Mar. 2024 Poyuan
Sculptural Masses and Perceptual Masses
From Gotthold Lessing's assertion in "Laocoön" that sculpture is an art concerned with the deployment of objects in space, to modernist sculpture emphasizing closed, solid sculptural masses in specific spaces and fields, to Rosalind E. Krauss's expanded field concept defining sculpture as an entity that cannot be integrated into the social landscape, rejecting both landscape (nature) and architecture (cultural constructs), the progression of these sculptural concepts and definitions is evident. As Lessing supplements his distinction between temporal and spatial arts, he notes, "All objects exist not only in space," but "also in time. They persist and change at every moment, with each moment's various relations altering. All these combinations of appearances and relations at each moment are products of the previous moment and causes of the next, thus becoming the center of current activity." Sculpture is not merely a physical entity and cannot be confined by specific spaces and fields, as modernist sculpture's removal of possible external references within the social system suggests. Although this was revisited in Joseph Beuys's "social sculpture," Fluxus's "Happening" art, and Italy's "Arte Povera," Piero Manzoni's 1961 work "Socle du Monde" (Base of the World) at the Danish Biennale exemplifies this shift. In "Socle du Monde," Manzoni created an inverted pedestal, and though the title on the pedestal reads "Socle du Monde" rather than "Socle," his intent and operation are clear: he views the entire Earth or world as the sculpture itself. Through Manzoni's manipulation, sculpture and its space are continuously expanding, referencing a broadly distributed entity in time and space, akin to Timothy Morton's concept of hyper objects, which can be a black hole, the solar system, the biosphere, global warming, electromagnetic radiation, all nuclear materials on Earth, all floating plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean, or the entirety of capitalism's operating mechanisms, and all fictional creatures in anime works.
Here, sculpture encompasses immeasurable and uncontainable entities, or rather, sculpture references, delineates, and surrounds the existence of hyperobjects, serving as an interface for "sensory perception." Reflecting on traditional sculptural objects and techniques, which involve transitioning from one state to another, the texture of sculpture establishes the origin of tactile feedback. The differential in height between protrusions and indentations forms signal differences that convey tactile information. Sculpture, as a creator of emotional "perceptual masses," involves the movement from one state to another, not as a static entity but as a dynamic process of state change. "Artists continuously create indescribable perceptual masses, pointing out one chaotic, undefined territory after another, compelling us to think! Sometimes, in front of these artistic sensibilities that transcend existing boundaries of imagination and experience, we can only barely extend a finger and say: even though we don't fully understand it, 'it' is definitely there!" When sculpture can no longer be defined by volume, space, thought, or culture, it seems impossible to simply say, "That is a sculpture." Thus, we must reposition our sculptural thinking, transitioning from the tactile logic of physical entities or the modeling methods of social forms to a mode of thinking about how to perceive.
Sculpture, Objects, Objecthood, and Digital Technological Objects
Sculpture is about objects and objecthood. In Jack Burnham's (1931-2019) 1973 publication "Beyond Modern Sculpture," he addresses the transformation of the concept of sculpture in the development of Western art during the 1960s, from traditional three-dimensional established sculptures to a redefinition and reinterpretation of objects. Burnham mentions that "the process of thingification drives the birth of modern sculpture." In other words, it is thingification that allows sculpture to break free from traditional forms and changes the methods by which sculpture is created. Clement Greenberg termed minimalist art as an art that approaches a non-art state, and this non-state is referred to by Michael Fried (1939-) in "Art and Objecthood" as a form of "objecthood" relative to the viewing subject. Within the framework of object-oriented thinking, if sculpture creation is considered a form of thinking about objecthood, it connects sculpture with everything in the digital age.
The 2015 special issue on materiality in the "Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture" introduced the concept of materiality into contemporary internet and digital media studies. Editor John Hondros said, "In previous social science research on internet technology, there was a pervasive dichotomy, where the internet world was seen as an immaterial cyberspace, a virtual world, thus separated from the material world. This notion has persisted to this day. This special issue invites readers to view the internet world from a different perspective, drawing inspiration from the 'material turn,' rejecting the dichotomy, returning to monism, and integrating nature and culture, material and ideas." The concepts of sculpture and objecthood can serve as a light penetrating the ideological veils of communication and media studies. When object-oriented philosophers label all entities other than humans as "objects" and suspend the general understanding and cognition of "objects," it is the moment when sculpture, as a suspended entity, re-perceives "objects" and begins to unfold its thinking. Sculpture explores how the warp of humans, symbols, and culture interweaves with the weft of objects, media, and technology in the state of cyberization, virtualization, and liquidity in the digital age.
Digital Objects?
Prof. Yuk HUI, referencing Simondon's concept of technical objects alongside natural objects, identifies a new subset of objects termed digital objects. The digital objects or digital artifacts Yuk HUI discusses are digital technical objects compared to Simondon's technical objects. These digital technical objects are formed by programming languages, parameters, and algorithms. In our eyes, digital technical objects are visible images; in terms of processes, they are searchable text documents; in operating systems, they are binary codes. On a more fundamental material level, a digital technical object is composed of signals formed by voltage values and switch operations on the circuit board level. Yuk HUI uses the concept of magnitudes as a methodology to introduce these vastly different digital technical objects from a multi-layered hierarchical perspective. As users and creators (engineers) who form relational systems with digital technology and digital technical objects, how can we find a way to penetrate through layers of shells, from the outermost digital interface and images of digital technical objects to reach semiconductors, silicon, electricity, particles, and fields? Attempting to misunderstand digital technical objects as digital objects might help us achieve this shell-layered thinking. Shell-layering is a concept that deconstructs digital 3D models using the notion of sculpture. In spatial distribution modeling, a solid model consists of an internal hollow, akin to the surface of a balloon, enclosed to form a solid, much like the discarded exoskeleton shells shed by arthropods and some reptiles. The digital world, forming relational systems with digital technical objects, resembles an infinitely layered shell-like world interface. Digital objects might be the key to penetrating and seeing through these infinitely layered shells.
English 
Chinese