Epoché and Residuum as HD Cave Art brings into high definition perception
the phenomenological reduction or epoché and the phenomenological residuum
or ‘absolute reflective insight.’ (Ideas I 63, 148) The project involves digitally/
phenomenologically ‘seeing’ Edmund Husserl’s epoché and residuum in the
caves of the Judean Desert, and Husserl’s epoché on the petrified rock face of a
section of the Judean Mountains extending along the coastline of the Dead Sea,
and in the waters of the Dead Sea.
Most phenomenological practitioners apply the reduction of putting in
parentheses, or ‘bracketing’ of the factually existing object in order to reach
through adumbrations down to the intentional object; these perceptions have
been captured in visual media. While the intentional object is a reflection of the
intentionality of pure consciousness, pure consciousness itself has never, to my
knowledge, been visually revealed. Phenomenologists have textually seizedupon the phenomenological remainder, that being of consciousness which
Husserl calls the ‘absolute essence’ of consciousness which ‘is not touched by
the phenomenological exclusion.’ (Ideas I 33, 65) There has, however, been no
endeavor to render this residuum visually present, disclosing the ‘being of
consciousness’ (Ideas I 49, 110) that remains ‘after the annihilation of the world.’
(Ideas I 49, 109)
Husserl, for the most part, remains on the western terrain of ‘the being of
consciousness’: what remains after annihilation is ‘the stream of mental
processes’ (Ideas I 49, 110), intentionality of the pure ego, and not pure
awareness, the intrinsic awareness, in which the stream proceeds. Yet what is
‘immanently within’ the ‘sphere of consciousness’ (Ideas I 33, 65) and is neither
touched by the phenomenological exclusion nor destroyed by the annihilation of
the world, the residuum, can be understood on the model of pure awareness in
which the mental processes of intentionality, perceiving, and reflecting appear
and disappear.
The unique endeavor of this project is to digitally perceive (see and presentiate)
phenomena not only from Husserl’s ‘ray of directedness’ that ‘takes its point of
departure in the “Ego”’ (Ideas II 22, 103) but, in addition, to digitally perceive (see
and presentiate) phenomena from the space of awareness that contains that
‘attentional ray of regard’ (Ideas I 92, 222) of the pure ego. I contend that this
post-intentionality of perceiving can only come to light with videography,
specifically videography that operates according to the technique of filming
(gaseous perception) set out by Gilles Deleuze in Cinema 1:The MovementImage and by using a technology (high definition video) that perceives with
greater resolution than the human eye/I.
Since the phenomenologist can select any thing upon which to shine her
‘attentional ray of regard,’ I am ‘seizing-upon’ the cave as the object for reduction
and reflection. Epoché and Residuum as HD Cave Art returns to the first
location of art, the cave, to re-present a cave art of first philosophy:
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phenomenology, by virtue of its essence, must claim
to be “first” philosophy and to offer the means for
carrying out every possible critique of reason: … it
demands the most perfect freedom from
presuppositions and … [it demands] an absolute
reflective insight. (Ideas I 63, 148)
The cave, of course, has philosophical significance for Plato. In the allegory of
the cave (The Republic, Book VII) the prisoners see only distorted reflective
illusionary shadows of the real (the idea or the forms). The idea, forms, dialectics,
reason constitute ‘the doctrinal content’ of what Husserl is bracketing and putting
into question in previous philosophical theories. (Ideas I, 18, 34) The philosopher
returns to the cave to free the prisoners from the prison-house which, for Plato, is
‘the world of sight.’ For Husserl, the prison-house is the natural attitude, taking
the world as it is given; the act of freeing is the act of phenomenological
[attentional] ‘seeing’.
As well as representing the cave as an originary site of art and a site of
philosophical disclosure, the caves of the Judean Desert have a famous religious
past as a refuge and dwelling for heretics and sages.
I will deploy the high definition video camera as a digital/phenomenological
seeing in the caves of Qumran, Darga, Avnat, and Arugot in the northern Judean
Desert, the Flour Cave, Sodom Cave in the southern Judean Desert, the burial
caves of Avdat in the Negev; on the petrified rock face of a section of the Judean
Mountains extending along the coastline of the Dead Sea, in the waters of the
Dead Sea.
In order to accomplish the project I will live and work for a period of forty-five
days in the Judean Desert of Palestine at Metzoke Dragot, a hiker’s guesthouse
placed on the edge of a cliff high in the Judean Mountains. Metzoke Dragot is
close to the caves
Phenomenological ‘Seeing’: Method
The project uses two film techniques of the perception image (gaseous
perception and liquid perception) that Deleuze identifies in Cinema 1: The
Movement-Image to facilitate phenomenological seeing.
Perception images are ‘from the point of view of another eye … the purest vision
of a non-human eye, of an eye which would be in things.’ (Deleuze, 1986, 81)
This is the anonymous, unidentified viewpoint of the camera, what Deleuze calls
gaseous perception, the pure vision of the non-human eye (ibid, 80-82) in which
the videographer and the camera function as intentionality directed toward the
object perceived. Intentionality draws meaning from what is already there in the
object, animating the vision of matter. Gaseous perception will participate with
the natural human eye in the Natural Attitude, with the phenomenological human
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eye in the Phenomenological Reduction and without the human eye in the
Phenomenological Residuum.
In the second defining aspect of the perception image, images flow together in
what Deleuze identifies as liquid perception. ‘[W]ater is the most perfect
environment in which movement can be extracted from the thing moved, or
mobility from movement itself.’ (Deleuze, 1986, 77)
Natural Attitude
Beginning from the natural attitude, the experience of the factual world as it is ‘on
hand,’ (Ideas I 27, 53) I will take a 30 second external shot of the ‘actual’ object
cave, ‘the physical thing there, outside,’ (Ideas I 90, 220) that has come to be
identified and known as a cave, and a 30 second shot of the inside of the cave
according to this natural attitude .
Phenomenological Reduction (Epoché)
According to the method of phenomenological reduction, I will bracket or
suspend judgment of the cave as the actual object existing in the world. (Ideas I
31, 59) What I am left with is perception of the cave. I direct the
phenomenologist’s ‘ego ray of attention.’ (Ideas I 92, 225) Directing the ego ray
of attention will be accomplished by directing the ray of a small hiking light fixed
by a band in the center of my forehead. ‘Attention,’ Husserl says, is comparable
‘to a spot of light;’ ‘the object of intention lies in the cone of more or less bright
light[.]’ (Ideas I 92, 224)
I will digitally seize upon ‘the perceived as perceived’ (Ideas I 88, 214), bringing
an intentional object to perception out of the dark halo of indeterminacy. What
the camera will be seeing and capturing, is, of course, adumbrations of the
perceived from a certain light, angle, distance which presentiate certain degrees
of color, shape, texture . By repeating ten adumbrations in each cave, randomly
timed, and presentiated, perception is privileged over the naïve natural attitude.
Phenomenological Residuum
I begin with the intention of perceiving and presenting pure consciousness after
the annihilation of the world. First, I will bracket the ego that can stop or initiate
reflection, what Husserl distinguishes as a ‘point-like I,’ the functional center.
Paul Ricoeur says the pure ego ‘is absolutely simple and lies entirely open.’
(Ricoeur, 2007, 54n.17). Ricoeur’s understanding of Husserl’s pure ego perhaps
comes much closer to the ego as open awareness than does Husserl’s.
Ironically, in order to present the pure ego as open awareness, the ego must be
put in parentheses. What remains is open awareness as that which cannot be
reduced, that aspect of reduction that remains after annihilation. Intentionality
and reflection appear and disappear in open awareness. In order to bracket the
ego I will use the mindfulness practice of Dzogchen awareness meditation: in
total darkness and silence the meditating body allows breath to enter and exit the
nostrils. The body in a half lotus is straight with palms lightly resting on the
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knees, the eyes are neither closed nor open (simultaneously perceiving and nonperceiving); consciousness rests in the now of awareness.
After twenty minutes of breath entering and exiting the nostrils, indicated by a
timer, the right hand will slide the video camera’s switch to on. The camera with a
built-in light , functioning as a technological ray of attention, will for five minutes
presence the adumbrations of the cave that consciousness is neither perceiving
nor non-perceiving. A second timer will signal the right hand to slide the camera
switch to off. The video camera is mounted on a two-foot high tripod located at
the right of the meditating body; the camera is at the same height as the
meditator’s eyes.
The footage of each natural attitude image of the cave, and of the intentional
object images and sounds resulting from Epoché perceptions and Residuum
perceptions will be downloaded into three separate film sequences.
Reflection: A Phenomenological Perception of Reflective Shadows
In addition to phenomenological reduction or epoché as high definition cave art, I
will daily (for 40 days) apply Husserl’s epoché, as the sun rises, to perceptions of
the petrified rock face of a section of the Judean Mountains extending along the
coastline of the Dead Sea, and to perceptions of pre-sunset reflections in the
waters of the Dead Sea. In the natural attitude what is seen is the reflection that
the sun produces on the petrified rock face as it ascends and the pink reflection
of the mountains of Jordan in the waters of the Dead Sea as the sun begins it
descent.
In accordance with the method of phenomenological reduction, I will bracket the
cliff rock face and salt-sea waters as actual objects reflecting the sun’s rays.
What is left is the perception of these surfaces and the perception of the light on
these surfaces. Directing the phenomenologist’s ray of attention will be
accomplished by directing my eye/camera eye at these surfaces (intentional
objects) from variations in distance and angles. This will allow a digital
presentation of human/digital enunciation of ‘the perceived as perceived.’ (Ideas I
88, 214)
Daily, one-minute video shots will be taken using the film technique of gaseous
perception to co-presence adumbrations of light, texture and sound perceived as
the rays of the ascending sun touching the cliff rock face; the film technique of
liquid perception will daily present intentional objects perceived on the water
surface as the sun descends, in one-minute video shots.
Epoché footage of perceptions of the precipice rock face and of salt-sea waters
will be downloaded daily into two separate film sequences.
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Work Schedule
June 13-July 31, 2008
Daily (morning and evening) do the work of Reflection: A Phenomenological
Perception of Reflective Shadows
June 13-August 5, 2008
Do the Reduction (Epoché) and Residuum (as set out above) in each of the cave
sites of Qumran, Darga, Avnat, and Arugot in the northern Judean Desert, the
Flour Cave, Sodom Cave in the southern Judean Desert, the burial caves of
Avdat in the Negev.
The perceptions videoed will be downloaded into Final Cut Pro at the time they
are taken. At the end of the research period (June 13-August 5), I will have five
film sequences (Natural Attitude Cave, Epoché Perception ‘Cave’ and Residuum
Perception ‘Cave’, Cliff Reflective Perceptions and Water Reflective Perceptions.
Upon return to Toronto in August I will complete the final draft of the essay and
produce the film triptych and film diptych described in the next section.
Presentations of the ‘Perceived as Perceived’
There will be two methods of presentation: gallery installation and conference
presentation. For installation, Natural Attitude cave images, Phenomenological
Reduction perceptions and Phenomenological Residuum perceptions will be
presented in separate continuous looping film sequences. The three sequences
will be simultaneously shown on three walls or wall screens. For conference
presentation the three sequences – natural attitude images, phenomenological
reduction perceptions and phenomenological residuum perceptions will be shown
simultaneously in one film triptych.
The same format of presentation will apply to the Phenomenological Perception
of Reflective Shadows on the rock and sea surfaces. That is, these will both be
separate films and one film diptych.
I have submitted an abstract to present the project at the following
conference and exhibition:
Image and Imagery - Re-making, Re-writing, Re-discovery, 5th
Biennial International Conference, Department of Modern
Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Brock University, Ontario,
October 10-11, 2008.
Spectropia, Art+Communication, Centre for New Media Culture
RIXC, Riga, Latvia, October 16-19, 2008.
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Links to Recent Academic Work
Epoché and Residuum as HD Cave Art links to two very recent
previous projects.
1) Dynamic Stillness’: Imaging Stillness @ The Dead Sea. A Bringing Together of
Performance and Heideggerian Philosophy (2007). The Dead Sea project of
imaging stillness involved digitally capturing Martin Heidegger’s concept of
‘stillness’. To image dynamic stillness I videoed sunrise, high noon, and sunset
for forty days and nights. The three film sequences were shown simultaneously
in triptych. The triptych film and written philosophical text were presented at
CADE: Computers in Art and Design Education International Conference, Central
TAFE, Perth Australia, September 12-14, 2007 and published in the CADE
proceedings. The Dynamic Stillness research project was funded by a Faculty of
Arts Grant (FARG),York University.
2) POLS 3040.6 (2007/08) Modern Political Thought as a new way of doing
theory which meshes political theory with digital imagery. This course
operationalizes Gilles Deleuze claim that philosophical concepts are like sounds,
images and colors. This is accomplished through digital image/sound production
of theoretical concepts. Film images, which I have taken accompany each
lecture. The students are required to produce two short films relating to a
theoretical concept; the films accompany two essays. The films are shown in
class and posted on our course Moodle Site. I received a YUFA half-course
Release-Time Teaching Fellowship (RTTF) to develop Modern Political Thought
(2007)
It should be noted that in 2006 I was ‘’Thinker-in-Residence’ at the School of
Communications and Contemporary Arts, Edith Cowan University, Perth
Australia where I learnt video documentation. In addition I have taken a Camera
Workshop and Video 101 Workshop at Trinity Square Video, Toronto.
The three projects: Epoché and Residuum as HD Cave Art (2008), ‘Dynamic
Stillness’: Imaging Stillness @ The Dead Sea. A Bringing Together of
Performance and Heideggerian Philosophy (2007) and POLS 3040.6
theoretical/digital Modern Political Thought will eventually contribute to a new
book research project, Endeavor: Phenomenological Thought, which will link
perception-action-thought as new means of approaching modern political
thought. In addition, Phenomenological Epoché and Residuum footage will
constitute segments in the philosophical videos for POLS 3040.6 Modern Political
Thought 2008/09.
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Budget Justifications (Total = $4300; total SSHRC Small Grant
Request is $4000.00)
I have provided (attached) four budget economy airfares (tax included) quotes for
a return Toronto-Tel Aviv ticket between June 11 and August 5: the average of
these four fares is $1783.58. I am confident that I can get a cheaper fare so I
have reduced this to $1600.00. In addition I require a budget car (booked on the
net) for approximately $700 for 45 days ($15.56 per day). The car is necessary
to reach the caves which are in various locations in the Judean Desert within a
forty mile radius of Metzoke Dragot. The per diem of $50 for 40 days ($2000.00)
includes accommodation, food and incidentals. This is listed on the form as $400
subsistence and $1600 accommodation. Expenses total $4300.00, I have
requested $4000.00. The remaining $300 will come from my York Professional
Expense Reimburse account.
I have underrepresented the cost of accommodations at Metzoke Dragot by $20
per day. I have discussed the accommodation of 45 days with the Metzoke
Dragot manager, the rate begins at $65 per day, reduces to $60 per day after the
first two weeks and $50 per day after one month. What is over $50 per day will
come out of pocket.
Bibliography
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, trans Hugh Tomlinson and
Barbara Habberjam (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota,1986).
Husserl, Edmund. Ideas I: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a
Phenomenological Philosophy: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology
(First Book), trans. Fred Kersten (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1982).
Husserl, Edmund. Ideas II: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a
Phenomenological Philosophy: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution
(Second Book), trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Andre Schuwre (Dordrecht:
Kluwer, 1989).
Ricoeur, Paul. Husserl. An Analysis of His Phenomenology, trans. Edward G.
Ballard and Lester E. Embree (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press,
2007).
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