ABSTRACT

A Study on the De-perspective Phenomenon of

Digital Space

                                         Kim, Min Jung

                                         Visual Communication Design

                                         The Graduate School of

                                         Communication & Arts

                                         Yonsei University

 With all the multiplicity of visual media and vicissitude of visual environment, a consistent logic for visuality is presupposed at certain  level. The law of perspective is a mode of plastic art which stands for this phenomenon and it structuralizes our visual experience. Perspective drawing generates three dimensional space on the basis of mathematical logic. Thus generated three dimensional space has its origin from the negation of two dimensional flatness. Perspective drawing obliterates the materiality of the two  dimensional surface, transforms it into 'Window' so that it embodies  hierarchical space with vertical depth. Namely, 'Window' here means the immaterial and transparent plane which shows three dimensional illusionary  space. The fictitiousness which the perspective space contains results in the bifurcation of three dimensional space and two dimensional space in Western painting. The vanishing point, which is the crux of perspectivism, becomes a criterion and regulates our understanding of space with a single, absolute logic. The perspectivism established around the Renaissance gradually starts to disintegrate with the arrival of the late Impressionism and Cubism. The emergence of multi-perspective structure which have overcome the limit of pespectivism with a single vanishing point, transforms the character of three dimensional space itself. As a result, the two dimensionality which has been a constitutive form of three dimensional space reappeared as a positive factor within our visual space. The emergence of uniform horizontal order inherent in two dimensional plane, differentiated from a vertical space with its hierarchical order, gets deepened around the Modern period. Flatness, in line with the intransparent materiality made the immaterial and transparent space disappear. Perspectivism turned out to be only a contingent constituent of pictorial space. The bipolarity between three dimensional space which negates two dimensional flat-surface and two dimensional painting which embodies the fictitiousness of three dimensional space has been sustained as such. By the way, in digital space, these two contrast spatiality coexist and in Postmodernism, Perspectivism reappeared only as an optional factor with regard to the meaning of a specific painting work. Also, the austerity of bipolar spatiality gets weakened and intermixed. The Postmodernistic deconstruction and reinterpretation of Perspectivism have in common with digital spatiality. In digital space, Perspectivism abides by its own logic and anti-perspective phenomenon appears at the same time. This is the outcome of the mixture of three-dimensional space and two-dimensional flatness. The spatiality inherent in the work of D. Hockney, A. Ames, M. C. Escher substantiates this phenomenon.  D. Hockney deploys both of the vertical and the horizontal by the conjunction of space and object from various perspectives. A. Ames debunks the fictitiousness of Perspectivism. In Escher's works, literally impossible space appears from the metamorphosis of realistic space. The circulatory shape and meaning by antinomy inherent in Perspectivism generates multi-layered space. This feature is connected to the spatiality in digital coding. Digital space consists of multilayered structure. Namely three-dimensional space is constructed by multiple two-dimensional flatness. The flatness within fictitious space as  a corollary of monitor, keeps its horizontal layer and simultaneously contains the perspective space in itself. As each layer, the vertical space is pluralized, restructuralized, and reintegrated into the perspective space. The phenomenological immersion and dispersion coexist, the uniform composition of transparency and intransparency is generated. Just as the bipolarized spatiality from the history of western painting is transformed into the deconstructive mode in the Postmodern period, digital space reintegrates the traditional perspective space by the multi-layering logic. The dialectical composition, into which the duplicate feature of horizontal array within vertical space integrated, generates paradoxical circulatory shape and meaning.

 My work can be interpreted as an metaphoric expression of such 'de-perspective' characteristics. By the paradoxical composition of the relationship between the space and objects arbitrarily created, interpretations about the spatiality in the work are intertwined in circulation.