A note from Mehdi Yarmohamadi about On the Ontology of Encounter and Transcending the Illusion of the Object
The philosophy of art has long been entangled in a foundational error: conflating the material substrate with the being of the work. It persists under the erroneous assumption that the truth of the work is a predetermined, self-contained entity confined within an object and susceptible to appropriation -the painting incarcerated in its frame, the sculpture upon its plinth, and the moving image within its media container. This existential reduction stems from an outlook that collapses art into an already-completed output: a finished product to be observed from without, without unsettling any order, disturbing any presence, or disrupting the tranquility of perception.
Yet, where does the work of art truly reside?
Departing from the concept of experience, John Dewey shattered this enclosure. In his reading, the physical artifact -however venerable and enduring- attains the status of a work of art only when it comes alive in nexus with human psyche, history, and concrete situation. In itself, the object is mere potentiality; what possesses actuality is the event transpiring in the depths of the lifeworld. The work is not an object; it is a relation.
This departure from object-fetishism culminates in the hermeneutic reflections of Hans-Georg Gadamer, wherein art is construed as play. Play possesses no substantive, self-subsisting essence preceding its playing; rather, it manifests only through the act of being played. The spectator is by no means a detached, passive onlooker, nor is the truth of the work a settled residue sedimented in form; the spectator stands within the field, and truth is a dialogical genesis -the fruit of a historic fusion of horizons. In the realm of theater as well, as Eric Bentley conceptualizes, drama finds its reality within the charged atmosphere of conflict and in the shared respiration between actor and audience.
Nevertheless, the most radical ontological rupture may be found in the philosophy of David Davies. Repudiating the notion of the artwork as a finished product, Davies identifies the work of art with the generative action of performance. In this framework, the canvas, the acoustic trace, and the celluloid negative are merely physical traces, signs, and vehicular media through which one accesses an overarching generative act. Consequently, the process of creation extends far beyond the solitary act of the maker; it remains open-ended and suspended, awaiting actualization at the nexus of encounter with the Other (the audience). Thus, far from being a passive consumer or a spellbound spectator, the viewer possesses agency; they are the constitutive complement to the formal evolution of the work, an active agent without whose apprehension and attention the creative genesis remains incomplete.
In this context, artistic attention becomes an interrogative, scrutinizing, and contemplative orientation that penetrates the core tensions and latent strata of form. Conceived as a summons guiding the spectator into a particular mode of engagement with the work, this attention is actualized through artistic appreciation: a convergence of intention, attention, and historical situation, liberating meaning from the petrifaction of the physical object to set it in motion.
On this premise, the singular urgency of experimental cinema and performance art comes to the fore. Performance art inherently eludes definitive fixation and archival enclosure; it is firmly rooted in corporeality, vocal tremor, radical risk-taking, and the irreproducible singularity of the here-and-now. Concurrently, experimental cinema disrupts the conventions of classical narrative, defamiliarizing entrenched preconceptions and galvanizing attention in the face of lacunae, silences, and the unseen. In these practices, the work of art ceases to be a consumable commodity; it operates as a disquieting, interrogative experience.
An authentic comprehension of art emerges along the departure from passive object-reification toward an apprehension of the realm of the event. Art manifests at the intersection where the act of creation converges with human attention and discernment. Transcending the confines of a finished product, the work of art is a phenomenological event realized within the depth of an unmediated encounter with the viewer and through their lived experience in that encounter, a clearing wherein the artist’s creation enters into dialogue with the spectator, breathes in the stature of an artwork, and brings meaning into being.
