Borderline Obsessive Illusionist

      I'm obsessed by Art   

                                           –Nikos Pantazis

 

So am I to a point. I love Art, as the ultimate symbol of Imagination, of escapism and of creative thinking. Of experience, of feelings and profound beauty. I love how it does not discriminate aesthetics, it is everything and nothing, whatever you want it to be.  I love the way it consumes and  often becomes the very first and last thought of the day. Tickles, seduces, suffocates and releases.  It makes me think of Aristotle's theories of catharsis and hedone, the purging and release of emotions through the experience of art (which also applies to the act of creation for the artist).

 

We shall not cease from exploration,

 and the end of all our exploring

will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

                            -T. S. Eliot

 

These days I find myself consumed with figuring out concepts of embodiment and the portrayal of the body in photography for an essay in the Art history subject The Body In Art and Thought: Deep Genealogies.

 How does staged photographic representation of the body convey ideas of identity/persona, sexuality and relationship to photographer/viewer?

 I find myself lost in the jungle of semiotics and I keep coming back to the conclusion that everything is borderland these days. Are we certain of anything in regards to what we see? Do we even know if the emotional response to an image is ours and not orchestrated by the artist?  Is it ever just one or the other?

 Do things exist the way we 'see' them or are we simply encoded to see them in certain ways?

 I came across the website Photoshop Disasters, or it's a blog really, and nerd that I am, found it most amusing. These advertisements are out there. You've probably seen one or more of them, but you, as I, have most likely not really noticed what was actually there. Our brains have become so accustomed to certain things that it is only by reflecting upon them, or having some things pointed out, they reveal another layer of 'truth'.  Advertising and Cinema being the prime examples, the Queen Bees of deceitful illusion.

Take a look at http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/

Enjoy.