GHASSAN ALSERAYHI
 MSc. Arch, M. Arch, B. Arch, Assoc. SCE

ARCHITECT + EDUCATOR + RESEARCHER


The role of representation in structuring
“the real” and making the invisible visible:
In Exploring the (re)production of ideas, considering the problem of
‘image-object relationship’, through the lens of perception, language, and materiality


  The historical caution in philosophy towards images was shaped by Plato's view that art and images are distorted versions of the "ideal" from the rational realm, considered superior to our sensory world. However, the modern age's intellectual and artistic shifts highlighted the significance of sensory existence and imagination, especially in artistic creation. Science further validated the role of the observable and imagination in creation. This emphasis, along with other factors, paved the way for today's digital era, where images are paramount in communication. Moving beyond the Platonic view, there's a heightened philosophical focus on the role of images in life, especially in the media and visual arts. This is evident in discussions linking advertisement as part of media with philosophy and the reliance on the implicit knowledge through which the participants perceive the “real,” including the world. This is also evident in discussions linking the painting with philosophy and the use of artworks, like Paul Cézanne's, as cited by Merleau-Ponty, for philosophical insights. Figures such as Freud, Deleuze, Foucault, and Heidegger exemplify the merger of art and philosophy, representing a "philosophical nomadism" inspired by Nietzsche. This blending is driven by cultural and intellectual evolutions, highlighting the fluidity between art, philosophy, and science.

Foucault's fascination with surrealist painter René Magritte extended beyond their personal friendship to a shared intellectual curiosity, especially regarding the relationship between words and objects. Both held similar perspectives on the world, human existence, and their respective mediums of expression. While Foucault utilized an archaeological method to dissect human actions in history, Magritte's surrealist approach allowed him to delve deep into subjects, reconstructing and exploring their meanings. Magritte's drawings, influenced by encounters with philosophical works like Merleau-Ponty's 'Phenomenology of Perception', Perelman's writings, and Foucault's 'The Order of Things', became platforms for philosophical expression, albeit in an aesthetic manner. Despite deriving his style from surrealism and being significantly influenced by the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico, Magritte's art was infused with philosophical content, transforming images into thought-provoking problems. Philosophers, including Foucault, thus recognized Magritte's paintings as potent exemplars for discussing intellectual and cultural subjects, with Foucault even penning a book on the art of drawing in relation to Magritte. René Magritte often placed familiar objects in surreal contexts, as seen in his renowned drawing "The Treachery of Images" or “La trahison des images” (Fig1). This drawing depicts a pipe with the caption "This is not a pipe", underscoring that an image isn't the actual object. Magritte says about this particular painting: "The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, isn't it? So if I had written in my picture 'This is a pipe', I'd have been lying!" Magritte's commentary is a classic reflection on semiotics, the study of signs and symbols, and their use or interpretation.




Figure 1: the “La trahison des images” by René Magritte (1928-29)


Magritte was influenced by philosophical interactions, notably with Bierleman and Foucault. Foucault's 1973 book "This is not a pipe" analyzed Magritte's works, emphasizing the "resemblance" problem and the image-object relationship, questioning thought-reality alignment and truth's nature. Their works bridge the historical gap, initiated by Plato, between image and truth. Magritte's 1929 piece "The Treachery of Images" confronted this skepticism, suggesting that while images may deceive, seeking a "truer" reality is unreasonable. After his painting "The Selective Affinities" in 1932, Magritte clearly distinguished himself from surrealism in its "arbitrariness", becoming more interested in "problem extraction,” as is the case in this elusive representation of the well-known cave allegory attributed to Plato. Magritte presents a painting within a painting, depicting the horizon as seen through the opening of a dark cave lit by fire, a collection of "simulacra.” This portrayal, therefore, is a diagnosis of the confusion between reality and our representation of it. Magritte clarifies what he expressed as the "human condition,” the title he chose for his painting: “La condition humaine” 1935 (Fig2) – a leap into the deceptive world of appearance.




Figure 2: the “La condition humaine” by René Magritte (1935)


Diego Velázquez's 'Las Meninas' (1656) in (Fig3) has spurred diverse interpretations, with Michel Foucault pondering its enigmatic exchange of gazes in "The Order of Things." The painting invites questions about who is viewing whom: Is it about the 'meninas', Infanta Margarita, or the king and queen faintly reflected in a mirror? Velázquez's gaze is directed at us, suggesting we might be the models, yet the exact subject he's painting remains unseen. This prompts questions about absence and presence. Are we the observers or the observed? Velázquez's work challenges not just our aesthetic sense, but our cognitive abilities too. He incorporates everyone — past, present, and future viewers — into his canvas, presenting a profound relationship between humans and art, one perhaps questioning language. Just as Michel Foucault says: The relationship between language and painting is an infinite one. The word is incomplete and stands in the face of the visible, striving in vain to surpass it. They cannot reduce each other; in vain, we say what we see because what we see never dwells in what we say, and in vain, we attempt to make others visualize through images, metaphors, and comparisons what we are currently articulating. Therefore, in the face of this gray, obsessed, and ever-repetitive language, drawings illuminate, proposing a solution for the vague relationship between words and things.



Figure 3: the ‘Las Meninas' painting (1656) by Diego Velázquez


Carrying this discussion from words as medium to their abstract realm – words as material – Immanuel Kant's axiom suggests that all spatial perceptions are a self-image in which content is separated from the containing form or framework. Kant referred to this as the external relations that the logical sense perceives as content. However, the point highlighted by the Arabic thinker Jalal Al-Azm is that “Kant viewed space as a priori in relation to the senses after drawing a sharp distinction between the image and the content, defining the 'content' as the senses." Indeed, every perception is a mental abstraction of an image of something. Therefore, the content of the thing is an expression sensibly acceptable up to a certain extent. The distinction between content and its formal image, despite seeming arbitrarily meaningless, is sanctioned by Jalal Al-Azm with reservations, but he finds it a reasonably acceptable rationale. He posits that the justification for this separation hinges on two potential conditions. First, this relationship should be necessary, meaning the image of space inherently and necessarily corresponds to this content, and the content is intrinsically suitable and compatible with this image. Only then would their relationship be essential. Second, the relationship between the image and the content is incidental, implying that their alignment is due to “coincidence” and not a logical or philosophical necessity.

Every specific spatial content contained within a substance consists of content and form that necessarily harmonize due to inherent existential necessity. It's self-evident that the form of a specific material or spatial content is not suitable for another content that differs in its harmonious nature that one registered it in mind. The things perceived by the mind are only those things where their image or external form harmonizes with their material content. It is almost impossible to find a form that coincidentally matches the material content of something without being determined and accidentally associated with it. So, what does it mean for the relationship between the image and the content to be not justified by logical or philosophical necessity but to be mere coincidence? Do we need to subject all natural harmony in the consonance between the image and content in phenomena, places, and things in their existence to the factor of chance just to justify a state of philosophical arbitrariness that makes perceiving the image suffice without perceiving its content? Descartes and John Locke, in what is known in philosophy as the principle of epistemological dualism, concluded more logically, far from Kant's pure logic approach, that perceiving an object's image is an implicit perception of its content in its entirety. Genuine perception doesn't involve separating an object's content from its external attributes. Berkeley's objection to them was not to separate the image from its original content, but to say that full perception of a thing does not preclude investigating beyond this initial preliminary perception. Perceiving something doesn't mean knowing its true nature; perhaps he meant the essence hidden behind external qualities. Kant then was pioneering in this perceptual and conceptual sense, considering existence itself to be the essence that we cannot perceive. Existentialists led by Husserl in phenomenology took this from him.

Another way to understand the various ideologies towards such complex relations is also to explore how reality is perceived and projected to be perceived differently might be found through the cultural actions towards revolutions. As the industrial revolution neared its end, a fresh perspective on art evolved, blending the mechanics of the human body with machinery. During the mid-1800s to the interwar era, cities became hubs for technology-driven objects, fostering new art forms, social environments, and entertainment. This period marked a convergence of art and life via technology, with a notable mechanization process influencing both the human body and crafted artifacts (Fig4 and 5). Artists such as Fritz Kahn and Harold Wheeler attempted to grasp the intricacies of the machine-body relationship, it's vital to examine their varying interactions, from small devices to broad systems. Everything, be it architecture, artifacts, or organisms, acts as linked elements in this tapestry. Their fusion spawns pioneering creations. Such intersections breed new synergies among diverse entities, leading to unique movement and social patterns. By contrasting avant-garde art with new technological and industrial trends, we can highlight artists who pursued more abstract approach to the discourse of human and science such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (and his work ‘vision in motion’) and Naum Gabo, who anchor their work in the tangible mechanics of machines.


                                         

         Figure 4: "The Wonders Within Your Head" (1938) by Fritz Kahn                    Figure 5: "Vision in Motion” by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy


The discourse on the impact of machines on art and drawings delves into the body's metamorphosis into machinery and its artistic representation. It raises questions like how art pictures the body's future. Rather than predict the body's future, it's essential to study how drawings have historically portrayed it amidst societal changes. A profound exploration can be found in Matthew Barney's Cremaster Anatomies series, with roots in the 1993 Post-human exhibition curated by Jeffrey Deitch. This exhibit forecasted body changes due to biotechnological and medical advances, with art playing a pivotal role in these transformations. The Pygmalion myth symbolizes the age-old allure of merging human and artificial elements, an idea reinforced during the 19th century's industrial era, viewing the body as machine-like. Over the 20th century, this imagery evolved, reflecting technological influences on the human form. The "post-human" term of the 1990s transitioned focus from machinery to advanced bio-communication technologies. Within this context, this study delves into Barney's portrayal of the body, situating it in the technological landscape of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Herbert Marcuse (1898 - 1979) argued that the modern industrial society curtailed the artistic scope of imagination in favor of scientific and technical imagination, which aligns with industrial progress. While valuing its potential to revolutionize society, Marcuse emphasized rehabilitating imagination for its vital role in human liberation. He believed that critical theory should stem from man's tangible reality rather than solely from imagination. Marcuse noted that true imaginative freedom mirrors the real potential for tangible freedom. Modern society produces the 'one-dimensional man,' characterized by technological rationality and materialistic uniformity, driven by material progress, luxury, and consumption. This society embraces positivism, applying natural science principles to humans and modeling reality quantitatively. It also spawns vast institutions that control, guide, and objectify individuals for pre-determined ends. To truly elevate humanity, we must re-engage with the constrained imagination of modern man amidst technological advancements. This engagement will drive innovation, enabling constructive interaction with social realities, reclaiming the innate human essence overshadowed by modern progress and its influence on imagination.

In examining media as an instrument for diverse forms of knowledge construction, through which individuals discern the "real," it becomes pivotal to analyze the socioeconomic shifts in association with machines, buildings, and their representations. In his exploration of the history of architectural regulation in the US, Michael Osman’s book “Modernism's Visible Hand” delves into one facet of this discourse. He sheds light on the emergence of a domestic economy dialogue in the United States during the mid-19th century, a period marked by the advent of thermostat technology in homes. The U.S. quickly embraced home electrification, largely due to Thomas Edison's innovations, paving the way for an integrated network that incorporated thermostats into architectural interiors. This catered to a specific individual within the household: not the father or children, but the mother. She became the orchestrator of the American interior condition, with "condition" referring to the state of the household. With the thermostat's introduction, her role evolved from a housekeeper to a household manager. As such, the thermostat became the medium through which she seamlessly merged administration with daily life. An examination of a thermostat advertisement (Fig6) unveils the era's cultural focus on health, economy, and societal values. All these themes converge in a singular linguistic gesture within the image: the text emphasizes the need for "an automatic heat regulator" to ensure a steady room temperature. An "even," "uniform temperature" is portrayed as essential for both comfort and health, with "sanitary" underscoring the promise of a pristine, hygienic living space. In the ad, a female figure, representing the household manager, is depicted adjusting the thermostat. The engagement and wedding rings on her finger indicate the middle-class status of American society then. Below the thermostat's image, the words "adjust here" specify her action, while "it's automatic" beneath her hand emphasizes the device's user-friendly nature—regulating the temperature demands minimal effort, akin to simply activating the device.




Figure 6: "An ad for an early home thermostat. (American Homes and Gardens 3; 1906)”





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