Dar117.Html

IN SLOVAKIA #117 (169)
Projective lexicon of the Russian language
March 7, 2005

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I congratulate my dear readers on the upcoming holiday of March 8th and wish them happiness, as well as many happinesses that are mentioned in today’s memo!

The origins of the March 8 holiday are unclear. The decision about it was made in 1910 at the International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen on the initiative of Clara Zetkin. But why exactly March 8?

Sometimes they refer to the fact that on March 8, 1857, New York textile workers marched through the streets of the city, protesting against low wages and poor working conditions. Another interpretation connects March 8 with the Jewish holiday of Purim, which is celebrated in early March according to the sliding lunar calendar, in honor of the biblical Esther, who during the Babylonian captivity (480 BC) saved her people from extermination. It is possible that K. Zetkin decided to connect the revolutionary tasks of the female proletariat with the image of the heroic woman of Israel.

Without going into the historical background of the 8.3 holiday, I just want to point out one of the possible reasons for its undoubted charm and stability. The numbers 8 and 3 are the most feminine in their outlines, moreover, 8 is a sign of self-reproduction and infinity, which women provide to the human race, producing from two - the 3rd. No matter how this holiday is justified historically, its dating is inspired and reinforced by the figurative magic of numbers.

I will add that, in accordance with this symbolism, the best day for a men's holiday ("International Men's Day") would be the eleventh of January (11.1). In Russia, it would be quite appropriate in the holiday period between Orthodox Christmas and the old New Year. And it is better to assign the twenty-third of February to the holiday of Terminalia, the holiday of sacred borders , which was celebrated on this day in the Roman Empire.

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Topic of the week: touch (2)

In this issue we complete the topic started by the previous one . We will no longer talk about touch as such, but about the tactile sense of beauty, about the possibilities of tactile art, or touch art. In the appendix to the issue is the article "Paradise Com. On the tactile ideal", previously published in the online magazine " Fan of Futures ".

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April
beauty
nice
molding, molding
polymorphic
modeller, modeller
tactic
trog
toucher
tangent
toucher
touch

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What appears to the eye as beauty, in relation to touch, is better called beauty . This word is formed from the same root as “to sculpt”, “to cling”, “sticky”, which changed its meaning in this way: “lepo” is what “clings”, “sticks”, goes to the point (in the same sense: “to stick” - “to be proper, suitable, appropriate”). Since the word “lepota,” which is tactile in its etymology, is no longer used in modern language either in the primary meaning of “sticking, plastered” or in the secondary meaning of “beauty,” we propose a third meaning, which represents a synthesis of the first two: lepota is “molded beauty " , i.e. beauty not in general, but in relation to the sense of touch , associated with the process of sculpting or the perception of a sculpted work. In contrast to beauty, which is addressed primarily to vision and contemplation, “beauty” or “beauty” is tangible, sculpted, sculpted, sculpted beauty, one that appeals to touch and is perceived by touch.

What do you call a piece of tactile art intended to be perceived only by touch? Tactema ? Slant ( art + squint )? Cast (from “to blind” and “blind”)? Blind ? Stucco molding ? Mite ? (coin in the underworld, accepted by touch by Charon to cross to another world)

We believe that " lep " is the most appropriate colloquial name for works of tactile art; and the scientific term is “ tacteme ” (a unit of tactility).

Beauty , as already noted, is “ molded beauty ,” i.e. beauty in relation to the sense of touch associated with the process of sculpting or the perception of a sculpted work. In contrast to beauty, which is addressed primarily to vision, “beauty” or “ beauty ” is tangible, sculpted, sculpted, sculpted beauty, one that appeals to the sense of touch and is perceived by touch.

Then a model is not only a work of sculpture art, but also a unit of beauty (as a unit of beauty, one can call it “one beauty ”). We find it difficult to determine it quantitatively, but it is obvious ( tangibly ) that the wrinkled bark of trees and the twists of sea shells conceal many lepas , tactile delights. And multi-sculpted bas-reliefs and other works of plastic art can not only please the eye, but also caress the palm.

The creator of such sculpted art can be called a “ sculptor ”. Accordingly, the material with which the modeler works must have the property of molding . Clay can be callous, hard, dry, crumbly - or it can be molded , plastic, elastically pliable. The suffix of adjectives “to” denotes exposure to the action indicated by the verb: melt - fusible, forge - malleable, break - brittle, drown - sluggish ... Accordingly, sculpt - sculpted.

I met a girl of incredible, dazzling beauty. If you take Sharon Stone's appearance as one beauty , then my stranger has five or six beauty .

The sculptures exhibited in this gallery are united by themes of undulating surfaces. Among them, the sculptures of the artist I. stand out - swelling of waves, ridges, curls, scallops, as well as bubbly surfaces that convey the plasticity of foam, small ripples, river swell... By avoiding sticky plasticine and using predominantly modeling clay, you can recreate the tactile properties of a wide variety of surfaces , excluding, perhaps, fabric, fleecy ones. It would be interesting to look at the creations of the talented sculptor in the light of day, which, however, is prohibited by the laws of this art.

If “ models ” are things that are specially sculpted for touch, then ready-made exhibits of tactile art found in nature or culture can be called “ trogs ”. Some feather, mushroom, bead, shell, branch with a leaf... Immersed in darkness, separated from the visitor by a partition, they are hidden for all senses except one - touch. You touch them - and they touch you, and in this sense they are infinitely touching , because they are invisible, inaudible, left at the limit of existence. They are given only to touch you, to touch you externally, and not to invade your vision, hearing, nostrils, mouth, as is given to more persistent and penetrating types of sensory influence - “sights” and “sounds”, “smells” and “tastes”. But “touching” (“touching”) in the usual meaning is that small thing, reduced to a minimum, which, however, reveals unexpected strength, the significance of presence. Some grain of sand, a blade of grass, a pebble, a shell - and what a wonderful one! trog , small, pointy, sharp, as if a new cell or bone timidly asks to be implanted into your body!

Finally, what should we call the recipient of such art? After all, he is no longer a spectator or a listener and, of course, not a taster or an inhaler. He is a toucher , toucher or toucher . Moreover, the choice of these names is determined by the genre of leps or trogs themselves , intended for touch in general, or for touching, or for touching in their sensory specificity.

Here is an example from future reviews - a variation on the theme of touching:

One of the trogs - a silky fruit, something between an apple and a peach, displayed immediately after artificial silk - contains a transparent hint of the origin of the tissues from the peel of the fruit, from plant covers. Therefore, the next trog is a juicy fabric, literally flowing, cool, producing a wet impression, flowing like a stream into the palm, although not a drop or any wet traces remain on the fingers. Finally, the pollen of some unknown flower touches you with a feeling of incredibly concentrated life - thousands of future, unborn flowers cling to your palm, enveloping your fingers. Perhaps this last trog is a fake made from flower powder... We would like to emphasize: unlike the previous exhibition, designed for lovers of touch, this exhibition is addressed to touchers who are looking for long, detailed and, to some extent, mutual contact with a tangible object.

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Is it possible to decompose tactile sensations into basic attributes-categories and corresponding properties of tangible surfaces?

Adjectives:
smooth, even - rough, rough, prickly
hard - soft
hard - tender
dense - loose
elastic, elastic - viscous, pliable
dry - sticky - sticky - wet - wet
velvety - silky - rubbery - metallic...

Verbs:
touch - touch - (co)touch - touch - touch - feel - palpate

caress - stroke - rub - scratch - fiddle - tickle - press - squeeze - knead - scratch - pinch...

Now the language of touch can be replenished with the following words and lexical-semantic groups:

Object of touch, tangible reality:
touch, touch, touch, feel, touch

Tactile art, aesthetic activities related to touch:
touch-art, beauty, voosyazanie

Works of tactile art:
lep, trog, tactema, touch-object, touch-exhibit

Properties of aesthetic tactile objects:
sculpted, sculptural, multi-sculpted

Creators of tactile art:
modeler, modeler, touch artist, tactile artist

Recipients of tactile art:
toucher, toucher, toucher
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Aphorism

In a visual culture, the assertion that sculpture is predominantly tactile and only partly visual smacks of paradox. In fact, tactility is an almost undiscussed matter, and yet it plays a decisive role in the world of art.

Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), Canadian sociologist and mass media scholar. (Marshall McLuhan. Through the Vanishing Point. Space in Poetry and Painting. New York, Evanston, and London: Harper and Row, 1968, p. 263).

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Memo (from previous issues)

schastica - a small share, particle, grain of happiness; a brief moment of happiness, the smallness and fleetingness of which makes its experience even more acute.

Well, Sharik, he pulled a piece of meat off the table and used his lucky charm... What a nasty dog!

Elizaveta Yuryevna was quite happy with her family and work, but when she first attended a poetry evening, she suddenly realized what a particle was missing in her life.

People chase happiness, torture it, never get enough - and yet all their lives they are visited by small particles . A cloud, a lake, a tower... The exact location of objects, a smell, smoke, someone's voice... A flash, a flicker. It is possible to catch a particle , but the cause cannot be established or its path traced. Maybe the soul, like matter, has its own elementary particles - photons, electrons, neutrinos. They instantly flash, flicker, passing through the spiritual field, but their mass and location cannot be determined, they are only where we are able to experience them. They do not have an inert mass of peace - what we call happiness. As the poet said, there is no happiness in the world... But there is sparticles _

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network project Mikhail Epstein's "The Gift of Words" has been published since April 17, 2000. Every week, several new words are sent to subscribers, with definitions and examples of use. These words are not in any dictionary, and yet they denote significant phenomena and concepts for which there has not yet been a place in the language and public consciousness. “The Gift of Words” also conducts discussions and competitions for the best one-word sentences, discusses letters and suggestions from readers. “The Gift of Speech” can serve as a guide to word creation, an introduction to the world of linguistic fantasies and mental technologies.

Subscribe your friends and acquaintances to "Dar" .
The subscription form is in the same place as all previous issues .

Association of Words and Terms Finders (AIST) is a linguistic community on LiveJournal.

PreDictionary - a collection of English neologisms by M. Epstein.

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Paradise com. About the tactile ideal

Thousands of books have been written about what constitutes beauty in the visual, verbal or musical arts. But does the sense of touch and the art that can arise from it have its own ideal?

First, let's try to define what a sensory ideal is in general, using the example of vision. At Vl. Solovyov's beauty is defined as the interpenetration of spiritual and material principles, expressed, respectively, by rays of light and dark matter. Their complete penetration and complex refraction into each other form the most beautiful natural phenomena, for example, a rainbow or a diamond. Neither glass, which transmits light, nor coal, which repels it, is itself anything beautiful. But it is diamond that is “elastic” in terms of light, i.e. at the same time transmitting and repelling light, refracting it serves as an image of beauty in nature.

“Here, on the one hand, the matter of carbon, retaining all the strength of its resistance (as a solid body), was, however, determined to be the opposite in itself, becoming transparent, completely enlightened, invisible in its dark peculiarity; and on the other hand, the light ray , detained by the crystalline body of the diamond, in it and from it receives a new fullness of phenomenal existence, refracted, decomposed or dismembered in each face into component colors, from a simple white ray turns into a complex collection of multi-colored spectra and in this new form is reflected to our eye. In the unmerged and indivisible combination of matter and light, both retain their nature, but neither one nor the other is visible in its individuality, but one luminous matter and embodied light are visible - enlightened coal and petrified rainbow." [2]

What is the tactile ideal ?

Beauty , as a tactile ideal, like beauty, as a visual ideal, includes a combination of opposites, but in this case not light and matter, but properties perceived by touch: pliability and resistance . This property of an object to succumb to pressure, deformation, and at the same time squeeze out the pressure, restore its shape, is called elasticity. “In this unmerged and inseparable combination of matter and light, both retain their nature,” writes Solovyov about visible beauty. In the same way, we can say about tangible beauty that it is the greatest pliability for our organs of touch: fingers, palms, the entire skin surface of the body - and at the same time does not mix with them, does not stick, “does not stick” in the physical sense, but on the contrary , enhances the feeling of one’s bodily separateness.

The bunch of grapes represents the first approximation to this ideal. It consists of a series of small convexities, elastic ovals that fit smoothly to the surface of the fingers and at the same time do not stick to them. The ideal of touch is the organ of touch, which meets itself externally, in a separate and independent “finger-like” form. Fingers find something similar to themselves in buttons, which we often twist mechanically, or in the fringe of a tablecloth, which we just as mechanically wrap around our fingers and unravel. But closest to the sensual aspirations of the fingers are grapes, about which Pushkin wrote:

Oblong and transparent,
Like the fingers of a young maiden.
(Vynohrad, 1824)

In rounded and oblong grapes, fingers recognize what is akin to themselves, as if they feel themselves - and thanks to this they find an ideal environment for themselves. Feeling the grapes, the hand experiences a counter touch, a “handshake” of the grape brush, which touches it with many elastic and round berries. The grape brush is the ideal of complex integrity, smooth curves that elastically press into the palm and push away from it.

The ideal object of touch combines the maximum force of compliance with the maximum force of repulsion, which determines the property of elasticity . This is exactly the Paradise Lump for which our palm yearns, as the most sensitive and at the same time voluminous organ of touch. Unlike the point touches of the fingers, the palm touches two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects, absorbs them, and compresses them.

Palms love to crush wax, stearin, plasticine, all sorts of plastic substances that can be sculpted and at the same time not sticky. Herman Melville was perhaps the first to describe this tactile ideal in the novel “Moby Dick” (Chapter 94, “Shake of Hands”). We are talking about spermaceti - a wax-like substance enclosed in a special sac in the sperm whale's head and used to make lubricants and creams.

“We were instructed to knead these lumps so that they became liquid again. What a sweet, what a fragrant activity! ... Having immersed my hands in it for just a few minutes, I felt that my fingers became like acne, and even began to as if to wriggle and twist into rings...Bathing my hands between these soft, tender lumps of thickened tissue...feeling how they diverge under my fingers, emitting an oily juice, like ripe bunches of grapes...Knead ! knead! press! all morning long; and I kneaded the lumps of spermaceti until I myself, it seemed, dissolved in it; I kneaded it until some strange madness took possession of me; it turned out that I, without realizing it, I shake the hands of my comrades, mistaking their fingers for soft balls of spermaceti. /.../ Let's all shake hands with each other; no, let's ourselves become like one compressed lump... Oh, if only I could knead spermaceti forever! /.. ./ In the dreams and dreams of the night I saw long rows of angels in paradise, they stood with their hands in vessels with spermaceti." [3]

A more scientific approach to the problem of the tactile ideal is found in the French thinker Gaston Bachelard, who combined his affiliation with such different disciplines as chemistry, aesthetics and psychoanalysis. His works are devoted to the “psychoanalysis of matter”, the poetics of “material imagination”. The forms of human sensuality and fantasy correspond to different archetypes of plastic forms.

"...Beyond the idea of ​​mixing earth and water, it seems possible to affirm in the realm of the material imagination the existence of a true prototype of an imaginary mixture (pate). Each of us has in our imagination a material image of an ideal mixture, a perfect synthesis of resistance and compliance, the best balance of forces accepting and repulsive. Deviating from this state of equilibrium, which brings immediate joy to the working hand, the opposite negative designations of too flabby and too hard arise. /.../ Anyone who dreams of a mash knows this perfect mash, as certain to the hand as a perfect solid body is certain to in the eyes of a geometer. /.../ And in its closest connection, mixing thinking (le cogito petrisseur) is the manner of clenching a fist, so that our own flesh reveals itself as a primary mess, a perfect mess, which simultaneously resists and yields. /... / Thus, finding in my hands an unknown primordial mess, the dream of my palm, I whisper: “I am all a mess, I am a mess for myself... I am truly a primordial mess.” ...The material and dynamic imagination has something like a mess-in-itself, a primordial mud that captures and preserves the forms of all things. ...It should be understood that the hand, like the gaze, has its own dreams and its own poetry. We must, therefore, discover the poetry of touch, the poetry of the kneading hand."[4]

According to Bachelard, a wet earthen lump , a mush , is the sensual dream of the palm, something with which it ideally molds itself, forming an archetypal whole. It’s as if the earth’s dust, from which the hand is fashioned, refills this hand, finds in it an ideal container, and in it it finds its ideal contents.

Most likely, this is so, if we limit ourselves to the psychoanalysis of substances - the discipline within which Bachelard conducts his research. But we can assume that the actual psychoanalytic prototype of the heavenly coma (as a material metaphor) is the female breast. It is the nursing breast, abundant with milk, that appears to the baby not only as a taste paradise, but also as a tactile paradise. It is for this soft, crumpling and unbreakable flesh that a man’s palm yearns and raves.

The most elastic thing is the most “erogenous”, tactile-eventful in the mutual embrace of bodies. Hard (hard, bony) and soft (flaccid, flabby) are not eventful in themselves, since one only invades, the other only lets in. The elastic allows and resists at the same time, therefore it allows co-existence to the greatest extent : to feel oneself through another, and the other through oneself, in non-fusion and inseparability. An elastic breast is to a touching hand what a diamond refracting light is to an eye. Actually, elasticity is the non-fusion-inseparability of two bodies, simultaneously being pressed into and squeezed out of each other. It’s not for nothing that “spouse” has the same root as “spring”: marriage presupposes elasticity , co-tension , mutual deformation while maintaining shape, the ability to yield, resist. Softness is reducibility, the filling of one by the other, hardness is separation, the impossibility of penetration. Elasticity is the introduction of one thing into another with irreducibility; This is the area of ​​greatest intensity, the vibrations of which die out at points of softness and hardness.

In conclusion, it should be noted that any ideal, not just the tactile one, requires the work of the tactile imagination. A dream is not only a vision, but also a touch, or more precisely, a set of internal touches that mold an imaginary object. We not only see or hear, but also touch what appears to us in the imagination as a mental feeling. And the more ideal the object, the stronger the need not only to see it with the inner eye, but also to feel it with the “inner skin”, to endow it with tactile features, i.e. experience its potential reality. If this is some kind of lovely female head, then we want not only to mentally contemplate it, but also to feel the warmth of her skin, the silk of her hair...

In general, “image” in dictionaries is usually defined as “appearance, appearance”, “what is drawn, presented to the inner gaze, imagination.” [5] Such videocentrism, which has developed in culture, contradicts the own etymological meaning of the word “image” - something “cut off”, “formed by cutting” (from “to strike/cut”). [6] The tactile nature of the image as a man-made creation must be restored in language and in the minds of speakers. Touch is no less essential for the image than clarity; in any case, they are equal in the work of the imagination. The set of internal touches with which we sculpt images of our consciousness can be called touch , just as we call the visual side of this process imagination. We should explore the sense of touch as a special, “touching” imagination, which makes tangible those objects that we have never actually perceived by touch.

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1. This text was accompanied by a corresponding touch object called “Paradise Ball”, work by I. Danilova and M. Epstein, Russian-American exhibition Touch me at the Akhmatova Museum in the Fountain House, St. Petersburg, October 16. - 10 Nov. 2003. “Paradise Ball” is a ball of soft, molded clay, placed in a case made of opaque plexiglass, measuring 40 x 40 cm. A hole is made in the case through which the visitor can “blindly” knead the clay ball with his hand, giving it the shape of his palm , fashioning from it something that can bring tactile joy to himself and other visitors. A creative task for visitors to the tactile exhibition - touchers, touchers, touchers, crushers, squeezers: to blindly fashion from an elastic substance (wax, clay, plasticine) something that would delight the fingers, the palm - a tactile ideal, a piece of heaven. This absurdity is passed on to the next toucher, who gropes in it for the ideal of his predecessor, feels into it - and molds it according to the palm of his hand, in the image of his “touching” super-ego.

2. Beauty in nature, in the book. V. S. Soloviev, Op. in 2 vols., 2nd ed., vol.2. M., Mysl, 1990, pp. 357-8.

3. Herman Melville. Moby Dick, or the White Whale. Per. from English I. Bernstein. M., Fiction, 1981, pp. 454-456.

4. Gaston Bachelard. The Earth and the reveries of the will. Paris: Librarie Jose Corti, 1947 (14th ed.), pp. 78 - 80.

5. Dictionary of the Russian language of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 4 volumes, M., Russian language, 1982, vol. 2, p. 559.

6. M. Vasmer. Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language, cit. ed., vol. 3, p. 106. This tangibility of the image is intuitively revived and continues to live in language, as, for example, in the following statement by V. G. Belinsky addressed to F. M. Dostoevsky: “... You, as an artist, with one feature, at once, expose the very essence of the image , so that you can feel it with your hand..." (quoted in the book Nikolai Nasedkin. Dostoevsky. Encyclopedia. M., Algorithm, 2003, p. 15).
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M. Epstein. Books of the 21st century:

Philosophy of the possible. Modalities in Thought and Culture . St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2001, 334 pp.

Projective Philosophical Dictionary: New Terms and Concepts . St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2003 (co-editor, author of the preface and 90 articles), 512 pp.

Paternity. Metaphysical Diary . St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2003, 248 pp.

Space sign. On the Future of the Humanities . M.: New Literary Review, 2004, 864 pp.

All essays , in 2 vols. vol. 1. In Russia (1970-1980s); vol. 2. From America (1990-2000s). Ekaterinburg: U-Factoria, 2005, 544 pp. + 704 ss.