Vertical Time in Arts

Abstract

The paper elucidates the concept of vertical time that has originated from Gaston Bachelards. The topic is elaborated in a relation to the intrinsic time by Étienne Souriau that concerns the plastic arts. It fits to the time operator formalism of complex systems whose defining feature is existence of the intrinsic time operator. The complex system model is based upon statistical causality which occurs through inheritance in the vertical temporality. The model is derived for one-dimensional signals, but it is easily generalizable to two-dimensional and three-dimensional ones. The aesthetics of verticality is demonstrated to be significant for music, poetry, architecture and film as well.