Well, I certainly no longer have to imagine an answer that says nothing.
Anand answered:
Imagine a photograph of nothing. Would it be a representation of empty
space, pure light, total blackness, a blank surface, or an image of the
word “nothing”? A photograph has to be a photograph of something, or
evidence of the chemical processes of photography itself. This necessity
of the photographic sign to carry the referent within itself is what
Charles Sanders Pierce, American Pragmatist and founder of the American
school of semiotics, labeled the index. Produced by a physical,
contiguous connection between sign and referent, the indexical sign
“would lose the character that makes it a sign if its object were
removed.” This is true of nonphotographic signs such as the residue of
human contact: a thumbprint pressed into plaster or a cast shadow.
(http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/concept_Index.html)
quick definition: http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/wenz/space2.html
also see: The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths
by Rosalind Krauss
# Paperback: 320 pages
# Publisher: The MIT Press; Reprint edition (July 9, 1986)
# ISBN: 0262610469
=====
All last night I dreamt I was a muffler, and I woke up exhausted.
Imagine a picture of an exhaust pipe.
"This is an exhaust pipe."
http://www.museumpeace.com/guess/whatsphinxinhere.jpg
Anand answered:
Imagine a photograph of nothing. Would it be a representation of empty
space, pure light, total blackness, a blank surface, or an image of the
word “nothing”? A photograph has to be a photograph of something, or
evidence of the chemical processes of photography itself. This necessity
of the photographic sign to carry the referent within itself is what
Charles Sanders Pierce, American Pragmatist and founder of the American
school of semiotics, labeled the index. Produced by a physical,
contiguous connection between sign and referent, the indexical sign
“would lose the character that makes it a sign if its object were
removed.” This is true of nonphotographic signs such as the residue of
human contact: a thumbprint pressed into plaster or a cast shadow.
(http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/concept_Index.html)
quick definition: http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/wenz/space2.html
also see: The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths
by Rosalind Krauss
# Paperback: 320 pages
# Publisher: The MIT Press; Reprint edition (July 9, 1986)
# ISBN: 0262610469
=====
All last night I dreamt I was a muffler, and I woke up exhausted.
Imagine a picture of an exhaust pipe.
"This is an exhaust pipe."
http://www.museumpeace.com/guess/whatsphinxinhere.jpg
