Download Epistemological Foun.. - University of Manitoba

Prof. Dr. Fernando de Toro
English
Post-Modern Fiction: Philosophy, Feminism,
Post-Colonialism,
deconstruction and rhizomatic writing
Epistemological Foundations
E=mc2 Einstein and Planck:
Physics and Quantum Theory
The Atom
Protons
Neutrons
Quantum Theory
Branch of physical theory based on the concept of
the subdivision of radiant energy into finite quanta
and applied to numerous processes involving
transference or transformation of energy into an
atomic or molecular scale.
Quantum Theory
Max Plank
Plank found that he was forced to assume that the
conversion of heat into light could not occur in any
amount whatsoever, but came in the form of chunks whose
size depended on the frequency of the light produced.
The smallest amount of heat energy that could be
converted to light of frequency v was given by the
formula: E = hv. He called it granular quanta.
Quantum Theory
Albert Einstein
The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is
That it is comprehensible.
Quantum Theory
Frederick Karl
Such exploration fitted discoveries being made in the preEinstenian physical world, so that Max Planck's quanta, as
forms of separated bits of energy, parallel those piecemeal
emanations form the unconscious which the analyst draws
out.
The discovery in the 1950s of the DNA double helix is the
latest step in the recognition that ever smaller elements
control the whole of life. We must unravel a series of paradoxes: that to open up meaning or to expand knowledge,
Quantum Theory
Frederick Karl
we must move toward ever smaller elements that hold the
key to wholeness. In the arts, well before the 1880s, this
trend was apparent.
Body language and the new science are implicit in each
other: the arts paralleling quantum theory and the energy
principle of the atom.
Once split, the atom will release an empire of energy;
analogously, a sound, a contained visual effect, a word or
even its syllable will release worlds.
Quantum Theory
Frederick Karl
We are in the presence of the transformation of matter.
As language played double and triple games, as it
came to be concerned with senses, sounds, colors,
tones that had previously seemed inexpressible, as it
created arrangements, shapes, and associations never
before conceived, internality became matter.
Quantum Theory
Uncertainty
It was hard to see why, after one once knew precisely the
position and velocity of a particle, its future could not be
determined exactly due to the disturbance of an object by
the act of observing it.
[…] Thinking in this vein, he had the key insight into the
origins of the indeterminacy at the atomic level. He saw
that this indeterminacy was indeed the result of
ignorance, not merely a practical ignorance, but one of
an inherent and unavoidable kind. It source was the
disturbance of an object by the act of observing it.
Quantum Theory
Uncertainty
[…] In quantitative terms, this is expressed in the
statement that one cannot simultaneously measure the
position and momentum of an object to any desired
accuracy. No matter how good the instruments used
or how careful the procedures, there had to be an
irreducible error in at least one of the measurements.
The quantitative statement of this rule is know as the
uncertainty principle.
Quantum Theory
Frederick Karl
Linguistic and visual developments in the arts
parallel researches into the atom, the cell, even
smaller particles.
Quantum Theory
The Sign
Signifier
relation Sign relation
Signified
Epistemological Foundations
Music and Atonality
Music and Atonality
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). Symphony No. 1:
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). Petrouchka:
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). The Rite of the Spring:
Béla Bártok (1881-1945). String Quartet No. 1:
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951): Erwartung:
Music and Atonality
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951): Pierrot Lunaire:
Oliver Messian (1908-1992). Quartet for the End of
the World: 1941:
Oliver Messian (1908-1992). Turangalîla Symphony:
1946-1948:
Atonality/Serialism
Frederick Karl
Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system, perceived as an
anti-Wagnerian step, is really the repetition of
limited sounds within a contained fragment, which
embodies the whole.
Serialism
Serialism is a method of composition by which the order of
occurrence of one or more musical elements are determined
by a preexistent arrangement.
The musical elements that can be disposed serially include
pitch, duration, attack, instrumentation and timbre, and
overall form.
Serialism was applied to music of the twentieth century at first
to compensate for the absence of common-practice tonality.
Like tonality, it produced unity of design and offered the
composer a practical guide to musical expansion.
Arnold Schoenberg
After many unsuccessful attempts during the period of
approximately twelve years, I laid the foundations for a
new procedure in musical construction which seemed
fitted to replace those structural differentiations
provided formerly by tonal harmonies. I called this
procedure Method of Composition with Twelve Tones
which are Related Only with One Another. This method
consists primarily of the constant and exclusive use of a
set of twelve different tones.
Indeterminacy
The years following the World War II were marked not
only by a recrudescence of serial composition, but also by
an innovation of an opposite sort –indeterminacy. An
element of a musical work is indeterminate if it is chosen
by chance or if its realization by a performer is not
precisely specified by notational instructions. These two
situations will be called, respectively, “indeterminacy of
composition” and “indeterminacy of performance”. The
term aleatory is also used to describe music of
indeterminate construction, although some European
writers used this word to designate indeterminacy of a
limited type.
Indeterminacy
Indeterminacy has proven to be one of the most radical
innovations in musical composition of the twentieth
century. If extensively applied, it eliminates style. It can
remove all consistently distinctive features form the work
of a composer and thus put his accomplishments at a
distance from the listener. But few composers have
achieved this effacement of style. Indeterminacy has
instead served to further definite musical objectives: for
John Cage it has intensified the importance of sounds and
environmental noises; ... for Pierre Boulez it has vivified
musical materials that are otherwise subjected to
complicated rational controls.
Indeterminacy
Indeterminate composition in the twentieth century began
among experimental American composers between the
world wars.
Indeterminacy was slower in coming to Europe and was
ultimately accepted there with greater caution, perhaps
because of a stronger sense of musical tradition there
than in America.
American composers were guided toward indeterminate
procedures by developments among their fellow painters
and sculptures.
Indeterminacy
The “action paintings” of Jackson Pollock (1911-56)
were made by dripping or splashing paint upon a
canvas, so that the result was to an extent the product
of chance.
Jackson Pollock
One (Number 31, 1950), 1950
Jackson Pollock Untitled 1951
Epistemological Foundations
Fine Arts and Music
Modest Mussorgsky
(1839-1881)
Pictures at an Exhibition
1873
Maurice Ravel
(1875-1937)
Gaspard de la Nuit
1908
Vincent van Gogh:
The Starry Night
1889
Claude Debussy
(1862-1918)
La Mer
Dialogue du vent et de la mer
1903-1905
Maurice Ravel
(1875-1937)
Piano Concerto
1931
George-Pierre Seurat:
Port-en-Bessin
1888
Gustav Mahler
(1860-1911)
Symphonie No. 1
Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)
The Rite of the Spring
1911-1913
Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)
Petrouchka
1911
Pablo
Picasso
Les
Demoiselles
d’Avignon
1907
Arnold Schoenberg
(1874-1951)
Erwartung
1909
Marc Chagall
Birthday, 1915
Béla Bartók
(1881-1945)
String Quartet No. 1 and No. 2
Joan Miró
The Hunter, 1923-1924
Arnold Schoenberg
(1874-1951)
Pierrot Lunaire
1912
Salvador Dalí
The Persistence of Memory, 1931
Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)
Petrouchka
Wassily Kandinsky
Painting No. 201
1914
Arnold Schoenberg
(1874-1951)
The Piano Music
1909
Henri Matisse
Dance (first version)
1909
Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)
The Rite of the Spring
1911-1913
Juan Gris
Guitar
and
Flowers
1912
Epistemological Foundations
Modern Dance and the Bauhaus
Oskar Schlemmer
Calr Schlemmer
Albert Burger
Elza Hätzel
The Triadic Ballet
Sttutgart, 1922
Oskar Schlemmer, Seidhoff, and Kaminsky
Spacial Delineation with Figure
Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926
Kurt Schmidt, F.W. Bogler, Georg Teltscher
The Mechanical Ballet
Bauhaus Week, Jena, 1923
Kurt Schmidt
T. Hergt
The Adventures
of the Little
Hunchback
1924
Oskar Schlemmer
Danse des Batons
Bauhaus, Dessau
1927
Oskar Schlemmer
Figure in Space with Plane Geometry
and Spacial Delineations
Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926
Oskar Schlemmer, Seidhoff, and Kaminsky
Form Dance
Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926