When we get into contact with a work of art we should ask two basic questions, and these questions are central to my theoretical approach. The first question beeing: "what is a piece of art dealing with, what is it about?" and the second question beeing "how is it dealing with its own subject?". This seems to be very obvious, but there are quite a number of distinctive steps to be taken, in order to find out, what, in particular, this means.

And as I don't want to cause any confusions right at the beginning: It is always the recipient who will answer these questions!

the so called reality - first central point

The main idea of my thesis with regard to the first question: "what is a piece of art about?", is that there are different sections of "reality"(1), and a work of art is - every one in its own way - dealing with these different sections, accentuating the one or the other or combining them in a specific way. I differentiate these different sections of reality, distinguishing between the reality of the external world, and how this reality of the external world is reproduced in our brain and our nervous system as an internal reality.

We have to see, that this internal reality is not only composed by the reflexes of the external reality, but is very strongly influenced by the physiological and psychological sensitivity toward the inside and the outside information. Therefor the distinction between external and internal reality means also the outer and the inner face of human perception.

The internal reality does not appear except in our own and individual minds. It is due to our being of human nature and it is a sum of what we have experienced in our lives. Consequently, the internal reality is different in every individual. In any case the distinction between external and internal reality means a change of structure and in consequence a change of the content as a whole of the section of reality. This distinction is quite common in philosophical terminology and in so far not very astonishing yet.

I will simply use the symbol "O" for the reality of external world, O, because it is the first letter of 'objective'. And because the internal reality is not identical with this outer reality but absolutely depends on it, I'll call this internal reality O'. (I use freely the mathematical expression 'derivative'.(2))

the so called reality - second part

This internal reality wants to be expressed in language. (or not - but then only the individual itself gets information about this internal reality - or the psychoanalyst. - I will come back to the question how this internal reality is composed a little later.) The chosen language is able to transport just some information about this internal reality, but no language is adequate to express all possible information. That is why these wonderful languages exist, and of course the term 'language' includes all possibilities of human expression, material or immaterial.

In choosing one of these languages I am already in the system of this language, in the sense of 'the medium is the message'. The media and with the media the languages have their own laws, their own possibilities to express what is to come out of the internal reality. So a concrete language is never identical with this internal world but the message which this language carries depends on this internal reality (O'). On the other hand it is the material stuff of this language itself which carries information. A stroke of charcoal is something quite different from a stroke of brushwork. In this way the language and with the language the world of media is the third section of reality. It is clear, that these different realities are still depending on each other, but that the preceding one cannot be transported, or, to use a musical term, it cannot be transposed, authentically (neither in an analogous nor in an digital way). There is always a radical change in the objective structures of each of the different sections of reality.

This third reality, or the section of the reality of language will be called O''.

How can it now be possible, that one person can still communicate with another? The solution is maybe found in the introduction of the next section of reality: I call it section of understanding. (O''')

When I speak about the reality of understanding we have to distinguish between several things:

1. The Theory of Communication distinguishes between the producer and the recipient of a message. From the recipient's point of view this section may be named 'section of understanding', in terms of the producer this section may also be called 'section of effectiveness'. The producer wants the recipient first of all to understand the message itself and not necessarily the concrete facts to which the message is related. I shall call these concrete facts the 'content of a message'. The message itself is called the 'meaning of a message'.

In drawing this distiction I can point at the following problems:

Content is the reference to the external reality, which is more or less (due to the situations, the cultural context, the economical background and so on) equal between the communicating persons.

If a comprehension (an by that understanding), based on an equal approach to reality is possible, there might also be the possibility of no equal approach to realty (and consequently of complete failure of communication). If content were the only basis for understanding, communication between two such people would be impossible. This is most definitively not so and we easily can find out that there is understanding. We can say, that a person can understand the sentence "there is war in ex-Jugoslavia", although he has never experienced war, nor has he ever been to Jugoslavia. So apparently it is possible to understand the meaning of a message although I cannot understand the content.

If the producer wants the message to be understood it is important for the recipient to have learned the rules of the media and its structures, and that he relates these rules and structures to a reality of analogies of whose existence he might not even know. He will so relate the meaning of a message to a content which is, for himself, more or less believable, and "true" so that he believes that this content relates to a reality, even if it is only the reality in his own head.

2. Thus, there must be a reference to language as well to the outer reality for our mind. The real world and the symbolic world are firmly associated with each other. Experienced and symbolic structures are shaking hands in our mind. And we look at this world with a certain tendency of perception.

the making of internal reality - second central point

I try to represent the point of view of an imagined little child. When this child comes to earth the first thing it will realise is an amazing sum of impulses and external vibrations. All these different signals will reach his mind, but there is still no mental authority to combine or to filter or to put into order all these lovely and shocking signals from an outer world, which it has already met very far away during the period of having a good dream in the body of its mother. It must be an unbelievable concentration on all these things going on outside, if these stimuli are able to organise in fact the structure of our mind.

This first and everlasting contact with the outer world is able to move the mind by the different senses which we have. But only by these. Our senses are the only real door we have to an outside world.

I name this first tendency of perception the aesthetic perception of reality, following the true meaning of the Greek word aisqhsis.

Having senses would be 'senseless' if we wouldn't have the possibility of answering to these signals from the outside. We can move our body, we can smile, we can make choices, we can cry. And in fact for the mind its own answers to an impulse from the outside must be exactly as strange as the impulse from the outside itself. We are not yet able to make any analytic distinctions between the things happening outside and between what is going on inside of us. It is an enormous effort to build up an (internal) image of the structures of the things outside and inside of our mind. (250000 new dendrites each minute are build up in the first time of childhood.)

I will call this tendency of perception the responding perception of reality,

And there comes another impulse from outside: All these beautiful things from outside and from the childs's (or our) own physiological system are to be seen in a context of parental comment. "Don't do that" - "Oh, what a lovely little child" - "don't cry, you will get something to eat" not talking about the physical influences, which normally - and un-normally - parents can practise, are the comments in which the child's own experiences with the outer world and himself are intangled. The combination of these three tendencies of perception gives a primary pattern of experience, which in the flow of the nervous development is able to form the primary memory structures. In fact it seems to be the specific human faculty of social adaptation that causes memory activity. These first roots of memory are not yet conscious. But it seems to be a very strong basis, on which all other memory functions which we realise as 'conscious' are build up. These subconscious structures are active in all further perception of reality without us 'knowing' them.

And more: The memory units build up like this don't just represent singular objects or comparable structures, but are units of complex situations, are a sort of basic picture of important moments. And because there are complex units represented in this basic subconscious memory as pictures, there is also the picture a special medium in showing these internal images to an outside world (of course other languages have also got this possibility to lead to this subconscious world, but a picture is, in a certain way, very, very close to what we experienced in this third tendency of perception).

I call this tendency "the depth-symbolic perception of reality".

We are coming to the next tendency of perception of reality: these primary subconscious memory patterns of the depth-symbolism may be recognised as similar in a future (or present) event. And then we remember this first memory pattern and with it all the elements belonging to that (ancient) pattern. Among these complex unity patterns are also elements that appear more often and can be defined in a more narrow circle. These elements have the character of what I call a "cut-out" (3). So a next memory surface of smaller and bigger unity patterns is built up, of patterns (cut-out's) which appear more or less often.

This is the iconic perception of reality:

We realise iconic structures in comparison with our primary subconscious memory as patterns which we know. But the more often and the more precise these patterns appear, the more they are loosing the contact to this primary memory-code. We can identify and line out the things, the objects, the movements, the relation between the things and we can begin to 'handle' reality. Whereas the 'responding perception of reality' is a spontaneous and perhaps instinctive way to act in front of external reality, the 'handling of reality' is something else: I can consciously want to do something, to enter into the space of reality, to become one of these moving elements in the history around me.

a very long chapter

And in immersing in the field of time, objects, relations and proportions, the child wants to construct a world of its own. He tries to find out rules on which the outer world is based, but his explanations and explications are woven into a fantastic symbolism, that I want to call individual symbolism.

Individual symbolic perception of reality is the fifth tendency of perception.

It is working very efficiently (like all the other tendencies) throughout our whole lives. Especially "creative" people possess this tendency (like artists for instance, but also revolutionaries...), the utopians and the dreamers. It is the attempt to construct a world as a model how world could function. The children deal with this model in the way they play and transform themselves and their objects into fantastic idols. During their games they communicate with other fantastic children, they immerse into the world of others and learn to encounter each other in terms of language.

The exchange of models in form of language is something new and corresponds to the sixth tendency of perception of reality. The rules of this languages are already set up during the parental comments (which still holds on of course). There are sentences, configurations, 'texts' which correspond to certain experiences in the primary memory. Language, though, is only one element in the wish to be next to another person, to 'like each other'. So these sentences (in the widest possible way of the definition) will give the model for relation - and for imposing the own model to an other child. During life speech is an everlasting element. And in childhood we learn to use this tool. By using language we can either try to find out a way that fits to all the people/children concerned, or we can try to impose our own models into the others by using language in an authoritarian way, that is, to employ force in any possible form. The model for this forcing others into my own model is the family authority: It is not useful to ask for any reason why a thing should be done like this or this, but it is better to obey. So we learn to understand the logic of sentences, of the meaning of the message, but not of what these sentences represent in reality, and if the model being imposed by speech is in any kind apt to represent the structures of outer reality. Of course, no language can cover all realities we have in mind. Each word represent a tiny little part of a social iconic perception of what is useful to be spoken of, and the cut-out, the denoting "meaning" of this word, represents many different understandings. And there are many parts of reality we know - and we don't know - about, for which no words or phrases exist (4). And some people are discovering possibilities to develop a language to be able to talk about these things as well. In fact, the artists, the writers (5) and all the other 'creative' people are doing a linguistic research.

If the use of language is rather democratic, one model can be juxtaposed to another, and the people concerned can decide which model they want to use in continuing the game. Or they can try to work out if a model is good or not related to the reality they live.

I want to call this tendency of perception of reality lingo-symbolism.

I want to show with this term that language does not correspond to real structures, but has its own laws. Of course there is a slight analogy, and if the differences between reality and the medial message are not evident, one believes 'of course' easily the structure of language. And the more confidance we put into the speaking person (or institution/medium), the more we believe what he tells us.

If we really want to find out, what the model is like in relation to the non-cultural reality a scientific approach is required. This possibility to closely examine lingo-symbolism (and also the other symbolic moods) is the seventh tendency of perception of reality, and is not necessarily related to an universitarian style of examination: every doubt I might have, because my experience is in contradiction to what is said, and the way to take this doubt seriously is in fact this scientific approach.

I want to call this tendency the indexical perception of reality.

An Index is a reference to a material quality. So in looking on to the indexical tendency of perception I have to look at the evident material system, that is denoted by language. But even in looking in this 'scientific way' I am not sure, that the results of my research are "objectively" legitimated. The only thing I can say is, that between my model and the results of my research there are no obvious contradictions.

There is a big difference between lingo-symbolism and indexality: lingo-symbolism is based on the structural logic of language, and has as its referent the relation between O'''/O'' and O', meaning that there is an analogy between the sentence I have heard and understood in a logical way and the sentence I have preserved in my memory as a model of how reality appears to me.

Indexical perception is based on the relation between O'' and O, meaning the relation between external reality and the possibilities or difficulties to translate these structures into any kind of human language. Also individual symbolism (as a sort of 'mainstream' of the interior model, the 'section of interior actuality' (O') interferes here very intensively: individual symbolism is very strong and as long as there is no contradiction to my "beliefs" I will not go further in my scientific approach. Normally I am satisfied with a theory as long as it is not falsified.

Indexical perception covers all the scientific fields where knowledge is available, where I want to get closer to the "truth" of reality. This research is also imposed by the "reality", when there is a obvious contradiction between the "belief" of a society, being marked in rules, orders, ideologies, religion, in fact all the social institutions being the centre of a fixed (and mainly dogmatic) language system of any society, and the real needs of what the people are living. A very good example of this change of paradigms can be seen in the replacement of the bolshevic by a democratic organisation. The centre of bolshevic ideology was the symbolism of speech, whereas the centre of democratic societies should be the individual symbolism becoming a lingo-symbolism in discussions, and making out minorities and majorities. Pluralism is a tendency towards more individual symbolism, and when the democratic system is too much infiltrated by (so called) scientific knowledge it is turning to any sort of social functionalism.

In the field of art the indexical approach towards any relation between "what is said" in a piece of art and what might be "true" is covered mainly by such scientific methods like biography, history of art, history, social approaches, economics, semiotics, theory of art, and so on.

At this moment I want to give an idea, what the notion "true" in the model I am constructing can mean: it is obvious, that the outer reality is always "true", we don't have to muddle into that. Where "true" has got a sense, is in the relation of the perception of an recipient and the information coming from outside. These can be coming from the external reality, then "true" means that there is no contradiction between the internal model O' and the facts which are evident and can be verified on the reality-section of O. To believe, something is true is obviously something different from having examined a thesis and having assured, that the results are true. Both persons will be absolutely convinced, though, that they know what is true.

The information coming from outside can also come from a media, installed by any act of human expression. This media is received in our minds as the perception of a lingo-symbolism. We have, as to be shown, three possibilities in this section of reality (actuality), to deal with such an information: We throw it away, because we think (or better subjectively we know), this information is not correct. The other possibility is, that this information is in fact completely redundant to what is in our actual interior model. So we like this information, because it doesn't trouble us and we have a little affirmation by this. We are flattered. Thethird possibility is, that the information is troubling us. We have the impression that we might have to change something in our interior model or we should better ignore this information. The information is new and interesting, we are a little bit confused, we want to hear more about it. When the information is too "strong", we also might turn away but there will stay a perturbating rest. This possibility in the relation between O''' and O' is the one that is nearest to cognition.

As we think an information is "true" the more it resembles our own actual interior model of reality, and the more there is a resemblance to our O' (based on which tendency of perception ever) and the information we receive, for the producer of an information it is obviously very important, that he tries to influence the recipient in such a way, that the base of perception of the recipient (and with this the mixing ratio of his interieur model) is as much as possible centred in lingo-symbolism. When a new information refers to such a previous information, he can almost be sure that his information is believed as "true". That is the phenomenon, which we notice in the reception of all mass-media.

it's getting totally abstract

Now there is a last tendency of perception of reality: I will call it the abstract perception of reality.

All these different tendencies, I presented up to here are in fact always present in a certain way. Depending on knowledge, education, cultural background, physical experiences, cultural experiences, and also on the age etc. there is a great difference in the quality of how we perceive reality. There is a 'mixing ratio' in-between all these tendencies depending on the personality of the individual. But there are always all tendencies active, whether the person realises this or not. I cannot live without impulses from the exterior (aesthetic tendency), I cannot live without the possibility to answer these impulses in a physical and/or psychological way (responding tendency), I can't have any memory if there were not the primary engraving providing the basis to all conscious memory after it (depth-symbolism), I couldn't live and orientate myself in my surroundings if there were no possibility to recognise, to remember things and situations (iconicity), I couldn't act in a reasonable or even unconscious way, if there were no interior model of the things outside in which I am going to take part (individual symbolism), I wouldn't be able to relate to other people, to exchange my experiences, my interior models with others, to learn from the past, to participate in all the cultural worlds which humanity has already developed, and to which I have access (lingo-symbolism), I couldn't trust in this speech, in this language if there were not the permanent prove of the patterns of speech by terms of referring to reality (indexical tendency). All these tendencies are permanently active. So the abstract tendency of perception is constituted by these permanent structures of perception, without beeing yet concrete.

But there are especially some permanent structures which characterise our human being, and which can be seen as belonging to an aesthetic and responding perception of reality. We cannot live without a physical materiality, without a place, where we are posed, without a radius of action, without dimensions in which we move, without border lines which impose to our actions certain limits but also clarify the frames in which we breathe, we cannot live without an interior and an exterior world, with subjects to identify amongst others, which are distinguishable before an unspecified background, we can't live without rhythms: breathing, the beat of our heart, day and night, summer and winter, and so on. All these things that constitute our lives and the relation with nature and society are in a sense abstract, and must become concrete to become perceivable and thus noticed by consciousness. We don't at all realise most of these abstract patterns, because they are so self-evident, that there is no need to bother about them. Only in case there is a disturbing aspect, these hidden structures will suddenly catch our eye (6).

it is getting more and more awkward

I have to come back now to the different sections of reality. Through the explanation of lingo-symbolism I think I was able to clarify the difference between the interior model and the understanding of another model coming up to me through media. In fact this is a new section of reality, because there is something very different to the original individual model O'. The O''' appears only at the moment when there is a marked difference between O' and O'''. It is a reality which is passing by. but this reality formes the basis for lingo-symbolism with all its strong influences. And to establish this something else is very important: The cultural reality (seen as an O'') is much easier to be understood than the outer reality: it has already passed through the brain of a person, it is so to say already pre-musticated. With the structures of the outer reality we must deal in a much harder way to understand them. When there is a sentence formulating what one sees or experiences with the outer reality, and this sentence 'fits', one will easily take this sentence into the own vocabulary to construct with it the own interior model. And this 'interior message' is also a transformed one: The original message O'' will not be identically received by the recipient, because he will give to it his own "point of view" he will give to the message his personal twist analogous to his own mixing ratio.

This "interior cultural reality" what I called the section of undersanding is the section of reality that relates the individual in a very strong way to a social network, and therefor it is quite reasonable to give to this section the status of a seperate section of reality (7).

So in my first central point tried to show the different sections of reality as they can be understood as a non-cultural reality, as an interior reality, as a reality of form (8), or formulating, as a reality of convincing and understanding and as a reality of cultural exchange (9).

These five sections build up together our so-called "reality". They all belong to each other and the basis of all of these is the non-cultural reality (10). For each individual the mixing ratio of these sections is different, one person is looking very fascinated towards the natural things, an other person is fascinated by a deep look inside his own mind, and so on. But every person must at least have a good contact to all those sections otherwise he will loose the sense of reality...

In my second central point I tried to show that the perception of this "combined reality" is in itself divided in tendencies of perception. I can look at the non-cultural reality with the eye of an aesthetic, or with the eye of somebody who wants to act in a responding mood, or of somebody who is muddling up his own psychological world. And so on. In these tendencies of perception there is also a mixing ratio in every individual.

It is evident, that the way I am looking on (or acting with) the phenomena, that we call reality, corresponds to the way I am talking about this reality. So any person, and also the artist talks (or paints, scults, happens) about the things in the same way he is looking at the things. Any person will never be able to tell the truth about these things, the only thing he can do is to be true. He will show the things from the point of view of his personal way in life.

what about art

An artist does in his way the same job. He tells his truth (11). And this comes out of his own imaginative force of individual symbolism. He is than looking in a special way on reality and for the sake of this he creates new cut-outs and the possibility of an innovative syntax. He is inventing language.

the problem:

To be an accepted artist he must himself make understood. He has to use a language which in any means is connected with what is understandable. And there the question starts: Who is to understand his message? Are those to whom he is talking not themselves creating that language in criticising art? In telling the rest of the world what is good and what is bad art? Is there any bad art?

let's look at this problem

We are now imagining, that we ourselves are those who have to deal with art. We want to know what a piece of work of a person called artist wants to show to us.

We look at a picture and we discover (for us) first of all what he is talking about and find out the mixing ratio (how it appears to ourselves) of the sections of reality he is dealing with.

Does a work of art tells us something on external, non-cultural reality? Are we led into the thoughts of an amazing individual? Is the topic of a work of art language itself? Is it experimenting with forms and formulating? Is it to be looking good? Is a work of art capturing the spectator? Does he want to move the spectator to act? These corresponding questions to the sections of reality shall be called levels of evidence (12). When I have decided, what a work of art is giving evidence for, (or the mixing ratio between these different levels of evidence) I have to decide next, in what manner it is doing so. There I analyse the different tendencies of depiction that correspond to the tendencies of perception.

the tendencies of depiction

In the production of a piece of art the equivalent of the aesthetic tendency of perception is the aesthetic tendency of depiction. When you paint a picture and when you want this tendency to be dominant it is evident, that the picture itself must be fascinating as an object of perception. Just like reality itself, with all its fascinating structures of sensual awareness, all the possibilities that a picture has must be dominating to seduce the eye. Vasarely for instance, the Impressionists, the Rokoko-painters will bring out this tendency in a very clear way.

In the production of a piece of art the equivalent of the responding tendency of perception is the responding tendency of depiction. When you paint a picture and when you want this tendency to be dominant it is evident, that the picture itself must be dominated by the character of artefact. It has to show the traces of being made by a person - the artist. We often find this, when people go near to a picture looking for the way it is made. And this attraction is at the same time the responding tendency: the recipient is equally caught by this tendency. The art of Informel is very close to this tendency.

In the production of a piece of art the equivalent of the depth-symbolic tendency of perception is the depth-symbolic tendency of depiction. When you paint a picture and when you want this tendency to be dominant it is evident, that the picture itself must evoke subconscious emotions, such as fear or joy, the taboo, sickness, anxiety, catastrophes, seduction, hope, life and death. It is the subconscious and imaginary, based on the analogies of depth-symbolic perception of reality, look at reality, that is revealing itself in a picture. We all know this effect, we are all captured by this deeply working process in us in front of a "good" piece of art. This tendency is one of the strongest in the art of painting, it is because these pictures represent more than just elements or things, they represent the whole context of primary experience.

In the production of a piece of art the equivalent of the iconic tendency of perception is the iconic tendency of depiction. In painting a picture and wanting to make dominate this tendency it is evident, that the artist itself must be fascinated by the possibility of this language to make appear things extremely similar to their appearance in reality. So this field is the most common way to understand a picture, it helps us to be orientated in the structure of relation of things. Our massmedia culture is representing this tendency in a almost unique way. Photography, film, advertising, all the TV-productions and the so called virtual reality are working on this tendency (13). But in art as well, photo-realistic paintings, but also things like "magic eye" are based on this.

In the production of a piece of art the equivalent of the individual-symbolic tendency of perception is the individual-symbolic tendency of depiction. In painting a picture and wanting to make dominate this tendency it is evident, that the main accent will be laying on the personal views of the artist. As a receiver we shall try to find out, what sort of thinking this person is showing to us, a totally personal thinking and expression from a unique individual. Frida Kahlo, also Chagall may stand for this tendency.

In the production of a piece of art the equivalent of the lingo-symbolic tendency of perception is the lingo-symbolic tendency of depiction. In painting a picture and wanting to make dominate this tendency it is evident, that a painter has to concentrate on either the making of a piece of art as a "masterpiece", or he has to citate a cultural code. It corresponds to the section of reality which I named the O'' and the O''''. The post-modern painting is mainly belonging to this field.

In the production of a piece of art the equivalent of the indexical tendency of perception is the indexical tendency of depiction. When you paint a picture and when you want this tendency to be dominant it is evident, that there must be a contextual knowledge by the receiver to understand the content of a work. From the point of view of the artist he himself is often not at all conscious, that any indexical tendency takes place. He is so much living in the context of his time and culture, that references to this global situation are extremely often found in pictures. The knowledge of these situations is giving to the receiver a certain amount of interpreting force. If there is a lack of this knowledge (like it is normal when a picture is older than the generation to which the receiver belongs to), the receiver can still understand many parts of the message of the work of art, because there are other tendencies to stick on to.

In the production of a piece of art the equivalent of the abstract tendency of perception is the abstract tendency of depiction. When you paint a picture and when you want this tendency to be dominant it is evident, that there must be elements and structures which are necessarily determining a picture. These elements and structures are such, that a picture cannot exist without them. I call these elements determining structures or visual variables. The transformation of the abstract tendency of perception, as it is developed above, into visual signs finds it's equivalent in those elements and structures which are necessarily part of a picture. And what is very interesting and amazing, that these visual variables represent not "forms" but represent all those permanent structures of perception partly mentioned above. So for instance the physical materiality is represented by the material of which a picture is made, the radius of action corresponds to the format we have chosen, and its border lines, the point where we start our pictorial action corresponds to the place where we physically are posed, the borderline between inside and outside of ourselves corresponds to the line we have to draw to mark any object, and the context which we are living in is expressed by the relationship of figure-ground. This might only give some examples of what the fascinating abstract tendency of depiction is leading to. And at the same time it is getting obvious, that this abstract tendency is not a special way of painting non-figuratively, but it is common to every picture, middle aged, modern or trashy one (14).

the understanding of a piece of art

Of course, with any piece of art, the same as with anything of the outer world, we have to learn the rules to be able to deal with it. No language is understood by itself (15). But there are now levels of evidence and tendencies of depiction, to which we have as human beeings a closer contact than to others, to those we can only approach by a cultural code.

The non-cultural reality is more or less common to everybody; it makes certainly a difference if we are living in Switzerland or as Indians in the Amazon's region. But culturally spoken, we can imagine, that the people looking at a picture have more or less the same (European) background. Concerning the internal reality, there is the aesthetic, the responding, the depth-symbolic the iconic and the abstract tendency of perception comparable amongst the people. Depth-symbolism and Iconicity though is more dependent on a certain cultural influence, a matriarchy produces for example different systems of depth-symbolism than a patriarchaly organised society. The way icons are defined as "cut-outs" certainly also depends on the society in question. But we know, that there are as iconicity is concerned maybe little differences between different societies. The individual- and the lingo-symbolism are obviously more dependent on the referring system. So we have to learn biographic and art-historian details to be able to understand a work of art on these tendencies. The same goes with indexical tendency of depiction: there we must know the surface, or better the context in which a piece of art has to be inserted. If however a piece of art touches our own historical context, we have the same or at least an approximate knowledge of the situation as the producer of the work of art itself. We can fill in the gaps with a knowledge which is more or less correct.

But we will never be able to determine all the details of these three tendencies of perception as a recipient, so we always have to fill the gaps with such information seeming to us "good enough" (16).

meaning

We now can find out, that the eight different tendencies of perception (tendencies of depiction) are divided into those which have a mere cultural function and those who are more or less open for direct experience. Those that are culturally determined are divided into tendencies of denotation and connotation: iconic and lingo-symbolism are tendencies of denotation, depth- and individual-symbolism are tendencies of connotation. Therefore the question of signifying (signifiée) also is divided into two groups: one of them unites the tendencies of perception that are open to direct experience and are so related strongly to the sections of non-cultural reality: aesthetic and responding mood (17), and also indexical and abstract mood. These tendencies correspond to what I name by the term indication of a picture. The culturally determined tendencies as there are the depth-symbolic, the iconic (18), the individual and lingo-symbolic tendency of perception are covering the meaning of a picture. Therefore they correspond with the O''- and O'''' - section of reality, whereas only the indicating tendencies correspond with O.

the meaning of a picture

It is now maybe shown, that in analysing a picture I can ask what is the meaning of it, but I also can ask what is the picture indicating. When I ask the meaning I should have a mixing ratio of those sections and levels that are culturally determined, when I ask the indication then there should be a mixing ratio determined by a reference to human experience as a whole. This experience can also deal of course with cultural phenomena, because culture could never exist without a material realisation. And with this material we all have our basic experience (19).

steps of interrogating a piece of art (20).

Try to find out the personal position in front of the piece of art. I 'listen' to it and remember all the associations and emotions I can have a grip on.

Then I go closer to what I call the subjectively analysing of a picture: I shall find out on which section of reality (or the appropriate mixing ratio) the piece of art is telling me something. The criteria's for such an analysis correspond to these sections:

The 'O-section' will give me information on the existing "thing", the O'-section gives information about the inner view (of things and relations) of reality, the O''-section informs me of the possibilities of language and speech. The O'''-section is putting it's finger towards the receiver, directly meaning him ("magic-eye"), and the O''''-section is doing even more with the recipient: he is supposed to answer in a determined way (advertising) (21).

The next step I have to do is to decide the mood of depiction. As it was shown above there is a demarcation line to be drawn between meaning and indicating "a message". The mood of depiction is the essential root to mark the message.

The aesthetic mood is revealing itself by the fact, that it is enough to be fascinated by the painterly realisation of the work.

The responding mood is to be seen in the frozen gestures of painting. It shows the emotional status of a person vis á vis of the subject (and not of the theme!) (22).

The depth-symbolic mood is capturing the spectator in a very profound way. There is almost no distance to be kept.

The iconic mood is normally the 'realistic' way of painting and easily to be recognised. But is has to be seen, that it is obviously not a 'realistic' way of denoting things, because the difference between the object as a real being and a two-dimensional reduction on recognisable shape, can certainly not be a 'realistic' image of a real thing. it is only conventionally to represent this thing (23).

The individual-symbolic mood can be found out by the strong wish to ask what the private motivation of the artist might be to show us his special way to imagine reality (24).

The lingo-symbolic mood is identified by the references to any cultural code.

The indexical mood is discussed in looking for the importance of those elements which are not on the picture, but in fact are necessary for understanding.

The abstract mood is analysed by determining the visual variables and their context to that what I call the anthropological invariants (25), or more easily speaking the self evident principles of human live (26).

When we have discussed all these possibilities, we have an idea what a picture is telling us about, and what we want to see in it. This is like in real life, where everybody listens to another only as long as he believes to have understood.

What is puzzling ?

As we are changing in our awareness of reality, the picture, staying as it is, will change it's influence on us. But in fact it is ourselves who are changing.

what about a good picture

I want to show in my last aspect of Theorie of Sign Critisism that there are subjective criterias for saying a piece of art is 'good'. It is concerning the relation between the recipient and the piece of art, and the approximities between them. What I called the 'section of understanding' (O''') it is obviously depending on the way and on the intention a person (or an art-critic) has towards the object. This intention must not be corresponding to the 'intention of evidence' shown by piece of art.

The intention of understanding might be centered on O''/lingo-symbolism, whereas the intention of evidence is centered on O-O''/iconic evidence. The receiver would now look at the piece of art in a way how this fits into a cultural background to which the receiver himself is belonging to, he will define if the language is used in a way that is up to date, and if there are metaphers and citations to insert the piece of art into the so defined cultural context.

The producer himself wants to deal with the problem how there can be translation of "reality" by the language system he is using, how maybe the rules of this language must be distroyed or at least broken to give him the possibilty to do so. And in the same time he has found out cut-outs, which no one ever has seen before.

You can imagine what an art critic will say about this piece of art.

1 I shall call this the “section of reality” because I want to say, that for us, as human beeings we are closely in contact with an outer reality, which is not depending on the way we look at it. This external reality has been and will be also when men doesn’t exist. (Of course this is a center of my philosophical position). But when we as human beeings percieve this reality, we are in the same moment also perceiving our human beeing as our observing position. Logically we can say, that between the outer reality and the way we percieve this reality there is a difference. For us the reality as we percieve it is the reality. So not knowing what we are talking about, we must still consider that there are up to here two different realities, which are belonging to each other. So these two different kinds of reality we also can consider as one, where the two kinds of reality, developped up to here can be considered as sections of reality.

2 The derivative in Maths is the most adequate model to show what I want to say, even if there are certainly big differences when going in detail.

3 This “cut-out” represents a mental unity, which appears identifiable and logic because we can make a borderline “outside” of what it represents. Imagine a cloth, where we cut out a shape (or severall shapes) to make a dress from.

4 Look at the book of Douglas Adams. John Lloyd “The deeper meaning of liff”

5 because mankind only can create language, no reality... (or in the terms of my theory: we can create O’’ but not O).

6 eg it’s the case when one get’s ill.

7 it is also important to mention that speech is extremely important for human development: The need of information from another individual, the need of information from another place, the need of information from another time, and the need of information from events and situations to which a have no access is basically important for the building of an specific human society.

8 "formulating”, expressing individually or socially important cut-outs, or concepts, or paradigm, or taboos, or theories, or explanations and so on...

9 This exchange is appearing in doing and the results of this doing - like buildings, streets, institutions, prisons, etc. and in speaking any kind of language, which thus is based and referring on a cultural system. In this short presentation of my Theory of Sign Critisism I shall not go here further into details.

10 Just like in the circus, where there is a ‘number’ of strong man, where the strongest is holding all the others, and on top of this pyramid is the young lady representing human culture. - why do you think this number is so astonishing? It is the concrete form of an abstract concept...

11 This has not been always like this, and neither must it be like this today: From many reasons an artist can be forced (or he does it consciously) to show reality in the way he is told to do so. Or in the way he culturally believes in. He is then affirming a discourse that culturally is legalised.

12 The distinction of the German vocabulary of Sign Critisism (“Zeichenkritische Theorie”) translated into English:

-ebene: section or level (eg: “section of non-cultural reality”. in the sense of ‘Aussageebene’ it is translated by eg “O-level of evidence”, or “giving evidence of non-cultural reality”)

-modus: mood (eg: “O’-mood” or “mood of internal reality”, meaning that there have to be

considered other sections/levels beeing juxtaposed to the O’-section/level. We can though talk about a mood of perception and of a mood of evidence)

-tendenz: tendency (eg: depth symbolic tendency or tendency of depth symbolism)

-weise: way (eg: in an iconic way or in the way of an iconic perception/depiction, meaning, that there have to be considered other tendencies making a mixing ratio with the iconic tendency)

-intention intention (eg “O/aestetic intention”, meaning a mixing ratio where O is the main level of evidence - other levels having still to be considered - shown in an aesthetic tendency followed by other influencing tendencies. This aspect though is not developed in this text)

O’ we call this abreviation “O first” (derivation), O’’ “O second”, and so on.

Aussage by the term ‘evidence’ I mean the aspect of a message where I can distinguish the denoted section of reality. It is very close to the meaning of ‘message’ but still different: In saying eg ‘the O-level of a message’ would give a meaning more centered on the message itself than distinguishing what a message is dealing with.

Darstellung By the term ‘depiction’ I want to put the finger on a more general aspect of language: also a spoken text can depict something, and still this word is very close to our first subject which is art.

13 evidently in strong combination with the depth-symbolic tendency.

14 The non-figurative painting is also in some kind “abstract” as it shows the other tendencies of depiction in a non-figurative way. It does represent for instance the aesthetic mood itself, so that the theme of such a picture would be to show mainly the fascinating and seducing surface of a painting itself. We find such pictures for example in the Op-art.

15 Maybe there are languages like smelling, tasting and also some extreme signs which lead to a retraction of the nervous system. But to be able to “speak” with such languages, we also have to establish and then learn the rules.

16 That’s why I say, there is no analysing possible in a sense of objectivity: we are always bound to fill in some information with our own knowledge, or with the knowledge we have learned by others, who themselves had to fill the same gaps with their own imaginative muddle. So in consequence I only talk about “subjective analysis”.

17 by the term ‘mood’ I name the mixing ratio between different tendencies: as all tendencies are always appearing in some way there are only the most important tendencies to be discussed. This mixture of the two or three most dominating tendencies I name by the word ‘mood’. The expression ‘aesthetic mood’ means for example, that in the combination of different tendencies the aesthetic tendency is the dominating one.

18 The iconic tendency is also a symbolic form: as the idea with the ‘cut-out’ is showing, the cut-out itself is determined by a cultural process. This appears very contradictory to our ‘normal’ perception, where the iconic mood seems to be the only ‘real’ one. But it is a symbolic form as U. Ecco also has shown.

19 The cultural experience in front of a TV-film is the meaning of the content of the film. The direct experience in front of the same film is the sitting in front of a TV-film. And this obviously is something different to the meaning. but this is indicating a special way of sensual awareness, is indicating a special way of responding towards the medium (zapping for example).

20 And this is also possible for the artist himself, when he wants to get clear about his own work

21 There is a possibility to develop this row still further: the O’’’’’-section want’s a changing of mind in the receivers head, and the O’’’ ‘’’-section is dealing with the changing of action in consequence of a changing of mind. (Saulus-Paulus...)

22 There must not be confounded the iconic mood with any other one: The image of a person throwing a stone for example is not representing the responding mood. It is the iconic mood, because we are able to identify this action. The responding mood is only to be seen in the action of the painter itself.

23 another remark on iconicity: it is of course very useful to be able to discern things by their shape although the shape does not at all represent the real thing. We couldn’t orientate in moving around if we weren’t apt to distinguish forms, proportions and shapes.

24 The surrealism is very close to that mood, much closer in fact than to the depth-symbolic mood. The pictures of the surrealist painters like Max Ernst or Picabia or even Maigritte are much too “intellectual” than to function on the depth-symbolic mood.

25 ’Invariant’ and ‘variable’ seem to be a contradiction. It is not one, when an ‘invariant’ is seen as an abstract element, which as such is indeed invariant. The gravity of mass is such an invariant. And this gravity of mass for example is variable in each concrete appearance. It can appear as a falling apple and also as a person standing. On a picture it can appear as a standing person, but also as a non-figurative vertical.

26 It is also evident that no language can cover all of these self-evident principles of human life. Only for example: the spoken language can transport the successive manner of acts and thoughts, music can transport rhythms in a favourite way, a picture gives an idea of understanding the relation of things and so on...