(no subject)
"What is exceptional about the vanishing point in relation to other locations within the picture is its dual semiotic character. Like zero it plays a very specific double role. Internally, as a sign among signs, it acts as a depictive sign on the same plane as other such signs. Accordingly, like them it represents a definite location within the real physical scene witnessed through the window frame; a location that by being infinitely far in the distance, however, is unoccupiable by a person or indeed any physical object. Externally, the vanishing point is in a meta-linguistic relation to these signs, since its function is to organise them into a coherent unified image. Its meaning, in other words, can only be retrieved from the process of depiction itself, from the way the original subjective act of witnessing is represented via rules of perspective as an image addressed to a spectator.
One can observe how the vanishing point functions as a visual zero facilitating the generation of an infinity of perspective images as zero generates an infinity of Hindu numerals. And just as zero mediates between two different subjectivities- facilitating the transition from the gestural to the graphic subject- so the vanishing point, ambiguous between its lingual meaning as an internal sign, and its external, meta-linguistic sense offers the spectator the possibility, via thought experiment, of momentarily becoming the artist...
Each image within the code of perspectival art thus offers the possibility of objectifying himself, the means of perceiving himself, from the outside, as a unitary, seeing subject, since each image makes a deictic declaration: this is how i see (or would see) some real or imagined scene from this particular spot at this particular instance in time. Being able to signify such a particularized individuality equips the perspective code with the visual equivalent of a demonstrative pronoun, allowing the code to deal in messages whose interpretation requires the active presence if a physically located individual who has a 'point of view'. "
One can observe how the vanishing point functions as a visual zero facilitating the generation of an infinity of perspective images as zero generates an infinity of Hindu numerals. And just as zero mediates between two different subjectivities- facilitating the transition from the gestural to the graphic subject- so the vanishing point, ambiguous between its lingual meaning as an internal sign, and its external, meta-linguistic sense offers the spectator the possibility, via thought experiment, of momentarily becoming the artist...
Each image within the code of perspectival art thus offers the possibility of objectifying himself, the means of perceiving himself, from the outside, as a unitary, seeing subject, since each image makes a deictic declaration: this is how i see (or would see) some real or imagined scene from this particular spot at this particular instance in time. Being able to signify such a particularized individuality equips the perspective code with the visual equivalent of a demonstrative pronoun, allowing the code to deal in messages whose interpretation requires the active presence if a physically located individual who has a 'point of view'. "