Concepts of illusion and spatial dimension in the moving image.

Art and science historically have always satellited each other with their visual terms yet these two disciplines work in discrete areas whilst their observational data has in the past and today continued to inform and map the universe. Mathematical physics describes a world we cannot see and yet their descriptions conjure visual perceptions or illusions within us. This has become the centre to only a few who understand higher algebraic symbolism and yet it describes something more integral to the way we see. Should art be trying to regain this visual ground of mathematical description and escape three-dimensional linear perspective?

It is my aim initially by using the moving image and projection, and recording through observation, and sketching, to investigate the possibilities of mapping an alternative space or space-time relationship. As my practice involves digital art and projection my objective is to question whether a non-flat surface will give something more to the image, or create moving illusions, or alternatively break the visual down into further discreet parts. Using the screen surface as part of the investigation I will apply the theoretical work of Deluze, and Bergson.

Secondly with reference to Popper and Russell, I will consider the use of empiricism for defining an art methodology asking if there could be a unifying theory with cross curricular activity between art and science.

Historical Context.

Since Beltrami’s pseudo sphere described a new space and the theories of relativity showed a new time, artists have tried to capture this space-time in their work. Cubists explored the new geometry, which informed their work. The eminent French mathematician Henri Poincare tutored leading artists like Duchamp. He and other artists endeavoured to visually answer the defining of space and time in different ways, but a tension developed between these answers, whether they were scientific or religious. Art with its cognitive, subjective background is difficult to measure. Not withstanding the un-measurability of art, close observation and simple drawing has always offered insight of the world.

Contemporary Context.

Narratives in a contemporary context display a new fluidity. Barthes has challenged not only the language but also the typography. Narratives on the Internet have capacity to take this further demonstrating a complete elasticity of the written language. Laurie Anderson’s website shows narratives that form new axis’s and crosses through them at the same time as they ripple back and forth on themselves.

Dan Graham’s reflective surfaces show an equivalent degree of elasticity with different views of locations whilst Graham Gussins appears when using maps, to literally condense space in his work. Bruce Nauman in Raw Material uses language as a sculpture, deconstructing and disembodying voices that speak with you or with themselves with a construction of ambiguity that reflects on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. Imogen Stidworthy in The Whisper Heard reconstructs the absent body by the way she places her exhibition equipment.

Theoretical Context.

Artists, whether they use language, audio, visual or written means to display their work, deconstructing or reconstructing and in whatever media chosen, they all display threads that link them together. The work mentioned borders on the scientific yet still resonates with cognition or feeling. These all address some aspect of space, time or light and then diverge. Deluze on film draws attention to its abstraction of time, its spatial mobility, and the frame with its geometric surface of information giving a standard form of measurement where
none exists, making a closed system. As he talks of sets and closed systems he also draws out as he comments on the work of Bergson that they have threads with the whole or Open.

The moving image on screen has its viewpoint fixed, the shot is spatial and strictly immobile, the camera is mobile, emancipating the viewpoint allowing the cinema to thrive on privileged instants. However these instants lack the whole or Open in a similar way science lacks a whole and searches for a unified theory.

Bergson states that realism is the order required by science whereas idealism requires perception, a pure knowledge which science sees as fuzzy. Within mathematical physics the debate remains which Ködel initially raised, that of the propositional formulae were the existence or even the negation of the formulae is non provable. The syllogism, the basis for empirical formulation or the critical experiment, provable or non-provable leads science, can it also lead art?

Methodology.

Primacy is given to practice based research with the moving image and projection looking at the non-linear surface. The screen gives a common standard of measurement to things, which do not have one, also if the surface on which the moving image is projected, no longer retains its formal shape the privileged centre may have to defer.

This develops my intention of firstly breaking down the common architecture of the frame, and observing the moving image on the concave and convex surface. Secondly further transforming states will be examined, as the screen surface will be broken. From this deconstruction, judgement will be made to see if and how coherence still exists, if time and reality keep their integrity.
Thirdly opening up an area of examination of multiply time codes and what they could be at the time of recording, editing and projecting. Lastly within the film content, using white image as a bench mark will compare against time lines travelling with or across the horizon and geological mapping.
These projections on the altered space will be observed and recorded with sketches and digital media as an attempt for art to claim back the science based frame and time code to unify with arts current claim, the content.
WMF 28.04.06

This abstract space on the reflected surface intensifies to become even more abstract.
Index