Realism, modernism, postmodernism and crealism - 5

 

by Momir Nikic

From the standpoint of poetics and semiotics crucial in realism is the icon. It connotes re-production of reality, reflection (Lukacs), exact representation of life and objecti­ve world. The accent is on “fact”, data, event, on artist as a “mobile mirror” (Sten­dhal). Priority is given neither to the signifier nor the signified but to similarity of the signifier and object. Art should be “connected with life” in all its “nudity and truth” (Belinsky). In addition to the concept of reflection, realism is close to Platonism also in its didactic approach (“the writer is teacher”), reformism (“to improve society”) and “pragmatism”.

In modernism the sign is an index. It doesn’t reflect but indicates. It is referential, in-dictive (un-said), associative, indirect. Everything is indexed (story, emotions, cha­racters…), suggestion, allusion, allegory, hint… It is important to point, not to prove. Modernism develops and search for para-language, literarity, silence. Index represents reality as flow and permanent streaming, em­phasizing sophistica­tion of artistic work (artism)… pointing to the writing and artist rather than to the external world.

For postmodernism the sign is the idol, “phantom”, illusion, icon of something what doesn’t exist in reality (pagan statue; icon of god) – simulacrum. Idol implicates ideal without real, hyper, pseudo-reality which is “more real than reality itself” (Baudrillard) where the sign is “the purest and least legible form of domina­tion”. The main canon of postmodernism is cenon. “Algebraization” of semio­tics, “geometrization” of poetics, and mathematical models of com­muni­cati­ons… lead to elimination of the language “content”, meaning. Bor­rowed from structuralism the concept of language as central sign system and base for “deco­n­struction”, is now mystified. The result is sifr and cipher, code, system of re­gulations by which the sign is getting its status. This is the starting point of general cenonization, limitless arbitrary game and juggling, elimination of con­text as well as differences among “universes of discourses” (science, politics, ethics, es­the­tics…). Instead of realistic poetic illusion and modernist allusion we got world oblivion and elusion.

Crealism operates with specific symbolic sign – the virtex. This is a man’s (lat. vir) “yarn” (textum), both internal and external. It is a complete net of subjective and ob­jective: mind, meanings, interpretations…; object, signifier, signified…The sub­jective aspects are: project (sketch, plan, intention, aspiration…), disject (all po­tential meanings), conject (hint, contrivance, presentiment). Objective aspects are: inject (mark, imprint, notch…), adject (raw object, material…), traject (instrument, tool, means of connection…).  Newly obtained  creality is insepara­ble union of abstract and concrete, of material and ideal. Virtex expresses syn­thesis of nature and culture. It is free but not voluntaristic and unfounded. It is the imprint of spirit (longing for limitless horizons) in matter and social practice (its te­mporary limits). The spirit transforms the matter from a natural fact to a cultural artifact. Object (as artifact) transports the spirit to its further development. Inten­tionality (of coding and de-coding) enables polisemy, not chaos of meanings. Social practice favors convention not petrifaction of interpretation.  

For the artist, virtex is actually vortex, whirlpool, maelstrom, whirlwind… It is his vertex (highest point) and has the greatest density, exceeding one-sided po­sitions of: dominance of the object (realism); dominance of the sig­nified (modernism); domi­nance of the signifier (post­modernism). The logic of crealism is simple enough: sign is created by men and for men. Creation means full connection of the object, the signified and the signifier.