Capricious Texture of Time in Awareness and Art

Abstract

We present a speculative account of lived-time at the level of sentience as distinct from sapience. It implies refraining from reference to clock-time. The account is necessarily in terms of meaning. Thus, familiar concepts such as the specious moment, retention and protention mechanisms are re-evaluated. Lived-time does not have a ‘time-line topology’. It has a volatile, irregular texture rather than a sequential linear order. Indeed, lived-time is necessarily an articulate moment, because awareness is not extended, but here-and-now. Thus, Gestalts in static images often have temporal qualities. Yet they can hardly reflect clock-time, as they are ‘frozen happenings’. This applies to many works of art. We especially focus on painting, sculpture and cinema. Narrative structures in the arts have a close similarity to lived-time. Thus, the analyses of the arts and of visual awareness, including daydreams and dreams, mutually illuminate each other. Our account rides the edge that separates sentience from sapience.