Richard Ansett: Facuity (edited 22.05.2022)

Facuity is a word I felt I needed to invent to aid the examination of my objectivity in my relationship to the world with a camera, in the moment. It acknowledges the awareness of the complexity that makes up the 'facticity' of an object or event. It is an awareness of that which is beyond awareness.

Origins;

Facticity –that which resists explanation and interpretation. Facticity is something that already informs and has been taken up in existence, even if it is unnoticed or left unattended. As such; facticity is not something we come across and directly behold. In moods, for example, facticity has an enigmatic appearance, which involves both turning toward and away from it. - Martin Heidegger

 Acuity –the state of being aware, sensitive to. Keeness of perception - Merriam-Webster

The very nature of facuity is consciousness of the multiple frames of reference that make up an understanding of factual reality. It is the present realization of forces within and beyond awareness.

The content within the frame can be explored but it is its relationship to the external forces and an understanding of the presence of literal, philosophical, emotional and most importantly unknown elements that is the ‘immediate’s’ facuity. The facticity of an object is the context of its existence regardless of any awareness of it; the facuity is the ‘awareness’. For example: if we are imprisoned with a frame of reference, we are incongruent and unable to objectify the meaning of any event. A continual awareness and exploration of their incongruence is the objectivist observer's facuity and essential in any ambivalent relationship to reality truth.

An object or event can be viewed through a factical frame of reference (e.g. up and horizontal plain). http://archive.org/details/frames_of_reference. Awareness of an alternative frame of reference may entirely alter the meaning of the same action; this challenges the notion of any concept of a shared universality of human existence. The reality of an action is altered by merely an acknowledgement of its facticity. Recognition of our lack of consciousness of all the frames of reference opens an event up to multiple interpretations at the same moment.

Emotions are not entirely relative to a conscious frame of reference in the same way that actions or objects are. An emotional experience may seem to be shared in a tangible way through a societal frame of reference but any individual response might be and I would argue, is, entirely unique. I would posit that that whilst manipulated, emotion exists outside of the forces that manipulate it but is inevitably infected, the unique emotional experience is merely triggered by it. To make sense and manage this form of 'emotional relativity' we have withdrawn into universes from where our emotions seem more manageable, comprehensible and ‘valuable’.

But what appears as ‘normal’ may in fact be an equivalent observation from within the same frame of reference; for example, one observing oneself. An alternative observation from an external position may appear different (although still entirely arbitrary).

This may seem obvious but perhaps only by constantly exploring in real time the complexity of the individual universe through an acceptance that understanding is relative (and therefore impossible) can empathy be realised. Those of us who are born into a universe that immediately makes no sense will struggle until we have made peace with that realisation. Constantly challenging the foundations of our existence inherently as part of daily lives is only exhausting

I have included this very important image from my series 'Bathers, Ukraine, 2011' shot during my residency with the IZOLYATSIA Foundation and mentored by the great Boris Mikhailov, since acquired by Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF), 2013. There is an image of her looking to camera that remains unpublished.