Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 1, 2008

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Arts

Beatrice Nunold
Pages 191-226

Landscape as a Topology of Being and Appearance

Our reality constitutes itself as being one of pictures. Landscape is a product of aesthetic reflection as well as the perception of reality and virtual reality of the first order (VR 1). Pictorial representation of a landscape is virtual reality of the second order (VR 2). A picture is a structure of relations with a specific topology or an interrelationship. A picture is set in relation. Topology relates to relational similarities and differences as well as their transfer into other interrelationships, other topologies. The differences between nature, landscape (VR 1), metaphor of landscape and pictorial representation of landscape, etc. (VR 2) describe a change of the interrelationship. These changes happen in a physical-psychic-mental production of reality. We are involved in the events of particular relationships of the picture. The Topology of Being and Appearance reflects the inconspicuous similarities of relations and proportions in the relationship of the world in association with our physical-psychic-mental existential orientation in the world.