thread: 2005-10-20 : The Fruitful Void
On 2005-11-10, Sydney Freedberg wrote:
Back to the Grand Unified Diagram (post 78) itself:
Out of Vincent's trinity of the real people, the mechanics, and the fiction—that which we imagine together*—it make sense to me that the fiction should be the element closest to The Thing in The Void. Or, to put it differently, the imaginary thing that the real people create together using specific tools is more central (for our purposes) than either the tools or, ironically, the people themselves who've created it: I, myself, as a real person, am fairly diffuse and unintelligible until I (or something else) condenses, selects, and focuses that diffuse self into a specific meaning. I am raw material; the techniques are tools; meaning and message are the product.
That said, the fiction—that which we imagine together—is not identical to the thing that matters, the thing that has meaning, The Thing in the Void. This is why it makes sense to me that Vincent's little clouds are touching, but not filling, the Void. As per my back-and-forth with Victor, the fiction may include within itself an explicit statement of the point, or it may imply it; but that's simply a matter of presentation, really. In either case, the meaning arises from the fiction but is not identical to it.
I'm struggling to express myself here, obviously, and may simply be wrong, but I hope this thought is at least a useful stimulant to others.
* which is what I personally mean by "SIS," awful term that I agree it is.
