Subtle Revelation

Definition

Subtle revelation is Ross T. Smith's name for phenomenology as an attitude rather than a method: "It is an attitude of subtle revelation, of sensing by doing which permeates all aspects of working toward and through design." Smith grounds it in Eugen Fink's definition of phenomenology as "wonder in the face of the world," and — via Jean-Luc Marion — in Heidegger's "showing itself" "from itself," which for Smith "is the announcement of subtle revelation": Heidegger "legitimates the possibility of a phenomenology of the unapparent in general." The concept's operative distinction is Marion's: phenomena can present as "saturated spectacular events… or more often be revealed as unsaturated phenomena which are subtle and restrained as faint outlines, vague traces, peripheral glimpses, wafts of breeze, shimmers of light, nuances of color, overlapping soundscapes, or delicate whiffs of scent." Subtle revelation is therefore the training of attention toward the unsaturated — the ordinary, restrained register of phenomenal appearing that spectacle saturates and that design education usually overlooks.

The concept has an existential cost Smith names explicitly: the newly revealed world "can be wondrous, but it can also be one of panic and insecurity, as evidenced by some students," and "with a heightened level of perception, we can no longer ignore fleeting moments of delicacy, beauty, or pain." Revelation cannot be taken back — the attitude, once acquired, is permanent. Its corollary is temporal: "Expectation, therefore, preempts revelation" — the hidden maintains "potential, excitement, and expectation of our oneiric sensibility" (see visible-invisible). And its medium is language: "The phenomenological tradition asks us for close sensory observation and description; therefore, one needs a poetic language to bring life to the phenomena, sensation, and interpretation."

Key Thinkers

• Ross T. Smith — the concept's author: phenomenology as "wonder in the face of the world" and "an attitude of subtle revelation, of sensing by doing"; the studio as the site where perception is transformed.
• Eugen Fink — the phrase's source (via The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader ed. Toadvine & Lawlor): phenomenology as "wonder in the face of the world."
• Martin Heidegger — the ontological warrant (via Marion): "showing itself from itself"; the legitimation of "a phenomenology of the unapparent in general."
• Jean-Luc Marion — the saturated/unsaturated distinction (see log): the spectrum of givenness from spectacular saturation to the subtle, restrained, unsaturated phenomena of ordinary experience.
• Gaston Bachelard — the poetic register: "refreshing poetics to phenomenology and architecture in an approach that is particularly interiorist"; "With a single poetic detail, the imagination confronts us with a new world."

Related Concepts

• Adumbration — the perceptual mechanism of subtle revelation: the conditioned, multisensory facets through which objects and spaces "reveal themselves."
• Visible/Invisible — the dialectic subtle revelation traverses: the hidden as "an equally valid phenomenal experience, as is the revealed."
• Phenomenography — subtle revelation's outward expression: the recording of revealed experience "as drawing and writing, making and building."
• Design Studio Pedagogy — the teaching context: the studio where the attitude of subtle revelation is cultivated.
• Atmosphere — the multisensory, pre-intellectual impression the unsaturated phenomena compose: "wafts of breeze, shimmers of light, nuances of color."

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Design studio through the subtle revelations of phenomenology (Smith 2018) — the concept's source and namesake: Fink's "wonder in the face of the world"; Marion's saturated/unsaturated distinction; Heidegger's "showing itself from itself" as "the announcement of subtle revelation"; the panic of heightened perception; the poetic-language requirement; the studio as the attitude's training ground.

Open Questions

• Marion's saturated phenomena are usually the extraordinary (the event, the icon, the saturating presence); Smith's examples of unsaturated phenomena are the ordinary. Is subtle revelation a lesser form of revelation, or the norm from which "saturation" is the deviation — and does that inversion of the spectacle's hierarchy hold?
• Smith reports students' "panic and insecurity" when the subtle becomes visible. Is this the cost of the phenomenological reduction itself (the loss of the natural attitude), and can a studio teach the recovery — or only the exposure?
• Can "sensing by doing" be taught at all, or only invited — Smith's teacher is a "mentor, guide, and provocateur," but the chapter's exercises (see blind-drawing, experiential-learning) structure the invitation. Is the attitude a skill (trainable, assessable) or a disposition (only displayable)?