Ryoji Namai

1.43 The Tactile “Welt” of Sculpture: Caring Meaning and Educational Possibilities (Paper)

Ryoji Namai – Musashino University, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract:

In this presentation, I will consider the possibility of caring in the process of creating artworks and its educational meaning by interpreting the “relationships” involved in the creation of artworks. It is well known that creating artworks is not simply done by the subject of the creator (subject–object) but is realised through a relationship with the materials and the work being created (subject–subject). For example, Tim Ingold said, “what people do with materials, as we have seen, is to follow them, weaving their own lines of becoming into the texture of material flows comprising the life world” (Being Alive, 2011, p.215). The relationship between the creator, the materials, and the work being created is, so to speak, horizontal. When understood in this way, the work of art can be said to be something that exists between the artist and the world. But what does it mean to create a work that exists in this intermediate state? Also, what does it mean for human life to come into contact with a work that exists in the intermediate state? If we interpret the above issues and the phase of artworks in art making by contrasting them with Martin Buber’s (1878–1965) theory of dialogue, we can think that the relationship between the artwork and the world in art making is not simply a horizontal one, but that it contains a dynamism of verticality. In the midst of this transformation in consciousness towards verticality, encountering what Buber calls “the otherness (heterogeneity) of the other” makes us aware of the fundamental independence of the other and the self. I would like to consider whether this dynamism of art making naturally encourages us to relate to others and ourselves in a caring attitude, suggesting the educational significance of art making.