One method to extend photography's verisimilitude may be to research mathematical dimensions that we cannot perceive through the camera lens. Marcel Duchamp utilised the 'Poincaré cut', a method for capturing momentary "snapshots" of overwhelmingly complex probabilistic systems that are impossible to see physically in three-dimensions, to illustrate the fourth dimension in The Large Glass (1915-1923). This concept relates to current theoretical physics debate; String Theory modifies Einstein's Gravitational Theory to reconcile it with Niels Bohr's Quantum Mechanics and hopes to unify all fundamental interactions of nature. String Theorists use a six dimensional mathematical space called a Calabi-Yau manifold to demonstrate that spacetime may consist of ten dimensions. "A manifold is an abstract mathematical space that allows more complicated structures to be expressed and understood in terms of the relatively well-understood properties of simpler space." Mathematicians visualise the topology of manifolds using CAD modelling software such as Wolframe's Mathematica or McNeel's Rhinoceros . This is the basis of the project's symbol system. I intend to use CAD technology to develop a mapping procedure that can be integrated into the intaglio print process. The tool will be used to chart multidimensional time filled by the presence of the Now within a three-dimensional simpler space. Walter Benjamin defines positive barbarism, including Cubism and Surrealism, as space 'without experience' which disrupts previous history and implores us to recognise a new space of cultural experience. In this way my project may launch String Theory as a new art of barbarism. The research will neither refute nor condone this possibility, "but rather act on the supposition of its being real."
Notes:
Cosmic Landscapes, Leonard Susskind 2006
Time filled by presence of the Now
As a sociological and cultural critic, Benjamin combines ideas of Jewish mysticism with historical materialism. In reference to Theses on the Philosophy of History (1942), Benjamin emphasises the role of singular temporalities in both political and aesthetic experience. The methodology of Grounded Theory parallels Benjamin's approach by presenting events and commentaries as open and infinite in order to remove the chronological structure, hypothesis or closing summary. Benjamin's cairologic perspective re-conceptualises the relations between the present, time and experience; to emphasise breaks, ruptures, non-synchronised moments and multiple temporal dimensions. As an alternative view on history, the methodology attempts to construct a vivid image of everyday experience. Benjamin defined this coterminous spacetime phenomenon as the Jetztzeit , time filled by the presence of the Now. "Accessing it means engaging in actions that create qualitative ruptures in the hegemonic experience of time, spatiality, identity, labour and economic distribution." I will examine Benjamin's conjecture that the present and its experience are temporarily 'frozen' in historical or actual material and phenomena. These 'splinters of reality' are the visual material that I will collate during the artist residency and which will become created anew during the course of interpretation.
Notes:
Now-Time Image-Space, Kia Lindroos 1998
As a sociological and cultural critic, Benjamin combines ideas of Jewish mysticism with historical materialism. In reference to Theses on the Philosophy of History (1942), Benjamin emphasises the role of singular temporalities in both political and aesthetic experience. The methodology of Grounded Theory parallels Benjamin's approach by presenting events and commentaries as open and infinite in order to remove the chronological structure, hypothesis or closing summary. Benjamin's cairologic perspective re-conceptualises the relations between the present, time and experience; to emphasise breaks, ruptures, non-synchronised moments and multiple temporal dimensions. As an alternative view on history, the methodology attempts to construct a vivid image of everyday experience. Benjamin defined this coterminous spacetime phenomenon as the Jetztzeit , time filled by the presence of the Now. "Accessing it means engaging in actions that create qualitative ruptures in the hegemonic experience of time, spatiality, identity, labour and economic distribution." I will examine Benjamin's conjecture that the present and its experience are temporarily 'frozen' in historical or actual material and phenomena. These 'splinters of reality' are the visual material that I will collate during the artist residency and which will become created anew during the course of interpretation.
Notes:
Now-Time Image-Space, Kia Lindroos 1998