Jim Hamlyn

Robert Gordon University, Gray's School of Art, Faculty Member

The Glasgow School of Art, Fine Art Photography, Faculty Member

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My work investigates the relation between perception and representation by focusing on ordinary cases. It argues that many features often treated as problematic—distortion, variation, or mediation—are not obstacles to perception but conditions of it. By making these conditions explicit, the papers aim to dissolve, rather than resolve, a number of familiar philosophical problems about appearance.

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Papers by Jim Hamlyn

The Whole Problem of Representation

This paper revisits a remark by Wittgenstein that the statement "That's him" contains the whole p... more This paper revisits a remark by Wittgenstein that the statement "That's him" contains the whole problem of representation. It argues that the difficulty does not lie in resemblance, perception, or internal representation, but in how something comes to be taken or treated as representing something else within a practice. By examining familiar cases-from portraits to memory images and mediated interaction-the paper suggests that representation is not secured by any intrinsic relation between image and object, but by the ways in which appearances are used and recognised. The result is a clarification of the limits of resemblance-based and representational accounts, and a reframing of representation in terms of shared practices rather than internal structures or perceptual equivalences.

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On the Limits of Representational Accounts of Perception

This paper examines a basic constraint on the relation between representation and perception. It ... more This paper examines a basic constraint on the relation between representation and perception. It argues that experiencing a representation of X is not a way of perceiving X, and that this holds independently of the richness, realism, or interactivity of the representation. From this it follows that accounts of perception framed in purely representational terms cannot, by themselves, explain perceptual contact with the world. The aim is not to deny the importance of representation, but to clarify its limits and to distinguish it from perception as ordinarily understood.

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A Dilemma in All Appearances

This paper examines a persistent but under-articulated distinction in the grounding of non-episte... more This paper examines a persistent but under-articulated distinction in the grounding of non-epistemic appearance claims. When something is said to "look" or "appear" a certain way, the claim may be supported either by stable, shareable property constancies or by the conditions under which the appearance arises from a particular point of view. These forms of grounding are commonly conflated. Drawing on examples from ordinary perception, pictorial representation, and perceptual psychology, the paper argues that such appearances do not differ merely in degree but in kind, and that the latter depends structurally upon the former. Features often treated as distortions-such as perspectival compression and diminution with distance-are shown to be necessary conditions of spatial perception rather than errors. The paper engages with Donald Brook's distinction between matching and simulation, retaining its central insight while reframing simulation as grounded in shared conditions of appearance rather than perceptual failure. The result is a clarified account of how appearances are sustained in practice and an indication of the consequences of ignoring this distinction in theoretical contexts.

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“Schwerinblicke – Künstlersichten”

Engaging Interactivity in Public Space

The public image: photography and civic spectatorship

Visual Studies, 2019

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Networks of Attribution: The Cultural Origins of Meaning

The International Journal of Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts, 2016

Despite the fact that we commonly refer to artworks as "meaningful" things, this is not to say th... more Despite the fact that we commonly refer to artworks as "meaningful" things, this is not to say that meaning is a property analogous to size or shape. If meaning is not a property, then it seems reasonable to suppose that meaning can only be a way of using things, of treating them as if they were imbued with features that they do not actually possess. Meaning is thus an attribution in which we agree through social consensus to use objects as tokens of power, prestige, celebration, explanation, instruction and so on. I argue that such symbolic procedures originate in practices of exchange and tool-use in which raw materials are ascribed uses that fundamentally change their identity. The purpose of this paper is to show that the ability to interpret artworks and more generally to ascribe meanings, is a highly sophisticated cultural capacity and, more specifically, a verbal skill dependent upon a network of symbolic resources and techniques that only a socially evolved linguistic culture can provide and enable.

format_quoteThe ability to assign meaning to objects is a learned skill shaped through communal practices and historical accumulation.format_quote

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How Images Actually Work: Settling a Longstanding Debate

The International Journal of the Image, 2016

This publication is made freely available under ________ open access.

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Experiments in Situated Knowledge

"We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems o... more "We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched." -Ludwig Wittgenstein. Part academic presentation, part performance, part discursive documentary, this presentation takes an alternative approach to the format of conference presentation in order to argue, by constructive example, that art arrives at its own unique forms of knowledge and knowledge generation through speculative experimentation with concrete reality, form and process. The profound success of certain forms of epistemic enquiry - principally scientific research and academic thought - has resulted in a relative marginalization of creative and improvisatory forms of critical and analytical investigation and to a parallel adoption, within the arts especially, of aspects of the terminology of science in order to legitimate the processes and practices of art production and consumption. For example, the use of the term ‘experiment’ is itself predicated upon an implicit association with empirical science as opposed to the more abstract trials and even ‘play’ that are fundamental to art production. Drawing upon the experiments of Swiss artist Roman Signer (who’s work literally fuses the improvisatory and experiential with the more exacting necessities and laws of physics, often to explosive effect), this presentation seeks to propose that the language and significance of alternative forms of communication (situated knowledge, contemplation, humor, sex, reverie, narrative etc.) offer valuable ways to understand the indispensable contribution of experimental creativity (art) to our understanding of the world and our place within it.