinion, of the meaning of a image or text.  (As discussed previously, an image of an object (s) is in itself able to be a text... It can have the direct meaning, or an implied meaning and so can be read equally as a sign therefore).

I have already had some exposure to the concepts of Semiotics, through access to the book, "Visible Signs; An Introduction to Semiotics" by David Crow, April 2007 | ISBN-10: 2940373213 | ISBN-13: 978-2940373215 - Although I am aware that there may now be a later edition, which I would thoroughly recommend.

This is a great reference book that I began to read and take some interest in during our initial project on Identities.  Having had some time to reflect on my earlier readings of this publication, it is clear that there is a huge field of study related to Semiotics, and equally, a huge number of theories, hypothesis, antithesis and synthesis of these thories.  The subject is truly vast and plays an extremely significant part of our complex daily lives.  Reading, and responding, takes place in all manner of moments, from a simple day-dream like gaze out of a bus window and onto a panoramic view or scene; or to looking at a person's shoes before commencing a conversation perhaps, or in a more modern context, in reading and responding to advertising images, both intentional, and unintentional.  

Spencer delivered a thoroughly engaging lecture.  It was essential to concentrate on the subject matter that Spencer was delivering, I sensed perhaps that quite a few peers and fellow students may have been somewhat lost, which is, in itself, a Reading and Responding interpretation from my view of events.

The Narrative, - Contemporary Art in Context

We had an interesting lecture session with Dr Stansbie on Thursday when the subject of contemporary narrative was explored.  Having reflected on her lecture for a couple of days, my feelings are a little muddled.  However, by revisiting the subject regularly over the next week or so, I am sure that it will become clearer.
We discussed the need for Narrative in art to properly engage with Philosophy, Thoery and meanings.  Naturaly, this would encompass semiotics and semiology which I explored a few months ago, so the search for signs and symbolism in art must be in tandem with the narrative. The art of ...

"...story telling starts with human history itself..." as quoted by Roland Barthes in his book Image, Music & Text, Published in 1989 **??),

This has been further expounded upon by Mike Biel, in Narratology, a more up to date investigation into the study of the Narrative, and it has also been researched by Peter Verstraten in Film Narratology / Narratology in Movies, - e.g. "The case of Wubetin Felliga".

Dr Stansbie introduced us to the 'Narrative Arc', which I found extremely enlightening, describing the work of Tzetzan Todorov, 1969, and the graphical representation of Dramatic Tension versus Narrative Progression, and how it can be applied to both movies, and I suspect, many other "story" type processes....  I made a note of Todorov's graph how I perceived it as follows;

The above graph does fit so many movies, particularly of the era when Todorov first mapped this effect, but can be mapped to modern works such as "The Wizard of Oz in 30 seconds".  For these sequences to work, it kind of means that the audience has to suspend it's (their own) beliefs temporarily.  

Other frameworks include the "Diegesis" model, that is,  setting (or unsettling) a narratives' time - space - continuum.  In this case, in a Diegesis, it is an entirely created, 'made-up' world, (like Wizard of Oz for instance), and the genre can be fantasy, science fiction, romance etc.

In Modal Narratology, Gerard Gennett explores and examines the WAY in which the narrative is delivered.

Mike Bal cuts over many works of art, media, digital etc.  In fact, Narrative can be designated into many forms, such as;

1. Continuous narrative - Such as the Bayeux Tapestry
2. Monoscenic Narrative, such as narrative painting, a fixed single scene
3. Simultaneous Narrative, - can be abstract, geometric
4. Synoptic Narrative, - eg a single repeated character
5. Panoptic Narrative - e.g. Multiple or circular views
6. Progressive Narrative, - A single scene without repition and "looks" serial
7. Sequential Narrative, such as comic book type story boarding. 
8. Linear Narrative, - with a 'Beginning, Middle and End'.
9. Non-Linear Narrative - Split Chronology, like hypertext jumps
   Rhizomic Narrative - Finds multiple sources
   Multiplicity

A number of examples of the above types of narrative were shown to us.  I reflected and considered each of the approaches.  Interestingly, I thought that such techniques, such as each of the narratives, and Todorov's work could be applied to business presentations and business proposals.  My  30 plus years in industry has seen many unstructured and hence rather flat presentations to both customers and internal audiences.  By applying much more artistic structure and discipline to the way business communicates, could give many the operating and winning edge in this highly competitive environment.  One for me to remember!...

Introduction to Derrida & Deconstruction

Our first project for the new semester will be themed upon deconstruction.  The opportunity to look at this field, prior to starting the semester presented itself by chance to some degree, so I started to prepare early.

Having searched the University's Library resources for Art and Deconstruction, the following titles were suggested;

Art Since 1900;  Modernity, Anti-Modernity and Post-odernism.  By H Foster & R. Krous (2004) Pub. Thames and Holden.  (Lib Reference 709.04 ART.    - This is a huge book, has loads of information, but is rec

Talking Art - Interviews with Artists since 1976,  Lib Reference 709.22 TAL...  Another huge book... Rather boring too, didn't seem to have the inspiring information I was hoping for...

Art;  Key Contemporary Thinkers (2007) Library reference 701.COS

Deconstruction; A Students Guide.  Library Ref; 724.91 DEC  This is an Architectural Book, published by the Architects (???) Academy....

and then finally, I chose to look at the philosopher himself, Derrida.  Understanding Derrida, Lib Ref 194.DER

I found the Icon Books, Introducing Derrida most useful.  He seems to follow a theme that at first glance, appears to be 'capricious contrarianism'!  It seems that anything put forward to him as an idea is cleaved in to two parts.  (This is usual for Western Philosophy, as it fits with the discourse based on the definition of opposites, which are then discussed with distinct determinist views, based on evidence, either 'for' or 'against' a proposition).  However, in Derrida's approach of Deconstruction, the two opposites are manipulated to find potential mid-ground, (which in some of the examples I have seen, could be described as tenuous or even fatuous links). This middle ground, or 'in-between-ness' he describes as the "Deferance" which is populated with "undecide-ables".   If I was to apply his own approach to his own working practices, I could suggest that "Differance" sounds too much like Differ being added to the word "France", from which he is an (Algerian born) citizen.   Maybe he wants to 'plug' the French?  Set France as a leader in philosophy perhaps?

Using his own literary logic again, 'Di' from the greek means two, as in two parts, or to cleave, as in dissect, Divide, etc (the same as 'sunder' in old english)... Added to the Philosopher Foucault = Di-Foucault

Difficile = Difficult  ..... Well, (Example>) 'I always thought that the French could be difficult at times' ( this has two meanings, isthat the french language, or the french people?)....

Coming back to the word 'plug' again, this also has two (or more) meanings... As in 'to plug a publication or idea' means to promote the same... Or it can also mean to stop something or insert something into a socket (or mouth)... So, the above is all a little example of how pretty much anything can be misconstrued, or deconstructed....

Derrida
Derision            (......To ridicule)
Division            (...... To split in two)

Diversion          (......To change course)
.............  Where to now?

Tinguely Icon Book - Reflection of Contemporary Art in Context

The last week seemed to me a little manic as I realised that  I would not have access to a PC / Computer whilst I would be on holiday on the final submission day of 9th January.  So, I would need to make a concerted effort to make sure the Icon books project was completed prior to my departure.  It was actually quite refreshing to put myself under a little pressure, however on reflection, I could have used a little more time to plan the approach.

My approach has been to find appropriate historical references of Tinguely's views on the current culture of his time.  He seemed to be caught up in the whirlwind of life during early days, and arguably, he chose to look at this manic strive for mankind to keep building new structures as the challenge to explore in his work.  In essence, I found all his work to shout out "slow down, look around you, live in the present moment and enjoy it"... Well that's my interpretation anyway.

I chose a number of images of Tinguely that I could adapt for insertion into an Icon book, which were as Tinguely in mid-life, Tunguely as a young man, and also with his wife during the crazy 1960sl; and also I was able to draw sketches of him as an older more experienced man.  He still has a glint in his eye though, throughout his life.

The book was completed late on Friday 3rd Jan prior to my departure for a week's holiday.  I think I may havee gone a little overboard in trying to make it look like an Icon book though, and perhaps I could have spent more time  getting a personal look and feel to it, ratherr that the finished Icon Books product.

Nevertheless, I'm very happy as it's turned out, I'm keen to understand what exactly my tutor was looking for too, as in this particular excercise it has been difficult to understand what the criteria is to have worked towards.

The Google document format of the booklet is below, note that it has been produced in a booklet Print Format, so page numbers are ordered accordingly;

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Acknowledgements; All references and source materials hereby acknowledged and clearly shown in the reference footnotes on each page of occurrence. This booklet has been produced for the purpose of an academic exercise and should not be used as a definitive reference in it’s own right. The copyright & moral rights of this booklet is asserted by the Author, Graham Hadfield (c) 2014.

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PART ONE: THE LIFE OF JEAN TINGUELY - (Bio.)

Jean Tinguely was born on May 22, 1925, in Fribourg,  Switzerland. As early as the late 1930s, he began to create hanging sculptures that used motors to propel them into motion. He later called his form of mechanized sculpture “Méta-Malevich.” In 1954, art historian Pontus Hultén coined the term “Méta-mécan- iques” (meta-mechanical devices) by which these works are now known. Tinguely studied at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel under Julia Ris from 1941 to 1945. There he discovered Kurt Schwitters’s Dadaist work, which would have a great influence on his constructions. Tinguely went through a brief Surrealist painting phase after World War II, but then appears to have abandoned painting in favor of sculpture, although he did continue to create detailed sketches of his work through the planning and preparatory stages. Tinguely’s interest in self-propelled motion was central to his sculptural oeuvre. In 1953 he and Daniel Spoerri, a Romanian dancer and artist, planned a live event called the Autothéqtre (Automatic theater), a performance that would use a mechanical set designed by Tinguely to move colored shapes and objects around a stage without human performers. In the late 1950s, he created a series of automatic drawing machines, the Meta-Matics, which use chalk or markers to create abstract works of art through a mechanized process.1 

1 Reference source material from notes from the Tinguely Meuseum, Basel, Switzerland November 2013, See Tinguely Museum website at http://www.tinguely.ch/                                             Page 1

Tinguely was also one of the artists who signed the manifesto of the Nouveaux Réalistes (New Realists, 1960 - 63) in October 1960. In 1971 Tinguely married artist Niki de Saint-Phalle, with whom he had lived since 1965. During the 1970s, he had embarked on a series of fountain projects, and the two collaborated on Stravinsky Fountain (La Fontaine Stravinsky, 1983), located outside the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and featuring 16 mechanical birds spouting water. The birds’ simultaneous and unpredictable movements are typical of Tinguely’s art and representative of his central belief in subverting the utilitarian purpose of the machine. Jean Tinguely died on August 30, 1991, in Bern. His wife Nikki continued to work within the genre that she and Jean collaborated upon and continued to exhibit at a number of galleries. In 1996 the Museum Tinguely opened in Basel, Switzerland, in tribute to him.2 in summary, Jean Tinguely was mainly concerned with the art of the Kinetic; “For Static” (the name given to his 1959 Manifesto) itself, and of the concept and realization of the contraption’ as a representa- tion of technology but in a somewhat absurd way (- in the author’s view to illustrate the meaninglessness greed of our human drive for more and more technology), and it’s near imminent obsolescence. His approach had been influenced by his early interest in Dadaism, particularly with the works of Kurt Schwitters & Duchamp and the concept of Anti-art; and the subsequent evolution into surrealism and Salvador Dali’s perhaps inescapable influence of the day (which it could be suggested, influenced Tinguely’s choice to grow a huge mustache), together with, it is postulated by the author, in large part, to his capabilities in the art’ of welding and light engineering. Here to o, it is a credible assertion that a current contemporary bicycle’ artist, Wilf Lunn, sought the choice of his mustache from a combination of Dali and Tinguely.3

2 Reference source notes taken from The Gugenhiem Museum, New York December 2013.
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/1004 3 (For a humourous look, see http://www.wilflunn.com/wilf_lunn.htm to compare for yourself).                                                                Page 2


PART & MANIFESTO TWO: THE WORKS of JEAN TINGUELY

His constructions, often witty, humorous, which combine and ironic, junk owing sculpture a great with deal kinetics, to the are Dadaist legacy of anti-art. Tinguely was also a pioneer in the field of art that engenders social engagement. His sculptures often relied on the spectator to push a button, pull a lever, or somehow cause them to start moving. He often incorporated not just what appeared to be “junk” metal, but also the tools with which he worked the iron and materials with. This can be most clearly seen in one of his artworks currently held within the Tate Modern, London, called “Debri-Collage”. This moving sculpture, powered by a motor, is made up from a hammer, a screwdriver, a Hack-saw, a file, an awl / drill, a pair of tin snips, and a plumbers wrench set. The components are either welded together or connected via pivotal bolts to form an intriguing sculpture which seems to move with an irregular beat, The combined tools’ movements appear purposeful, but are pointless in functional terms. Tinguely perhaps had in mind the obsolescence created by mechanical progress. In addition to the colourful handles and movement of the tools which provide the aesthetic, there is also sound.. 1 This piece was produced in 1970, against a background of the ending of “The Hippy” era, when art was fully accepted as “anything goes”. The contemporary culture at that time was in full swing with that of the rights for freedom, the flower-power’ movement and continued exploration of new experiences like transcendental meditation (incl. sex, drugs and rock and roll), against an architectural post war explosion of the building of many many modernist’ edifices (like town shopping centres, bus terminals, huge monolithic living dwellings and the like. It seems apparent that Tinguely had almost predicted all of this, and it’s later demise, some 11 years earlier and declared a view of it within his manifesto “For Static”.

1 Reference source notes from; The Tate Modern, London. December 2013. 

See; http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/tinguely-debricollage-t03822                              Page 3


TInguely’s Manifesto - “For Static” (1959);

Everything moves continuously. Imobility does not exist. Don’t be subject to the influence of out-of-date concepts. Forget hours, seconds and minutes.Accept instability. Live in Time. Be static - with movement. For a static of the present movement. resist the anxious wish to fix the instantaneous, to kill that which is living. Stop existing on ‘values’ which can only break down. Be free, live. Stop painting time. Stop evoking movements and gesture. Stop building cathedrals and pyramids which are doomed to fall into ruin. Live the present, live once more in TIme and by Time - for a wonderful and absolute reality. (2)

In order to understand this manifesto, the best explanation is perhaps taken from a discussion by the man himself, on what was one of his most famous works “Homage to New York, 1960”. - The sculpture was built for the Museum of Modern Art, New York, included over 300 bycy- cle wheels, and was designed to self-destruct in front of a live audience of spectators. It notoriously only partially completed its task its flames were put out by an over zealous member of the fire department. (The following extract is from an interview in 1962, some two years after completion of “Homage to New York” 1960); 

“Homage to New York was for me an attempt to liberate myself from the material. The best way to do this was to make it self-destroying, like Chinese fireworks, so that during the event – and naturally it became an event, a spectacle – all these materials, even the smoke, became part of the sculpture. I say Chinese fireworks because that is the best example in classic art. What was important for me was that afterwards there would be nothing, except what remained in the minds of a few people, continuing to exist in the form of an idea. This was for me very liberating. The next day they just swept up and every trace was gone. It was just a marvellous thing people talked about Why liberating? Because I was totally engaged and yet totally free. It gave me every opportunity and left me in a semi-trance, in a sort of dream. It was for me the ideal solution, it was the form of art that seemed the most perfect I have yet found. It could be stripped of all significance, or it could be interpreted in a symbolic sense; it could be taken as a spectacle, a rape, a joke, a gadget – anything you wish. It wasn’t the idea of a machine committing suicide that fascinated me primarily; it was the freedom that belonged to its ephemeral aspect – ephemeral like life, you understand. It was the opposite of the cathedrals, the opposite of the skyscrapers around us, the opposite of the museum idea, the opposite of the petrification in a fixed work of art. It would be beautiful if every work of art were like that. Perhaps they are, ..time-worn; it is truly more than the artist made it, and we have certainly accepted this modification." 3

2 Manifesto M67, Jean Tinguely, For Static 1959. Page 336, 

100 Artists’ Manifestos, By Alex Danchev. 2011. Penguin Books Ltd, London                               Page 4

Tinguely participated in several important exhibitions, an early one was devoted to Kinetic art, Le mouvement (Movement, 1955), Galerie Denise René, Paris. This important exhibition also featured artists Alexander Calder, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Victor Vasarely, among others. Additional exhibitions/performances include Vitesse pure et stabilité monochrome (Pure velocity and monochromatic stability, 1958) with Yves Klein at the Galerie Iris Clert, Paris; Cyclo-Matic-Evening (1959), a “happening” at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Study for an End of the World, no. 1 (Étude pour une fin du monde No. 1, 1961), at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; and Study for an End of the World, no. 2 (Étude pour une fin du monde No. 2, 1962), the successful self-destruction of a work in a desert near Las Vegas. Tinguely went on to influence many other artists, particlarly in the re-use of discarded material, junk metal, and that old favourite of his, bicycle wheels. (see earlier refeer- ence to Wilf Lunn!). Other notable retrospectives were at the Tate Gallery, London (1982), and Palazzo Grassi, Venice (1987).4 He died on August 30, 1991, in Bern, Switzerland, in his country of birth.


3 Extract from an unpublished interview conducted by Calvin Tomkins for a 1962 article for The New Yorker (courte- sy Calvin Tomkins Papers, II.A.5. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York), Published at http://www.tate.org. uk/context-comment/articles/homage-destruction 

4 Reference source notes taken from The GUgenhiem Museum, New York December 2013.

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/1004 

                                                                                                                                 Page 5

First assessment... December 2013

Well that went better than I expected!.... I got some really positive feedback from my course leader, with good praise for my level of research and articulation.  We chatted for about 30 mins, which wasn't what was intended, as only 15 mins had been allocated to each student... (Sorry to Kathryn for delaying hers!!)...  I came out feeling quite chuffed with my self, however, I must not get complacent.  My practical art application is still rather light in my own opinion.  I am simply not producing enough artwork as conceptual or unfinished work.  I seem to be staying in the safe zones and we both recognised my need to research perhaps a little less, and play a little more!  All in all though, quite happy with the review & result.

An open mind...

It's been a strange week.  I've been very anxious for the other students a little too much this week, and this has had a bearing on my own concentration and output.  Unfortunately, it's something I have to accept that sometime my empathy is a little too strong, I just automatically start worrying for others.  It's a habit that locks me down so often, which caused me to ruminate and hence loose time and some creative enthusiasm. It's a schema that I would benefit from changing.

Anyway, to summarize where I am... The contemporary practice in context (i.e. the theory part) seems to be raising a lot of concern and fears in the group this week, as to what needs to be done, and what is right, and what is wrong.  It has meant that there has developed a conversation and notion of rightness and wrongness, which when thought about deeply, doesn't actually exist.  What has been set for us to do, is really quite open and whilst there is guidance, there are no hard boundaries that might hold us in.  We are free to explore where-ever and whatever we want to.  The only output (or products) at this stage is for each of us to create a mind-map of a philosopher / theorist, or a favoured artist's or even an art movement's Manifesto.  Once this mind map has been created, we then should be able to create an image (in what-ever format we want, so it can be a drawing, painting, piece of sculpture, electronic representation or whatever), that captures some key identifying component(or components) of the chosen theorist or manifesto...

To repeat the phrase that I keep coming back to, which Shakespeare wrote in Hamlett act 2...
  "Nothing is either right nor wrong, but thinking makes it so"...

(I shall keep coming back to this wonderful phrase again and again, I am sure of it...:-) )...

This notion of "nothing is right or wrong but thinking makes it so" is really part of the essence of post-modernism I suppose.  Almost anything goes... This is reflected very much not just in our contemporary culture but also in our art too.

So, onto a more focused reflection my thinking...

Having decided to consider the artist Jean Tinguely, for my choice of theorist for study in Contemporary Art Practice in Context project, I've been gathering references to his material.

The choice of using Jean Tinguely as both a theorist, practitioner and artist (someone whom I had never come across before), has given me a greater challenge to gather research, simply because records of him and his work seem a little harder to obtain, if compared with a more generally known artist or celebrated movement...  I see this as a positive thing.  It has meant that I have to research in a much more focused way, but in so doing, has caused me to touch and review very many unconnected sources of inspiration and resources of study.

Tunguely, perhaps a lesser known artist within the UK but much more celebrated in Europe (especially in Switzerland, his birthplace), created the Manifesto "of Static" and from it grew the movement itself and corresponding manifesto;  he has probably become most famous for the creation of the theme and idea of "Meta-matics".

Representation, a theoretical study based on Immanuel Kant, 1750s

The following reflection is taken from an introduction to the exploration of Representation based on the later works of Immanuel Kant, circa 1750s to 1780s.

Immanuel Kant was a truly amazing thinker.  It was through his work that set the ground and seeds of thought for the modernist movement to be established, perhaps some 100 years after his work was published.   Modernism arises from the cultural dimensions of the period between the 1850s to 1900s.  The modernist style almost es the cultural context of that period.

The impact of Modernism clearly had a further influence on later culture, in particular, the advent and stylisation of advertising in the 20th century.  We shall explore the theme of advertising later, but modernism's influence, through the exploration of new ways of achieving representation, its emphasis on clarity, clearness, and elegance on this essential part of our current culture in 21st century, can all be traced back to the almost epiphanic moments in late 19th century art.  What is interesting however, is that Modernism itself evolved from a culture that was entirely opposite, almost a chaotic situation, fed by war, revolution and extreme civil unrest.

Why is Modernism so versatile and able to manifest itself during this almost chaotic background?...  We will centre on Kant's innovation in that moment of history which took the form of four categories...   Those of  Noumenal, Phenomenal, Beautiful and the Sublime.

 Noumenal is the category used to represent the physical things that we know exist, but we cannot see.  Phenomenal is the perception or experience of the world that we see around us.  The beautiful being what we see and finally, the sublime being the world that we neither see nor touch, but which we think of (or in particular, dream of).

The Phenomenal perception is almost structured on the design convention of Kant.  He stated that we (humans) all perceive things in the same way.  This is  the geometry and mathematical rules of what we imagine as reality.  It is sometimes considered as the notion of the lens framing and structuring what we see as the real.  It is the interplay of our ideas with some mathematical blueprint or formula that kes our brain think of it as being real.

Along side that of the four categories that Kant had defined, he started a deeper look (in around 1790) in to the notion of ''creativity''. He tries to suggest that the stable views that Philosophers had been abiding by for years, based on 'experiences' start to change.

What Kant says is that the idea of Beauty changes.  -  When there is something appealing in an aesthetic object, he argues that it reflects our individual notion of our human system or pre-defined blueprint (he calls it a schema) of what is beautiful in the world.  It is beautiful because it models our perception of what is beautiful.  i.e. 'correct'....  This pre-defined schema is actually based on what we have learned.  It is not something that exists in our brain on its own...  It is a summation of what our parents, our grand-parents, our cultures and previous cultures have learned and influenced through each generation.

In Contemporary Art we move forward from beauty, into the area of the sublime.  The feeling (or inability) to capture something, like the sense of infinity of space, or at the opposite, the sense of the sub-atomic level.  So, in the sublime encounter or zone, onsider the enormousness of a cathedral perhaps, or the continuous reference of me of the minute details, but not the enormity of it... eg the wooden pughes or the woodcut of the figurines on them, or even the wood splinters which make up the seating.