"Time for the 4D Art Thing: Opposing Fictional Predictability, the go-to app for Civilizing the imaginary" wasn't the essay I planned to submit for my application to University of Oxford's Ruskin School of Art DPhil in Fine Art (Practice-led) program. Initially, my idea was to focus on clarifying the definition of "4D art" and, if I still had word-count remaining in my 3000-word limit, to broach the general topics "What is art?" "Who is an artist?" and "What is art supposed to do and be?" today. I know, I know. "Good luck trying to squeeze all that into a little essay of a few thousand words!" Of course, I failed to compress my thoughts into the parameters of the submission form. Naturally, as such things go and to complicate matters, my original concept for the essay was thoroughly displaced during my visit to Oxford for Ruskin's Graduate Open Day. After the Open Day program I set about to visit colleges and in the course of doing so happened upon a brilliant lecture given by Dr. Allan Chapman in the Upper Library at Christ's Church. Dr. Chapman's presentation (and the stunning contents of that remarkable library) inspired me to pursue an entirely new line of thinking on time. To be precise I would approach my dimensional material interests from a different angle: astronomical time. The new direction permitted me to re-introduce many facets of my research that had been fallow for a bit, and to explore new threads. So, the 3000-wd essay I am submitting with my application is Part ONE in a four-part treatment on predictability and novelty, their roots in human urgency, and in their expressions, the influence they have on society in its many aspects - one of which is art. The astronomy angle allows for the discussion to be time-based. In the folder "TEXT[S]" on this portfolio site I will include all the versions preceding the iteration I am submitting in my application, as well as illustrative images, links, references and so on. This project, which will be ongoing, may serve as the introductory section to my dissertation thesis, the subject of which conforms to the essay material, more and/or less, and both. That's just how 4D rolls.
Each essay version and fragment will contain some metadatic information, providing the reader an indication of its schematic occurrence in the project, with respect to chronology and content. In general the sectional order will be time-descending, with some exceptions (i.e., references, image galleries, and links, etc.). At some point I intend to open the comments fields for the pages and posts, and invite crowd-sourcing for discourse on the manifold topics covered. The projected timeline for the project will be the duration of the application process. If I am accepted to the DPhil in Fine Arts program, I foresee the project continuing into my candidacy, and (possibly) beyond.
A note on footnotes/end notes: Because the translation of word-processing software to HTML for these important referential tools can be messy, given the conflicting regimes (software-specific auto-generating foot-/end notes versus HTML hyperlinks), I will start, in the interests of time/work flow, simply to post material in the blog idiom, as text first, and return to the posted textual material to add images, notations, links and so on.
- PJM [11 January, 2016, Bushwick]