Two Answers about Portrait

(1)The changing relationship as the encoder and decoder
The subject person is translated into a portrait mediated by the artist, and the essence of a subject, which is interpreted by the artist, is transmitted to the audience mediated by the work of a portrait. The psychological distance between the artist and the subject person has to be intimate in order for the artist to engrave the essence of the subject person in a portrait. The essence of the subject person in a portrait is read through the audience’s view. The change of relationship can be explained by this encoding and decoding experience.

The audience’s experience of a static portrait, as opposed concept to the interactive portrait, is of the decoder. He reads the implied meaning out of the still portrait. The impression changes and it is re-processed over and over, as the context he confronts or recalls the portrait changes. The interactivity regarding appreciating the static portrait occurs only in the audience’s brain on a perceptual and cognitive level. But when the portrait becomes literally interactive, the interactivity in the audience’s brain seems to decrease, while the actual interactivity in a physical space increases. Because, as the responsive and interactive object gets more of the audience’s visual and auditory attention, the interactivity in a cognitive level gets more or less limited. However, the interactive portrait also opens the chance of the audience to participate or intervene the result of a portrait in a literal and obvious way, being the encoder and encoded himself, resulting in the alteration of other audience’s experience of the portrait as well. As a result, the audience becomes less a decoder and more a encoder.

The artist’s experience of a static portrait is of an encoder. He engraves the essence of the subject, which is closely read out of the subject person by the artist, onto the portrait. He holds the status as the only encoder, regardless of the various decodings and responses by the audience. The interactivity the artist experiences is the psychological association with the subject person before completing the work and the responses and critics after the releasing the work. When the portrait becomes interactive, the artist becomes less a encoder, because the audience gets the chance of intervening the work as an encoder. However, the role of artist as an encoder would not get much weaken because the artist comes to have another chance of being an encoder, the designer of the system. Once the artist makes the system, the system can be fairly open about the encoded(both the original subject and the following result). Whether the artist takes the portrait system as the generator of universal statement about the portraiture or he designs and uses the system for a specific purpose, completely remains as the artist’s intention. But the potential of the audience’s being the part of the encoder and the artist’s being the designer of the system seems to be appearing.




(2)The validation of the portrait
The function of the portrait differs depending on the era and the context, although it can be generally considered to be produced to convey a certain individual’s inner or outer quality to a larger or restricted audience. Since many artists produce the work inspired by themselves, the work of art such as “My Bed” by Tracey Emin can be included as a portrait in a broader sense. West especially argues that the portrait functions as a work of an art, a biography, a document, proxy and gift, and as a commemoration, while Brilliant emphasizes the historical challenges of the artistic statement of portraits among its functions as reference, representation, and symbol.

What the portrait tries to convey can be anything from the physical appearance and the mental character to the social status of a subject person. Also, regardless of what the portrait wants to convey, the form of portrait can relate either to the realistic imagery or to the abstract representation.

The portrait of realistic imagery can function better where its visual likeness is important. When the portrait is used as the mean of propaganda, the imagery has to be realistic not to be misunderstood about its denotational subject. The photographs in political campaign and the celebrity’s press photos are the examples. When the portrait is used as a symbol, it also tends to be realistic, because the meaning of the portrait is almost outside the portrait and the portrait itself has less room for its formal intervention.

When I see the example of Klee’s “A New Face,” the abstract portrait seems better in depicting the inner state of a subject itself such as the tension and irony. For Klee’s kind of abstract portrait, the abstract quality of human emotion can draw more attention by omitting out the concrete figure. Since this omission of figure results in the weaker presence of a specific person, the abstract quality becomes more or less free from the original subject person. So the abstract portrait tends to work better in conveying the universal sympathy about the inner personality regardless of the original subject.

Among the various types of the portraits, such as the audible and visible types, one character that can be induced from them is that the portrait delivers salient or ambiguous personality in a perceivable form, which is still not necessarily conceivable clearly. Because of its translation into perceivable form and the selective delivery, the artist becomes the interpreter of a personality. And, from a viewer’s point, passing through the artist’s interpretation and his/her own interpretation, appreciating the portrait becomes the experience of ambiguity and mystery about a person which can be decoded by multiple levels.

Thus the portrait without face can function as a portrait. The face is the most distinctive feature of a human appearance, so the portrait without face might not be suitable for propaganda purpose. However, because of the face’s distinctive feature, as we can see from the example of Paul Outerbridge’s “Self-Portrait,” losing face can work as re-contextualizing the portrait closer to the abstract one. The face is only a part of human quality indeed, and not having face enhances the richness and the mystery of its appreciation.

On the other hand, the functionality of genomic representation as a portrait seems to be more or less limited, because the scientific and social implication of the genome code is too strong for describing one specific individual, and the genomic code itself is too specific for depicting a person’s rich and ambiguous quality. It only describes the genome information which each person was borne with and has not changed since, but it cannot reflect the acquired quality of a person which dominates the overall personality of a person. Only when the personality of a subject person has specific relation to the genome code, such as Sir John Sulston, James D. Watson or a person who suffered from a rare genetic disease, the contextual balance between the genome code and a personality can occur. And the absoluteness and accuracy of the code makes the portrait less mystery.

Another limitation of genetic approach is that the genomic code is not very distinguishable among people(99.97% of genetic information is all the same). I wonder how much the fingerprints differ among the people and whether the difference is less than the genome’s case. I would imagine that portraying someone’s neuronal connection can be a better portraiture than the genomic code, because the pattern of neuronal connection is formed differently depending on the cognitive stimuli and the experience each person acquires.

But it does not mean that the genomic representation generally cannot be the meaningful way of portraying a person. Even when the genomic portrait uses the genomic information of a specific person, the point of genomic representation more evokes the question of what human is and where it comes from. It becomes the artistic statement rather than trying to represent the personality itself. And, despite the absolute and unique character of individual’s genome code, the genomic representation comes to locate within the social and artistic context. The relative quality such as the similarity as a human race, and the matter of heritage can be dealt with in a direct way, when using the genomic approach. And again, because of its ephemeral implication relating to the social context, the genomic representation may function the best when the genomic issue is huge around the society, just as other types of portrait also has flourished and disappeared as time goes by.

4th week's assignments

1. traces of time
2. procrastinator's diary

procrastinator's diary: a personal time-line project

Last Saturday, I spent around six hours outside home between 12:15 and 6:15pm. As I try to track down the changes of locations, people I met, tasks on that afternoon, I realized that there are big differences between what I planned and what I did. The differences could be classified into five categories: planned and didn’t do / planned and deferred / planned and did on time / planned and advanced / unplanned and did. I modified the Google calendar's visual scheme because this is the way I conceive and plan about the time these days.

So I compared the plans and the actual actions in a form of linear table. The left column is what I originally planned, and the right column is what I actually did. During the six hours of going out, which started right after I put some documentary films in the downloading queue(which was not originally planned as well), I hardly did what I planned except 30 minutes of visiting the chiropractor.
*The plan and action on Saturday afternoon of 03/08/2008.

I found that what I did instead of what I planned did not occur completely all of a sudden. In most cases, the things I did were supposed to be done earlier or later. So I extended the timeline to see where they come from. It can be seen that the coffee at Simon’s and the sneaker shopping are supposed to be done earlier in the morning, and I had dinner much earlier than I planned. Instead, Cleaning, which was not scheduled, was done when the dinner was expected. On the other hand, the tasks I am supposed to do in the afternoon are all delayed. What I didn’t do among the schedules was writing the essay01, and it was not written at all until the next day.

The essay01, which I planned to finish by 6pm on Saturday, has been finished around 8:30pm on Sunday, after many delays and unexpected events occurred. Following is the full extension of timeline which includes both where the tasks I planned but didn't do are going and where the tasks I didn't plan but did are coming from. This relative timeline is extended to the duration between 9am on Saturday and 8:30pm on Sunday. And during the course of time, other than between 12pm, and 6pm on Saturday, there are also other things which were done/delayed/cancelled etc.

The text on the left side is the objective time and date, while the right side is the subjective time defined by when the task is supposed to happen. The texts on the right shows the time and date I am living at, according to my plan. There is a huge gap and mixed-up between the time I assume and I live. The time I live is subject and mixed up, and it is subject both in a sense of its length and order.

the trace of time

#1China Town in New York City (2007)

The layers of the advertisements on the surface of posts in the street reveal the stack of time. The partly torn papers show the back and forth progression(tear and stick) of the growing amount of stacking papers.



#2Cy Twombly (1985) Wilder Shores of Love
Oil, crayon, and pencil on plywood
55 1/8 x 47 1/4" (140 x 120 cm)
Private collection

In the painting by Cy Twombly, the traces of time are engraved in the form of brush strokes and scribbles. The brush strokes at the bottom and the scribbles on the top show the trace of the brush with which we can imagine how the brush would have moved on the canvas in process of time. The layered strokes and the intensity of color also imply the preceding and following of order and direction of applying the brush.

3rd week's assignments

1. Bonvillain vs. Online Communication
2. representation of face-to-face and online communicative interaction

representation of face-to-face and online communicative interaction

In the face-to-face interaction, the speaker comes and goes to join and leave the conversation, while, during the online interaction, the speaker apears and disappears. The reason speakers appear and disappear in online interaction is that the joining and leaving is based on the accessability rather than on neighboring to someone to talk to. Moreover, even if we say there is the physical movement and the trajectory the speaker browse through the online world, the trajectory would be so complex and would not follow a simple geometry, because the relation of space and time is not one-on-one in the online world. In the real world, the physical presence is required for conversation because the speaker can exist only one place at a time. However, in the virtual world, the speaker can appear at several places at a time, chatting with each people at the same time or participating in several discussions simultaneously. Following four representations are illustrating the space specific and time specific of the face-to-face and online interaction.

(1) face to face: the space specific
-come and go


(2) online: the space specific
-appear and disappear


(1”) face to face: the time specific
-i am, now, here.



(2”) online: the time specific
-i am, now, here and there and else where.

Bonvillain vs. Online Communication

During the comparison between the online communication and the face-to-face interaction analyzed by Bonvillain, the biggest difference is the structural properties of conversation. The reason that makes the structural difference seems to be because the uttered words are not volatile in an online environment. The comparisons below are mostly between the face-to-face interaction and text-based online discussion which is more different from real world conversation. (The interaction occurred in IM conversation is the most and similar to face-to-face conversation among online discussion, blogging and IM. IM is similar to real world conversation in many ways such as the requirement of coincidence of time). The elements related to postulates, directiveness and politeness appear quite similar in both face-to-face and online interaction, except some aspects like using of linguistic alternatives by the intonation.

(1)While taking the turn, the face-to-face interaction has no or slight gap(or overlap). However, in the online discussion board, the big gaps are often observed, and the overlaps are hardly seen. Even when the overlap between two opinions can be seen, it is rather a accidental “simultaneous talk,” which cannot be acknowledged and repaired until the writers and readers can see both opinions being posted with little time difference. The gaps are sometimes very big that the recent comment has been posted several months after the previous comment. The continuity of time of utterance does not seem a critical factor for the online discussion board, while it is very important for the face-to-face interaction which requires the participants to present with time and spatial coincidence for its occurrence. For the participants being free from the time and spatial coincidence is one significant difference of the online communicative interaction comparing to the face-to-face interaction.

(2)Another significant aspect of online discussion interaction is that there lacks closing very often. The online conversation in a discussion board setting can last forever as long as its topic is interesting to the present and potential participants. The reason seems to be because the online discussion is more bound to the topic of participant’s interest than the simultaneous time and spatial presence of the participants. Since the online discussion comes to continue sporadically and forever, the lack of closing again increases the big gaps seen between the online communication.

(3)There is little way to see if anyone is listening to what I am saying during the online discussion before the response is posted. Sometimes the hit number can be the evidence that someone has at least viewed my words but the hit number does not guarantee the active listenership. There is little concept of active listenership with background cues in online conversation.

In addition to the differences directly inferred from Bonvillain’s analysis, there are some more distinctive characters of communicative interaction in online conversation.

(4)A participant of an online conversation can participate in multiple conversations in parallel without having his/her conversational partners to notice or feel being treated impolitely.

(5)In face-to-face interaction, there is a thinking process before utterance. In online communicative interaction, there is additional process such as typing between thinking and uttering. This additional process, typing, is a form of utterance in the speaker’s cognitive world, but it is not an utterance from the public’s view until the speaker clicks the publish button or pushes the enter key. The speaker has the option of changing his/her words or whether to publicize the words until the publish button and enter key.

(6)In face-to-face interaction, the spilt utterance is irreversible. But in case of online communication, the spilt milk sometimes can be gathered by deleting the post.