An investigation into the Japanese Notion of 'Ma': Practising Sculpture within Space-Time Dialogues

The ancient Japanese space-time idea of ma has many aspects, not only in philosophical and artistic pursuits, but also in everyday life. Ma is difficult to pin down because it is an entirely relational concept and the word is only intelligible within our most subjective responses to temporal and spatial discontinuities: its key characteristic being a unity of experience across two fields of aesthetic encounter usually kept apart in the West. These subtle shifts of meaning and attribution within a single spatio temporal domain have made ma difficult to adapt for Western purposes. Whereas the cultural critic Mark C. Taylor (1997) recognizes ma as the art of ‘spacing-timing’, the art historian James Elkins (2003) confines ma to our appreciation of negative spaces in the visual arts. Both fail to note the broader field of references used by the Japanese and my doctoral project was initiated as a response to the rich spatio-temporal ambiguity of the term and the subtle forms of dialogic awareness it can introduce into the everyday routines of a creative practitioner who is, like myself, from Japan. Because ma operates at so many levels, throughout this thesis I relate my discussion to historical and contemporary artists, performers, writers, film-makers, architects, gardeners, psychologists, philosophers and theologians

An investigation into the Japanese notion of 'Ma' : practising sculpture within space-time dialogues

The ancient Japanese space-time idea of ma has many aspects, not only in philosophical and artistic pursuits, but also in everyday life. Ma is difficult to pin down because it is an entirely relational concept and the word is only intelligible within our most subjective responses to temporal and spatial discontinuities: its key characteristic being a unity of experience across two fields of aesthetic encounter usually kept apart in the West. These subtle shifts of meaning and attribution within a single spatio-temporal domain have made ma difficult to adapt for Western purposes. Whereas the cultural critic Mark C. Taylor (1997) recognizes ma as the art of ‘spacing-timing’, the art historian James Elkins (2003) confines ma to our appreciation of negative spaces in the visual arts. Both fail to note the broader field of references used by the Japanese and my doctoral project was initiated as a response to the rich spatio-temporal ambiguity of the term and the subtle forms of dialogic awareness it can introduce into the everyday routines of a creative practitioner who is, like myself, from Japan. Because ma operates at so many levels, throughout this thesis I relate my discussion to historical and contemporary artists, performers, writers, film-makers, architects, gardeners, psychologists, philosophers and theologians.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Stilling the flow of signs: creative action and the discontinuity of the museum archive

For decades Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s concept of ‘flow’ has influenced the way creative action is theorized, particularly when those theories reference the creativity of artists. (Bourguignon & Dorsett, 2002) ‘Flow’ has it’s origins in Csíkszentmihályi’s admiration of the artist’s ability to optimize the routines of studio practice, to make routine intrinsically rewarding. (Csíkszentmihályi, 1988) In contrast, the collecting, archiving and display of material culture and art objects in museums is usually thought of as a cessation of flow (for example Dewey, 2009). Despite the busy routines of attentive conservators and curators, museum objects are severed from the sensory registers that shape our day-to-day embodied experiences of things. However, the unworldly stillness of the museum environment has itself become a creative proposition as, in the past twenty years, artists have sought to engage with the poetic and political dimensions of the museal process. (Putnam, 2001) This paper interrogates Csíkszentmihályi’s view of creative action from the perspective of two artists whose artworks respond to the everyday discontinuities of the museum. The authors draw on a wide range of theoretical approaches to ‘everyday’ practices including de Certeau and Lefebvre as well as key texts on the notion of ma, a Japanese term for poignant intervals and meaningfully discontinuous experiences (for example Matsuoka, 2000). Recent works by the artists are used to illustrate the semiotics of creative action in which spatial and temporal disruption motivates the ‘flow’ of signification. Here Thomas Short’s (2004) account of the ‘discovery’ of the indexical sign by C. S. Peirce and Rosalind Krauss’ ‘Notes on the Index’ are useful. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the role of ‘semiotic uncertainty’ in generating artworks in response to two museum collections: the unplayable musical instruments at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Parkes archive at the Centre for Economic Botany, Kew – the largest accumulation of unused Japanese paper in existence

Stilling the flow of signs: creative action and the discontinuity of the museum archive

For decades Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s concept of ‘flow’ has influenced the way creative action is theorized, particularly when those theories reference the creativity of artists. (Bourguignon & Dorsett, 2002) ‘Flow’ has it’s origins in Csíkszentmihályi’s admiration of the artist’s ability to optimize the routines of studio practice, to make routine intrinsically rewarding. (Csíkszentmihályi, 1988) In contrast, the collecting, archiving and display of material culture and art objects in museums is usually thought of as a cessation of flow (for example Dewey, 2009). Despite the busy routines of attentive conservators and curators, museum objects are severed from the sensory registers that shape our day-to-day embodied experiences of things. However, the unworldly stillness of the museum environment has itself become a creative proposition as, in the past twenty years, artists have sought to engage with the poetic and political dimensions of the museal process. (Putnam, 2001) This paper interrogates Csíkszentmihályi’s view of creative action from the perspective of two artists whose artworks respond to the everyday discontinuities of the museum. The authors draw on a wide range of theoretical approaches to ‘everyday’ practices including de Certeau and Lefebvre as well as key texts on the notion of ma, a Japanese term for poignant intervals and meaningfully discontinuous experiences (for example Matsuoka, 2000). Recent works by the artists are used to illustrate the semiotics of creative action in which spatial and temporal disruption motivates the ‘flow’ of signification. Here Thomas Short’s (2004) account of the ‘discovery’ of the indexical sign by C. S. Peirce and Rosalind Krauss’ ‘Notes on the Index’ are useful. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the role of ‘semiotic uncertainty’ in generating artworks in response to two museum collections: the unplayable musical instruments at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Parkes archive at the Centre for Economic Botany, Kew – the largest accumulation of unused Japanese paper in existence