Article 1
Chopin Prelude No.15
To illustrate indexical quality as a supplement of the icon signification, I pick the original copy of Chopin's Prelude No.15 piano scores as an example.
David Clarke's The Icon And The Index: Modes Of Invoking The Body's Presence aims to justify that the role of indexical sign is supportive to iconic signification. Relics and Images are frequently compared in the article. Relics are valuable because of their indexical value that they can represent something in history.
Prelude No.15 is more similar to the case of relics. The location of the original copy is unknown, but according to art sales markets, original copies of scores by a famous composer are very much of value, and possess a high bidding quality.
Here's an extraction of a collector's article about getting an original copy of Chopin's scores.
"Ebay searches became a daily event. Although I obtained a few pieces by Chopin and other well known composers, Fontana's compositions still eluded me. Finally by chance I found an antiquarian music website in Germany which had an original copy of the Chopin's op. 66 Fantasie Impromptu which was published by Fontana in 1 855 as part of the Oeuvres Posthumes. I pounced on this and even though it was sent via airmail it took over 30 days to arrive due to the Christmas crunch and tightened security with overseas mail. When it arrived I was ecstatic. The hunt was on for more when events took an unexpected turn." (http://chopinfound.brinkster.net/ip.asp?op=Fontana)
The collector felt ecstatic. It's because the original copy of the scores is unique and irreplacable. On the scores there are only notes which are symbols of what keys on the piano should be played. However, what is endorsed with the scores is the memories and experience they carry along. When holded in hands, the person can associate how Chopin write on this particular paper and had touched it, looked at it, worked on it.
It's such association and quality granted index to an icon. Icons with such indexical value worth a lot in terms of money, because they are bounded by conditions. They have to be real, unique, and has experienced the waves of time.
Icons with indexical value still remain valuable even they are broken or not complete. As Clarke quoted Theodoret, "when the body is divided...the grace remains undivided." Even the fragments remain worthy. It's the special thing about Icons with indexicality. Even when the iconicity is destroyed, the meaning it carries and the value that comes along remain.
That's why after printing technique is invented and there's mass production of the scores, people are still looking for the very original copy on which Chopin had once laid his hands on.
Article 2
Cheung Yuen Tung
51178594
Image and Object
THE ICON AND THE INDEX:
Icons are symbols, they can be some abstract images or an object. Index is traces that can remind you something happened in history. Index is the power of quality, icon is the symbol and the sign. What gives icons their index, they have to go through many eras of times.
As illustrated in David Clarke's The Icon and the Index Modes of Invoking the Body's Presence, relics play an important role in shaping the history of Christian Church. They are the proof of the events in the Bible, more importantly, the existence of God. It directly affect the power and authority of the Church. They are evidence.
Before human beings invented cameras and photographs, there was no way that people can record an image, or sound. They can paint, but paintings cannot be "proof". Here comes the value of the relics. They are objects that survive through all these centuries and thus they are irreplacable. This nature of the relics give them their indexicality, as mentioned by David Clarke.
Sometimes people want to touch histoical stones or even the relics because they want to be close to the "holy power". That's the same case of people going to the concerts of the bands they worship. Idols are icons. Rockers, singers, guitarists are all icons. With the right marketing strategy, everyone can be super stars.
Bands like Led Zepplin or Rolling Stones have long history and these are numuerous records, CDs, DVDs released for them. Why people still have to be at the concert? It's because they want to be near to them. They share the similar sentiments with those people who visit Jerusalem, if not the same.
One of the Kurt Cobain's guitars was sold in USA last year at more than $500000 HK dollars. The model of the guitar is not a special one. It was not custom made either. What makes it different from an ordinary guitar is it's role of being "Kurt Cobain's guitar". The indexicality gives it a special meaning especially to collectors and fans. That guitar is like a relic. It is irreplacable becuse it has gone through some history.
All in all, indexicality gives soul to things that don't seem special on the outside.
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