Methodology

This paper will discuss the temporal nature of the artwork, situating its value to the individual and to society within the era of its interpretation. It will discuss the nature of that change through time, and make clear the implied time processes and formal assumptions implicit to interpretative discussion.

The paper will present a series of oppositions, loose theoretical axes of consideration which will be used to categorize and characterize a set of relationships between artist, artwork, and society.

This presentation will be followed by an outline of the life cycle of the artwork:
from the empowering and informing of the artist
to the artwork's conception and construction and exhibition
through its gradual decay and loss within society

The life cycle will be accompanied by a graphic timeline used to generally denote the interplay of artist, artwork, and society, and to make clear the relative time investment in its conception, creation, display, and consideration. This will also provide a structure to convey events of interest -- travel, disaster, discussion, etc. These events, when possible, will be considered relationships between artist, artwork, and society, and will thus invoke the earlier series of oppositions.

With the theoretical framework settled, the discussion will move to individual artworks. The emphasis will be on photography and artworks that make explicit reference to time. Subjects will include Michael Wesely, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Etienne-Jules Marey, Pol Bury, and On Kawara. For each of these artists, a specific artwork will be chosen and described within the timeline/lifecycle framework.

The investigation will begin with a hypothesized normal reference interpretation, making reference to some social discourse surrounding the work. Assumptions underlying this standard interpretation will be successively identified and rescinded, in order to broaden the perceptive frame. In specific, knowledge of the social environment that gave rise to the artwork's creation, and knowledge of the tools used to create the artwork will be disputed. The discussion will consider temporal specificity an assumption of the retrospective evaluation, and will situate the observer at various moments to contrast their assumptions and perceptions.

These examples will be instructive in crafting a larger argument concerning the critical dependence of artworks as temporally encoded messages and in the situation of photography as a medium.

My personal artistic additions to the project will include works meant to frustrate the canonical conceptions of time, and to blur the distinctions made in the oppositions the paper presents.