Online a new article for the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology by Caleb Faul (University of North Dakota).
Caleb Faul – “Ontologically Interactive Painting: On Susan Rothenberg’s Three Heads”
JBSP (Received 04 May 2023, Accepted 13 Mar 2024, Published online: 21 Mar 2024).
Abstract: In this article, I argue that paintings are transformations of the perceptual world, transformations that the world itself elicits but does not determine, thus undercutting the subjective-objective divide in art. First, I describe Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s notion of institution, according to which sense develops only by changing, that is, by being taken up and coherently deformed. Next, I use this notion to argue that paintings develop the perceptual sense of the world by coherently deforming it. In other words, paintings are transformations of the perceptual world that are called for by the world itself. To make my case, I analyze Susan Rothenberg’s painting Three Heads, a work that develops and furthers the perceptual sense of horses only by taking it up and changing it. Finally, I suggest that this view of painting motivates an interactive ontology according to which things are not self-contained but interactive, fundamentally opening onto things beyond themselves.
Full article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.2024.2332211
Caleb Faul, Department of Philosophy and Ethics, The University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota
Accessing JBSP Online: The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology is accessed via our publisher’s website: JBSP at Taylor & Francis Online. Access to the JBSP is free to all members of the society. You can find out more about becoming a member and supporting the BSP on the membership webpage. If you are not a member of the BSP, you can also log in using institutional access via Shibboleth and OpenAthens.