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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00685
- Thesis Title
- Counterfactualism – a new category for fine arts and humanities, dealing with the retrospective analysis of turning points in life
- Author
- Elke Reinhuber
- E-mail
- elke AT ntu.edu.sg
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Year
- 2014
- Number of Pages
- 259
- University
- University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
- Thesis Supervisor
- Ross Harley
- Supervisor e-mail
- ross AT unsw.edu.au
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Phillip George
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- UNSW Art & Design (COFA) / Media Art
- Copyright Ownership
- Elke Reinhuber
- Languages Familiar to Author
- German, Italian
- URL where full thesis can be found
- eer.de/cft/
- Keywords
- counterfactual thinking, counterfactualism, forking-path narratives, decisive moment, media art, immersive environments, decision making, practice-based artistic research
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- Abstract short:
The concept of counterfactuals, which has appeared in past decades in science and humanities, has become popular as a genre in fictional time-based and non-linear media and the fine arts. Therefore, I intend to expand the term, which describes retrospective considerations after turning points in life, in order to include the fine arts and encapsulate the research with the expression counterfactualism as a hypernym for a contemporary phenomenon, which is inherent for a society satiated with abundant choices for nearly everything in life.
As the term cannot be generalised, I have devised three categories which describe the relationship between artist, counterfactual thoughts and audience. With this presentation, I will provide an overview of my research and its influences on not only my artistic practice.
Abstract extended:
In my artistic research, I propose that the concept of counterfactuals, which has appeared in past decades in science and humanities, has become popular as a genre in media and the fine arts, in particular for fictional time-based and non-linear media. I suggest expanding the term in order to include the fine arts and encapsulate the research with the term counterfactualism in the relevant disciplines.
The term counterfactual (a combination of ‘counter’ and ‘factual’) is recognised since the latter half of the last century in historiography, philosophy, physics and in the discipline I consider to be the most relevant for my research, psychology. What these approaches all have in common, is a desire to review turning points and evaluate different consequences. The reason may not only be the regret of a decision or the outcome of an event, but can also evolve from the curiosity to imagine possible alternatives. By doing so, the actual result is reinforced. Counterfactual thoughts are commonly associated with strong emotions like regret, guilt, relief and satisfaction. In psychology, counterfactual thinking refers primarily to a person’s real-life experience, followed by retrospective considerations about a missed opportunity or a wrong decision, which could have concluded in a better outcome than their actual life-path. Historiography deals with actual historical facts and subsequent thought-experiments: the ways in which some historical events could have been written differently, videlicet if a battle, an election, or a summit talk had had different consequences. The concept of counterfactuals appears in philosophy and in physics in relation to several models of parallel universes and also in quantum physics. In addition to these disciplines, I propose the inclusion of related work in the fine arts and to encapsulate it with the term counterfactualism as a hypernym for a contemporary phenomenon, which is inherent for a society satiated with choices for nearly everything in life. As it cannot be generalised easily, I have created three categories which describe the relationship of artist, counterfactual thoughts and audience. I aim to distinguish between retrospective analyses of the artist during the production of a piece of art, the revealing of a possible alternative life of the artist and finally, what I consider as most captivating but also the most challenging, the approach to present, to evoke and to stimulate counterfactual thoughts within the audience. In the last category, I explored in my practice-based research various artistic media and suggest that this genre needs to fulfil at least one of the following criteria: it must be immersive, interactive, time-based, spatial or performance-based.