Art of Personal identity.

 

The following account is based on Derek Parfit theory of identity known as thought experiments such as the teleportation paradox. Parfit being the master of the art of personal identity par excellence.

  • Personal identity suggests the same person who begins the art work project is the same person who finished the artwork, therefore the author of the artwork .
  • Personal identity suggests travel over distance entails the sameness of identity at the beginning to end.
  • These accounts suggest a philosophical bias to the ego theory of what it is to be a person.

Ego theory verses Bundle theory

  • human being persists as a mental thing- a soul, or spirit
  • a human is a material thing but has a supervening series of mental states or events- a person, social identity.

Art object as ego or bundle theory

  • art object as contingent on either a soul/spirit or a series of mental events
  • art object persists as a reflection of a soul so exists as a statement of soul
  • art object persists as a social event attributed to a persons life phase

Artist belief and unbelief

Suppose an artist entered a workshop sealed off from any outside interference as an artist pod. The artist then presses a button that sets off a quantum scanner that records all brain states and cellular structure attributed to the creative process. The belief is a new art project. Hopefully, an outcome will be an artwork to be exhibited at a central gallery. Your choice as an artist is to either believe in the ego theory or bundle theory. You begin to work on the block of marble.

Thought experiment

However, unbeknown to the artist a replica of that artist , the scan produces a replica. Replica begins at the same instant in another art pod at the opposite pole position on earth. The outcome of the resultant artworks is identical in all visible respects. Question being , can an artwork be ascribed to one and only one artist? (The account is a reworking of the teletransportation paradox thought experiment)

Comparing the ego theory to bundle theory as to teletransportation paradox.

  • ego theorist might say there are two bodies but one original ego/soul.
  • therefore one artwork attributed to one and only on ego/soul
  • bundle theorist might say, there are two identical sets of physical and mental process.
  • therefore there must be two artworks attributed to two sets of physical/mental process operating in distinct spacial categories.

Comparing the two accounts of personal identity.

The first account (soul theory) entails the artwork has one and only one owner but nobody owns the work. The second account (bundle theory) there are two persons both of whom made identical artworks. Who has the original? It would seem both do and none of them, hence the paradox for both cases.

Early Austrailan artist influences.

 

Block print of cassowary by I. Giardina

Why this particular list?

This is partly influenced upon reflection of my current style and upon reading the history of Australian artists. My genera of art is multi compositional outdoor art.

The other related context is interests art movements that link to my father Italian heritage as of the early 20th century arte povera.

Antoine Fauchery (1823-1861)
Traveller and photographer of colonial exploits including prospectors in North Queensland. La Trobe collection, state library of Victoria.

James Freeman (1814-1870) Professional photographer and experimentor in medium.

John Glover (1767-1849) Early depictions of Australian bushland.

Elizabeth Gould (1804-1841) Drawings of Australian birds.

G.F. Gregory (1824-1887) high key paintings

E.J. Lukes (1839-1864) History painter, arrival of Burke and Wills as Flinders River.

How early Australian artist photographers’ influenced my style?

Early photographers in particular Antoine Fauchery resonate with the project of social documentary . It was experiment and social documentation that set the social within the environment. He captured the activity of miners jostling over gold along the Palmer river in the Colony of Queensland. However it was James Freeman that experimented with the chemical nature of photography. Chemical use of various resins enables variations to emerge as a form of perspective. So for example in my dry tropics studio I build up layers of resin gives a magnification of the underlying image.

How early Australian artist naturalists influence my style?

Elizabeth Gould’s drawings of Australian birds influenced Australian artists and acted as a forerunner for many enthusiast bird photographers. The similarity with such early illustrators of fauna and flora is through photographic images. The images are placed through an illustrator, making an image trace. The process of photography then poses the main challenge as well as how to portray the depiction then. 

The act of wondering into the wilderness.

E.J. Lukes typified the wondering character of early colonial explorers who documented characters like Burk and Wills fated expidition. What lies at the edge of house? This is a question that drives a good portion of my act practice. It links to the early exponents of visual and textual representation of reality. Australian art history is littered with examples of Australian artists as painters capturing pastorial scenes.

arte povera Australia

 

Art profile of Anselmo Giovanni

Anselmo , Giovanni. Born in Borgfranco d’Ivrea, 5 August 1934.
Associated with Arte Povera movement of which he was a member. Exhibited in Galleria Sperone, Turin 1968 up to 1987
Style: balancing cubes, floating bubles, suspended sheets of plexiglas and hanging chains, Anselmo had abandoned the traditional picture plane in an attempt to create a more direct representation of the themes of gravity and movement. He was striving for an immediate relation to the real world, both visible and invisible.
( Roberto Lambarelli)

Reflections on elements of style

Similarities that I have with Anselmo and Arte Povera.

Poveri art

Set of four suspension representational forms of travel, high mountains, disposable foam