Algının Paradoksu Bağlamında Gerçeklik Kurgusunun Plastik Sanatlarda Deşifre Edilme Potansiyeli

Abstract

The world perceived by the subject—namely the world accessible through sensory and higher cognitive processes—may give the impression of being fully grasped, yet the only mediator of this grasp is the subject’s own perception. This study analyzes the phenomenon of perception within the framework of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception and Gestalt psychology, discussing how perception provides access to reality in both philosophical and psychological contexts. The analysis demonstrates that perception is, in every case, a paradoxical process for the subject; while it situates the subject within the world, it simultaneously grants access to a reality that exceeds the subject. Accordingly, the study examines how the subject constructs reality and reveals that this inquiry is grounded both in the desire to attain what reality is and in the manner through which the subject forms reality. However, it is shown that the subject can never attain absolute reality and is therefore captive within the reality game they play. It is also determined that this captivity directs the subject toward the openness that touches upon Lacan’s Real. Within this context, the study discusses how the examined artworks activate the reality game and the perceptual process in the viewer. The artistic works carried out in this research further analyze how the art object exposes the reality game, renders perceptual ambiguity visible, and invites the viewer into a field of traumatic encounter. Accordingly, the first role of the artwork is to reveal the reality game and invite the subject into a traumatic confrontation; its second role is to overthrow the Symbolic through this very exposure. Thus, the function of art is not to “represent” but to render visible the collapse of the existing order, meaning, and reality. By doing so, the artwork offers the subject the potential for a momentary encounter with the Real—a meeting that itself constitutes the destruction of reality. Consequently, the study demonstrates that the artwork renders the collapse of the reality construct visible, confronts the subject with this collapse, and carries the potential to invite the subject toward the reconstitution of truth.