By Jon Benjamin Originally Published at Jon Benjamin Philosophy of Art
This paper explores the role of abstraction in fostering unique, singularizing experiences while engaging with both plastic and digital art. I will begin by defining hegemonic phantasms and examine how first-century Roman art and thirteenth-century Gothic art played a role in the institution and destitution of the Latin Phantasm, according to Reiner Schürmann. Subsequently, I will apply these principles and concepts to pixel art used in contemporary video games. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how abstract art possesses a greater potential for creating unique, individualized experiences that may foster self-reflection and resistance to hegemonic systems.
Hegemony can be defined as dominant leadership by one group over others. A phantasm is an illusion or a product of a fantasy. According to Reiner Schürmann, hegemonic phantasms use normative rules and universals as a construct to establish order and meaning in culture or linguistic era.
For instance, the American Dream serves as a universal, manifesting in particulars like homeownership or securing a well-paying job. Singularities themselves are distinct, unrepeatable events or individuals, such as the election of President Obama. Universals tend to simplify reality and can dismiss counter arguments, while maintaining falsehoods that support the dominant group. In terms of the American Dream, a negative universal is meritocracy, the concept that everyone has an equal opportunity for success. This universal ignores obstacles that can limit success to some groups while celebrating the financial success of those born into wealth. Hegemonic phantasms aren’t entirely negative; they often include universals that help people navigate and make sense of the world. For instance, the American Dream may encourage people to develop a good work ethic or a drive for self-improvement. The problem occurs when the overreliance on universals to define reality begins to support oppression. Schürmann argues that we need to strive to measure our being though singulars and recognize that universals tend to inflate the dominant group.
Reiner Schürmann provides an example of the institution of the Latin hegemonic phantasm of natura in his book Broken Hegemonies (Schürmann, 191). According to Schürmann, Cicero, a first century Roman poet and politician, played a key role in the institution of natura as a hegemonic phantasm (Schürmann, 193). Cicero’s concept of natura was based on the idea that there is a natural order to the world, and this order is used to justify the rule of law and the importance of civic virtue. Schürmann argues that Cicero’s concept of natura was a hegemonic phantasm because it provided a way of understanding the world that was dominant, unquestioned yet was in fact nothing (Schürmann, 8).
Art can play a significant role in both the institution and destitution of hegemonic phantasms. In the case of Cicero’s institution of natura, we can look to first century Roman Veristic portraiture, defined by highly realistic sculptures that included wrinkles, warts and thinning hair. A clear illustration of this style can be seen in Roman marble portrait of Marcus Nonius Balbus Figure 1. The head of the portrait of Marcus Nonius Balbus is rendered with Roman verism, complete with wrinkles and disapproving frown. The body, on the other hand, is a copy of a 5th century BCE Greek Bronze rendering of Doryphoros by Polykleitos Figure 2. The naturalism of the statue of Balbus leaves little room for interpretation. The wrinkles and aged facial features are intentionally encoded signaling to the audience that this man has dedicated his long life to civic duties. The downward gaze along with the frown communicates authoritarian disapproval creating a space between the sculpture and the viewer that leaves the viewer feeling belittled, yet grateful to this wise benefactor. Beyond the wisdom and superior status, the sculpture includes a mathematically perfect figure modeled after the Greek bronze statue of Doryphoros that presents a man who is more than mortal, to be envied for his virility and god-like power. These conflicting images reveal the inconsistent message of Cicero’s natura. The Greek body reflects the perfect harmony and power of nature that is mismatched with the veristic head that reinforces Roman civic authority. The laws of nature have little in common with Roman civic virtue, just as Balbas’s veritive head has little to do with the Doryphoros idealized body.
Cicero’s concept of natura lasted many centuries, until Meister Eckhart, a 13th century Dominican monk, introduced the concept of natura non naturata (non-natured nature) creating a diremption or fracture against the Latin hegemonic phantasm of natura. Eckhart’s concept challenged the traditional view that God must follow his own rules, therefor making the law of nature unrefutably. Eckhart posited that God is separate from and transcendent over nature, and not beholden to nature’s laws. Schürmann argues that Eckhart’s concept was a significant challenge to the hegemonic phantasm of natura by presenting nature and God, not as a hierarchy of rules, but rather as a dynamic and creative force of becoming. This concept creates a diremption in Cicero’s hierarchical law-abiding phantasm. Eckhart’s theology does not focus on outward rules, rather it was focused on interior change that begins with detachment from the physical world allowing individuals to grow in virtue internally (Schürmann, 286). This concept is difficult for a hegemony to manipulate, since it is inherently singular, focusing on the individual’s interior experience with the divine.
This interiority is a formless experience that cannot be easily rendered in plastic art. Naturalistic art can reflect the outside world very well, but it isn’t suitable for rendering abstract concepts that occur within an individual’s interior mind. Abstraction in art provides room for individual interpretations. The Röttgen Pietà, Figure 3, is a painted wood sculpture that illustrates medieval abstraction. This painted wood sculpture represents Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding her dead son’s body after he was removed from the cross. Both Jesus and Mary are intentionally rendered with unreal, exaggerated proportions. The abstracted figures allow the viewer to focus on the event, not the people represented. Mary appears genderless, allowing the viewer to see any suffering person in her image. In comparison, the naturalism used in Michelangelo’s Pietà Figure 4, presents two specific people, Mary and Jesus, whose likenesses leave little room for interpretation. One might argue that Michelangelo’s Pietà is a far superior work of design and craftsmanship. The question isn’t whether one sculpture is superior to the other, rather, how each sculpture successfully executes their intended purpose for a specific time and culture. I argue that the abstracted forms of the Röttgen Pietà encourage the viewer to use their imagination to explore the intangible concepts of death and suffering while eliciting empathy from the viewer. By simplifying some features, each figure becomes a less specific person, therefore, encouraging the viewer to bridge the subject-object divide. In other words, the viewer doesn’t simply contemplate the work of art; instead, they may project themselves into it.
Can these arguments be applied to contemporary video games? Undertale and Red Dead Redemption II are two popular video games of similar genres that I will argue, present radically different experiences determined by the use of abstraction vs naturalism.
Red Dead Redemption II is a video game created in 2015 by Rockstar Games that places players in the world of late 19th century American wild west. Playing as Arthur Morgan, a rugged white male outlaw who faces a dying Wild West with other members of the Van der Linde gang. Players enter a three-dimensional photorealistic world to navigate threats, explore landscapes, and make moral choices about loyalty and survival. The realism in Red Dead Redemption II is striking, once a player adapts to the uncanny resemblance to the nature world, the player experience becomes immersive. Snow moves and creates footprints while horses gallop with the grace and rhythm (see Figure 5). Beyond the visual naturalism, Red Dead Redemption II is what is known as an open world game, meaning the player can walk around and interact with the landscape as they please.
The naturalistic visuals, like the statue of Balbus, leave little room for interpretation. Due to the use of naturalism, players are less likely to question the validity of the experience and are more likely to believe this interactive story is a trustworthy representation of history. Although the game attempts to portray a diverse array of perspectives about the American wild west, it may also perpetuate common myths such as rugged individualism, glossing over the violence and injustices inflicted on marginalized groups of the time period. The naturalistic imagery becomes synonymous with the natural world, encouraging viewers to grant equal validity to the story and dialogue, thus establishing a portrayal of the American Wild West as nearly true and universal. Universals, according to Schürmann, attempt to subsume singularities under generalized categories. The realistic rendering of the Wild West is arguably creating generalized categories that can subsume singularities and inturn support hegemonic systems.
Figure 5. Aurthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption II. 2025. Reddead Fandom, Rockstar Games, https://reddead.fandom.com.
Undertale is a role-playing video game, developed by Toby Fox and released in 2015 (Hiscott, 2016). The game is set in the Underground, a realm of monsters that was sealed off from the surface world by a magic barrier. The player controls a human child named Frisk who has fallen into the Underground and must find their way back to the surface. Along the way, the child encounters a variety of both friendly and hostile monsters and must choose to fight or befriend them, significantly impacting the game’s outcome.
The design of the main character Frisk is noticeably different from many video games (Figure 6.). Frisk is gender neutral, of no fixed racial identity. Their hair is unkempt and their body is the opposite of athletic. Frisk’s abstraction and plurality allow for a wide range of players to identify with them. Beyond the physical appearance, Frisk is composed of large-scale pixels with no depth or detail, abstracting the character even further. Frisk is not heroic, athletic or mighty, therefore players immediately are presented with the realization that they are ill equipped to fight the oncoming monsters.
Frisk’s rendering is not unlike the thirteenth century Röttgen Pietà. Both Frisk’s character design and theRöttgen Pietà are abstract. They are both genderless, poor and unheroic. Both renderings feature exaggerated characteristics that draw the viewer’s attention to the person’s emotional state rather than specific features, allowing for greater personal identification with the image. Frisk’s figure has poor posture and is simultaneously thin and overweight emphasizing a state of vulnerability. Jesus, as presented in the Röttgen Pietà, is rendered emaciated, displaying gory wounds, and his head, angled unnaturally from the neck, attests to his brutal demise. Since these images are abstracted, they don’t resemble typical humans, yet they are both recognizably human. It is precisely this vagary that leaves room for the viewer to imagine themselves or someone else in place of the abstracted human form. This empathetic experience is unique to the individual, providing the viewer with imaginative agency, consequently, encouraging them to value their own individuality. It is these individualized experiences that combat universals, according to Schürmann.
Emmanuel Kant was a 18th century German philosopher who posited that the subject (human mind) perceives an object (the world outside the mind) through mental frameworks that result in a phenomenal experience, that differs from an object’s true, noumenal existence (Jaspers, 38). In other words, we receive stimuli from the outside world through our senses and the mind interprets the sensory information through mental frameworks such as the imagination and understanding, thus creating unique interpretive experiences. Kant goes on to say, when one has a new experience with an object, the mind attempts to understand it by comparing it to previous concepts and categories (Kant, 145).
If the mind cannot find a sufficient category to place the new object in, it may enter into a state of what Kant calls “free play” between the understanding and the imagination. While naturalistic art can evoke aesthetic pleasure, according to Kant, it may limit the ‘free play’ of the faculties and reinforce existing expectations, thereby restricting one source of human creativity. In other words, when the mind sees something recognizable, it places the image in a category and may not think much more about it. One can suggest that abstract art may encourage a viewer to engage with the artwork without relying on pre-existing categories or concepts, since some of the information is either unrecognizable or unusual. It is in this state of Free Play that the viewer becomes more deeply engaged with the art. This process can lead the viewer to discover something new, resulting in a meaningful and pleasurable experience or what Kant describes as “purposeful without purpose” (Jaspers, 78). The understanding is looking to find a practical use for the object that has no practical function. According to Kant, the purpose is the activation of the faculties of understanding and imagination, leading to the discovery of new meaning. This supports Kant’s argument that abstract art may encourage “Free Play” to a greater degree than naturalistic art.
The sculpture of Marcus Balbus has a clearer message than the Röttgen Pietà. The veristic Roman portrait is straight-forward and easily recognizable, the viewer is reminded that this particular benevolent benefactor is wise, powerful and superior. The Röttgen Pietà, conversely, is not so easily understood, the sculpture doesn’t easily fit into the viewer’s understanding of the world. Mary and Jesus, while recognizably human, are depicted as unlike any ordinary persons. Their lack of recognizable identity allows the viewer’s understanding and imagination to enter into free play creating a unique singular experience. This is not to say that free play does not occur when one contemplates Michelangelo’s Pietà or the statue of Marcus Balbus, it’s more a question of degree. The experience of the statue of Marcus Balbus is likely to be more universal and less singular due to its recognizable naturalism. Therefore, it can be argued that naturalistic art may be inclined to support hegemonic phantasms due to the universality of the experience. While abstract art may have a greater ability to elicit the viewer’s mind into a state of free play, producing unique and singular experiences.
This concept can also be applied to video game art. The hyper-realistic images of Arthur Morgan and the American wild west is recognizable to the viewer, therefor the imagination is less likely to be activated, creating a nearly universal experience between players. Conversely, Frisk in Undertale is abstract, allowing the player’s mind to enter a state Kantian Free Play between the imagination and understanding.
One of the clearest examples of this is found in the vast array of Frisk fan art. Frisk has been rendered by players around the world in an infinite variety of genders, nationalities and styles, while Author Morgan is consistently rendered as a rugged white male.
In conclusion, this paper argues that abstract art, particularly in the medium of video games, possesses a greater capacity for fostering singularizing experiences that can challenge hegemonic phantasms. Naturalistic art, found in Roman verism and Red Dead Redemption II, tends to reinforce these universals by presenting seemingly objective realities. The naturalism in these forms limits individual interpretation and can inadvertently perpetuate dominant ideologies. Conversely, abstract art, such as the Röttgen Pietà and the pixel art style of the video game Undertale, encourages individualized experiences.By moving away from fixed, naturalistic representations, abstract art prompts viewers and players to engage their imagination and understanding in a state of Kantian Free Play. This active engagement with the art, may foster self-reflection allowing for a wider range of interpretations, potentially disrupting the universalizing effects. Ultimately, engaging with abstract art offers a valuable space for challenging dominant narratives and celebrating the unique experiences of individuals, thus acting as a potential counterforce to the influence of hegemonic phantasms.
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