Deconstructivism: Phenomenon and Story as Ontological Constituents
The following Blogpost is partially inspired by the movie “Megalopolis” by Francis Ford Coppola. Specifically, the part of the film that directly references definitions of art.
Caesar, as the main protagonist, architect, and artist, has the power to freeze time (the moment), which explicitly points to well-known definitions of art, such as ‘Eternity captured in a moment.’ That moment can last longer or shorter. It can be a picture, a film, a book, or something else. To show the extremity of this definition, in the movie, time is frozen, and it absolutely stops, so that we may become aware of the eternity behind the movement.
However, as the film develops, we notice a contradiction. Caesar’s City of the Future is a city of Kinetic Architecture, a City of Movement. This negates the first definition of art that was previously established—static Normative Value.
This shift from static and timeless to dynamic and temporal can also be found in the level of philosophical discourse in Foucault’s Theory of Science, as well as in many others, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries. The new paradigm nullifies the previous one, just as the next one will nullify the current one. Value is no longer ontologically permanent but exists only within a certain time (for a certain time). After that time, it loses value and becomes non-value.
Such reflections align with ‘process states’ and modern perceptions of the world and axiology.
Dave Chappelle gave a speech that encapsulates the modern perspective on values in a few words:
‘People are trying to replace the ideas of good and bad with better or worse, and that is incorrect. Good and Bad is the compass, it helps you find the way, and the person that only does what’s better or worse is the easiest type of person to control. They are a mouse in the maze that just finds the cheese.’
In the continuation, you will find an architectural-drawing heuristic analysis of this ‘problem,’ with the hope that its (de)construction will open new fields of understanding of static and dynamic values.”
1. Phenomenon – in itself – Constituent
2. Story – as a series of Phenomena
To reduce both subjects of observation (both the Phenomenon and the Story) to their minimal extremes, we will observe them as two-dimensional images.
1. Phenomenon
“Now is a boundary—it is before and after. And time is that which, according to a certain order, exists both before and after. Now is a boundary, not a part of time, for a part measures a whole, and time is not composed of present moments. For now is not a part of time, just as a point is not a part of a line (the point, rather, is the boundary of the line), and now is not a part of time but a boundary. Therefore, no present moment can be before or after itself; nor can there be a now that extends, because then part of that present moment would be in the past, and part in the future.” – Aristotle, Physics, Book IV, 10 (218a, 10-23)
The phenomenon in itself pertains to particularity (singularity). A single object, outside the context of the Many. The phenomenon, in itself, is static in nature. Its incompleteness (openness) on both sides—the side of the beginning and the side of the end—gives the impression of dynamism. In truth, the beginning and the end do not exist; there is only the present state.
We explain this present state through the Point. The Point is what constitutes its existing ontology. The Point arises as a consequence of contextual content, and its future also dissolves into contextual content. The Point has no characteristics except position, and it is not Content, although it is composed of it and dissolves into it. The Point is purely spatial.
The Point arises as a consequence of the End of the preceding and continues into the Beginning (undefined) of the next. Thus, geographically, it is located between the End and the Beginning, not the Beginning and the End.
With the addition of time, the Point (Phenomenon) gains historicity—the Origin of becoming—Past, and it gains a Future—the direction of participation. However, when this point is stretched through time, it is no longer a spatial ontology but a temporal one; ergo, it is no longer merely a point, as its extension stretches into both Future and Past.
With this addition of the temporal category, the Point transforms into a Story.
2. Story
Beginning – Middle – End
A Story consists of 3 points because only in this way can its objective movement be determined.
Unlike the Point, a Story is a closed (Completed) system. A clear Beginning, Development, and End.
The foundational Point of a story is not the initial or the final but the Developmental. The Developmental Point constitutes the story and its complexity, ergo it cannot even be called a Point, but rather Content.
As a consequence of the complication of the story’s developmental part, a New Point is synthesized—the Novum Point. This Point is Content-based in its function but also geographical (like the other non-content-based points) in its fundamental definition.
Commentary:
What makes a Story “more interesting” than a Point is its dynamic (mutable) nature. Immutability in the modern era loses its value. Perhaps because the idea of basic ontological (immutable) values is fading, or it is less noticeable due to its static configuration. Transitory (temporal) values are becoming the new ontology.
Constituents set in this way bring us back to the question of the Individuation of Archetypes. Are Archetypes Completed, in Process, or both simultaneously, with their manifestation depending solely on the position of perspective?