A question which often comes up regarding The Virtual Space Theory is its relation to abstract art. In order to establish the foundation for future discussions of such matters, this relatively theoretical post will attempt to first clarify the term ‘abstract’. Similar to the term ‘virtual’, the term ‘abstract’ comes up in many contexts; it is a recurring term in art-related discussions, yet tends to have quite a few different meanings. In this post I will differentiate between four such meanings of ‘abstract’, emphasize alternative terms that can be used for maintaining a distinction between them, and point out how The Virtual Space Theory mainly uses this term. Paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, the abstract painting pioneer, will provide most of the examples in this discussion.
Abstract as meaning ‘distilled’
Over a hundred years ago, when painters started to gradually let go of the centuries-old tradition of making paintings that try to look like the physical world, many alternative forms of painting were explored. One of these alternatives was to paint objects that might also exist in the physical world, but without trying to present them in full detail. Rather, such paintings aim at conveying the sense of their painted objects in a simplified or distilled form, trying to capture their characteristic essence rather than their correct visual appearance. Consequently, this distillation often meant that the sense of space created by the painting was lost as well, or at least challenged. An example of this is Kandinsky’s painting Moscow I.
Abstract as meaning ‘non-identifiable’
Another direction explored by artists was to make painted objects that are not quite identifiable. Such paintings employed many of the techniques of traditional painting, only that they did not do so in order to create objects that stand for ones that also exist in the physical world, but rather what might look like nameless blobs (which may only hint at something identifiable). And yet, using the terminology of The Virtual Space Theory, such paintings may still create virtual places in virtual space – except that the visual contents that are seen in the image’s space are non-identifiable. An example of this is Kandinsky’s painting White Line.
Abstract as meaning ‘non-pictorial’
Yet another form of painting which artists increasingly engaged in during the 20th century was to let go of making any kind of objects in space whatsoever – whether they are optically accurate, distilled, or non-identifiable. Instead, the focus was on making the canvas a visual object in itself. From the point of view of The Virtual Space Theory, the designated task or mode of such form of painting has shifted: it is no longer the creation of a virtual place to be seen through the painting, but rather the production of a flat pattern to be seen on the surface of the painting. As seen in Kandinsky’s Little Game, the result is still an image, but more precisely, it is a non-pictorial image.
Abstract as meaning ‘non-concrete’
This is the primary use of the term ‘abstract’ by The Virtual Space Theory, and unlike the previously mentioned ones, it refers to the image as a physical object in itself rather than to the visual contents seen in it. Due to technological developments over the centuries, our ability to see the virtual place of a pictorial image became gradually less bound to the physical object of the canvas on which it was originally painted. Ever more sophisticated techniques of mechanical reproduction have now reached the point that this physicality has been reduced to bits of data and an array of colored pixels. They are physical too, just not as concrete as layers of paint on a sheet of canvas are. This is the topic of an elaborate discussion in the book, but the main point here is that as a physical object, the image has become much less concrete, and much more abstract.
In many cases, of course, it is not so easy to determine in which of the above senses a painting may be abstract: distilled, non-identifiable, non-pictorial, and non-concrete forms of abstraction may often overlap, yet it is still useful to be able to tell them apart. This painting by James Whistler, for example, is highly distilled (it tries to capture only the essence of things), its contents are hardly identifiable (it is difficult to say what is painted in it), and it is on the verge of being non-pictorial (it is nearly just a flat pattern on a surface). And by the way, as you are watching it on your computer screen, it is also non-concrete (what you are looking at is not the physical object of the painting). 
To the next post in this series…
