“Antactic Structures”? What is that? What does it mean and why might anyone find it interesting? Many
years ago, linguist Noam Chomsky wrote a highly influential book titled Syntactic Structures, and yes, my title
was chosen by analogy with his. And since an
antactic structure is the opposite of a syntactic
structure let us first be clear on the meaning of the word “syntax.”
1: the way in which linguistic
elements (such as words) are put together to form constituents (such as phrases
or clauses)
2: a connected or orderly
system : harmonious arrangement of parts or elements
While the word is most often associated with linguistic
grammar, I’ll be using it here in the more general sense implied by the second
definition, in line with its etymology, based on the Greek roots σύν (syn),
"together," and τάξις (taxis), "structure.” More generally, any
means of organization that operates by unifying its various elements into a
coherent whole, greater than the sum of its parts, can be understood as
fundamentally syntactic. Thus perspective space has often been considered a
type of pictorial syntax and the generally accepted “common practice” system of
tonal relationships a type of musical syntax.
Now if syntax
stands for a unifying structure, antax
must mean the opposite: a disunifying, disorderly structure. Simple enough. However,
if you look for a definition of this word, or its derivative, antactic, you won’t get very far. I’ve coined
this term to stand for a long repressed, but in my view essential, mode of expression/ perception
that can be understood as opposed to the sort of syntactic structures we’ve traditionally
taken for granted.
The essays collected here represent various attempts on my
part to research, analyze and understand the manner in which syntactic and
antactic structures operate, both in themselves and in relation to one another,
within a variety of different contexts, ranging from cubist art, “modernist”
music, and “experimental” film, all the way to more fundamental considerations
pertaining to the psychology of perception, semiotics, cognition and philosophical
issues touching on epistemology, ontology, etc. (I’ve chosen the blog format
because 1. I’ve grown impatient with the lengthy, cumbersome and often
unreliable mainstream publishing process; 2. full color illustrations and links
to relevant videos and musical clips are easily included in a blog post, but
problematic or impossible in hard copy; 3. blogging encourages comments from
readers and subsequent discussion of relevant or controversial issues.)
Basic to my hypothesis is the notion that, to understand
something, to comprehend it as meaningful, even to see, hear or experience it as
“real” in any ordinary sense, we must comprehend it as existing within a kind
of "force field" or gestalt,
analogous to the gravitational or electromagnetic fields of physics. I call
this fundamental ground of meaningful expression/communication/perception the
"syntactic field,” i.e., a field that, by analogy with linguistic syntax,
both organizes (tax) and unifies (syn). It must be understood as necessary
to meaning in the broadest sense,
encompassing not only logic and ordinary language, but literally all forms of traditional
expression and communication, including the arts, science, mathematics,
technology, philosophy, rhetoric, etc.
My notion of the antactic,
or “negative,” field stems from the discovery, through the study of certain
works of “modernist” art, music and film, of an organizational principle that
operates in opposition to the syntactic field in such a way as to subvert its
tendency to produce unified, meaningful expressions, thus opening our awareness
to a radically new and challenging "antilogic," grounded in sensory
experience. On further reflection, I realized that this long-repressed force
has always been present in one form or another, as a hidden but essential
element in all forms of traditional expression/ communication.
The basic principles of my theory are summarized in the
first of the following essays, Toward a Unified Theory of the Arts (published
in the journal Semiotica, in 1993 –
reissued with additional commentary in Music
Theory Online, 1996). Don’t be misled by the title. My theory is
“unified” only on the basis of a more fundamental disunity produced by the emergence of the antactic field.
The following two essays (Passage From Realism to Cubism, and Mondrian and the Dialectic of Essence, both published in the journal Art Criticism, in 1998 and 1999
respectively) are attempts to exemplify the workings of antactic structures through
close examination of two key developments in the history of modernist art: the cubism
of Pablo Picasso and George Braque, and the “neoplasticism” of Piet Mondrian.
The next essay, The Cinematic Denial of Difference (drawn
from my book Montage, Realism and the Act
of Vision), is devoted to an examination of parallel developments in the
field of cinema, concentrating on certain basics of film theory, leading to a
discussion of what I call “negative montage.” This is followed by an essay
drawn from a chapter of the same book (as adapted for publication in the Millennium Film Journal, fall, 1998), concentrating
on the path-breaking innovations of filmmaker Stan Brakhage: Brakhage and theTheory of Montage. The following chapter, The Cinematic Act of Vision, featuring a detailed analysis of specific Brakhage films, goes more deeply into his methods, highlighting their relationship to negative syntax by comparing his approach to time with Mondrian's dialectic of form and space.
What’s been covered thus far is then applied to music in two
related essays, titled "A Field Theory of Musical Semiosis," Parts One and Two. The first is devoted to a thorough examination of the “positive”
field produced by traditional musical syntax, the second to the manner in which
this field is systematically undermined by disruptive strategies such as the
tonal polarizations and rhythmic discontinuities of Igor Stravinsky, the
atonality and dodecaphony of Arnold Schonberg and his pupil Anton Webern,
leading to the total serialism of composers such as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz
Stockhausen and the aleatoric strategies of John Cage.
The following essay, Modernism/ Postmodernism/ Neomodernism (published in the Downtown Review,
1981/82 issue), is an attempt to place the various artistic movements of the
“post-Pop” era in some sort of historical and methodological context by
analyzing the relation between three very different forms of modernism, A, B
and C. In it, I argue for the lasting importance of what I call “A” modernism,
characterized by its revolutionary rejection of traditional forms of expression
through the deployment of strategies I’ve associated with negative syntax.
Some Thoughts on Evolution and Consciousness, centers on critical
examination of a book by James Le
Fanu purporting to “debunk” Darwinian evolution via a review of certain
recent scientific developments in fields such as molecular science and
cognition. Le Fanu’s argument culminates in a skeptical analysis of the claim,
now widely held by philosophers and cognitive scientists alike, that there is
no such thing as a “mind” or a “consciousness” operating independently of the
brain; Le Fanu’s point being that Darwinian evolution is incapable of
accounting for conscious awareness without turning the mind into nothing more
than an “emergent property” of the brain, a materialist view that reduces
humans to little more than automatons. Consideration of the fundamental dilemma
raised by Le Fanu calls to mind a strangely analogous dilemma at the heart of quantum
physics, as explicated by the noted scientist and philosopher, Neils Bohr,
leading ultimately to speculations regarding the role of Bohr’s notion of
“complementarity” with respect to both evolution and the relation between
positive and negative syntax.
Next comes a review-essay, Formless at the Pompidou (published in the online journal,
Other Voices,
2002), written in response to a fascinating document, inspired by the ideas of
surrealist George Bataille, titled Formless,
a User’s Guide, by Rosalind Krauss and Yve-Alain Bois, published as the
catalog of an exhibition held at the
Pompidou Center in Paris during the summer of 1996. This document interested me
as a topic for review as it offered the opportunity to clarify the essential
difference between the relatively conventional opposition favored by Krauss and
Bois, via Bataille, i.e, form vs.
formless, and the more radical opposition I’ve posited here: syntax (form) vs. antax (the systematic undermining of form).
The next essay in the series, Ars Analogi Rationis, drawn from the concluding chapter of my book
Montage, Realism and the Act of Vision,
is an attempt to both summarize some of my key ideas and relate them to a
broader cultural landscape, ranging from the aesthetics of eighteenth century
philosopher Alexander Baumgarten to the psycho-political ruminations of
sociologist Herbert Marcuse (via Baumgarten, Schiller and Freud) and
post-structuralist Julia Kristeva.
My fascination with antactic structures began in the mid
1970s with a systematic exploration of what I called “pure film” in an attempt
to grasp the essence of the cinematic experience by radically reducing it to
the most essential elements possible, i.e., solid frames of only opaque or
transparent leader. These explorations into what I regarded as the “ground
zero” of cinematic “logic” resulted in a two-part essay titled A Theory ofPure Film (originally published in the journal Field of Vision, 1977-78). Although “A Theory of Pure Film”
antedates all the other essays collected here, I’ve decided to place it last, as
it differs greatly in kind from all the others and presents unusual challenges
that will likely frustrate most readers. (To save space I’ve reproduced part
two only.) My intention was to produce, in the realm of the aesthetic,
something roughly equivalent to a mathematical proof (rooted in pure intuition
as opposed to logic), and as a result much of it makes for rather tedious
reading. Although I had not yet formulated the notion of an antactic structure,
my efforts produced what could be regarded as an antactic “axiom” of “negative
montage,” in roughly the same sense that a classic Mondrian painting could be
regarded as an axiom of “negative space.”
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