[Xmca-l] Re: ASPECTS OF image formation as gap filling

[Larry Purss]

I wanted to add to my first post a comment on 'montage" [section 4.3].

The phrase "every word has been PERMEATED as every image has been
TRANSMUTED, through the imaginative intensity of one creative act."

I wanted to draw attention to the *reciprocal* relation of "permeated" and
"transmuted". I will now put this phrase in a larger context to acquire
some "distance" [both spatially and temporally as you "read" these words.
Hopefully it will "transmute" the words in the phrase above.

Peleprat & Cole in the article use section 4.3 to hightlight the movement
of permeating and transmuting. They say:

Every word has been permeated, as every image has been transmuted, through
the imaginative

intensity of one compelling creative act. “Consider it well,” says Abt
Vogler of the

musician’s analogous miracle:

*Consider it well; each tone of our scale in itself is nought; It is said
everywhere in the world -- loud, soft and all is said: Give it me to use! I
mix it with two in my thought: And there! Ye have heard and seen: consider
and bow your head! *

Give Coleridge one vivid word from an old narrative; let him mix it with
two in his

thought; and then (translating terms of music into terms of words) “out of
three sounds he

[will] frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.”

[LP - comment: Now in "other words" Peleprat & Cole move to a more formal
language to point to or gesture at THIS same phenomena indicated above to
show how we "evoke" in the "perception and feeling" the most complete IMAGE
OF THE THEME "itself"] To continue in Peleprat and Cole's words:

"In explicating his theory of montage, Eisenstein invoked

precisely this idea in more formal language:

“Representation A and representation B must be so selected

from all the possible features within the theme

that is being developed [so that their juxtaposition] shall

evoke in the perception and feelings of the spectator the

most complete image of the theme itself.” (Eisenstein

1942, 69)."

[LP comment:  Mike, I found this section inspiring as you explore the
notion of *grokking* expressing a meaning using a made up word. Juxtaposing
poetic language and formal language BOTH gesturing at the same phenomena as
*sayings*.  ]

Larry

On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:36 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Mike,
> I am choosing to open a new thread so the other thread can focus on power
> relations.
>
> I want to align with your wish "to draw attention to several aspects of
> the 'gap' where the mediational triangle is not fully connected" [page 7]
>
> The first aspect is that the right of the triangle where the phylogenetic
> and the cultural meet IN the "object" is replaced by a "space".
>
> To move from an object as "material product" to an understanding of the
> phylogenetic and cultural meeting WITHIN "space" opens up perpetual gaps
> that need to be "closed" through imagination. A never ending process that
> indicates the objects AS  "products" are "partially an ILLUSION, an
> "imagined" state" [page 8]  and it IS this imaginal process that IS mind.
> "Mind, here, IS imagination - the process of filling in the gaps that, AT
> THE SAME TIME, constitute mind." [page 7.]
>
> Mike,
> You then outline 3 aspects of what this imaginal process of "formation"
> entails.
>
> 1] The gap represents a set of "differences" that exist at "a next moment
> in time". [LP comment: These differences represent an "other" that is
> partially an illusion but necessary to bring something new into
> existence].  These differences open up a "space" [an opening] as a result
> of the intermingling of the phylogenetically constrained AND the culturally
> mediated constraints creating the "fact" of the gap within experience,
> thought and perception. THIS is the relation of  the subject to the object.
> This discoordination between the phylogenetic and the cultural constantly
> opens a "space" that is "necessary" to existence.
>
> 2] The differences that necessarily exist must be resolved "cognitively"
> by the individual. The work of "imagination fills in the differences
> sufficiently to form a single "image" of the world. This process IS "mind".
> At this point Bartlett is referenced who says, "Thinking" refers to
> thought AS a process of gap filling.
>
> 3] Time is central to this triangular model with the "space" opening a
> FUTURE-ORIENTED [time n+1]. Any "doing in the present" needs to "reduce
> uncertainty" as a condition of coordinated action. However, to partake in
> this "reduction" of uncertainty is partially an "illusion", an imagined,
> anticipated state of future stability oriented to the future. This
> reduction of uncertainty is necessary SO THAT one can act and think. In
> other words,
>  "to imagine IS to imagine a future in which thought and action ARE
> meaningful, which is to say that it is by drawing on the past [LP comment -
> drawing on tradition] that the imagination is able to work out a future
> WITHIN which to think or act in the present" page 8]
>
> I wanted to participate in exploring the imaginal by summarizing the
> aspects which Mike and Etienne Pelaprat  draw to our attention. Notions
> such as "space" and "gap" as facts to be considered when examining
> "objects".
>   I also "perceive" [read]  the acknowledgement of differences and
> discoordination as  exploring the "other" and alterity through historical
> time. That may lead back to the other thread on power differences. David
> Brook pointing out that "meritocracy" is the invisible "imaginal" of  the
> "middle class" consciousness. The question of a class "identity"  as David
> Brooks suggests, may be partially an "illusion" but the illusion of
>  meritocracy,  does create a "space" where identities form and others are
> othered.
>
> Larry
>