• Art
    8
    What is an example of an ontological experience within art?

  • Lif3rAccepted Answer
    386
    The Persistence of Memory, by Dali.

    Really any piece of art that questions the nature of reality is concerned with ontology in my opinion.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    "Within"? What does that mean?

    Had you said "with" art, I'd answer any experience (with art) that causes wonder - wonder broadly defined.
  • Lif3r
    386
    Yes true. "Within" is why I named an art piece, and I defined "experience" as the concept of what is being portrayed within the piece.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    the concept of what is being portrayed within the piece.Lif3r
    I do not know what this means. I think there is no difference between "the concept of what is being portrayed within the piece" and "what is being portrayed within the piece." If they're not the same thing, maybe you can make clear how they differ?

    To my way of thinking the artwork evokes something from the viewer and the viewer reacts. If any consideration of being is evoked, then that's your "ontological experience." If there's more to it, then you're going to have to work a little harder at being clearer about that.

    And certainly not all art evokes being. Perhaps you might want to opine on what if any are the characteristics of art that does, and art that doesn't.
  • Lif3r
    386
    Yes I mean to convey your second quote as the actual definition. I used too many words to announce that I was making a definition. My appologies. And thank you for simplifying.
  • Art
    8
    Thank-you for replying.
    May you elaborate on what is being evoked from the art piece?
    I decided to use the term 'within' initially as I was referring to James Turrel, Olafur Eliasson and Yayoi Kusama's work. Where the being is able to step into the artists 'world' (term used lightly to describe the artist pieces as all the artists listed here create large scale pieces) instead of viewing a piece on a wall, from a subjective point of view and how that person experiences the setting. I should go in depth before hand, I apologise.
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    Just what is an "ontological experience"? The work of art, presumably, exists. So does the person having the experience. So does the experience. If that's the case, what ontological concerns, issues, feelings, questions arise?
  • Marchesk
    4.6k
    704
    Just what is an "ontological experience"
    Ciceronianus the White

    Would having an experience of "thinking, therefore I am" count? Or feeling existential dread?
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    Would having an experience of "thinking, therefore I am" count? Or feeling existential dread?Marchesk

    I don't know. I'd call those experiences something else. The former, an experience of manufactured doubt; the latter, an experience of dread.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Where the being is able to step into the artists 'world' (term used lightly to describe the artist pieces as all the artists listed here create large scale pieces) instead of viewing a piece on a wall, from a subjective point of view and how that person experiences the setting. I should go in depth before hand, I apologise.Art

    No need for apologies. I requested some clarification, you provided. We all need to clarify things, and often.

    I'm guessing the artwork in question constitutes an environment, and that the scale of it facilitates involvement/engagement with the piece. The overall effect being akin to what in literature is called "suspension of disbelief." In terms of an ontological experience, given the immersive experience implied by the artwork itself, it would seem that if a painting on a wall causes a viewer to reflect on being, then with these, the viewer enters the "world" and becomes concerned with being. Again, though, I do not think this is a necessary effect of all art, and my question above, as to the qualities of art that do, and do not, cause such a response, still stands.

    Some - many - years ago I entered an exhibit on American Indians of the Pacific Northwest at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. A corner of a village had been built, full sized. The idea was to experience the village at night, walking through it in the dark, looking in openings at the life-sized and vivid mannequins in the huts. Spooky, uncanny, scary. I neither thought about, nor reflected upon, nor was concerned with being as I went through that exhibit. I did, however, encounter being, not mine, and it frightened me, though I an adult in the middle of a busy city.
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