An Essay on the Structure of Symbolism in the Potentiality of Sergen Şehitoğlu's Works
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TXTWRKSŞ: YÖ; 29082020 #1
Bertrand Russell
This textual work is based on the exhibition of Şehitoğlu's works that he has brought together under the title "Pebbles".
1. Şehitoğlu's exhibition consists of Google Earth images presenting the incidents on the earth in sequential stills (snapshots) and the location information of the regions shown in these images; a mural featuring a function specific to mathematical languages that runs in the background of imaging systems such as Google Earth and a graphical representation of this function; symmetrically placed chalkboards presenting calculus (formal calculation) notes applied in the artist's own handwriting, and drawings featuring some of the artist's research on symbolism theories placed on a table that stands parallel to the wall farthest from the entrance door.
2. However, in order to comprehend the works that Şehitoğlu presents in “Pebbles”, it would be helpful to know how his artistic approach, intrinsic to his works, evolved to their states in the exhibition. Because the artist has not received a traditional art education, and he studied engineering after completing high school in a private French lycée. After graduating from university, he began teaching Logic, Mathematics and Chemistry in French, instead of being active in the field that he studied. On the other hand, he gravitated towards art making by participating in photography workshops. However, very soon the artist’s interest in photography evolved into thinking about the relationship between photography and the world that surrounds us, namely thinking about the nature of photography. We can observe that Şehitoğlu’s artistic approach in this exhibition, which was influenced by his education and research, was developed in a different way than artists who structure a visual ontology by contemplating on the nature of photography, such as Demand, Tillmans and Wall. In his exhibition “Pebbles”, the artist expands the scope of his field of study; instead of thinking about the nature of photography as a medium of symbolism, he thinks about the nature of symbolism, which photography is a derivative of.
3. In order to present this problematic, the term “symbol” should be discussed.
4. In his Investigation dating to 1940, Russell states that when talking about symbols one usually thinks of logical and mathematical symbols, but symbols have a much broad area of practice which is not possible to limit with logic and math. We should use the term symbol in the broad sense that Russell, Frege and Wittgenstein uses.
5. Wittgenstein’s work titled “The Picture Theory of Language” which he developed in Tractatus, is actually not fully translatable to other languages from its original in German. However, we actually refer to the notion of “picture” when we talk about symbols. As esteemed Oruç Aruoba states, the best equivalent of this notion in Turkish is the Arabic rooted “tasvir” [depiction]. In modern Turkish we use “beti” [description] which is representation by description. However, Wittgenstein’s notion of “picture” has a broader meaning than “description” in the Tractatus’s order of terms. “The Picture Theory of Language” is “Die Bildtheorie der Sprache” in the original version in German. The word “die Bild” can be used in a broad sense to cover all types of media as well as descriptions in various characters from the verbal language, to painting, sculpture, photography, installation, analogy and metaphor.
6. If so, what is a “Symbol”? To ask such a question, is to ask a question that has no deterministic power over a living being continuing its life as a living being. Because in order to continue being alive, we don’t need to question what symbols are or how they symbolize objects. We use symbols in a simple way to maintain our aliveness, and usually we use these things without thinking about them as symbols. However, it is certain that both when we think about symbols and when we think about nonlinguistic objects that they symbolize, we can only show our thinking by using symbols and if there are other minds, we can only present our thoughts to those minds through a symbolic (linguistic) way. Using symbols are one of the compulsory conditions of showing what we sense, what we comprehend of what we sense and how we judge what we comprehend. We show reasoning and reflection -just like in the text you’ve been reading- with symbols and only through the symbolical (linguistic) way.
6.1. Still, it is very difficult to define the term symbol. The main reason is that the term “symbol” itself is a symbol. In other words, every phenomenon that we can describe and every symbol that we can define, we do so by means of symbols. In this case, defining symbols themselves creates a vicious circle. On the other hand, the latent (non-explicit) definition of the term symbol, through some investigations and examples, can be made by going around this vicious circle. In this text, we will aim to do that.
7. Artists are not skillful performers who have learned to follow the notation in front of them meticulously, only to show internal and external sensation. They also perform intellectual activity, least as much as philosophers and scientists, in order to comprehend the complex patterns of the surrounding world. Whether to comprehend the nature of symbolic objects or the nature of non-symbolic objects, we can only
show the structure of the world (the nature of objects) comprehended through art, philosophy and science, through symbolic (linguistic) ways.
8. In other words, it is not possible for us to represent the non-linguistic world outside the language (the logical universe of symbolization).
9. Artists, just like philosophers and scientists, are struggling to comprehend the complex patterns in the world, and just like philosophers and scientists, they present the forms they comprehend from those patterns through linguistic (symbolic) ways. However, both because artists are intolerably sensitive about the usage of symbols compared to philosophers and scientists, and because primary data that is presented to our minds are not actually the symbols that show the world’s comprehended forms but the sensory (visual) guises of those symbols; it is very difficult to notice that artists are interested in the complex patterns of the outside world, just like philosophers and scientists.
10. Let us investigate through a couple of examples why it is difficult to see that artists are interested in the nature of the complex patters in the world, just like philosophers. For example, when we listen to music, our mind is initially presented with auditory data (parts) resulting from refined performance of a composition (of a whole); but when we see a painting, visual data (parts) which make the pictorial composition (the whole) are presented. Of course, we cannot deny the great impact of a notation performed the way it was conceived by the musician or a painting applied in the exact composition the painter designed, on the structures of our perception of these objects. However, we actually cannot hear a composition or see a painting. We can only sense the sensual data which structure these objects, that is to say we hear the sounds of a performed music occupying differential time slots, in temporal arrangement; and when it comes to an applied, finished painting, we see its colors which occupy differential spatial slots, by taking them into consideration in order, in our perceptual field. This phenomenon can be noticed more easily when we face a painting that is big enough to overflow the boundaries of our field of visual perception, such as “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?”, or when we watch continuously a movie that takes under siege a long timeslot with thousands of differential pauses (snapshots), such as “Seven Samurai”. In other words, because there is a capacity to our perception and there are limits to our field of perception, by putting together auditory data occupying differential time slots, we become aware of a composition; and by putting together color fields occupying differential locations, we become aware of a painting in our mind. I devise painting or music by putting together (passive) sensory data arising from everything external to me within my (active) perception. I then believe that my unintentionally devised perception is similar to the object that is the source of that data. In this respect, the objects that I assemble as logical structures weaved with sensory data, in reality, are much different than the experienceable parts of acts, that are visible color fields or audible sounds. In that case, we can consistently defend the idea that no one can see a painting or hear music. (In fact, all objects signified by general names are similar.) The only possible thing to do is to become aware of the experience of a color or a sound as a part of a logical structure, and if we have command of a language, to verbalize this awareness in accordance with our experience. However, as can be seen, even if I intend to show someone else that I am aware of sensory data resulting from material (physical) objects such as table, chair and painting, I will have to present other symbols which will lead us to this awareness by their sensory guises.
10.1. As can be seen, the primary data that is presented to our minds are not actually the symbols created by the artists who are engaged in intellectual activity; they are the sensory (visual) guises of symbols. This phenomenon reminds me of Wittgenstein’s proposition: “Russell’s merit is to have shown that the apparent logical form of the proposition need not be its real form.”2
10.1.2. The visible guises of symbols are partial (ontological), while their real guises are universal(fictional).
11. We have already stated that the works presented in Şehitoğlu’s exhibition open to discussion from a symbolic perspective, the structural similarities and differences between manners of symbolism which are very different in appearance. By discussing that visible guises of symbols are partial pieces of acts which come together in a certain order, but symbols rely on those to be universal in order to function as symbols, we can bring our text closer to completing its own plot and end it. In order to do that, we should take a look at Russell’s work titled “An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth”.
12. According to Russell, there is no difference between the logical status of a symbol that is a word, and the species (family) that this word symbolizes. Both of them are universal. As Russell states “the word “dog” is a certain class of verbal utterances, just as dog is a certain class of quadrupeds.”3 The spoken word “dog” is a series of acts consisting of the movements of a person’s larynx, tongue and jaw. Just like a dog being a series of acts such as turning around the owner when they see them, barking when they see an unfamiliar person or flicking their tails when they get excited. These two different series of acts (dog and the word “dog”), structure a class with other similar series of acts (other dogs and other words for “dog”). These are the class of dogs consisting of dogs and the class of the words for “dog” consisting of the words for dog. There is no difference between an iterated individual word “dog” and an individual dog that this word signifies in terms of their status; similarly, there is no difference in terms of their logical status between a class of dogs and a class of words for “dog”. Just as an individual word “dog” and an individual dog share the same status as particular series of acts, the class of dogs and the class of words for “dog” share the same status as universal (fictional) beings. But if that is the case how come I can iterate the individual word “dog”, which consists of three different letters such as ‘o’,’g’,’d’, to iterate a dog that does not look like these letters at all? Let us repeat our question by quoting an example that philosopher Nelson Goodman gives in his book “Languages of Art”: How come some coats of paint on a canvas represent the Duke of Wellington? (Of course, we are asking this question setting aside the problems associated with the possibility of the Duke of Wellington having a mind.)
12.1. Actually, the answer is invisibly simple. If we were not to consider the contemporary representation theories in neurophilosophy, the strongest answers to that are built on Frege’s “Concept-Script”, Russell’s “Theory of Definite Descriptions” and Wittgenstein’s “Picture Theory of Language”. (It is helpful to remember that these are sources that Şehitoğlu reads constantly.) The main reason why I can think of one of the two different series of physically dissimilar acts, as a symbol for the other, is logic that lets pairing (mapping) possible. In the potentiality of logic, we constitute symbols by mapping relations between components constituting phenomena (meaning, states of acts), onto relations between components constituting picture (meaning, complex marks); we think of one as the signifier (symbol) of other.
13. From this aspect, painting resembles what is painted not in terms of material but in terms of its logical shape (form). That is to say, how the form of a model that stands in the artist’s field of perception (for example the Duke of Wellington) appears to the artist is similar to the form of how vertical and horizontal layers of paint on canvas stretched on a rack appears to the audience. A painter paints a model that is in their field of perception according to this form. And during their artistic activity, they make an effort to refine this way of seeing. The main reason why Cézanne has painted Sainte-Victoire Mountain numerous times was not just to record the changing conditions on the mountain but also to realize a refined painting that would more strongly exemplify his discovered way of seeing. Thus, an artist can make different paintings in the same language or make reiterations in order to make their discovered form visible in a more competent way. However, Şehitoğlu presents a much different attitude in his exhibition. Rather than making pictures of models in different styles structured in the same form, he structures a hybrid language by bringing together pictures of predominantly one model (Gaza), structured in different forms in appearance.
13.1. In Şehitoğlu’s exhibition, we see different “modellings” structured around the same “model”. The artist documented an area of the city of Gaza, which he picked as a model by using a GPS (global positioning system) based software, known to everyone as Google Earth, and saving screenshots on his computer. However, because these images do not carry enough data that could be enlarged into the size that we are seeing in the exhibition, the artist has spent many hours in front of the computer, toured Gaza area in close-up, and captured numerous images of the area. The detailed birds-eye view of Gaza presented in the exhibition is, actually, a collage consisting of many photographs that the artist captured while he was touring the area in close-up on Google Earth.
13.1.1. We should add to this preliminary information that just like Cézanne paying a visit to the same mountain to picture the changing views of Sainte-Victoire Mountain, Şehitoğlu visits the aforementioned area of Gaza continuously, and documents the area’s changing views again and again. The exhibition features seven of those, along with numerical expressions stating their location information. However, it should be remembered that these are all visual productions and the artist has never witnessed the model that he documented. In other words, Şehitoğlu does not witness views of Gaza as Cézanne witnessed views of Sainte-Victoire Mountain. As we stated in the beginning of this text, he only touches the photographs that we believe are representative of Gaza, namely, visual guises of other symbolic expressions.
13.2. We observe that the artist strongly accentuates this situation by abstracting a function from the relations between the visual elements in the Gaza composition situated in our field of perception. The function and its graphic notation are actually constituted according to the way they come together in the Gaza photograph situated on the wall across them, meaning they are two different symbolic expressions that have the same meaning. In this respect, all works that look visually disconnected from each other in the exhibition are actually structurally relevant.
13.3. The graphic notation of this function on a cartesian grid stands next to the function. The function and its graphical notation come together to form a mural with a structurally symmetrical composition. The diagonal line in the graphic forms a similar relationship to the one that smoke forms with the space in the Gaza photograph, with its space -the white wall.
14. As can be seen, if enough attention is paid, all these structural connections between seemingly different symbols can be discovered easily. And mostly (symbolic) expressions are about other (symbolic) expressions, and only very indirectly and with effort, it could be comprehended that they are about objects.4 Şehitoğlu also researches the nature of language’s complex patterns around the same subject, by creating ways of symbolism in descriptive and definitional character. In the context of what we have discussed, it should be reiterated that in his exhibition Şehitoğlu thinks about the nature of symbolism, which photography is a derivate of, instead of thinking about the nature of photography as a medium of symbolism.
14.1. To me the most exciting attribute of the exhibition lies in the artist’s latent presentation of the connections he makes between different ways of symbolism, allowing the audience to analyze and discover, rather than presenting them explicitly.
1 Bertrand Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (London: Allen and Unwin, 1956), p. 28.
2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus, trans. C.K. Ogden (Dover Publications: New York, 1999), p. 45.
3 Bertrand Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (London: Allen and Unwin, 1956), p. 24.
4 Ibid, p. 73.
