100 words Art making and practice is a process of translation. As a self-described translator, my work seeks to uncover those patterns of meaning that I pick up through my journey - distilling my perspectives, beliefs, and experiences into a personal symbology...a language. I am driven by a belief that everything is fundamentally grounded in meaning – words that echo throughout the tapestry of reality and me as a part of it. Just as I – the maker – imbue my art with meaning, I myself have been imbued with meaning. I want to try uncover this binary between me and my art, and in so doing reflect the harmonious interplay of patterns within creation as clues to the mind behind it all. Fractal realities Cycles in nature Insert myself into the natural environment – connectedness with my source. “The mountains quake before Him, the hills melt, And the earth heaves at His presence, Yes, the world and all who dwell in it” (Nahum 1:5, New King James Version). “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split” (Matthew 27:50-51, New King James Version). Wisdom “is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are all who retain her” (Proverbs 3:18, New International Version). “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:21, New King James Version). PSALM 33:6 reads as follows”: "By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host". The Word of God – His voice goes out into the world – made of breath and word (soundwave). Process of the body as a locus of input & output – the code changed the image into sound and then into visual – a programmatic process that is devoid of human intervention except in this setting up of the process. The interpretation of sound as information relies on the individual, therefore the individual draws the artwork. The artwork is made in charcoal and erased with bread. This symbolises the acknowledgement of my own finitude – that I am from the dust, and to the dust I shall return. It is also, however, the acknowledgement of Christ Jesus – the Bread of Life, without Whom nobody can understand the scriptures. He is the Word of God, the Word made flesh. Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”. The fear of the Lord, in scripture, means the acknowledgement of His power and our own frailty. It is not fear in the normal sense, but rather reverence. The most terrifying thing about God is that He is good. Why is that terrifying? Because we are not. Now, what would a good God, being perfectly just, do with us if we are not good? The second part of the same verse gives us understanding: “Knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” – the Holy One is Christ, the promised Jewish Messiah. Even though all humans deserve death as punishment for their sins, Christ came that we may have life, and have it in abundance (John 10:10). If a person believes in Christ, they will live, even though they die, for they will be resurrected unto eternal life. Isaiah 53:5 reads as a prophecy of Christ - “But it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced. He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” The sound wave represents the Word of God, but it is veiled from understanding. In explaining the good news of salvation through this piece, however, the meaning is unpacked and the veil is taken away, they eyes of understanding are enlightened. 2 Cor 3:14 – “But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.” Knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Holy One, does indeed bring understanding. The broken bread represents His body which was broken for us that we may be made whole. With the bread I erased charcoal – forming structure from ash, understanding from ignorance, life from death. Student Name: Jonathon Durno Student Number: DRNJON002 Course Code: FIN3036F Summative Assignment 4 According to Columbia University professor Halberstam, “Low theory is a mode of accessibility, a theoretical model that flies below the radar…in order to hit a broader target” (Halberstam, 2011:16). It is a subversion of high-level abstractions that are foisted upon those in academia; a divergent process of dismantling ideas arrived at using convergent processes. In fact, it could be said that low-theory is not really a “thing”, it is a privation of high-theory. Alternatively, high theory could be said to be only a superfluous addition to low-theory. Neoliberalism is “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional framework characterized by…free markets, and free trade” (Harvey, 2005:2). The French philosopher Foucault thought that in order to “engage in and teach anti-disciplinary knowledge”, one needs to be “emancipated from the principle of sovereignty”. A way in which this is done is though “counterintuitive modes of knowing such as failure and stupidity” (Halberstam, 2011:11). According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “History has produced but three such kinds of economic systems: those based on the principle of tradition, those centrally planned and organized according to command, and the rather small number, historically speaking, in which the central organizing form is the market” (Boettke, 2020). Neoliberalism, compared to traditional economic systems, is a sort of failure of state sovereignty, to echo Foucault. In this essay, I will be exploring similarities between low-theory and neoliberal systems insofar as they are a subversion of traditional or command society—a type of low theory failure in the greater scheme of economic systems. I will be employing aesthetic examples from the music industry—failures of convention that became widely popular—and using them as illustrations of the emersion of neoliberal success from what would have been deemed failure. Money talks like a broken record, but it is always what we find most interesting. Money, that peculiarly gossamered substance that is no longer based on any gold standard, and, since the dollar is in debt (Us Debt, 2021), is based on a currency that means very little in actuality. What gives it its value is belief—faith. To believe in a currency is to invest in it, and to invest in it grows its popularity and trust. More people will trust it and invest in it. When, however, we strip away the thin membrane of high-level description, money is no more than trust. It is not based on anything tenably substantiative. On the other hand, even though the dollar’s lack of a fixed exchange rate makes it unstable and pliable, its exactly this economic liberalism that led it to become the world’s primary currency. According to David Harvey, the Marxist economic geographer, “Fixed exchange rates were therefore abandoned in 1971. Gold could no longer function as the metallic base of international money; exchange rates were allowed to float, and attempts to control the float were soon abandoned” (Harvey, 2005:12). What was initially a sort of failure turned out to be a huge economic success, even if this success is now based solely on faith. What I am describing here is low-theory. Better yet, what I am doing here is low-theory. Nevertheless, I shall be skipping to and fro through the vast ecosystem of oftentimes random ideas that constitute the world of low-theory. “Money. It’s a crime Share it fairly But don’t take a slice of my pie” (Pink Floyd, 1981). The song by Pink Floyd, called Money, starts with a non-convention: the sound of cashier machines opening and closing forms a rhythm, a rhythm that eventually drives the entire song, both audibly and contextually. Money is really what drives society and politics. It is what makes people go to war and kill each other, and the love of money, as the saying goes, is the root of all evil. To start out, the song itself is a sort of employment of low-theory, since it doesn’t use conventional sound making techniques. It uses sounds that are so mundane, so unwanted, so ordinary, that we can scarcely believe it when we start enjoying the aesthetic of the song. But that is exactly the point. It uses an anti-disciplinary mode of production to create a sound that is aesthetically brilliant, conceptually witty, but still conventionally unfortunate. There is a sense in which this failure actually becomes a success by creating a new idea of what aesthetically appropriate might sound like. After all, for a large quantity of music listeners, it will remain a ‘failure’, but to those of us who appreciate the process, it becomes a new and exciting way of creating. If low theory is “the autonomous production of knowledge outside of institutional channels”, this is low-theory in action (Webb, 2011). “Neoliberalism is the application of capitalist processes to parts of a country’s economy not previously subjected to the free market” (Gamedze, 2021). If we look at more of Floyd’s song, we see more references to capitalism, and again in the form of critique: “Money So they say Is the root of all evil today But if you ask for a raise It's no surprise that they're giving none away HuHuh! I was in the right! Yes, absolutely in the right! I certainly was in the right! You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a bruising! Yeah!" (Pink Floyd, 1981). The lyrics, albeit out of place and arbitrary, tell a powerful story. They bring to light some of the shortcomings of free market capitalism, explaining that it is often those who call money evil that will refuse to give someone a raise if they ask for it, because they want to keep their money. The same hypocrisy can be seen in the fleshing out of neoliberalism, particularly in the prison system of the USA. Unlike South Africa where prisons are state owned, most prisons in the USA are privately owned. This means that under the guise of the law, companies who own the prisons can benefit from incarcerating more people (Sentencing Project, 2021). This route of argumentation is situationism – the idea that human behaviour is influenced more powerfully by situational factors than intrinsic traits. The free market involves the exchange of embodied ideas, and a wide variety of ideas at that. The song Money, as it happens, is part of the free market, having been released under a record label like most songs, Harvest in this case (Money, 2021). In fact, the very song that criticises capitalism contributed to the Pink Floyd becoming millionaires. Their collective net worth, as it stood in 2020, is more than 800 million dollars (Wendowski, 2020). Not that there is anything wrong with earning from one’s work, but it is interesting that they criticise the very system they rely on to make an income, and a large one at that. If the Neoliberal system which allowed Pink Floyd to earn their millions is the same system they are criticizing, then their avant-garde musical aesthetic which sprang from that system is to be criticized by proxy. There is a certain sense in which low theory is at work on the macro and micro scales here: Firstly, Neoliberalism is a failure in terms of governmental sovereignty, and this became the breeding ground for Pink-Floyd’s innovative aesthetic. Secondly, their obliviousness to the accidental critique of their own practice itself constitutes a type of failure, which can be independently seen as a success in regard to low theory. All of these routes of argumentation are attempts to explore the logical outworking at the intersection of neoliberalism and low-theory, using arguments and counter-arguments. To be fair to Pink Floyd, the music video for Money is interspersed with multiple scenes of their album The Dark Side of the Moon (the album in which Money was released) making its way down a factory conveyor belt. This is a reference to the capitalist process involved in the making of their own music. Perhaps their critique of their own music was not accidental after all and is simply part of the multidimensionality of implications involved in the free market trade of aesthetic commodities. This appears to be the case when we look at Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters’ own words: "I remember thinking, 'Well, this is it and I have to decide whether I'm really a socialist or not.' I'm still keen on a general welfare society, but I became a capitalist. You have to accept it. I remember coveting a Bentley like crazy. The only way to get something like that was through rock or the football pools. I very much wanted all that material stuff." (Gwyther, 1993:34). Waters is clearly very honest about his own state of affairs, and the position of commercial music in the economic landscape. He does not deny that free-market capitalism is at odds with the liberal political trend of the increasing popularity of socialism, and he even goes so far as to say that he had to “decide” which system to adopt, which system to become a proponent of. Another characteristic of Neoliberalism, perhaps counterintuitively, is its distrust of democracy. In a neoliberal country, the state is separated from the free-market economy, and instead of governing the specific affairs of the economy, exists, in this regard, only to maintain its functionality. “Neoliberal theorists are…profoundly suspicious of democracy. [It is] seen as a potential threat to individual rights… only possible under conditions of relative affluence coupled with a strong middle-class presence to guarantee political stability” (Harvey, 2005:66). This political stability refers specifically to the maintenance of the structure, sustainability, and functionality of the free-market. A democratic vote could potentially deconstruct the structure of the free-market, eventually leading to its replacement. This is, at least, Harvey’s argumentation. One could point out that the free-market itself is a type of democratic system in which individuals exercise their economic rights over products, services, and their exchange. Alternatively, there is the possibility that a democratic vote could lead to the destruction of the free-market, as I said above, due to a public desire for increased government imposition on the market economy. According to Halberstam, “The history of alternative political formations is important because it contests social relations as given…and [offers] discontinuity for the political present” (Halberstam, 2011:19). This would prove that throughout history, political formations have shifted, and if they have shifted, they have shifted because of societal influence. This of course affects the economic structures that those political formations are associated with. As the pendulum of history swings, each successive economic system will be either a success or a failure in comparison to its predecessor. This means that examples of low-theory failure change constantly and come in waves as the historical narrative unfolds. The problem highlighted by Harvey might well be less with the democratic process, however, and more with the simultaneously precluding influence of a democratic system on the one hand, and a government-corporate partnership on the other. Harvey even states that, “The boundary between the state and corporate power has become more and more porous. What remains of representative democracy is overwhelmed, if not totally though legally corrupted by money power” (Harvey, 2005:77-78). His point is not that there is a necessary dichotomy between the democratic process and the free-market, but rather a mutual antagonism between institutionalized democracy and the power that is often bred by money in the free-market. In terms of particular aesthetic, and examples of failures that became hugely successful, no-other modern musical genre is more pertinent than hip-hop, not only because of its aesthetic, but also because of the economic situations in which it flourished. “Hip-hop originated in the predominantly African American economically depressed South Bronx section of New York City in the late 1970s” (Light, 2021). Not only did Hip-Hop originate as disc jockey music for African-American inner-city New York parties, but its pioneer was DJ Kool Herc, a person of colour and immigrant from Jamaica. The culture surrounding the genre, therefore, was defined by its otherness and marginality. According to Halberstam, it is precisely this “illegibility…[of] racialized minorities… [that] points to an argument for interdisciplinarity… modes of thinking that ally not with rigor [and the traditional canon]… but with inspiration and unpredictability” (Halberstam, 2011:10). At the time, the new genre’s illegibility would have been viewed as a failure, but now it is the most successful genre in the USA, having the largest consumption volume compared to other genres (Ingham, 2021). Word Count (834). That Which Makes Manifest is Light — Jonathon Durno — I am a South African artist and programmer who works in a variety of mediums, including video, sound, new media, and traditional mediums. As a programmer, I work at the intersection of code and form and employ the former as a symbol – a structural and visual language – for the encoded nature of reality. According to my research, if a program requires a programmer, then the same principle should also apply to the laws of physics, as they too have the appearance of being a functional language. The scientific method assumes the immutability of the laws of physics, but neither accounts for their origin nor their unchanging nature. I regard the harmonious interplay of patterns in the natural world – cycles, repetitions, rhythms, and recurring themes – as echoes and reflections of a greater Meta-Narrative. I use the term Meta-Narrative to describe one great overarching narrative framework, corresponding to the functioning of reality, that imbues it with meaning and is itself meaningfully expressed in naturally existing forms and symbols. All narratives are written in a language and inscribed in a book, encoded in software, or passed on from generation to generation by spoken word. The evidence of a higher “language” is visible in the fixed laws of the universe—like a written code integrated into the fabric of reality. I studied Etymology and am fascinated by language and its origins. Most letters in an alphabet are symbols that have been distilled from ancient pictographs. My art is situated at the intersection of a range of disciplines, including metaphysics, science, and linguistics My personal symbology is a distillation of these patterns and representational types found in nature – an exploratory process in which I seek to funnel this Meta-Narrative into a language of meaning punctuated with symbols. My work deals with microcosmic and macrocosmic fractal systems that imply design in the natural order. Nature acts like an archive of information, but is it curated? My pursuit is as much an intellectual, scientific, and programmatic fascination with the structure of the natural world as it is a love of beauty and harmony. My exhibition is titled That Which Makes Manifest is Light. Biologically, light is essential to seeing (the refraction of light of the retina) and being, and symbolically, the mind only understands an idea when it is ‘illuminated’. My work is dependent upon light. The projection of a video requires light. Many of my works were engraved using concentrated light. The very wood and paper I work on required light to grow. I use charcoal, a form of carbon formed by the burning of wood, as a medium by which to express my own finitude. I insert myself into my videos as a type of originator, artist, designer – an echo of the reality that lies behind a dim reflection. Time and deconstruction are central elements of my praxis. It is my hope that the viewer identifies with my inclusion as the artist in my artworks – a human point of access and relatability. As the artist, I, by inserting myself into my artworks—navigate a landscape of symbology by stepping through the picture plane—a metaphorical incarnation. My art lies in the liminal space between an immaterial idea and its embodiment. It is meant to evoke contemplation as to humanity’s existence within the Meta-Narrative. There is a certain paradox: we exist within the physical universe, are contingent upon it for our existence, and yet we can conceptualize it as though we were without. That Which Makes Manifest is Light — Jonathon Durno — I am a South African artist and programmer who works in a variety of mediums, including video, sound, new media, and traditional mediums. As a programmer, I work at the intersection of code and form and employ the former as a symbol – a structural and visual language – for the encoded nature of reality. According to my research, if a program requires a programmer, then the same principle should also apply to the laws of physics, as they too have the appearance of being a functional language. The scientific method assumes the immutability of the laws of physics, but neither accounts for their origin nor their unchanging nature. I regard the harmonious interplay of patterns in the natural world – cycles, repetitions, rhythms, and recurring themes – as echoes and reflections of a greater Meta-Narrative. I use the term Meta-Narrative to describe one great overarching narrative framework, corresponding to the functioning of reality, that imbues it with meaning and is itself meaningfully expressed in naturally existing forms and symbols. All narratives are written in a language and inscribed in a book, encoded in software, or passed on from generation to generation by spoken word. The evidence of a higher “language” is visible in the fixed laws of the universe—like a written code integrated into the fabric of reality. I studied Etymology and am fascinated by language and its origins. Most letters in an alphabet are symbols that have been distilled from ancient pictographs. My art is situated at the intersection of a range of disciplines, including metaphysics, science, and linguistics My personal symbology is a distillation of these patterns and representational types found in nature – an exploratory process in which I seek to funnel this Meta-Narrative into a language of meaning punctuated with symbols. My work deals with microcosmic and macrocosmic fractal systems that imply design in the natural order. Nature acts like an archive of information, but is it curated? My pursuit is as much an intellectual, scientific, and programmatic fascination with the structure of the natural world as it is a love of beauty and harmony. My exhibition is titled That Which Makes Manifest is Light. Biologically, light is essential to seeing (the refraction of light of the retina) and being, and symbolically, the mind only understands an idea when it is ‘illuminated’. My work is dependent upon light. The projection of a video requires light. Many of my works were engraved using concentrated light. The very wood and paper I work on required light to grow. I use charcoal, a form of carbon formed by the burning of wood, as a medium by which to express my own finitude. I insert myself into my videos as a type of originator, artist, designer – an echo of the reality that lies behind a dim reflection. Time and deconstruction are central elements of my praxis. It is my hope that the viewer identifies with my inclusion as the artist in my artworks – a human point of access and relatability. As the artist, I, by inserting myself into my artworks—navigate a landscape of symbology by stepping through the picture plane—a metaphorical incarnation. My art lies in the liminal space between an immaterial idea and its embodiment. It is meant to evoke contemplation as to humanity’s existence within the Meta-Narrative. There is a certain paradox: we exist within the physical universe, are contingent upon it for our existence, and yet we can conceptualize it as though we were without. v THAT WHICH MAKES MANIFEST IS LIGHT JONATHON DURNO How came the Bodies of Animals to be contrived with so much Art, and for what ends were their several Parts? Was the Eye contrived without Skill in Opticks, and the Ear without Knowledge of Sounds? . . . And these things being rightly dispatch’d, does it not appear from Phænomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent?” - Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks “ I I am a South African artist, musician and programmer who works in a variety of mediums, including video, sound, new media and traditional mediums. As a programmer, I work at the intersection of code and form and employ the former as a symbol — a structural and visual language — for the encoded nature of reality. According to my research, if a program requires a programmer, then the same principle should also apply to the laws of physics, as they too have the appearance of being a functional language. The scientific method assumes the immutability of the laws of physics, but neither accounts for their origin nor their unchanging nature. I regard the harmonious interplay of patterns in the natural world — cycles, repetitions, rhythms and recurring themes — as echoes and reflections of a greater Meta-Narrative. I use the term Meta-Narrative to describe one great overarching narrative framework, corresponding to the functioning of reality, that imbues it with meaning and is itself meaningfully expressed in naturally existing forms and symbols. All narratives are written in a language and inscribed in a book, encoded in software, or passed on from generation to generation by spoken word. The evidence of a higher “language” is visible in the fixed laws of the universe — like a written code integrated into the fabric of reality. I have studied Etymology and am fascinated by language and its origins. Most letters in an alphabet are symbols that have been distilled from ancient pictographs. My art is situated at the intersection of a range of disciplines, including metaphysics, science and linguistics. My personal symbology is a distillation of these patterns and representational types found in nature — an exploratory process in which I seek to funnel this Meta-Narrative into a language of meaning punctuated with symbols. My work deals with microcosmic and macrocosmic fractal systems that imply design in the natural order. Nature acts like an archive of information, but is it curated? My pursuit is as much an intellectual, scientific and programmatic fascination with the structure of the natural world as it is a love of beauty and harmony. My exhibition is titled That Which Makes Manifest is Light. Biologically, light is essential to seeing (the refraction of light off the retina) and being. Symbolically, the mind only understands an idea when it is “illuminated”. My work is dependent upon light. The projection of a video requires light. Many of my works were laser engraved using concentrated light. The very wood and paper I work on required light to grow. I use charcoal, a form of carbon produced by the burning of wood, as a medium through which to express my own finitude. I have a qualification in Sound Engineering which has enabled me to create ambient soundscapes that complement my video art. My practice involves the visualisation of sound and the audification of visuals. I insert myself into my videos as a type of originator, artist, designer — an echo of the reality that lies behind a dim reflection. Time and deconstruction are central elements of my praxis. It is my hope that the viewer identifies with my inclusion as the artist in my artworks — a human point of access and relatability. As the artist, by inserting myself into my artworks, I navigate a landscape of symbology by stepping through the picture plane — a metaphorical incarnation. My art lies in the liminal space between an immaterial idea and its embodiment. It is meant to evoke contemplation as to humanity’s existence within the Meta-Narrative. There is a certain paradox: we exist within the physical universe, are contingent upon it for our existence and yet we can conceptualise it as though we were without. ARTIST STATEMENT Jonathon Durno II III IV Let there be dust is an exploratory narrative through time, rippling outward from a singular source. A ripple speaks of cause and effect — a progressively tapering repetition that iterates through time. The light and dark rings in a tree trunk represent the passage of time — a natural chronometer that keeps track of the commonest seasonal cycles. Just as a voice is released and fades, time ripples outwards and gradually dwindles into eternity. I insert myself into the work and become a part of the process; both creating and being created — an artist entering into his own artwork and becoming integral to its narrative; defining the very landscape he finds himself in. From dust I am and to dust I will return. LET THERE BE DUST Multimedia Video Previous page: Drawing on the Fabric of Reality (00:31) Left: Speak (00:07) Top-right: Mandelbrot set (01:56) Bottom-right: Placing the stars (01:26) Link to Video V Vault (02:21) VI Outpout (02:37). Outpour (02:37) VII VIII GRAVITATIONAL WAVES ARE RIPPLES IN SPACETIME . . . IX TIMEPIECE X XI XII Light radiates outwards from the centre, illuminating a code inscribed in time. Illuminate Laser-engraved sustainably sourced cross-cut tree trunk XIII BLOODLINE Multimedia Video Bloodline is a narrative of our journey through time — a traveller traversing the world from dawn to end. Starting at the heart, the centre and beginning, he moves into an uncertain future. The journey is represented as a visual narrative on a cross-cut tree trunk, symbolising not only growth over time, but also death; the tree no longer lives. We depend on the natural environment to sustain life — the very oxygen we breath has been exhaled. This vulnerability and fragility is depicted as a figure walking across, but also within, the cross-cut tree trunk — entirely encapsulated. We are made aware of our own finitude as the walking man nears the outer bounds of the rings of life. At the heart of the artwork is the notion that, just as a tree is planted and grows up in stature, so too has spacetime itself. Whatever begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist, therefore, the universe has a causeb. Left: Spinning top — set in motion Right: Fallen dominoes (00:59) b. Aquinas, 1265-1274:ST I, q. 2, a. 3 Link to Video XIV Bloodline (01:10) XV Scenes from Bloodline: Pendulum effect, Spinning electrons, Walking into eternity, Epilogue XVI Harmonic flight path (01:40) XVII XVIII ESTABLISHING A CODE Multimedia Video My work deals with the microcosmic scale of reality — with particles, DNA and the workings of the human body. When DNA was discovered, it was noticed that it “could store information in the form of a four-character digital code”. This code, according to Crick (one of the scientists who discovered DNA), “functions just as letters in a written text or digital characters”. Establishing a Code is a hyper-slow-motion video of a vibrating string and an abstract representation of a DNA strand. I chose to film the string of a Koto, a long Japanese stringed instrument, due to the length and thickness of its strings and the deep resonance it produces. Superimposed over the video is a code outputted by a program I wrote in Python that creates a random sequence of the letters TACG — symbols representing molecules found in the DNA language (NHGRI, 2022). A spectrogram — a moving visualization of audio — scrolls in the background. Link to Video XIX Scenes from Establishing a Code: Vibrating string, DNA code, Spectogram, DNA growing like root systems XX DNA code — written using Python (02:03) XXI SUSTAIN Multimedia Video Sustain is an exploration of birth, death and rebirth. A seed is planted in the ground. It grows. It reaches towards the light. It is buried, but it emerges transformed, rising from below. This work reflects my own story of near death, dependence and life. The X-ray is of me as a premature baby, when I had heart surgery at only 9 weeks old. I believe I was sustained, however, by the Hand of my Creator and brought to newness of life — the lingering effect of the voice of my Maker means that I am sustained by His Life. “Sustain refers to the steady state of a sound at its maximum intensity and decay is the rate at which it fades to silence”a . Left: Pulling out roots (00:46) Right: Heart growing in soil a. (“Envelope”, 2014:” envelope”). Link to Video XXII Sustain (02:30) XXIII Scenes from Sustain: X-Ray of me as a baby, Digging in soil, Burying heart, Growing heart XXIV Established (03:10) XXV Composite installation of 9 videos 9INE Multimedia Video 9 — a Motzkin number Nine — a symbol of fruitfulnes . . . new life . . . and gestation . . . 9ine — an exploration of the functional building blocks of reality. In combination, nine ideas lightly held; visual clues combined in narrative essence: Harmonic Motion Neuron Forest Capillary Branching Fractalise Overflow Lightning Deltas Shocking Venules Recursive Trees Link to Videos XXVI Charcoal drawings on Fabriano - 15 x 15 cm each TOUCHPOINTS Video Process Drawings The following works are explorations of patterns, repetitions, code and meaning. They are worked in charcoal – carbon, a medium that is a building block of life and symbolic of our ephemerality. This selection is from a set of multiple drawings in the same format. They form symbolic distillations of patterns, symbols and types that impress upon my mind as I observe narratives within my world view. In them, I experiment with ways to manifest those truths through artmaking — a shaping and forming of ideas. They are exploratory sensemaking drawings — process works for bringing emergent concepts to the surface through combinations of digital and traditional media. Link to Videos XXVII The human brain’s neural network, when visualised using a process called Golgi staining, resembles a forest of tree-like structures, including branches and root systems. These structures are fractal in nature, following self-similar patterns that are repeated at different scales. The term “Neuron Forest” is a scientific descriptor of this phenomenon (Smith et al., 2021). The human brain communicates information via electrical signals called “Action Potentials” (Chen & Lui, 2022). My work Neuron Forest, plays with the macrocosmic and microcosmic scales of reality — lightning striking a tree like an action potential when a neuron fires. My creative process for the making of videos includes combining charcoal imagery and 3D animations produced in Blender. These elements are then edited in DaVinci Resolve where I add stop-motion graphics and digital drawings using a stylus. Neuron Forest Multimedia video XXVIII Fractalise (right) is an exploration of the repetitive patterns in the natural world — fractals that repeat themselves in mathematically congruent ways. In this video work, I burnt Lichtenberg fractal figures into a cross-cut tree log using around 30 000 volts of electricity. This process produces fractal branching — a detailed mathematical pattern that repeats itself at multiple scales. This type of branching resembles the fractal patterns found in veins, lightning, river systems and neuron forests. The sulci, or fissures, in a human brain, are also fractals (Johnston & McCaffrey, 1996; Kilo et al., 2006; Smith, Rowland & Harland et al., 2021; Lucy, 2021; Galan, 2013). The cross-cut tree trunk was used as a medium to convey growth over time. Fractalising works on the same principle as arc welding. It is essentially the arcing of man-made lightning. As the current surges through the wood, so it forms nerves of burning light and Lichtenberg Figures that resemble neurons begin to emerge — a figurative illumination of our growth in understanding over time. There is a certain design behind this fractalisation — a mathematical code inculcated into the fabric of reality. Where does this code come from and why is it fixed and intelligible? XXIX The human cardiovascular and respiratory systems are also examples of fractal branching (Smith et al., 2021). Capillary Branching was constructed in Blender and overlaid with the byte code from a Python program that I modified to simulate fractal branching. I also use Krita and Adobe Photoshop for editing and creating content, and OBS to record my coding process, which is done in Visual Studio Code using Python or JavaScript. Capillary Branching Multimedia video XXX For this work, Overflow, I imported a photograph of another cross-cut log I had shocked to form Lichtenberg Figures and reconstructed it as a 3D model in Blender (right). I then drew paths for the simulation of water, imported the rendered video into DaVinci and overlaid masked footage of waterfalls flowing down from the constructed landscape. As explained on page xxix, Lichtenberg figures resemble the same fractal branching as river systems, tree branches, lightning bolts and capillaries (Smith et al., 2021). Interestingly, these figures appear as burn marks on the skin of people who have been struck by lightning (Ten-Duis et al., 1987). Overflow Multimedia video XXXI Student Name: Jonathon Durno Student Number: DRNJON002 Course Name: 4th Year Studiowork Artist Statement I am a South African artist, musician and programmer who works in a variety of mediums, including video, sound, new media and traditional mediums. As a programmer, I work at the intersection of code and form and employ the former as a symbol — a structural and visual language — for the encoded nature of reality. According to my research, if a program requires a programmer, then the same principle should also apply to the laws of physics, as they too have the appearance of being a functional language. The scientific method assumes the immutability of the laws of physics, but neither accounts for their origin nor their unchanging nature. I regard the harmonious interplay of patterns in the natural world — cycles, repetitions, rhythms, and recurring themes — as echoes and reflections of a greater Meta-Narrative. I use the term Meta-Narrative to describe one great overarching narrative framework, corresponding to the functioning of reality, that imbues it with meaning and is itself meaningfully expressed in naturally existing forms and symbols. All narratives are written in a language and inscribed in a book, encoded in software, or passed on from generation to generation by spoken word. The evidence of a higher “language” is visible in the fixed laws of the universe — like a written code integrated into the fabric of reality. I have studied Etymology and am fascinated by language and its origins. Most letters in an alphabet are symbols that have been distilled from ancient pictographs. My art is situated at the intersection of a range of disciplines, including metaphysics, science and linguistics. My personal symbology is a distillation of these patterns and representational types found in nature — an exploratory process in which I seek to funnel this Meta-Narrative into a language of meaning punctuated with symbols. My work deals with microcosmic and macrocosmic fractal systems that imply design in the natural order. Nature acts like an archive of information, but is it curated? My pursuit is as much an intellectual, scientific and programmatic fascination with the structure of the natural world as it is a love of beauty and harmony. My exhibition is titled That Which Makes Manifest is Light. Biologically, light is essential to seeing (the refraction of light off the retina) and being. Symbolically, the mind only understands an idea when it is “illuminated”. My work is dependent upon light. The projection of a video requires light. Many of my works were laser engraved using concentrated light. The very wood and paper I work on required light to grow. I use charcoal, a form of carbon produced by the burning of wood, as a medium through which to express my own finitude. I have a qualification in Sound Engineering which has enabled me to create ambient soundscapes that complement my video art. My practice involves the visualisation of sound and the audification of visuals. I insert myself into my videos as a type of originator, artist, designer — an echo of the reality that lies behind a dim reflection. Time and deconstruction are central elements of my praxis. It is my hope that the viewer identifies with my inclusion as the artist in my artworks — a human point of access and relatability. As the artist, by inserting myself into my artworks, I navigate a landscape of symbology by stepping through the picture plane — a metaphorical incarnation. My art lies in the liminal space between an immaterial idea and its embodiment. It is meant to evoke contemplation as to humanity’s existence within the Meta-Narrative. There is a certain paradox: we exist within the physical universe, are contingent upon it for our existence and yet we can conceptualise it as though we were without. How to view the video pieces: The majority of my artworks are video pieces. The rationales for each video can be found in my catalogue, along with their respective hyperlinks. These can be watched online by staff members but are not publicly visible to those without the links. The exhibition has a QR code that can be scanned. This leads people to a page containing the video artworks and their rationales. To scan, open the camera on your phone and point it at the QR code. A pop-up will appear with the web address – tap on this to view the page. ¬ Images not in Catalogue Illuminate – Laser-engraved cross-cut logs with LED tube Illuminate sits at the centre of the exhibition – an installation sculpture - like a tree in the middle of a dark forest. Greek, which is foundational to the scientific vocabulary, is engraved with concentrated light (laser) and revealed by the Alpha, the Light that anchors the core; Illuminated by Logos (the Word) – a Code inscribed in time. The symbols are etched in concentric circles following the growth rings of a tree – the expansion of the universe from a singularity. The text engraved onto the logs is a poem I wrote, overlayed in expanding circles, without a beginning or end. It translates as follows: The past, encapsulated in a new set of rules, Set in stone or decomposing Wood shaped by the winds of change, A permeating shadow follows the light cast upon my mind A symbol, a tongue piercing to the recesses of my heart In it all things are moved and held together, Cutting through layers to the heart of matter A progress from nothingness to resurrection, Like the planting of a seed and the setting of the sun Life precedes death, and death precedes life, How great are the patterns Myth, as per Encyclopaedia Britannica, is "a symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin". Another definition of myth is "a widely held but false belief or idea". This is not exactly what I mean by myth. To be sure, there will be mythical stories I will employ in this project for explanatory purposes whose historical occurrences were probably fictitious. That being said, they were based on some seeds of truth - universal patterns that permeate cultures and formulate meaning. The symbolic narrative, then - or META-NARRATIVE - is what I am looking at. Bread, for example, is a universal symbol of sustenance. It originates in nature but is kneaded and formed into bread by human hands. Because it was fashioned by hands but sustains the hands with which it was fashioned - there appears a fascinating tension of meaning. The body is dependent on bread, and bread is dependent on the body. One thing, however, I have purposefully treated with a cursory explanation. In one sense, bread is not a human creation, it is a human manipulation. Wheat is grown in fields and lives because of it receives energy from the soil, the water, and the light. Human hands simply cut it, gather it, knead it, and heat it. The substance, however, of the bread is not created by us. On the other hand, if the definition of the word creation means "the act of bringing the world into ordered existence", as per Merriam-Webster Dictionary, then it is an act of creation. The interactions of humankind with nature, with themselves, and with their own creations - as per the second definition - are all inspired and aligned by symbolic narratives. This is an idea that the writer Joseph Campbell speaks about: “Every myth is psychologically symbolic. Its narratives and images are to be read, therefore, not literally, but as metaphors.” I quote him here, not as proof of any kind, but rather as an indicator as to the symbolic richness of cultural narratives. I somewhat, however, disagree with part of his statement; the literal and the narrative world are not mutually exclusive macrocosms - they interweave to form the fabric of reality. Mythology ceases to be simply metaphorical when it enters the realm of the literal world. Then, it is real, but maintains its patters of symbolic narrative meaning. Such symbolic linkages tie the multiplicity of human narratives up into a single meta-narrative of meaning. These narratives involve reference to the natural order through the inculcation of meaning into objects, whether they be living or not, to create a tapestry of symbology that is based upon what is already known. If, from human experience, a rock symbolises strength and weight when compared to the frail organic substance of the human body, then the narrative of Sisyphus being condemned to roll a giant boulder up a hill for eternity epitomises weakness and futility. It is exactly this junctional interaction between the human body and nature that constitutes meaning - especially when it is in relation to other bodies. There is no symbology that is not fundamentally based on constituent parts of nature, because humans themselves are constituent parts of nature. From where, then, does our intentional desire for meaning come from? It is certainly of a higher order than animal instincts because animal instincts are concerned with fulfilling the needs of the body. In animals, desire is meant to be fulfilled as part of the process of the animal's existence. A lion will hunt down its prey, kill it, and eat it for the express purpose of satiating its hunger. Why then, is it universally understood that eating one's brother is morally reprehensible? Why is it wrong to murder and steal? The leader of the Sturmabteilung (the Nazi Storm Troopers) Hermann Göring’s last words during the Nuremberg trial were: Herman Göring was the leader of the Nazi Sturmabteilung, or Storm Troopers. He was charged with conspiracy, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Here are some words from his statement at the Nuremberg trial: “The German people are free of guilt. I did not want a war, nor did I bring it about. I did everything to prevent it by negotiations. After it had broken out, I did everything to assure victory… I stand up for the things that I have done but I deny most emphatically that my actions were dictated by the desire to subjugate foreign peoples by wars, to murder them, to rob them or to enslave them or to commit atrocities or crimes.” (Palthe, 2015). Goring’s intentions, according to himself, were pure. He went on to commit suicide. He believed that he was good, and that he was being unjustly condemned. The reality, however, is that he was justly condemned as a criminal. He was responsible for plundering the German Jews, and was Hitler’s most loyal supporter, at least during the 30’s. Goring follows the pattern of corrupt human belief; whatever an individual does is right unless it is done to them. Where does the desire for moral meaning come from, and how is a moral code determined if every criminal thinks themselves good? Nature is changeable, and as such is in a constant procession of motion. The 13th century Italian philosopher Thomas Aquinas used this argument from motion to point to the need for a fundamental cause of motion. The argument goes as follows: 1. “It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion… [which] is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality… 2. Nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality… 3. Whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another… 4. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover… 5. Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.” (ST I, q. 2, a. 3). Aquinas has similar arguments for causation and gradation. If the dichotomy between good and evil constitutes morality, and evil is a privation of goodness as darkness is a privation of light, then that which is absolutely good – that which is fully actualized in Aquinas’ language – is perfectly good, because you cannot have something that is fully actualized and evil since evil is a privation of goodness. The same can be said for growth. A tree grows from potentiality toward actuality. This growth, however, cannot be abstracted infinitely into the past. Therefore, there must be something that is the originator of all growth. The same can be understood for life. What I am saying is this. Any lack in a thing is only perceivable when compared to a perfect version of that thing. If one were to look at a single point in time, one would not know that a child grows up and becomes an adult if there were no adults alive and no understanding of there being any. In the same way, potentiality, and corruptibility point to the reality of actuality and incorruptibility since the meaning of these very words is predicated on the existence of their antonyms. In another sense, the creation is endowed with specific characteristics – namely, finitude, temporality, changeableness, and dependency. Something cannot create itself, therefore, the Creator is endowed with specific characteristics – namely, infinitude, eternality, changelessness, and independence. Frozen movement in painting. Encapsulates the process in a singular point of movement. Last year I focused on the exploration of the encoded nature of sound and visuals and how they relate to one another, specifically in relation to their translatability between each other and intelligibility to the human mind. This was accomplished by visualizing information conveyed using sound but portrayed as visual. The intelligibility of the sound changed as it was intelligible in a translated form – that of information encoded visually in a sound wave. During this year I want to continue exploring information encoded in sound and visuals, which are part of the universe, and their translatability not between each other, but into meaning. Art in essence is a representation of reality in translation where reality is condensed into a fulcrum moment of mood, time, movement and meaning. The harmonious interplay of patterns that repeat themselves throughout material existence generate meaning encapsulated by a multiplicity of sensory symbology. This meta-narrative is punctuated by representational types and images, sounds bytes and metaphors that intertwine forming a tapestried reality of meaning. These patterns and rhythms evident in reality, such as the golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence, form the underlying intelligibility that permeates the material universe. Motifs that continually impress on my heart, mind, and soul throughout the course of life serve to inform the direction my life is going in and integrate into the ever-growing network of conceptual associations that make up my understanding. These are the fingerprints of the Master Artist, tracing His hand through existence. Naturally, my practice as an artist involves creating works that embody the understand of my mind. Does my relationship to my art mould me more than I mould it, and does the relationship between the idea and the product constitute the artwork? Whatever the liminal space between immaterial idea and its embodiment – there is the artwork – something representational of a greater reality than just the act of visualizing. It is the very relationship between subject and object that constitutes the substance of the artwork. How does this relationship interact with my very existence as an encoded work of the Master Artist? I want people to come along a journey of discovery that traverses the heights and depths of a symbolic meta-narrative in the discovery of the heart of meaning. I hope to employ a diversity of mediums, ranging from charcoal to paint, digital drawing, programmatic representations, and videography. I will employ visual symbology that carries specific interpretations to weave a tapestry of meaning that has for its centre the core foundation whose identity is to be elucidated during this project. Word Count (418). Proposal 4th Year; Durno 400 words proposal Thematic & Conceptual concerns Technical interests Choose 3 supervisors (rank 1,2,3) Exploration of mankind as a worker in relation to God as the Master-Worker. How does man’s creativity relate to God’s creativity if mankind is the work of God’s hands? If God created humans with intelligibility, then does what they create have intelligibility too? Code is meaning. We are encoded beings with DNA, and what we create we associate meaning with, even as we have been made with meaning. Does our acknowledgement of ourselves having inherent value and meaning contribute to the art making process? In Genesis God said to Adam that he must name every creature on the face of the earth, but when Moses asked God what His Name is, He answered, “I Am Who I Am”. There was only one Being which man has not the authority, nor the power or privilege to Name, and that is the Name of God. Would naming the One Who created us constrain Him to the limits of our understanding? That is what would happen to us, but we cannot contain God, for He contains us. The following is a story from the life of St. Augustine, the 4th/5th century African Theologian, Poet, and Philosopher: “St. Augustine was walking by the seashore one day contemplating the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a little child running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a shell to carry water from the large ocean and pour it into a small pit that he had made in the sand. Augustine came up to him and asked him what he was doing. “I’m going to pour the entire ocean into this hole,” the boy replied. “What?” said Augustine. “That is impossible, my dear child, the sea is so great and the shell and the hole are so little.” “That is true,” the boy said. “It would be easier and quicker to draw all the water out of the sea and fit it into this hole than for you to fit the mystery of the Trinity and His Divinity into your little intellect; for the Mystery of the Trinity is greater and larger in comparison with your intelligence than is this vast ocean in comparison with this little hole.” And then the child vanished”. Augustine also spoke of two great books. The first was generally revealed to all mankind – the book of nature, and the second and more authoritative book – the book of scripture, the Words of God. The later is meant to unveil the former as a sort of illumination for understanding. Art itself is entirely dependent on the person creating the artwork. Does an artwork change and define the person, or does the person who created the artwork change and define the artwork? Does meaning spring from the interaction between the artist and the artwork, or does the artist imbue specific meaning into the artwork? Why would an artist’s identity be defined by the work of their own hands? This very possibility points to the changeableness, and therefore impermanence, of human nature. Is creation intelligible by nature. Can the continuum of symbolism found in nature inform our understanding of the heart of meaning? What is the central body around which the constituent parts that embody meaning orbit? What is the heart of meaning? Meaning evokes and is constituted of intelligibility and purpose. I could ask someone the meaning behind an artwork.; meaning in this sense refers to the understanding gathered from the intelligibility of the artwork. If I were to ask someone, however, what is the meaning of life - that question has to do with purpose. Meaning is the junction where intelligibility and purpose meet. Terms: Soundscape: The visualization of a sound. Frequency: Measure of mathematical phenomenon where a wave passes a specified spatial point per second time. The Word – When referencing the scriptural definition, The Word comes from the original Greek λόγος (Logos) from which is derived the word logic. It means, according to Heraclitus – The principle of order and knowledge, according to Aristotle – reasoned discourse, according to the Stoics – the generative principle of the universe, according to the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria – the substructure of the universe which holds all things together, “binding them into parts…and preventing them from being dissolved and separated” . In essence, The Word is the principle of rationality, but can also mean Word, not in the sense of an individual word, but a discourse. Fourier Transform: Visual notation of mathematical transform such as frequency. Linguistic: When linguistic is referred to, I mean any information conveyed by the meaning or mathematics of voice. Artist Statement: What is the relationship between sound and visual and is there an intelligible translatability between the two? On the one hand, sound is a mechanical wave oscillating through a given substance which can be visualized, and a visual is a mental interpretation of the interactions between visible light waves. My point here is that both sound and picture are information readable to the human mind. The 9 black and white artworks in this corpus are superpositions of sound waves (Fourier Transforms) drawn entirely digitally and automatically, programmatically translated from famous paintings to sound which is then visualized and converted back into an image. The process is scientific, programmatic, and repetitive, stripping away subsequent human intervention and transmuting the human creative work (painting) into a condensation of intelligible information. The informatic repetition creates linguistic traces that layer like paint on a canvas. Think of a voice: someone speaking consists of word – intelligible information, and breath – the physicality of the process, the power behind the information. The sound wave represents the Word of God and is the soundwave of DaVinci’s Last Supper depicting Jesus foretelling His death with bread and wine. In the exhibition, the translated sound of the Last Supper will be playing. “So, my word that comes from my mouth will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do” . What if the voice of God could become visible and embodied? “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” 3. Indeed, according to scripture, Jesus Christ is the Word of God. His identity, however, is hidden from the understanding of those who do not believe that He is risen from the dead and that He is Lord. Veil depicts a veiled soundwave, representing the concealing of the Word from understanding. Even the letters of the old testament cannot be truly understood and believed without the Spirit of Christ. “To this day the same veil remains when the old testament is read…Only in Christ is it taken away” 4. This misunderstanding comes from humans in their natural state before their understanding has been enlightened by God’s Spirit that comes through Christ alone. The artwork is done in charcoal (ash) to represent my own mortality, that without the Spirit of God I could not understand, believe, or be saved. It is not programmatic – misunderstanding is not rational or comprehensive. I erased the charcoal with bread, a traditional form of eraser representing the body of Christ broken for the sins of the world. The bread erases the darkness – Jesus brings to light, removing the veil over the mind. “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split” 5. My second large artwork Torn depicts this torn veil with the blood of Christ, dripped in real wine; It is by the blood of Christ that the veil is taken away. Behind the veil is the Word. It is the tree of life that was in the garden of Eden in the beginning. Terms: Lingogenesis: The process of the emergence of a new language. Interprogenesis: The creation of a series of intersecting points between languages forming a translation. Language is a complicated system of information and processes involved in human communication. As rational and ordered as it is made out to be, language is far more organic than one may think. The process of lingogenesis, or the creation of a new language, occurs organically over time, and is the product of effectual human intervention. Lingogenesis is a somewhat random process since every change that effects the formal structure and contents of a language is not methodologically contrasted with every other change to the language. Languages are not created on purpose necessarily. They are not created by a single person, nor even a group of people working together. They are the natural flow of information through culture and history boiled down into a series of symbols that point to the greater narrative. Letters are simply visual symbols – visual cues – that work together to elicit meaning. If lingogenesis is such a complicated and chaotic process, then interprogenesis ¬¬– the process of defining the points at which languages intersect in meaning (i.e., translation) – is even more so. This systematized seriality of randomness is something I try to capture in this project using code. Programming languages are indeed languages, but unlike most languages, are meticulously and purposefully designed. Even this attempt to create perfect order, however, falls short, because programming languages are written using English as a base language. Some of the randomness of the English language, its history, and its linguistic and cultural appropriations, are absorbed into the programming construct. The programming language I chose was Python since it is syntactically similar language to English. I chose a poem by Viktor Hugo called Soleils Couchants, which means “Setting Suns”, as an allusion to the passing of time involved in lingogenesis. The poem happened to be written in French, so I decided to write a program in python that first translated the French of the poem into either English or Greek, and then translate each of those translations into two separate visual images using a visual python module called turtle. Each stroke of the digital pen is mapped to a specific letter in either English or Greek using python code that I wrote. The reason I chose Greek was for two reasons. Firstly, the Rosetta Stone contains Greek. The stone is possibly the most invaluable object in history when it comes to language translation. The relationships between the three languages found on it became quite literally set in stone because of it. The second reason I chose Greek was because of the simplicity with which one can map spatial visual attribute - determined numerically - it provides. Isopsephy “is the practice of adding up the number values of the letters in a word to form a single number…[Historically] in Greek, each unit (1, 2, ..., 9) was assigned a separate letter” (Wikipedia, 2021). My creation of a programming language that defines relationships between language and image is a sort of Rosetta stone. I am, by defining these relationships, concretizing the associated randomness that is found in translating language into picture. The time it takes to draw the image digitally also references the passing of time, as the poem is quite literally re-enacted…translated. The lines always re-converge at the centre to portray the cyclical nature of time. The sun rises and sets in the same place; endless continual motion Word Count (555). BUZZWORDS in modern culture - use to link people in exhibition to narrative "A fractal is a way of seeing infinity" - Mandelbrot Referential associations of symbolism point to a hierarchy in which the head is Christ the God of the universe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB3qqb3U0Kc STEM of tree is like Christ God - we are the offspring off that - He is the source / sustenance. Psalm 65 Psalm 63 FRACTALS https://answersingenesis.org/mathematics/fractals/ CYCLES https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/18207/Cycles-Nature.htm ECCLESIASTES 1:4-7 ECCLESIASTES 3:1-8 ECCLESIASTES 3:15 Genesis 8:22 “He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight” (Job 26:8). “He draws up the drops of water, which distil as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind” (Job 36:27–28). “Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth? Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?” (Job 38:33–34). “Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens?” (Job 38:37). “… when he made a decree for the rain and a path for the thunderstorm” (Job 28:26). “He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth” (Psalm 135:7); https://discover.hubpages.com/religion-philosophy/Fractal-Geometry-and-the-Bible In Job 28:26 God uses the water cycle to demonstrate that He does not deal with His people by chance but that just as nature is bound by a set of decrees so too is God’s Kingdom bound by laws. Literally and physical vs spiritual and symbolic. When you view tree from side, seeing her later, viewed from above there is a symbolic perspective -crosscut perspective of time. Network of high level perspective is time. Seeing to the heart. 0hysical dimension vs physical dimension. From above there is no height, only expansion and growth. That which is hidden within, the Symbols have been revealed on a symbolic plane. Viewing once more the tree in physical space but hidden within it is something deeper, something wider and all encompassing. These personal symbolic distillations (symbology) of personall belief and thinking are presented as a sacred text - as an Aleph Beth. A revelation of truities that I hold to be true. Once more placed down they are hidden within. "Design always needs functionality, while art only has to exist. Designs have to solve problems, while art should provoke thought and emotions. Designers work methodically with a data-driven or mathematical process, while artists work intuitively using their instinct. Art is perceptual, while a design is rational." (https://www.eden-gallery.com/news/art-vs-design#:~:text=Design%20always%20needs%20functionality%2C%20while,while%20a%20design%20is%20rational.). 1. Ontological argument Anselm 2. 5 cosmological arguments from aquinas Teleological (goal-orientated) argument (intelligent design) - fifth argument from Aquinas. refined by William Paley. Watchmaker analogy: Did the watch appear spontaneously by itself? "In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. ... There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. ... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation." — William Paley, Natural Theology (1802). It doesn't matter how something was created, but that it was. Design Principles in nature - Janine Benyus - "Life creates conditions conducive to life" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WjBvFwQpYU): Biomimicry - innovation inspired by nature. Engineer product that's far smaller than competitive products using biomimicry. Design principles used in nature were used in the "Lily Impeller", a mixer used in water storage tanks created by the company PAX Water. It follows the design principles of the calla Lily (https://www.paxwater.com/biomimicry) to replicate "nature's spiral flow pattern - observed in whirlpools and tornados - to significantly improve the performance and energy usage of mixing water storage tanks" (https://www.paxwater.com/biomimicry). - imitates vortical flow in nature (fractal pattern). The small mixers can mix tanks as large as seventeen gallons of water. Tree has water distribution system - efficiently without much energy to distribute water by the power of the sun. Green things are made of carbon dioxide - C02 is not a pollutant, it is a building block. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FZ9Ryx5zAk Coral Reef - made of carbon. The exo-skeleton is made of calcium carbonate (used to make cement) from C02 and sea minerals. Normally making cement produces 1 ton C02, but using this method 1/2 of C02 is sequestered. Bees - coordinated behaviour using swarm intelligence. each bee doesn't operate on its own. Schools of fish - can swim together without interfering with one another. Each fish creates many small vortices behind them when they swim. John Dabiri from Caltech created wind turbines that feed off one another's vortices to increase efficiency (close to one another). These wind farms could produce 10 times the amount of energy. termites - need to ventilate temp inside mound. Eastgate in Zim uses thermal mass to store heat during day and releases it during night. It has breathable air channels for convection currents. Color created by light playing through structure, like in hummingbirds and morpho-butterflies and peacocks. "A peacock's feather has no pigment in it except for brown. All of those colours that you see are created from very simple layers that are a certain distance apart and when light comes through it get bent, refracted, and amplified to create the colour blue to your eye." (Janine Benyus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf4oW8OtaPY). All structure, no chemistry. "Structural colour is four times brighter than pigmented colour - it never fades". "Life runs on sunlight...we run on ancient photosynthesis trapped in fossil fuels". - Janine Benyus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf4oW8OtaPY). Design Principles in nature https://medium.com/@ericloremipsum/design-principles-in-nature-434a665afd32 Basic Design Principles, as told by nature https://www.japanprint.com/basic-design-principles/ Heavens declare glory of God: https://prabook.com/web/benjamin.colman/1096633 https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N04184.0001.001/1:4?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Creation, therefore, like Scripture, assumes the nature of a book, witnessing to its author: like Scripture and the Incarnation of the Word of God, it contains and engenders symbols, allegories, and, indeed, sacraments, which enable its invisible, spiritual sense—its Creator—to be seen more clearly through and in the visible (Juurikkala, 2021:492). “From the vastness of…cycles…we may perhaps be enabled to form a faint estimate of the magnitude of that lowest step in the chain of reasoning, which leads us up to Nature's God (Babbage, 2010:33). The English mathematician, philosopher and engineer Charles Babbage is widely considered to be the ‘Father of the computer’, as he invented the Analytical Engine which was the first digital programmable computer (Copeland, 2020). In the Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, Babbage draws parallels between his work on the calculating engine and God as a divine programmer of the universe (Babbage, 2010:1). “The vast cycles in the geological changes that have taken place in the earth's surface, of which we have ample evidence, offer another analogy in nature to those mechanical changes of law from which we have endeavoured to extract a unit sufficiently large to serve as an imperfect measure for some of the simplest works of the Creator” (Babbage, 2010:46-47). The watchmaker analogy, as defined by the 18th century English philosopher William Paley, poses the need for a designer in nature. Just as a watch is formed with design and functionality in mind, so too, argues Paley, nature’s inherent design and functionality require “an artificer” for their existence. “Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation” (Paley, 2010:19). Paley, W. 2010. Natural theology. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511693656. Copeland, B.J. 2000. The modern history of computing. In Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Available: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/computing-history/. Babbage, C. 2010. The ninth Bridgewater treatise. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511700712. Student Name: Jonathon Durno Student Number: DRNJON002 Course Name: 3rd Year Videography Elective Artist Statement Earth, that cosmic body hurtling through space which happens to be our home; we simultaneously delight in its expansive beauty and fear for our safety lest it be destroyed. How many times this year alone have there been news articles warning of Asteroids hurtling too close for comfort? All of this to say: we rely on the earth for our existence. In this artwork, I am referencing two themes: the home, and ancestry. The earth is our common home – not only ours but those of our ancestors. It is the ancient habitation, existing before were born upon it. Our very bodies were formed from its very substance, and to it we will return. Human history has been consistent in at least one regard, destruction of this place we call home. We have destroyed ourselves and the home we cohabitate. This trend, far from decreasing, is hurtling along at an alarming rate. This artwork is an emblem of the superimposition of information left as human traces on the environment. Our traces are epistemological and informative. They follow more of a chaotic pattern than nature does, resulting in its destruction. Just as paint is layered on a canvas, the traces we create are layered one over another, leaving an indelible mark. This formation of information occurs over time, as time unwraps the meaning and consequences of these traces. Drone footage is superimposed with writing and symbols, obscuring the beauty of the natural environment by human imposition. These symbols include a Phoenician ship, symbolizing the historical growth and spread of language, the triumphal arch – the conquest by fire and war of natural territory, and dramatic music – creating tension to accentuate the increasing chaos portrayed. The drone footage is mesmerizing and hypnotic, symbolizing our desensitization to the frailty of our natural home. This is suddenly juxtaposed with scenes of war and fire. As the video progresses, shots increasingly become medium to close-ups. The video progresses from long-shots to close-ups - the magnification of the unforeseen consequences of human intervention on the natural environment. This transition from a macrocosmic to a microcosmic scope magnifies the deleterious effects of human destruction. The video ends through the viewfinder of a camcorder – history is recorded and replayed through unnecessary repetitions, and code scrolling down the screen – part of the collective human traces. Do we really know what is best for us? Can we, by our own knowledge and resolve reverse the traces we have left, or do we need to await the beginning of the end, and the end of the beginning? Maranatha Dissertation Patterns: Flying Branching Breaking down and building up (decomposing and growing). Waves waves everywhere! Falling Sunrise ☀️ until sunset Invisibility: Really small Really Big State (Air). Lack of light. Different substance (light does not refract off of substance). Time Life Itself - breath.. Green Screen: Wheeler-De Witt Universal Wave function for geometrical gravitational reality of our univers - like a megaphone. Walking into frame like the walking man and then drawing the walking man and then becoming the walking man. Drawing fractal systems - mapping cartographies of world Me standing there breathing for drawing on top of me - im planted in a charcoal landscape of ground - growing and breathing placing stars in the night sky - drawing 3-dimensional gravitational vectors around them - gravitationl waves. touching point on green screen - ripple effect on coded react trhingy. - Sun being buried and uncovered. - uncovering fruitfulness. rs. (Information /Word) - Dough broken and buried, uncovered as risen bread. Reference point and Cartesian plane in walking man video (Aquinas' arguments for God - Aristotelian). "A finite point can have no meaning without an infinite reference point" - Jean Paul Sartre. Plato's forms. Physical forms are expressions of metaphysics truths. Symbolic language. Cycles of nature - wheel of Time, winding up old film machine -flashing images of my charcoal drawings; blooming Beginning of time - scroll video. Spiral log made out of rope - end of time. Make it red like bloodline. Dark room with 9 monitors / 9 videos in one projection - building blocks or time - fruitfulness. Cross cut logs in centre of room with light inside. Lantern illuminating symbols and text on the ceiling. - cross cut logs on the ceiling? Do: Burnt log - time running out. tally marks - artist's brushstrokes. work at same time of day - repetitive time keeping. work using same process. biology soup - building a bacteria. Harbour In the heart. Writing on the wall of the heart. Heart of the earth (Heart of the Matter). Heart of Horeb. Family tree root system. Film MOVIE PROVIDES BACKGROUND MATERIAL FOR THE THINKING OF THE ARTIST - background thinking (me on greenscreen thinking in the background). narration of poem - scene of water abstract, ice, snow. we see in a mirror dimply - blurred video. blur also indicates motion create clay building blocks and film myself building something. GLOBAL WARMING - earth is corruptible. Why do we not want it to be? image projected onto text on wall. atmosphere bends light around earth's curve. Creation Sustain New creation Breathe Him in (beautiful day Jesus Culture). Types of motion --> time (clock, cross-cut tree log, sunset and sunrise, atomic clock, pendulum, hand-watch, VIDEO, speed (slowing down over time - losing initial momentum; speeding up - up to creschendo). distance (measurement). path: - rotary --> wheels, wagon wheels, planets rotating, solar system, spinning top, gears, clock ticking, tricycle. - oscillatory motion --> pendulum clock, tuning fork, swing, flapping of wings, string instruments, harmonic motion, beating of heart, earthquakes oscillate with oscillatory motion, sewing machine needle, reciprocating pumps, ripples in pond, cross-cut tree log. - linear motion --> firing bullet, walking, running, free fall of objects, elevators. DNA METAMORPHIC ROCK . . . Writing on forehead - tattoo, speaks of identity because of your thought life. Imposed upon one by another - cannot be done by yourself. Knit together in love dU = Q - W (first law of thermodynamics) ds >= 0 (second law of thermodynamics) charcoal log - entropy increases. energy transferred not created. entropy - unravelling, brownian motion. circular marks becoming more and more irregular. unravelling around edged (centrifugal force). ripple effect - from centre at end of video. - no infinite regress. Fractal Spiral with no entry sign / bolted / padlock. ininity + 1 = infinity, infinity + 2 = infinity, infinity + 3 = infinity, therefore 1 + 2 + 3 != infinity. - pulling up by own bootstraps? - ? in centre. alpha in centre, birth symbol. dna building block of life... therefore video scene must have no organic material whatsoever. Wears out like a shoelace? Carbon blackness. A telomere is a region of repetitive DNA sequences at the end of a chromosome. https://theconversation.com/cells-become-zombies-when-the-ends-of-their-chromosomes-are-damaged-a-tactic-both-helpful-and-harmful-for-health-186445 dna movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ4JMXkQzoA&t=13s dna sonification: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQWCAmFGu_c&list=PL1k1ADlKRpMcS8h4CDcIg3wh3GApsuSeC&index=3 dna in one cell is around 2 meters long. All the dna would be twice the diameter of the solar system. https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/how-long-is-your-dna/ Sand down evaporation up. vortex bath Use chalk build bacteria(mitochondria). Microwave background (Black stretch heavens out video - clean slate). Tree growing out of ground made of hands. Drop in the ocean Put words in someones mouth. Root of the matter Eye to eye Nothing new under the sun. At your wit's end. Writing on the wall Cast the first stone. Blackboard - slate. Duster engraved laser. Go on Friday. Rotating stone. Green screen. His eye is on me and the dry bones awaken! Blowing Dust Darkness bowing in the dust to the Light New wine poured into the soil. atom zoom out to galaxies and back in - velar pulsar sound constructing mitochondria Dance of life - cell division. Tree vision shocking like lightning in a ball. Get Green screen and do different action against the green screen to insert myself into artworks. Perfection is the process whereby the infinite God created order from chaos. Experimentation is the process whereby we as finite creatures discovor His process. For Jesus Spear through hurried heart. Eating a scroll made of sand. Land art using a drone. INRI Reflected in water. puzzle of ether. newspaper Rust - what's the substance? Cracks Desert Word fractals. But word out of small words (like word cloud). Word halo. Word explosion. Obscure patterns in nature. drone footage of kelp drone footage of sand drawings mass of walking men over touchpoints video. rock video of chromosome drawing. What wrapped in burrial cloths. Rababababa in deep wind synth. Spectogram. inside the cell. how do i make multiple artworks of things like cells to show design. How is design encapsulated? Art - Philosophy - science - code Videography (linear time) & Charcoal (decomposable material) narrative & exploration, word vs form, incorruptible vs corruptible, digital vs analogue. In design, form follows function --> uncover the function behind the form. A function is a programmatic A function is simply a “chunk” of code that you can use over and over again, rather than writing it out multiple times. It is a programmatic blueprint part for the operation of the program. Ways to use code in art: code --> visual. code + image --> image manipulation. Image of actual code of image. visual --> code. AI (mirror of the programming of the human being) - fractal ontology. Ways to use art in code: insert charcoal drawings into video View art on screen juxtaposed with code of art. Repetition of certain symbols in a specific order constitutes a language. Repetition through experimentation! Process chain University Stuff Wait patiently on the Lord. Psalm 119 the unfolding or His words brings light. Water bubbling up into eternal life. For Crit 04-08-2022 https://youtu.be/smitljuu1GE https://youtu.be/XjSdwRWAIGE https://youtu.be/eQwWDOrNsYE https://youtu.be/Md-A9bnFEX8 I admitted to the Lord I could not think of an idea by myself. I admitted it in my heart. I then immediately was moved by the Spirit to trust in Him for an idea and I felt Him smile - He was pleased with me. He then told me to stop orchestrating the ideas according to rules and formulas, but rather create from the heart according to what I desire! The richness of desire found in the human heart on fire for God is a goldmine of wisdom and intellectual freedom. Mind programming Merge human body with environment. Code with visuals Visuals with sound Sound with code Code with environment Encoded environment Walking man inertia differentiation calculus unmoved mover. Narrative from start to finish. Multiple layers of perspective. Construction of the human being from start. Bloodline - made in His Image. Some sort of clock: Wheel of Time.. Why? Motivation, line of sight. What pushes you forward and what pulls you forward? Hand from above feeding scroll. Flying past trees like lungs. Walking on water vs being drowned. Flood, Spectogram in forest - smarter everyday. "It is well known that carbon is required to make physicists" - Robert Dicke 1961 (page 132 God Hypothesis). Visible /invisible - opacity. Fade in / fade out - time bookends. Blueprint X-ray Earth as God's temple and work of His hands; they perish but He remains. Projection is illuminated by light, formed by code. Code emerges in places in the video - the structure of creation is more visible at certain times than others. Heartbeat of time Golden calf digital Of seeds & stars light approaching - making manifest. look to the things that are unseen. body of works. Director is GOd, theatre is earth, we are actors. Too small to see. Increasing in visibility. Fade in. Fade in ,& fade out human life blinking on the map. Under construction. Book of daylight hours - sundial of wrath. Breathe, poem, spectogram First seed - ungrowing. The heavens are swallowed up by the deep - they are born of the invisible and fill the visible. What is concealed might be made known by that which is revealed. upload pdf with short statement of 50 words including images of project - documentation from midyear project. Upload to fin4015w Dropbox soon! By Tuesday 26th July. 1st and 4th August external crits occuring. Materials Bursary contact on how to pay back. Laser cutting documents read. Define: Intelligibility word causalitiy temporality appropriate (personalize). boundaries But is it art? complexity. contemporary disrupt deconstruct enigmatic. experminental (see if annything lands). exploratory innovative intervention progressive redefine untitled (the earth). impact reach scaling scaffold blockchain. Extended reality Web 3 hubrid sustainable Decentralization digital art virtual urban nature art NATURE - environmental crisis urban art - urban decay nature as the archive science inspired art (scientism? Dictionary of words - parts of nature, tapestry of meaning. Nature as published archive. Translatability? Standard book page size (19.7cm x 13.2cm) - translucent printed paper cut into the right size covered in baby oil (to make translucent) - looking through the text glory to the surface (light shines on darkness), a play on words earth as prison vs earth as theatre. Mirror of the self - words reflecting human consciousness. hierarchy - holy ones Passing of time (non-dissimilar repetiion): Man walking along scarlet thread. prison sentence prison tally marks. clock (atomic clock?) - time is real --> countdown to prime order (the first in a hierarchical sequence). sunrise - sunset. tree rings aging of a face strata erosion over time video Causality - repetition: Causal chain reproduction sowing and reaping. roots --> leaves; earth --> sky; first the natural --> then the spiritual (foundational causality). house of cards (foundational causality) - fragility of life. what goes up must come down (motion). Newton's 2nd & third law (motion). language & knowledge (academia). Reliance of each subsequent letter of an alphabet on the previous to convey meaning - language of DNA involves causality. The fundamental axioms of science is the scientific method - hovering over nothing? - cutting off the branch you are sitting on. SOMETHING CANNOT CAUSE ITSELF TO EXIST. - something eternal cannot cause something else eternal to exist, because that which would be hypoethically eternal and created would have to begin to exist, and because eternity necessitates a lack of beginning, it would have already existed forever. - If temporality is a finite series of temporal measurements (ft), and eternity is an infinite series of temporal measurements (it), then ft + it = it ft + ft = 2ft it + it = it 1) Finitude cannot exist alongside infinity because the nature of infinity is that it is infinite. 2) Infinity cannot arise out of finitude, because an infinite number of finite additions would need to be made to reach infinity. 3) Finitude can arise out of infinity, since finitude is a certain part of infinity. Visibility: Absence & Presence tangibility. Closed eyelids vs open eyes. Words bring illumination - light. words playing accross canvas of human form / chest. Berni Art Crit Poetics of relation - Eduard Glissant Log Pieces One burnt One half burnt, other half whole - transition. One whole All of them framed behind glass - encapsulation and archiving of time like a museum preserves and archives that which was once living history, and is has now been relegated to the past to be viewed as a curiosity. It cannot be touched, but it can be seen. It (time) cannot be altered by human hands - muted reflection of the viewer in the lens through which it is viewed (own finitude). Depending on focus and perspective, there is a dim reflection of the viewer in the lens through which it is viewed. Series of charcoal drawings drawn with that material that reflect aspects of time, using the material which was once dead, but is not used to bring to light. Puzzle of creation (overlayed work like a palimpsest). archive notion of creation - information like a library stored for reading use. word search. God artifacts Wheel of Time cut edges off wood circular. Gravity makes round. Cycles of history. Microwave background artwork. Visualise light with Pedro. Light and sound intersect? SEMIOTICS Archive The act of naming something as an archive confers a certain status on it. knowledge is metaphysically basic. Cutting holes in tent - light comes through (tent is existence). Destruction of archive is empathised with because it is the destruciton of an image - the word. Text on stone - tablets of stone (permanence, difficult to inscribe, care taken) - cave paintings (primordial knowledge before organic life) - symnbolic repeition of meaning already inherent, trace of artist who made the marks. Creates dissociation between the organic and inorganic. Line structure of cathedral in creation - praise place. Roots & Rocks - life and depth height (grow old / root of Jesse), inorganic and strength foundation, durability (God). erosion. JUXTAPOSITION BETWEEN DECAYING, ERODING, WEATHERING, DECOMPOSING SUBSTANCES AND ONES THAT DON'T DECAY - WORDS DON'T DECAY, THEY LINGER ON. SEASONS - Hillsong Information rich systems cannot arise by themselves, they are encoded into reality by the One Who breathed it into existence. Our intellect is a product of intellect and design - as above so below. Vessel with thumbprint of artist's hand - signature. Why not take a photograph of the night sky and impose charcoal drawings on top? Artist's hand is missing from artwork - re-insert it to make a point about the existence and invisible presence of the creator of everything, hallelujah! Entropy - degree of disorder, chaos, or randomness - entropy increases, but something else keeps things going. Book made of charcoal - Marion Wassenaar Repetitive process of making - look at Derrida philosophy. (Read reference notes for burning matters essay - BOOK SHELVES IN NATURE'S ARCHIVE!). Relational Aesthetic Making of artwork through relationships between interactions between objects in gallery space. That which is fragile - porcelain - represents the skill and strenght of the one who made them!!! Beauty in delicacy reflecting strength of the maker. What causes meaning to resurface? Why do cycles rise again after falling, instead of just continuiing to fall? There is a force that upholds all things and sustains their rising and falling. Sound can be an imposition! It is one of the only sense that cannot be shut off - their sound has gone into all the earth. "Pine trees are easily the most commercially significant wood species in the history of forestry." ("Home Stratosphere", 2021). Home Stratsophere. 17 different types of pine wood for floors and furniture. Available: https://www.homestratosphere.com/types-of-pine-wood/#:~:text=Pine%20trees%20are%20easily%20the,over%20120%20different%20pine%20species. [2022, May 18]. porcelain - only naturally translucent material. Porcelain paper clay? paper is burnt off when fired. Use of built environment - what was intention behind the design? Why are we the centre? maps of meaning Climate change - why went wrong. Viewer says I don't believe = freedom of choice - that's what went wrong. tapestry of reality - string theory, unravelling video is record of reality, but is just code. It is an holistic picture of dimenstionality including time. Book exhibition equipment BY 20th JUNE! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScTJu6a6OWXQXybIVlruOt4F2sWZt-uEvwMF3-gjbfqxEXr-g/viewform What starts and ends Why do things grow? What grows? What changes and why? Why do things hold together. What type of tree is important Tree grows toward light Find tree that is phototrophic - wind affects growth of tree toward light. Tree branches that form fractal pattern Built associations to immediately recognise a symbol in nature. HOPE AND DESIRE IS ETERNAL --> points toward eternal source and destination. isochronic tones. Play > 22kHz sound together with another < 22kHz 432 Hz tuned music - sound in exhibition humming from big bang (shepherd tone) - https://science.howstuffworks.com/what-did-big-bang-sound-like.htm https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/04/04/listening-to-the-big-bang-in-high-fidelity-audio/ sound is constantly emitted by objects - affects perception? wave & partical nature of light - wave & particle nature of soul and body. Bio-informatics. Ask declan about visualization of light & sound or energy (or all of them). CYCLES - very rich hours (book of hours) of the duke of bery. International gothic. God is omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal - His attributes are invisible (eternal ability and power to hold all things together) creative and sustaining power - rational power of the Word through the Spirit. Knowledge itself is invisible, so is rationality and morality. They are applied to concrete structures and frameworks, but are themselves drawn out of / define the concrete universe (deconstruction theory paper, including concrete artwork to symbolise this). The operations and processes of the world are manifestations of the Mover's movement of them. He is not being, but the source of all being - the ground of existence. Beauty awakens the soul to act! Bishop barren 5 ways: 1) Justice 2) Beauty 3) Rational 4) Evanglization 5) New Media Waves of light and sound - manifestation of God's presence in creation through actus - potentiality. - blue light has a short wavelength and when it hits the skin, because it doesnt penetrate deeply, it makes veins look blue. Blue is life! Divinity is blue. LIFE SOURCE - red = humanity, clay, blood - flesh and corruptibility. In the Old Testament, oudem is translated “red clay.” https://crossexamined.org/reference-guide-to-the-biblical-symbolism-of-colors/ - white - holiness, light. (contrast between light and dark?) - black - stain, sin, darkness, death. - yellow - sun, gold - precious. That which is precious affects that which is not (purification). - green - life, growth. LIFE - orange - fire. - purple - royalty (blue + red). - bronze - strength. Turtle-Dove A man may very well say that the sun doesn't exist when he has been locked up in solitary confinement for many years. He may ask himself, "Where has the sun gone, and why does it not shine on me anymore? It it gone forever, and have I ever even seen it before?" This, however, is because his mind is dull and slow to remember that the deed which he did that he was put there for was done under the sun, and it was under the sun that he cursed the Name of God our Father, to Whom be all praise and glory and honour and power, now and forever always, amen. Owl on mountain - vision looking down Ear is clearer -, freedom, closer to heavens - solid foundation. Like a fortress or barricade. Difficult to get up but easy to come down. Mountain is itself inorganic but life comes from it. The mind is higher than the senses but is defined by them. It is better than the body but is nourished by it. Improperly orientated worship is on the "high places" - Babel like hubris. Intertwining of tree trunks - two become one, growing together and growing in years - no longer two but one, rooted and grounded in the same soil, to the praise and glory of the same God, who both drink of the same Spiritual Word and both soak up the same glorious sun. Love unites both in meaning and cause, knowledge and understanding, glory and might. They both bear fruit and are seen as one fruitful tree which bears it's fruits in summer and suffers together with itself in winter. breathe in the firmament that God has made, for your breath will one day enter back into it. Fruit comes from tree which heals the nations and sustains them. Fruit are thoughts and they sit in the heavens. They are plucked / fall done to earth ; blessings. The fruit contain the seed of the tree and fall to the ground to plant the next tree. Birds carry them away. Rooted so that it can grow high into the heavens - like hands lifted in praise, and like lungs that breathe the air of the heavens. They take in and produce. They give as they have received. They spread out into the heavens from one point - spiritual growth --> to receive more of God's grace (sun). Rain descends from above and waters the earth as a sign that the heavens provide what the earth needs for sustainable. The Sun and the water descend to give increase to the earth. From the midst of the clouds issues the voice of God through the heavens as light and thunder. Birds fly through the expanse of the firmament to deposit seeds hither and thither, flying in communities spierheaded toward their destination. Every animal breathes in breathe, the atmosphere - His Spirit gives them life. Into clay is breathed His Spirit of life. Into corruptibility is breathed incorruptiblity - the rational soul enlightened by the words it hears echoing through the firmament, and by the words it reads illuminated by the light of the sun. Each rotation of the earth brings glory to God, for as the earth rotates life and death are brought about: 1. Life and death in the seasons. 2. Life and death by years as measured by the earth's rotations. 3. Earth's rotations as a timepiece signifier to the birth and death of the heavens and the earth. The night and day are a type of life and death but when morning breaks the next day, life has begun again. When a seed falls to the ground and is planted, it signifies death and is buried, after which it springs up to new life. After the winter is the spring. Creation is cyclical. Both animals and humans alikke are born and die, and trees are planted and spring up to life. Fresh water runs into the oceans and is lost amidst the salty tumult of the waves, but is then risen out of the great expanse into the heavens again to water the earth. The arc of the heavens is furnished during rainful with the rainbow. It connects east tol South and North to west, arching upward into the heavens and down to earth again - a great door through which, if one enters, one will find great life and joy (the promise). The brightest light, which is white, is broken down into Seven colours of rest and completion, spanning from red to purple. They all glorify the source of light as they sing in brilliant harmony the praises of their Creator. The circle of the earth is hung upon nothing and speaks of completion, for there is neither beginning nor end to it's sphere. In this way it symbolises its creator - the one who is eternal - without beginning or end. The eye of man also follows this pattern. The eyes are the windows to the soul - the entry and exit points of the immortal part of man. From without comes knowledge and insight, and from within come tears - tears either of joy, or of sorrow, love or of hate. You cannot drink in the grace of the Lord more than you pour it out, for the soul in love with Him overflows with this Loving Kindness - tears of joy pour forth in extatic praise! Hallelujah to our most high God! Now the man has a heart just as the earth has a heart. The earth's heart, which is a result of its size, holds together the whole body through gravity. The human heart holds together the human body as it nourishes it, and the human spirit is held together by the love of God. That which makes manifest is light Growing. Into it. Human lifespan - tree rings (time). Link it to original meaning - oxygen. (Tree is invaluable to respiration - Covid). Centre is off centre. Meaning imbued by artist and meaning imbued by viewer. Cornelia Parker, XN (ALEPH HEH) Pine. Harsher living conditions -> longer life (bristlecone pine). Oldest living thing on earth. - taps into watertable - paint brushes made of wood, pencil, and most musical instruments made from wood. - home to creatures. -higest flora out of all living things. (reaching into the firmament). - Cathedral of all plants - wooden dome. -tabernacle of wood, arc of wood. -DOORS - Tree of life / tree of knowledge of good and evil. - Looking back in time(To the beginning) - Time has ended - Life, but memorial of death - Seasonal inscriptions / history - Times of want and plenty (Rain and draught) - Heart (Core wood) - centre Cross - Material for paper (scriptures are written on it). - The One who made furniture died on that wood. - Growth and regeneration. - revealed that which was hidden - seeing the heart (naked). -radial (earth, solar system). SUCCESSIVE growth. -growing toward the light. -strength and height increase with more successive layers. - a tree breathes, filters pollution, and provides shelter. Takes in toxic death and outputs life giving oxygen. - last supper table. - Nourishment, healing, fruit. - as much about height as it is depth (reaching up and reaching down) / rootedness. -As above so below. Mirroring that which is above. Sustain - Increase color of sand - Slow down sand - Set the hand scene before anything moves. - Hand on heart before growing twigs is too long. Pictograms Pull out more roots. Create timeline. Build up charcoal background. Higgs Field - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2016.0388#:~:text=As%20shown%20by%20this%20equation,of%20the%20standard%20electroweak%20theory. "In parallel, a narrative structure organizes semantic information into coherent sequences by assigning images to categorical roles, which are then embedded within a hierarchic constituent structure. Narrative constructional schemas allow for specific predictions of structural sequencing, independent of semantics. Together, these interacting levels of representation engage in an iterative process of retrieval of semantic and narrative information, prediction of upcoming information based on those assessments, and subsequent updating based on discontinuity. These core mechanisms are argued to be domain-general-spanning across expressive systems-as suggested by similar electrophysiological brain responses (N400, P600, anterior negativities) generated in response to manipulation of sequential images, music, and language." (Cohn, N. 2019). Sustain Meaning in Aesthetic / Symbolism Fig Charcoal - the fig tree represents life (long time to grow) but also covering. The leaves represent covering like the priest;y Ephode covering. Charcoal is made from burning away the covering -what appears to be destruction is actually uncovering. The charcoal is decomposed in order to create life -> death to life. From ash I am to ash I will return. Heart - this symbolises the centre. When the centre is burried, it becomes brings forth life, like a seed planted in the ground. It is the source and power of life. Heart as a rock is a contradiction therefore. A rock cannot decompose cannot die, but therefore cannot also spring to life. My hand - represents my strength, yet it is from God. As my hand touches my heart in the likeness of His hand sustaining my life, my hand in effect points back to Him as my source and centre. He is the source and centre of my source and centre. If I am made in the image of God, and I make an image that points back to God, I am in effect shinging the light of my contingency on a mirror of my own existence - the light is Him. X-Ray = illumination of inner parts where meaning lies => It is the fulcrum of narrative and reality. This is meaning - where the narrative world meets the material universe. Sun - show effects of sun but not the sun - describe its presence by its effects, even though you dont see it. It is the source of life, a fire. It burns and heats to illuminate that which is cold and hidden. Fruit - Embedded in the fruit of success are the seeds of decline. When a fruit rots, it also spreads its seed. Encoded Image - programmatically invert every image to mirror the flipped perspective or perpendicular nature of the interaction between the narrative world and the real world. Code is the inculcation of meaning - the synthesis of complex information into simplified information. Liminal space between earth and sky is divisibly small but of the utmost importance. Plants follow the pattern of death, burrial and resurrection. Meaning in aesthetic. Video by next week Monday - don't be too precious... play on it. grow from completely black to white and then red. sound possibilities of sustain - lingering sonic effect - echo-location. drawings & x-rays. Of X-rays? X marks the spot --- treasure? (Heart = centre). Meaning in Aesthetic Charcoal Dust I am and to dust I will return. Burnt from fire, heat and a limited supply of oxygen. Reconstituted but not consumed. Formed in the fire but not consumed in the fire. Isaiah 61:3: "to provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a mantle of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” That which was living but has died is not used to create/bring life to the understanding. Compressed charcoal - placed under pressure. Disintegration - it falls apart. Process of undoing and divergence is where ideas are formed, but when this gestural divergence handles meaning, a sort of reunification occurs - an integration back into the pattern of reality. Paper Projection on wall without computer screen is borderless. Paper is made from the wood of a tree. When charcoal meets paper, they are different forms of the same essence. One is reconstitued and the other is denatured. Reunification produces understanding as the marks on the paper imply meaning. Aquarelle As a medium, it is activated by water. This could be wine or dilluted wine. Where there is no water, there is desert, but when water gushes into a land, it produces plants and trees and all types of vegetation. The water also symbolises Wine Wine is made from the crushing of grapes. Affliction and suffering produce life. In this world, pain and affliction always precede life. The new life of a child only appears after the mother travails in pain for a time. A seed does not grow, which indicates life, unless it is first buried, which signifies death. Rain comes down from above before the soil drinks it in to produce life for the trees of the field. A diamond is created when coal is compressed under extremely high pressure and temperature. A natural pearl (often called an Oriental pearl) forms when an irritant works its way into a particular species of oyster, mussel, or clam. As a defense mechanism, the mollusk secretes a fluid to coat the irritant. Layer upon layer of this coating is deposited on the irritant until a lustrous pearl is formed. Bread Before the 1770's, bread was used as the principal medium for erasure. The bread symbolises sustainance and nourishment. It is grown and harvested, and the chaff is separated from the wheat. It is then ground into poweder and mixed with water and yeast, put into an oven and baked with heat. The erasure of a mark with bread symbolizes a process of covering and uncovering, removal and addition. Visual information is removed by the marks of an erasor, but this is also a process of uncovering. Inasmuch as erasure could be seen as removal, it can be seen as addition, because the very act of erasing involves the addition of marks that add visual information. We don't see the body absorbing nutrition from the food we eat, but we know the process occurs because we see the results and notice the pattern. The erasing of marks with bread signifies this act of knowing - this silent process of change. Wheat is broken down into flour but rises again in the oven. It is again broken down by the body, but rises up in another way inside us as we grow from its effects. Mirror Prism effect. Art on mirror - That which we see is the reflection of ourselves obscured by the marks of another. Viewer identifies with heart on glass because they have one. But we also see ourselves in a new light - framed by the information we view ourselves through. In ancient times a mirror was polished bronze or copper - part obscuring; we see in part. The negative spaces allow glimpses of oneself in the context of the artwork - you are only seeing within the spaces. Although what you are seeing is a reflection of the viewer and what lies behind them, the visual illusion is that of viewing what is beyond, In a sense, the mirror is reflective, but the artwork causes one to reflect and see onself in the future (doorway). Fragments of the reflection are viewed contextualized by the artwork - you become part of the artwork (God's artwork). You only see yourself in fragments, within the negative spaces of the artwork. You see in a mirror dimly. I have a silk screen at home - i might experiment with that for printing onto a mirror. See glass from multiple different angles involves two perspectives. Mount full size mirror in a door frame - accessing an artwork as a real door with real interactivity - a point of access and familiar home. It comes accross as though the door is open and inviting, and because of its familiarity, you would interact with it as you would a door. Instead, however, of entering through the door, the meaning on the glass enters into your mind. Computer Screen In the computer screen is an illusion of reality, which is really code. Reality is reflected to you as visual information, but it is code. A play on the very nature on what seems to be real. There is another world behind the screen working to reflect reality. That reality is a reflection of the reality the viewer exists in. Both are equally real, but in different ways. In the same as the physical world is only a reflection of a deeper spiritual reality. My ability to comprehend this information is due to the fact that i am an encoded being - encoded biologically (DNA), encoded rationally with systems of thought, and encoded with meaning. The act of creation - the point at which an artwork takes materials with tactile qualites and produces an artwork, the brush and the paint become an extension of the artist. However, as seemingly disconnected as digital media may be, the work is imbued with a different spirit. The challenge of digital work can be that sometimes it can appear sterile. Much of the digital work I want to do is an integration of traditional media with digital. It begins in one state and is transformed, processed and synthesises and played back. The process of painting involves layering - pushing and pulling, struggling, failing and reconstituting. It is exploratory. The process of video is layered, as is sound. I want to employ in video similar processes found in painting. A painting and a screen both have an illusion of depth, but are both constrained by a picture plane - 3-dimensional forms with illusions of depth. A painting is physically created with layering of paint, but a video is created with the layering of images on a timeline - the fourth dimension is involved in a video.... Create own font +> symbol to use with or in the place of code. Sound The visualization of sound is the uncovering of meaning hidden from view. It is a translation of information from one form to another. The perspective is different, but the meaning is the same. Fundamentally, sound is the compression and rarefaction of air. These patterns of meaning are picked up by the human brain through the ears. Symbolically, sound in speech is the distillation of information into meaning. A human voice contains intelligible words and breath. Words have a physical impact when they are spoken. How does this translate to when they are written?There is no breath or power behind them when they are visually presented - only when they are spoken. echo chamber echolocation - sound creating imagery. Imagery creating sound?? shepherd tone tritone paradox SEING SOMETHING IS MORE MANIFEST THAN HEARING, even though that which is spoken is of the same reality as that which is seen. Just as an image on a computer screen consists of code, the physical reality itself consits of code - all reality conforms mathematical laws - a system of code itself. Fig Tree Covering with that which is decomposable. MY OWN VISUALIZATION OF SOUND? Language text is a visualization of sound already!!! mandorla PERICHORESIS Art Concepts Baby mobile suspended on sound wave (Word). He holds all things together by the Word of His power. Sustain - entering into death is the way through into eternal life. Trees in lungs and lungs in tree Trees in mind and mind in trees (life). Trees as neurons connecting with electric synapse. Coding art using CSS. Anselm's ontological argument. Cloud veil over mountains. cloud veil over sun chimney coming from heavens - our God inhabits forever the highest heavens. Veil of shroud of Turin - marriage. Only through death can the veil be torn, through blood. Birth, marriage, death. Wrapped in cloth - baby (swaddling clothes), bride (righteousness), and death with the burial cloth. Wind is created when the light of the sun heats up the firmament and it ascends toward the heavens. The breath brings the rainfall or lack thereof, and physical structures on the earth shape the way in which air moves. Air represents breath and understanding, intellect and spirit. It symbolises communication, word, voice. It is that which is closer to the sun than the earth,- it is invisible, but moves the leaves of the trees and the cloud to in friction to produce lightening. Lightening produces thunder when air is heated and expands. Rain droplets fall to music - sound (the Word of God). The artists job is to translate, he is never far away from the role of a communicator - for by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, and they declare His glory. His glory is manifest in His Word. Take biblical imagery and translate it into a textual referential image that portrays the glory of God and communicates it past Babel, through to the eyes of the hearer and the heart of the watcher. AI in its infancy - AI rock paintings. Construction of ideas with scaffolding Heart of the mind and mind of the heart - mind the heart. Artivive fading due to age "That which makes manifest is light". "Arise" "Awake Sleeper" "Stirring" "Spring Down" "Tilled" "Break Open" "Reaping" "Harvest" "Dug" "Scattered" "Slept" "Together we will Grow" "Live in Me" "Live through Me" "Nebulous" "Come and see" "Come up here" "Welcome home" "Impartation" "Gift" "Living Seed" "Alive and Well" "Ladders of Success Descend to Hell" Soul is like wind - praises grow upward into the expanse of the heavens. POETIC LITERATURE NB FOR FINAL EXHIBITION Personalization is important. Projection on glass - digital in conversation with material. Make original artwork, photograph it - keep digital and destroy original and show original on computer and print out digital -- archiving of art but destroying it in reality -> reality gets flipped. Art itself is valueless. It's only given value by the artist and the meaning he inserts into the artwork. Ordering chaos through imposition of meaning onto chaotic material experimentation. "It is well known that carbon is required to make physicists" - Robert Dicke 1961 (page 132 God Hypothesis). Visible /invisible - opacity. Fade in / fade out - time bookends. Blueprint X-ray Earth as God's temple and work of His hands; they perish but He remains. Projection is illuminated by light, formed by code. Code emerges in places in the video - the structure of creation is more visible at certain times than others. Heartbeat of time Golden calf digital Of seeds & stars light approaching - making manifest. look to the things that are unseen. body of works. Director is GOd, theatre is earth, we are actors. Too small to see. Increasing in visibility. Fade in. Fade in ,& fade out human life blinking on the map. Under construction. Book of daylight hours - sundial of wrath. Breathe, poem, spectogram First seed - ungrowing. The heavens are swallowed up by the deep - they are born of the invisible and fill the visible. What is concealed might be made known by that which is revealed. * upload pdf with short statement of 50 words including images of project - documentation from midyear project. Upload to fin4015w Dropbox soon! By Tuesday 26th July. * 1st and 4th August external crits occuring. * Materials Bursary contact on how to pay back. * Laser cutting documents read. Define: * Intelligibility * word * causalitiy * temporality * appropriate (personalize). * boundaries * But is it art? * complexity. * contemporary * disrupt * deconstruct * enigmatic. * experminental (see if annything lands). * exploratory * innovative * intervention * progressive * redefine * untitled (the earth). * impact * reach * scaling * scaffold * blockchain. * Extended reality * Web 3 * hubrid * sustainable * Decentralization * digital art * virtual * urban nature art NATURE - environmental crisis urban art - urban decay nature as the archive science inspired art (scientism? Dictionary of words - parts of nature, tapestry of meaning. Nature as published archive. Translatability? Standard book page size (19.7cm x 13.2cm) - translucent printed paper cut into the right size covered in baby oil (to make translucent) - looking through the text glory to the surface (light shines on darkness), a play on words earth as prison vs earth as theatre. Mirror of the self - words reflecting human consciousness. hierarchy - holy ones Passing of time (non-dissimilar repetiion): * Man walking along scarlet thread. * prison sentence * prison tally marks. * clock (atomic clock?) - time is real --> countdown to prime order (the first in a hierarchical sequence). * sunrise - sunset. * tree rings * aging of a face * strata * erosion over time * video Causality - repetition: * Causal chain * reproduction * sowing and reaping. * roots --> leaves; earth --> sky; first the natural --> then the spiritual (foundational causality). * house of cards (foundational causality) - fragility of life. * what goes up must come down (motion). * Newton's 2nd & third law (motion). * language & knowledge (academia). * Reliance of each subsequent letter of an alphabet on the previous to convey meaning - language of DNA involves causality. * The fundamental axioms of science is the scientific method - hovering over nothing? - cutting off the branch you are sitting on. SOMETHING CANNOT CAUSE ITSELF TO EXIST. - something eternal cannot cause something else eternal to exist, because that which would be hypoethically eternal and created would have to begin to exist, and because eternity necessitates a lack of beginning, it would have already existed forever. - If temporality is a finite series of temporal measurements (ft), and eternity is an infinite series of temporal measurements (it), then ft + it = it ft + ft = 2ft it + it = it 1) Finitude cannot exist alongside infinity because the nature of infinity is that it is infinite. 2) Infinity cannot arise out of finitude, because an infinite number of finite additions would need to be made to reach infinity. 3) Finitude can arise out of infinity, since finitude is a certain part of infinity. Visibility: * Absence & Presence * tangibility. * Closed eyelids vs open eyes. * Words bring illumination - light. * words playing accross canvas of human form / chest. mandorla PERICHORESIS What wrapped in burrial cloths. Rababababa in deep wind synth. Spectogram. inside the cell. how do i make multiple artworks of things like cells to show design. How is design encapsulated? Art - Philosophy - science - code Videography (linear time) & Charcoal (decomposable material) narrative & exploration, word vs form, incorruptible vs corruptible, digital vs analogue. In design, form follows function --> uncover the function behind the form. A function is a programmatic A function is simply a “chunk” of code that you can use over and over again, rather than writing it out multiple times. It is a programmatic blueprint part for the operation of the program. Ways to use code in art: * code --> visual. * code + image --> image manipulation. * Image of actual code of image. * visual --> code. * AI (mirror of the programming of the human being) - fractal ontology. Ways to use art in code: * insert charcoal drawings into video * View art on screen juxtaposed with code of art. Repetition of certain symbols in a specific order constitutes a language. Repetition through experimentation! * Process chain Poetics of relation - Eduard Glissant Log Pieces One burnt One half burnt, other half whole - transition. One whole All of them framed behind glass - encapsulation and archiving of time like a museum preserves and archives that which was once living history, and is has now been relegated to the past to be viewed as a curiosity. It cannot be touched, but it can be seen. It (time) cannot be altered by human hands - muted reflection of the viewer in the lens through which it is viewed (own finitude). Depending on focus and perspective, there is a dim reflection of the viewer in the lens through which it is viewed. * Series of charcoal drawings drawn with that material that reflect aspects of time, using the material which was once dead, but is not used to bring to light. Puzzle of creation (overlayed work like a palimpsest). archive notion of creation - information like a library stored for reading use. word search. God artifacts Wheel of Time cut edges off wood circular. Gravity makes round. Cycles of history. Microwave background artwork. Visualise light with Pedro. Light and sound intersect? SEMIOTICS Archive The act of naming something as an archive confers a certain status on it. knowledge is metaphysically basic. Cutting holes in tent - light comes through (tent is existence). Destruction of archive is empathised with because it is the destruciton of an image - the word. Text on stone - tablets of stone (permanence, difficult to inscribe, care taken) - cave paintings (primordial knowledge before organic life) - symnbolic repeition of meaning already inherent, trace of artist who made the marks. Creates dissociation between the organic and inorganic. Line structure of cathedral in creation - praise place. Roots & Rocks - life and depth height (grow old / root of Jesse), inorganic and strength foundation, durability (God). erosion. JUXTAPOSITION BETWEEN DECAYING, ERODING, WEATHERING, DECOMPOSING SUBSTANCES AND ONES THAT DON'T DECAY - WORDS DON'T DECAY, THEY LINGER ON. SEASONS - Hillsong Information rich systems cannot arise by themselves, they are encoded into reality by the One Who breathed it into existence. Our intellect is a product of intellect and design - as above so below. Vessel with thumbprint of artist's hand - signature. Why not take a photograph of the night sky and impose charcoal drawings on top? Artist's hand is missing from artwork - re-insert it to make a point about the existence and invisible presence of the creator of everything, hallelujah! Entropy - degree of disorder, chaos, or randomness - entropy increases, but something else keeps things going. Book made of charcoal - Marion Wassenaar Repetitive process of making - look at Derrida philosophy. (Read reference notes for burning matters essay - BOOK SHELVES IN NATURE'S ARCHIVE!). Relational Aesthetic Making of artwork through relationships between interactions between objects in gallery space. That which is fragile - porcelain - represents the skill and strenght of the one who made them!!! Beauty in delicacy reflecting strength of the maker. What causes meaning to resurface? Why do cycles rise again after falling, instead of just continuiing to fall? There is a force that upholds all things and sustains their rising and falling. Sound can be an imposition! It is one of the only sense that cannot be shut off - their sound has gone into all the earth. "Pine trees are easily the most commercially significant wood species in the history of forestry." ("Home Stratosphere", 2021). Home Stratsophere. 17 different types of pine wood for floors and furniture. Available: https://www.homestratosphere.com/types-of-pine-wood/#:~:text=Pine%20trees%20are%20easily%20the,over%20120%20different%20pine%20species. [2022, May 18]. porcelain - only naturally translucent material. Porcelain paper clay? paper is burnt off when fired. Use of built environment - what was intention behind the design? Why are we the centre? maps of meaning Climate change - why went wrong. Viewer says I don't believe = freedom of choice - that's what went wrong. tapestry of reality - string theory, unravelling video is record of reality, but is just code. It is an holistic picture of dimenstionality including time. Book exhibition equipment BY 20th JUNE! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScTJu6a6OWXQXybIVlruOt4F2sWZt-uEvwMF3-gjbfqxEXr-g/viewform What starts and ends Why do things grow? What grows? What changes and why? Why do things hold together. What type of tree is important Tree grows toward light Find tree that is phototrophic - wind affects growth of tree toward light. Tree branches that form fractal pattern Built associations to immediately recognise a symbol in nature. HOPE AND DESIRE IS ETERNAL --> points toward eternal source and destination. isochronic tones. Play > 22kHz sound together with another < 22kHz 432 Hz tuned music - sound in exhibition humming from big bang (shepherd tone) - https://science.howstuffworks.com/what-did-big-bang-sound-like.htm https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/04/04/listening-to-the-big-bang-in-high-fidelity-audio/ sound is constantly emitted by objects - affects perception? wave & partical nature of light - wave & particle nature of soul and body. Bio-informatics. Ask declan about visualization of light & sound or energy (or all of them). CYCLES - very rich hours (book of hours) of the duke of bery. International gothic. God is omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal - His attributes are invisible (eternal ability and power to hold all things together) creative and sustaining power - rational power of the Word through the Spirit. Knowledge itself is invisible, so is rationality and morality. They are applied to concrete structures and frameworks, but are themselves drawn out of / define the concrete universe (deconstruction theory paper, including concrete artwork to symbolise this). The operations and processes of the world are manifestations of the Mover's movement of them. He is not being, but the source of all being - the ground of existence. Beauty awakens the soul to act! Bishop barren 5 ways: 1) Justice 2) Beauty 3) Rational 4) Evanglization 5) New Media Waves of light and sound - manifestation of God's presence in creation through actus - potentiality. - blue light has a short wavelength and when it hits the skin, because it doesnt penetrate deeply, it makes veins look blue. Blue is life! Divinity is blue. LIFE SOURCE - red = humanity, clay, blood - flesh and corruptibility. In the Old Testament, oudem is translated “red clay.” https://crossexamined.org/reference-guide-to-the-biblical-symbolism-of-colors/ - white - holiness, light. (contrast between light and dark?) - black - stain, sin, darkness, death. - yellow - sun, gold - precious. That which is precious affects that which is not (purification). - green - life, growth. LIFE - orange - fire. - purple - royalty (blue + red). - bronze - strength. Turtle-Dove A man may very well say that the sun doesn't exist when he has been locked up in solitary confinement for many years. He may ask himself, "Where has the sun gone, and why does it not shine on me anymore? It it gone forever, and have I ever even seen it before?" This, however, is because his mind is dull and slow to remember that the deed which he did that he was put there for was done under the sun, and it was under the sun that he cursed the Name of God our Father, to Whom be all praise and glory and honour and power, now and forever always, amen. Owl on mountain - vision looking down Ear is clearer -, freedom, closer to heavens - solid foundation. Like a fortress or barricade. Difficult to get up but easy to come down. Mountain is itself inorganic but life comes from it. The mind is higher than the senses but is defined by them. It is better than the body but is nourished by it. Improperly orientated worship is on the "high places" - Babel like hubris. Intertwining of tree trunks - two become one, growing together and growing in years - no longer two but one, rooted and grounded in the same soil, to the praise and glory of the same God, who both drink of the same Spiritual Word and both soak up the same glorious sun. Love unites both in meaning and cause, knowledge and understanding, glory and might. They both bear fruit and are seen as one fruitful tree which bears it's fruits in summer and suffers together with itself in winter. breathe in the firmament that God has made, for your breath will one day enter back into it. Fruit comes from tree which heals the nations and sustains them. Fruit are thoughts and they sit in the heavens. They are plucked / fall done to earth ; blessings. The fruit contain the seed of the tree and fall to the ground to plant the next tree. Birds carry them away. Rooted so that it can grow high into the heavens - like hands lifted in praise, and like lungs that breathe the air of the heavens. They take in and produce. They give as they have received. They spread out into the heavens from one point - spiritual growth --> to receive more of God's grace (sun). Rain descends from above and waters the earth as a sign that the heavens provide what the earth needs for sustainable. The Sun and the water descend to give increase to the earth. From the midst of the clouds issues the voice of God through the heavens as light and thunder. Birds fly through the expanse of the firmament to deposit seeds hither and thither, flying in communities spierheaded toward their destination. Every animal breathes in breathe, the atmosphere - His Spirit gives them life. Into clay is breathed His Spirit of life. Into corruptibility is breathed incorruptiblity - the rational soul enlightened by the words it hears echoing through the firmament, and by the words it reads illuminated by the light of the sun. Each rotation of the earth brings glory to God, for as the earth rotates life and death are brought about: 1. Life and death in the seasons. 2. Life and death by years as measured by the earth's rotations. 3. Earth's rotations as a timepiece signifier to the birth and death of the heavens and the earth. The night and day are a type of life and death but when morning breaks the next day, life has begun again. When a seed falls to the ground and is planted, it signifies death and is buried, after which it springs up to new life. After the winter is the spring. Creation is cyclical. Both animals and humans alikke are born and die, and trees are planted and spring up to life. Fresh water runs into the oceans and is lost amidst the salty tumult of the waves, but is then risen out of the great expanse into the heavens again to water the earth. The arc of the heavens is furnished during rainful with the rainbow. It connects east tol South and North to west, arching upward into the heavens and down to earth again - a great door through which, if one enters, one will find great life and joy (the promise). The brightest light, which is white, is broken down into Seven colours of rest and completion, spanning from red to purple. They all glorify the source of light as they sing in brilliant harmony the praises of their Creator. The circle of the earth is hung upon nothing and speaks of completion, for there is neither beginning nor end to it's sphere. In this way it symbolises its creator - the one who is eternal - without beginning or end. The eye of man also follows this pattern. The eyes are the windows to the soul - the entry and exit points of the immortal part of man. From without comes knowledge and insight, and from within come tears - tears either of joy, or of sorrow, love or of hate. You cannot drink in the grace of the Lord more than you pour it out, for the soul in love with Him overflows with this Loving Kindness - tears of joy pour forth in extatic praise! Hallelujah to our most high God! Now the man has a heart just as the earth has a heart. The earth's heart, which is a result of its size, holds together the whole body through gravity. The human heart holds together the human body as it nourishes it, and the human spirit is held together by the love of God. That which makes manifest is light Growing. Into it. Human lifespan - tree rings (time). Link it to original meaning - oxygen. (Tree is invaluable to respiration - Covid). Centre is off centre. Meaning imbued by artist and meaning imbued by viewer. Cornelia Parker, XN (ALEPH HEH) Pine. Harsher living conditions -> longer life (bristlecone pine). Oldest living thing on earth. - taps into watertable - paint brushes made of wood, pencil, and most musical instruments made from wood. - home to creatures. -higest flora out of all living things. (reaching into the firmament). - Cathedral of all plants - wooden dome. -tabernacle of wood, arc of wood. -DOORS - Tree of life / tree of knowledge of good and evil. - Looking back in time(To the beginning) - Time has ended - Life, but memorial of death - Seasonal inscriptions / history - Times of want and plenty (Rain and draught) - Heart (Core wood) - centre Cross - Material for paper (scriptures are written on it). - The One who made furniture died on that wood. - Growth and regeneration. - revealed that which was hidden - seeing the heart (naked). -radial (earth, solar system). SUCCESSIVE growth. -growing toward the light. -strength and height increase with more successive layers. - a tree breathes, filters pollution, and provides shelter. Takes in toxic death and outputs life giving oxygen. - last supper table. - Nourishment, healing, fruit. - as much about height as it is depth (reaching up and reaching down) / rootedness. -As above so below. Mirroring that which is above. Sustain - Increase color of sand - Slow down sand - Set the hand scene before anything moves. - Hand on heart before growing twigs is too long. Pictograms Pull out more roots. Create timeline. Build up charcoal background. Higgs Field - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2016.0388#:~:text=As%20shown%20by%20this%20equation,of%20the%20standard%20electroweak%20theory. "In parallel, a narrative structure organizes semantic information into coherent sequences by assigning images to categorical roles, which are then embedded within a hierarchic constituent structure. Narrative constructional schemas allow for specific predictions of structural sequencing, independent of semantics. Together, these interacting levels of representation engage in an iterative process of retrieval of semantic and narrative information, prediction of upcoming information based on those assessments, and subsequent updating based on discontinuity. These core mechanisms are argued to be domain-general-spanning across expressive systems-as suggested by similar electrophysiological brain responses (N400, P600, anterior negativities) generated in response to manipulation of sequential images, music, and language." (Cohn, N. 2019). Sustain Meaning in Aesthetic / Symbolism * Fig Charcoal - the fig tree represents life (long time to grow) but also covering. The leaves represent covering like the priest;y Ephode covering. Charcoal is made from burning away the covering -what appears to be destruction is actually uncovering. The charcoal is decomposed in order to create life -> death to life. From ash I am to ash I will return. * Heart - this symbolises the centre. When the centre is burried, it becomes brings forth life, like a seed planted in the ground. It is the source and power of life. Heart as a rock is a contradiction therefore. A rock cannot decompose cannot die, but therefore cannot also spring to life. * My hand - represents my strength, yet it is from God. As my hand touches my heart in the likeness of His hand sustaining my life, my hand in effect points back to Him as my source and centre. He is the source and centre of my source and centre. If I am made in the image of God, and I make an image that points back to God, I am in effect shinging the light of my contingency on a mirror of my own existence - the light is Him. * X-Ray = illumination of inner parts where meaning lies => It is the fulcrum of narrative and reality. This is meaning - where the narrative world meets the material universe. * Sun - show effects of sun but not the sun - describe its presence by its effects, even though you dont see it. It is the source of life, a fire. It burns and heats to illuminate that which is cold and hidden. * Fruit - Embedded in the fruit of success are the seeds of decline. When a fruit rots, it also spreads its seed. * Encoded Image - programmatically invert every image to mirror the flipped perspective or perpendicular nature of the interaction between the narrative world and the real world. Code is the inculcation of meaning - the synthesis of complex information into simplified information. * Liminal space between earth and sky is divisibly small but of the utmost importance. Plants follow the pattern of death, burrial and resurrection. Meaning in aesthetic. Video by next week Monday - don't be too precious... play on it. grow from completely black to white and then red. sound possibilities of sustain - lingering sonic effect - echo-location. drawings & x-rays. Of X-rays? X marks the spot --- treasure? (Heart = centre). Meaning in Aesthetic Charcoal * Dust I am and to dust I will return. * Burnt from fire, heat and a limited supply of oxygen. Reconstituted but not consumed. Formed in the fire but not consumed in the fire. * Isaiah 61:3: "to provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a mantle of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” * That which was living but has died is not used to create/bring life to the understanding. * Compressed charcoal - placed under pressure. * Disintegration - it falls apart. Process of undoing and divergence is where ideas are formed, but when this gestural divergence handles meaning, a sort of reunification occurs - an integration back into the pattern of reality. Paper Projection on wall without computer screen is borderless. Paper is made from the wood of a tree. When charcoal meets paper, they are different forms of the same essence. One is reconstitued and the other is denatured. Reunification produces understanding as the marks on the paper imply meaning. Aquarelle As a medium, it is activated by water. This could be wine or dilluted wine. Where there is no water, there is desert, but when water gushes into a land, it produces plants and trees and all types of vegetation. The water also symbolises Wine * Wine is made from the crushing of grapes. Affliction and suffering produce life. In this world, pain and affliction always precede life. The new life of a child only appears after the mother travails in pain for a time. A seed does not grow, which indicates life, unless it is first buried, which signifies death. Rain comes down from above before the soil drinks it in to produce life for the trees of the field. A diamond is created when coal is compressed under extremely high pressure and temperature. A natural pearl (often called an Oriental pearl) forms when an irritant works its way into a particular species of oyster, mussel, or clam. As a defense mechanism, the mollusk secretes a fluid to coat the irritant. Layer upon layer of this coating is deposited on the irritant until a lustrous pearl is formed. Bread * Before the 1770's, bread was used as the principal medium for erasure. The bread symbolises sustainance and nourishment. It is grown and harvested, and the chaff is separated from the wheat. It is then ground into poweder and mixed with water and yeast, put into an oven and baked with heat. The erasure of a mark with bread symbolizes a process of covering and uncovering, removal and addition. Visual information is removed by the marks of an erasor, but this is also a process of uncovering. Inasmuch as erasure could be seen as removal, it can be seen as addition, because the very act of erasing involves the addition of marks that add visual information. * We don't see the body absorbing nutrition from the food we eat, but we know the process occurs because we see the results and notice the pattern. The erasing of marks with bread signifies this act of knowing - this silent process of change. * Wheat is broken down into flour but rises again in the oven. It is again broken down by the body, but rises up in another way inside us as we grow from its effects. Mirror * Prism effect. Art on mirror - That which we see is the reflection of ourselves obscured by the marks of another. Viewer identifies with heart on glass because they have one. But we also see ourselves in a new light - framed by the information we view ourselves through. In ancient times a mirror was polished bronze or copper - part obscuring; we see in part. The negative spaces allow glimpses of oneself in the context of the artwork - you are only seeing within the spaces. Although what you are seeing is a reflection of the viewer and what lies behind them, the visual illusion is that of viewing what is beyond, In a sense, the mirror is reflective, but the artwork causes one to reflect and see onself in the future (doorway). Fragments of the reflection are viewed contextualized by the artwork - you become part of the artwork (God's artwork). You only see yourself in fragments, within the negative spaces of the artwork. You see in a mirror dimly. I have a silk screen at home - i might experiment with that for printing onto a mirror. See glass from multiple different angles involves two perspectives. Mount full size mirror in a door frame - accessing an artwork as a real door with real interactivity - a point of access and familiar home. It comes accross as though the door is open and inviting, and because of its familiarity, you would interact with it as you would a door. Instead, however, of entering through the door, the meaning on the glass enters into your mind. Computer Screen In the computer screen is an illusion of reality, which is really code. Reality is reflected to you as visual information, but it is code. A play on the very nature on what seems to be real. There is another world behind the screen working to reflect reality. That reality is a reflection of the reality the viewer exists in. Both are equally real, but in different ways. In the same as the physical world is only a reflection of a deeper spiritual reality. My ability to comprehend this information is due to the fact that i am an encoded being - encoded biologically (DNA), encoded rationally with systems of thought, and encoded with meaning. The act of creation - the point at which an artwork takes materials with tactile qualites and produces an artwork, the brush and the paint become an extension of the artist. However, as seemingly disconnected as digital media may be, the work is imbued with a different spirit. The challenge of digital work can be that sometimes it can appear sterile. Much of the digital work I want to do is an integration of traditional media with digital. It begins in one state and is transformed, processed and synthesises and played back. The process of painting involves layering - pushing and pulling, struggling, failing and reconstituting. It is exploratory. The process of video is layered, as is sound. I want to employ in video similar processes found in painting. A painting and a screen both have an illusion of depth, but are both constrained by a picture plane - 3-dimensional forms with illusions of depth. A painting is physically created with layering of paint, but a video is created with the layering of images on a timeline - the fourth dimension is involved in a video.... * Create own font +> symbol to use with or in the place of code. Sound The visualization of sound is the uncovering of meaning hidden from view. It is a translation of information from one form to another. The perspective is different, but the meaning is the same. * Fundamentally, sound is the compression and rarefaction of air. * These patterns of meaning are picked up by the human brain through the ears. * Symbolically, sound in speech is the distillation of information into meaning. A human voice contains intelligible words and breath. * Words have a physical impact when they are spoken. How does this translate to when they are written?There is no breath or power behind them when they are visually presented - only when they are spoken. * echo chamber * echolocation - sound creating imagery. * Imagery creating sound?? * shepherd tone * tritone paradox SEING SOMETHING IS MORE MANIFEST THAN HEARING, even though that which is spoken is of the same reality as that which is seen. Just as an image on a computer screen consists of code, the physical reality itself consits of code - all reality conforms mathematical laws - a system of code itself. Fig Tree * Covering with that which is decomposable. MY OWN VISUALIZATION OF SOUND? Language text is a visualization of sound already!!! Baby mobile suspended on sound wave (Word). He holds all things together by the Word of His power. Sustain - entering into death is the way through into eternal life. Trees in lungs and lungs in tree Trees in mind and mind in trees (life). Trees as neurons connecting with electric synapse. Coding art using CSS. Anselm's ontological argument. Cloud veil over mountains. cloud veil over sun chimney coming from heavens - our God inhabits forever the highest heavens. Veil of shroud of Turin - marriage. Only through death can the veil be torn, through blood. Birth, marriage, death. Wrapped in cloth - baby (swaddling clothes), bride (righteousness), and death with the burial cloth. Wind is created when the light of the sun heats up the firmament and it ascends toward the heavens. The breath brings the rainfall or lack thereof, and physical structures on the earth shape the way in which air moves. Air represents breath and understanding, intellect and spirit. It symbolises communication, word, voice. It is that which is closer to the sun than the earth,- it is invisible, but moves the leaves of the trees and the cloud to in friction to produce lightening. Lightening produces thunder when air is heated and expands. Rain droplets fall to music - sound (the Word of God). The artists job is to translate, he is never far away from the role of a communicator - for by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, and they declare His glory. His glory is manifest in His Word. Take biblical imagery and translate it into a textual referential image that portrays the glory of God and communicates it past Babel, through to the eyes of the hearer and the heart of the watcher. AI in its infancy - AI rock paintings. Construction of ideas with scaffolding Heart of the mind and mind of the heart - mind the heart. Artivive fading due to age "That which makes manifest is light". "Arise" "Awake Sleeper" "Stirring" "Spring Down" "Tilled" "Break Open" "Reaping" "Harvest" "Dug" "Scattered" "Slept" "Together we will Grow" "Live in Me" "Live through Me" "Nebulous" "Come and see" "Come up here" "Welcome home" "Impartation" "Gift" "Living Seed" "Alive and Well" "Ladders of Success Descend to Hell" Soul is like wind - praises grow upward into the expanse of the heavens. POETIC LITERATURE NB FOR FINAL EXHIBITION Personalization is important. Projection on glass - digital in conversation with material. Make original artwork, photograph it - keep digital and destroy original and show original on computer and print out digital -- archiving of art but destroying it in reality -> reality gets flipped. Art itself is valueless. It's only given value by the artist and the meaning he inserts into the artwork. Ordering chaos through imposition of meaning onto chaotic material experimentation. Intelligent Design John Lennox is a Philosopher, Mathematician and Professor Emeritus of mathematics at Oxford University (Lennox, 2007:560). The Field “Intelligent design is the field of study that investigates signs of intelligence. It identifies those features of objects that reliably signal the action of an intelligent cause” (Lennox, 2007:561). “The term intelligent design is intended to separate the recognition of design from the identification of the designer” (Lennox, 2007:561). This is done through the identification of intelligent design within the material universe using the scientific method. “At the heart of science lies the conviction that the universe is rationally intelligible” (Lennox, 2007:562). This “high degree of ordering of the objective world”, says Einstein, “could not be expected a priori”. That is, that the rational intelligibility that permeates the entire universe and which is taken to be true for the operation of the scientific method, cannot itself be explained by that same scientific method. To this point, British agnostic mathematician Sir Roger Penrose writes: “It is hard for me to believe that such SUPERB theories could have arisen merely by some random natural selection of ideas leaving only the good ones as survivors. The good ones are simply much too good to be the survivors of idea that have arisen in a random way. There must be, instead, some deep underlying reason for the accord between mathematics and physics.” (Lennox, 2007:562). "Science does not explain the mathematical intelligibility of the physical world, for it is part of science's founding faith that this is so.” (Lennox, 2007:562). “Indeed. None of us believes that a Rembrandt painting is nothing but a distribution of molecules of paint on canvas. Any adequate explanation of the painting both involves the materials and mechanisms involved-the canvas, the paint, and the tools by which it is applied-and the intelligent agent Rembrandt. The fundamental point at issue in intelligent design (in the broad sense) is the same: Is a mechanistic description of the universe adequate as explanation in the fullest sense?” (Lennox, 2007:563). Arguments from Cosmology Johannes Kepler, the infamous German Astronomer, and mathematician who greatly influenced Newton’s laws of planetary motion, said, “The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order which has been imposed on it by God, and which he revealed to us in the language of mathematics” (Lennox, 2007:563). “In the event, when evidence began to pile up that the cosmos had a beginning, ironically it was fiercely resisted by prominent scientists (like Sir John Maddox, then editor of Nature) because they thought it would give too much leverage to those who believed in creation!” (Lennox, 2007: 564). Arguments in Biology “John Polkinghorne speaks of creation as "realising the inbuilt potentiality with which the Creator has endowed it” (Lennox, 2007:565). References Lennox, J. 2007. Intelligent Design: Some critical reflections on the current debate. In Intelligent Design: William A. Dembski and Michael Ruse in Dialogue. R.B. Steward, Ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 560 – 571. Such symbolic linkages tie the multiplicity of human narratives up into a single meta-narrative of meaning. These narratives involve reference to the natural order through the inculcation of meaning into objects, whether they be living or not, to create a tapestry of symbology that is based upon what is already known. Design = functionality. Harmony, order, intelligibility. There is no symbology that is not fundamentally based on constituent parts of nature, because humans themselves are constituent parts of nature. From where, then, does our intentional desire for meaning come from? Therefore, there must be something that is the originator of all growth. The same can be understood for life (Aquinas argument from motion). In another sense, the creation is endowed with specific characteristics – namely, finitude, temporality, changeableness, and dependency. “At the heart of science lies the conviction that the universe is rationally intelligible” (Lennox, 2007:562). ”. That is, that the rational intelligibility that permeates the entire universe and which is taken to be true for the operation of the scientific method, cannot itself be explained by that same scientific method. During this year I want to continue exploring information encoded in sound and visuals, which are part of the universe, and their translatability not between each other, but into meaning. The harmonious interplay of patterns that repeat themselves throughout material existence generate meaning encapsulated by a multiplicity of sensory symbology. This meta-narrative is punctuated by representational types and images, sounds bytes and metaphors that intertwine forming a tapestried reality of meaning. These patterns and rhythms evident in reality, such as the golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence, form the underlying intelligibility that permeates the material universe. Motifs that continually impress on my heart, mind, and soul throughout the course of life serve to inform the direction my life is going in and integrate into the ever-growing network of conceptual associations that make up my understanding. These are the fingerprints of the Master Artist, tracing His hand through existence. Naturally, my practice as an artist involves creating works that embody the understand of my mind. Does my relationship to my art mould me more than I mould it, and does the relationship between the idea and the product constitute the artwork? Whatever the liminal space between immaterial idea and its embodiment – there is the artwork – something representational of a greater reality than just the act of visualizing. It is the very relationship between subject and object that constitutes the substance of the artwork. How does this relationship interact with my very existence as an encoded work of the Master Artist? I want people to come along a journey of discovery that traverses the heights and depths of a symbolic meta-narrative in the discovery of the heart of meaning. The artists job is to translate, he is never far away from the role of a communicator Archive. The act of naming something as an archive confers a certain status on it – how would we read our universe if we viewed it as an archive? JUXTAPOSITION BETWEEN DECAYING, ERODING, WEATHERING, DECOMPOSING SUBSTANCES AND ONES THAT DON'T DECAY - WORDS DON'T DECAY, THEY LINGER ON. What starts and ends Why do things grow? What grows? What changes and why? Why do things hold together. HOPE AND DESIRE IS ETERNAL --> points toward eternal source and destination. Myth, as per Encyclopaedia Britannica, is "a symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin". Another definition of myth is "a widely held but false belief or idea". This is not exactly what I mean by myth. To be sure, there will be mythical stories I will employ in this project for explanatory purposes whose historical occurrences were probably fictitious. That being said, they were based on some seeds of truth - universal patterns that permeate cultures and formulate meaning. The symbolic narrative, then - or META-NARRATIVE - is what I am looking at. Bread, for example, is a universal symbol of sustenance. It originates in nature but is kneaded and formed into bread by human hands. Because it was fashioned by hands but sustains the hands with which it was fashioned - there appears a fascinating tension of meaning. The body is dependent on bread, and bread is dependent on the body. One thing, however, I have purposefully treated with a cursory explanation. In one sense, bread is not a human creation, it is a human manipulation. Wheat is grown in fields and lives because of it receives energy from the soil, the water, and the light. Human hands simply cut it, gather it, knead it, and heat it. The substance, however, of the bread is not created by us. On the other hand, if the definition of the word creation means "the act of bringing the world into ordered existence", as per Merriam-Webster Dictionary, then it is an act of creation. The interactions of humankind with nature, with themselves, and with their own creations - as per the second definition - are all inspired and aligned by symbolic narratives. This is an idea that the writer Joseph Campbell speaks about: “Every myth is psychologically symbolic. Its narratives and images are to be read, therefore, not literally, but as metaphors.” I quote him here, not as proof of any kind, but rather as an indicator as to the symbolic richness of cultural narratives. I somewhat, however, disagree with part of his statement; the literal and the narrative world are not mutually exclusive macrocosms - they interweave to form the fabric of reality. Mythology ceases to be simply metaphorical when it enters the realm of the literal world. Then, it is real, but maintains its patters of symbolic narrative meaning. Such symbolic linkages tie the multiplicity of human narratives up into a single meta-narrative of meaning. These narratives involve reference to the natural order through the inculcation of meaning into objects, whether they be living or not, to create a tapestry of symbology that is based upon what is already known. If, from human experience, a rock symbolises strength and weight when compared to the frail organic substance of the human body, then the narrative of Sisyphus being condemned to roll a giant boulder up a hill for eternity epitomises weakness and futility. It is exactly this junctional interaction between the human body and nature that constitutes meaning - especially when it is in relation to other bodies. There is no symbology that is not fundamentally based on constituent parts of nature, because humans themselves are constituent parts of nature. From where, then, does our intentional desire for meaning come from? It is certainly of a higher order than animal instincts because animal instincts are concerned with fulfilling the needs of the body. In animals, desire is meant to be fulfilled as part of the process of the animal's existence. A lion will hunt down its prey, kill it, and eat it for the express purpose of satiating its hunger. Why then, is it universally understood that eating one's brother is morally reprehensible? Why is it wrong to murder and steal? The leader of the Sturmabteilung (the Nazi Storm Troopers) Hermann Göring’s last words during the Nuremberg trial were: Herman Göring was the leader of the Nazi Sturmabteilung, or Storm Troopers. He was charged with conspiracy, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Here are some words from his statement at the Nuremberg trial: “The German people are free of guilt. I did not want a war, nor did I bring it about. I did everything to prevent it by negotiations. After it had broken out, I did everything to assure victory… I stand up for the things that I have done but I deny most emphatically that my actions were dictated by the desire to subjugate foreign peoples by wars, to murder them, to rob them or to enslave them or to commit atrocities or crimes.” (Palthe, 2015). Goring’s intentions, according to himself, were pure. He went on to commit suicide. He believed that he was good, and that he was being unjustly condemned. The reality, however, is that he was justly condemned as a criminal. He was responsible for plundering the German Jews, and was Hitler’s most loyal supporter, at least during the 30’s. Goring follows the pattern of corrupt human belief; whatever an individual does is right unless it is done to them. Where does the desire for moral meaning come from, and how is a moral code determined if every criminal thinks themselves good? Nature is changeable, and as such is in a constant procession of motion. The 13th century Italian philosopher Thomas Aquinas used this argument from motion to point to the need for a fundamental cause of motion. The argument goes as follows: 1. “It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion… [which] is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality… 2. Nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality… 3. Whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another… 4. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover… 5. Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.” (ST I, q. 2, a. 3). Aquinas has similar arguments for causation and gradation. If the dichotomy between good and evil constitutes morality, and evil is a privation of goodness as darkness is a privation of light, then that which is absolutely good – that which is fully actualized in Aquinas’ language – is perfectly good, because you cannot have something that is fully actualized and evil since evil is a privation of goodness. The same can be said for growth. A tree grows from potentiality toward actuality. This growth, however, cannot be abstracted infinitely into the past. Therefore, there must be something that is the originator of all growth. The same can be understood for life. What I am saying is this. Any lack in a thing is only perceivable when compared to a perfect version of that thing. If one were to look at a single point in time, one would not know that a child grows up and becomes an adult if there were no adults alive and no understanding of there being any. In the same way, potentiality, and corruptibility point to the reality of actuality and incorruptibility since the meaning of these very words is predicated on the existence of their antonyms. In another sense, the creation is endowed with specific characteristics – namely, finitude, temporality, changeableness, and dependency. Something cannot create itself, therefore, the Creator is endowed with specific characteristics – namely, infinitude, eternality, changelessness, and independence. Frozen movement in painting. Encapsulates the process in a singular point of movement. References Palthe, A. 2015. Final statement Herman Goring. Available: https://www.tracesofwar.com/articles/4523/Final-statement-Hermann-G%C3%B6ring.htm [2022, February 26]. Fraenkel, H. and Manvell, R. Hermann Göring. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hermann-Goring [2022, January 8]. Aquinas, T. The existence of God. Available: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm [2022, February 11]. Proposal 4th Year; Durno Last year I focused on the exploration of the encoded nature of sound and visuals and how they relate to one another, specifically in relation to their translatability between each other and intelligibility to the human mind. This was accomplished by visualizing information conveyed using sound but portrayed as visual. The intelligibility of the sound changed as it was intelligible in a translated form – that of information encoded visually in a sound wave. During this year I want to continue exploring information encoded in sound and visuals, which are part of the universe, and their translatability not between each other, but into meaning. Art in essence is a representation of reality in translation where reality is condensed into a fulcrum moment of mood, time, movement and meaning. The harmonious interplay of patterns that repeat themselves throughout material existence generate meaning encapsulated by a multiplicity of sensory symbology. This meta-narrative is punctuated by representational types and images, sounds bytes and metaphors that intertwine forming a tapestried reality of meaning. These patterns and rhythms evident in reality, such as the golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence, form the underlying intelligibility that permeates the material universe. Motifs that continually impress on my heart, mind, and soul throughout the course of life serve to inform the direction my life is going in and integrate into the ever-growing network of conceptual associations that make up my understanding. These are the fingerprints of the Master Artist, tracing His hand through existence. Naturally, my practice as an artist involves creating works that embody the understand of my mind. Does my relationship to my art mould me more than I mould it, and does the relationship between the idea and the product constitute the artwork? Whatever the liminal space between immaterial idea and its embodiment – there is the artwork – something representational of a greater reality than just the act of visualizing. It is the very relationship between subject and object that constitutes the substance of the artwork. How does this relationship interact with my very existence as an encoded work of the Master Artist? I want people to come along a journey of discovery that traverses the heights and depths of a symbolic meta-narrative in the discovery of the heart of meaning. I hope to employ a diversity of mediums, ranging from charcoal to paint, digital drawing, programmatic representations, and videography. I will employ visual symbology that carries specific interpretations to weave a tapestry of meaning that has for its centre the core foundation whose identity is to be elucidated during this project. Word Count (418). Theology of Project 400 words proposal Thematic & Conceptual concerns Technical interests Choose 3 supervisors (rank 1,2,3) Exploration of mankind as a worker in relation to God as the Master-Worker. How does man’s creativity relate to God’s creativity if mankind is the work of God’s hands? If God created humans with intelligibility, then does what they create have intelligibility too? Code is meaning. We are encoded beings with DNA, and what we create we associate meaning with, even as we have been made with meaning. Does our acknowledgement of ourselves having inherent value and meaning contribute to the art making process? In Genesis God said to Adam that he must name every creature on the face of the earth, but when Moses asked God what His Name is, He answered, “I Am Who I Am”. There was only one Being which man has not the authority, nor the power or privilege to Name, and that is the Name of God. Would naming the One Who created us constrain Him to the limits of our understanding? That is what would happen to us, but we cannot contain God, for He contains us. The following is a story from the life of St. Augustine, the 4th/5th century African Theologian, Poet, and Philosopher: “St. Augustine was walking by the seashore one day contemplating the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a little child running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a shell to carry water from the large ocean and pour it into a small pit that he had made in the sand. Augustine came up to him and asked him what he was doing. “I’m going to pour the entire ocean into this hole,” the boy replied. “What?” said Augustine. “That is impossible, my dear child, the sea is so great and the shell and the hole are so little.” “That is true,” the boy said. “It would be easier and quicker to draw all the water out of the sea and fit it into this hole than for you to fit the mystery of the Trinity and His Divinity into your little intellect; for the Mystery of the Trinity is greater and larger in comparison with your intelligence than is this vast ocean in comparison with this little hole.” And then the child vanished”. Augustine also spoke of two great books. The first was generally revealed to all mankind – the book of nature, and the second and more authoritative book – the book of scripture, the Words of God. The later is meant to unveil the former as a sort of illumination for understanding. Art itself is entirely dependent on the person creating the artwork. Does an artwork change and define the person, or does the person who created the artwork change and define the artwork? Does meaning spring from the interaction between the artist and the artwork, or does the artist imbue specific meaning into the artwork? Why would an artist’s identity be defined by the work of their own hands? This very possibility points to the changeableness, and therefore impermanence, of human nature. Is creation intelligible by nature. Can the continuum of symbolism found in nature inform our understanding of the heart of meaning? What is the central body around which the constituent parts that embody meaning orbit? What is the heart of meaning? Meaning evokes and is constituted of intelligibility and purpose. I could ask someone the meaning behind an artwork.; meaning in this sense refers to the understanding gathered from the intelligibility of the artwork. If I were to ask someone, however, what is the meaning of life - that question has to do with purpose. Meaning is the junction where intelligibility and purpose meet. Image of Double Helix DNA strand using an electron microscope (Image: Pease, 2012). The right-hand image exhibits chromosomal DNA (Image: Wanner & Formanek, 1995). Meaningful string of DNA characters that would produce a meaningful protein. By the early 2000’s there [were] number of experimental measures of their rarity of the functional genes and proteins versus all the gibberish sequences…for a short protein 150 amino acids long the ratio is one protein that will fold into a functional structure compared to 1077 gibberish sequences. According to the American computer scientist David Gelernter, “The theory [of evolution] understands that mutations are rare, and successful ones even scarcer. To balance that out, there are many organisms and a staggering immensity of time. Your chances of winning might be infinitesimal”. He goes on to say that the “from whatever angle you come at it, the answer is no, there has not been enough time” (HI, 2019). References Hoover Institute. 2019. Mathematical challenges to Darwin’s theory of evolution [Video file]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noj4phMT9OE&t=17s [2022, May 12]. Wanner, G. & Formanek, H. 1995. Imaging of DNA in human and plant chromosomes by high-resolution scanning electron microscopy. Chromosome Research. 3:368-374. Pease, R. 2012. DNA imaged with electron microscope for the first time. Available: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22545-dna-imaged-with-electron-microscope-for-the-first-time/ [2022, May 12]. Wait patiently on the Lord. Psalm 119 the unfolding or His words brings light. Water bubbling up into eternal life. For Crit 04-08-2022 https://youtu.be/smitljuu1GE https://youtu.be/XjSdwRWAIGE https://youtu.be/eQwWDOrNsYE https://youtu.be/Md-A9bnFEX8 I admitted to the Lord I could not think of an idea by myself. I admitted it in my heart. I then immediately was moved by the Spirit to trust in Him for an idea and I felt Him smile - He was pleased with me. He then told me to stop orchestrating the ideas according to rules and formulas, but rather create from the heart according to what I desire! The richness of desire found in the human heart on fire for God is a goldmine of wisdom and intellectual freedom. Mind programming Merge human body with environment. Code with visuals Visuals with sound Sound with code Code with environment Encoded environment Walking man inertia differentiation calculus unmoved mover. Narrative from start to finish. Multiple layers of perspective. Construction of the human being from start. Bloodline - made in His Image. Some sort of clock: Wheel of Time.. Why? Motivation, line of sight. What pushes you forward and what pulls you forward? Hand from above feeding scroll. Flying past trees like lungs. Walking on water vs being drowned. Flood, Spectogram in forest - smarter everyday. "It is well known that carbon is required to make physicists" - Robert Dicke 1961 (page 132 God Hypothesis). Visible /invisible - opacity. Fade in / fade out - time bookends. Blueprint X-ray Earth as God's temple and work of His hands; they perish but He remains. Projection is illuminated by light, formed by code. Code emerges in places in the video - the structure of creation is more visible at certain times than others. Heartbeat of time Golden calf digital Of seeds & stars light approaching - making manifest. look to the things that are unseen. body of works. Director is GOd, theatre is earth, we are actors. Too small to see. Increasing in visibility. Fade in. Fade in ,& fade out human life blinking on the map. Under construction. Book of daylight hours - sundial of wrath. Breathe, poem, spectogram First seed - ungrowing. The heavens are swallowed up by the deep - they are born of the invisible and fill the visible. What is concealed might be made known by that which is revealed. upload pdf with short statement of 50 words including images of project - documentation from midyear project. Upload to fin4015w Dropbox soon! By Tuesday 26th July. 1st and 4th August external crits occuring. Materials Bursary contact on how to pay back. Laser cutting documents read. Define: Intelligibility word causalitiy temporality appropriate (personalize). boundaries But is it art? complexity. contemporary disrupt deconstruct enigmatic. experminental (see if annything lands). exploratory innovative intervention progressive redefine untitled (the earth). impact reach scaling scaffold blockchain. Extended reality Web 3 hubrid sustainable Decentralization digital art virtual urban nature art NATURE - environmental crisis urban art - urban decay nature as the archive science inspired art (scientism? Dictionary of words - parts of nature, tapestry of meaning. Nature as published archive. Translatability? Standard book page size (19.7cm x 13.2cm) - translucent printed paper cut into the right size covered in baby oil (to make translucent) - looking through the text glory to the surface (light shines on darkness), a play on words earth as prison vs earth as theatre. Mirror of the self - words reflecting human consciousness. hierarchy - holy ones Passing of time (non-dissimilar repetiion): Man walking along scarlet thread. prison sentence prison tally marks. clock (atomic clock?) - time is real --> countdown to prime order (the first in a hierarchical sequence). sunrise - sunset. tree rings aging of a face strata erosion over time video Causality - repetition: Causal chain reproduction sowing and reaping. roots --> leaves; earth --> sky; first the natural --> then the spiritual (foundational causality). house of cards (foundational causality) - fragility of life. what goes up must come down (motion). Newton's 2nd & third law (motion). language & knowledge (academia). Reliance of each subsequent letter of an alphabet on the previous to convey meaning - language of DNA involves causality. The fundamental axioms of science is the scientific method - hovering over nothing? - cutting off the branch you are sitting on. SOMETHING CANNOT CAUSE ITSELF TO EXIST. - something eternal cannot cause something else eternal to exist, because that which would be hypoethically eternal and created would have to begin to exist, and because eternity necessitates a lack of beginning, it would have already existed forever. - If temporality is a finite series of temporal measurements (ft), and eternity is an infinite series of temporal measurements (it), then ft + it = it ft + ft = 2ft it + it = it 1) Finitude cannot exist alongside infinity because the nature of infinity is that it is infinite. 2) Infinity cannot arise out of finitude, because an infinite number of finite additions would need to be made to reach infinity. 3) Finitude can arise out of infinity, since finitude is a certain part of infinity. Visibility: Absence & Presence tangibility. Closed eyelids vs open eyes. Words bring illumination - light. words playing accross canvas of human form / chest. mandorla PERICHORESIS Dissertation Patterns: Flying Branching Breaking down and building up (decomposing and growing). Waves waves everywhere! Falling Sunrise ☀️ until sunset Invisibility: Really small Really Big State (Air). Lack of light. Different substance (light does not refract off of substance). Time Life Itself - breath.. Green Screen: Wheeler-De Witt Universal Wave function for geometrical gravitational reality of our univers - like a megaphone. Walking into frame like the walking man and then drawing the walking man and then becoming the walking man. Drawing fractal systems - mapping cartographies of world Me standing there breathing for drawing on top of me - im planted in a charcoal landscape of ground - growing and breathing placing stars in the night sky - drawing 3-dimensional gravitational vectors around them - gravitationl waves. touching point on green screen - ripple effect on coded react trhingy. - Sun being buried and uncovered. - uncovering fruitfulness. rs. (Information /Word) - Dough broken and buried, uncovered as risen bread. Reference point and Cartesian plane in walking man video (Aquinas' arguments for God - Aristotelian). "A finite point can have no meaning without an infinite reference point" - Jean Paul Sartre. Plato's forms. Physical forms are expressions of metaphysics truths. Symbolic language. Cycles of nature - wheel of Time, winding up old film machine -flashing images of my charcoal drawings; blooming Beginning of time - scroll video. Spiral log made out of rope - end of time. Make it red like bloodline. Dark room with 9 monitors / 9 videos in one projection - building blocks or time - fruitfulness. Cross cut logs in centre of room with light inside. Lantern illuminating symbols and text on the ceiling. - cross cut logs on the ceiling? Do: Burnt log - time running out. tally marks - artist's brushstrokes. work at same time of day - repetitive time keeping. work using same process. biology soup - building a bacteria. Harbour In the heart. Writing on the wall of the heart. Heart of the earth (Heart of the Matter). Heart of Horeb. Family tree root system. Film MOVIE PROVIDES BACKGROUND MATERIAL FOR THE THINKING OF THE ARTIST - background thinking (me on greenscreen thinking in the background). narration of poem - scene of water abstract, ice, snow. we see in a mirror dimply - blurred video. blur also indicates motion create clay building blocks and film myself building something. GLOBAL WARMING - earth is corruptible. Why do we not want it to be? image projected onto text on wall. atmosphere bends light around earth's curve. Creation Sustain New creation Breathe Him in (beautiful day Jesus Culture). Types of motion --> time (clock, cross-cut tree log, sunset and sunrise, atomic clock, pendulum, hand-watch, VIDEO, speed (slowing down over time - losing initial momentum; speeding up - up to creschendo). distance (measurement). path: - rotary --> wheels, wagon wheels, planets rotating, solar system, spinning top, gears, clock ticking, tricycle. - oscillatory motion --> pendulum clock, tuning fork, swing, flapping of wings, string instruments, harmonic motion, beating of heart, earthquakes oscillate with oscillatory motion, sewing machine needle, reciprocating pumps, ripples in pond, cross-cut tree log. - linear motion --> firing bullet, walking, running, free fall of objects, elevators. DNA METAMORPHIC ROCK . . . Writing on forehead - tattoo, speaks of identity because of your thought life. Imposed upon one by another - cannot be done by yourself. Knit together in love dU = Q - W (first law of thermodynamics) ds >= 0 (second law of thermodynamics) charcoal log - entropy increases. energy transferred not created. entropy - unravelling, brownian motion. circular marks becoming more and more irregular. unravelling around edged (centrifugal force). ripple effect - from centre at end of video. - no infinite regress. Fractal Spiral with no entry sign / bolted / padlock. ininity + 1 = infinity, infinity + 2 = infinity, infinity + 3 = infinity, therefore 1 + 2 + 3 != infinity. - pulling up by own bootstraps? - ? in centre. alpha in centre, birth symbol. dna building block of life... therefore video scene must have no organic material whatsoever. Wears out like a shoelace? Carbon blackness. A telomere is a region of repetitive DNA sequences at the end of a chromosome. https://theconversation.com/cells-become-zombies-when-the-ends-of-their-chromosomes-are-damaged-a-tactic-both-helpful-and-harmful-for-health-186445 dna movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ4JMXkQzoA&t=13s dna sonification: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQWCAmFGu_c&list=PL1k1ADlKRpMcS8h4CDcIg3wh3GApsuSeC&index=3 dna in one cell is around 2 meters long. All the dna would be twice the diameter of the solar system. https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/how-long-is-your-dna/ Sand down evaporation up. vortex bath Use chalk build bacteria(mitochondria). Microwave background (Black stretch heavens out video - clean slate). Tree growing out of ground made of hands. Drop in the ocean Put words in someones mouth. Root of the matter Eye to eye Nothing new under the sun. At your wit's end. Writing on the wall Cast the first stone. Blackboard - slate. Duster engraved laser. Go on Friday. Rotating stone. Green screen. His eye is on me and the dry bones awaken! Blowing Dust Darkness bowing in the dust to the Light New wine poured into the soil. atom zoom out to galaxies and back in - velar pulsar sound constructing mitochondria Dance of life - cell division. Tree vision shocking like lightning in a ball. Get Green screen and do different action against the green screen to insert myself into artworks. Perfection is the process whereby the infinite God created order from chaos. Experimentation is the process whereby we as finite creatures discovor His process. For Jesus Spear through hurried heart. Eating a scroll made of sand. Land art using a drone. INRI Reflected in water. puzzle of ether. newspaper Rust - what's the substance? Cracks Desert Word fractals. But word out of small words (like word cloud). Word halo. Word explosion. Obscure patterns in nature. drone footage of kelp drone footage of sand drawings mass of walking men over touchpoints video. rock video of chromosome drawing. What wrapped in burrial cloths. Rababababa in deep wind synth. Spectogram. inside the cell. how do i make multiple artworks of things like cells to show design. How is design encapsulated? Art - Philosophy - science - code Videography (linear time) & Charcoal (decomposable material) narrative & exploration, word vs form, incorruptible vs corruptible, digital vs analogue. In design, form follows function --> uncover the function behind the form. A function is a programmatic A function is simply a “chunk” of code that you can use over and over again, rather than writing it out multiple times. It is a programmatic blueprint part for the operation of the program. Ways to use code in art: code --> visual. code + image --> image manipulation. Image of actual code of image. visual --> code. AI (mirror of the programming of the human being) - fractal ontology. Ways to use art in code: insert charcoal drawings into video View art on screen juxtaposed with code of art. Repetition of certain symbols in a specific order constitutes a language. Repetition through experimentation! Process chain Berni Art Crit Poetics of relation - Eduard Glissant Log Pieces One burnt One half burnt, other half whole - transition. One whole All of them framed behind glass - encapsulation and archiving of time like a museum preserves and archives that which was once living history, and is has now been relegated to the past to be viewed as a curiosity. It cannot be touched, but it can be seen. It (time) cannot be altered by human hands - muted reflection of the viewer in the lens through which it is viewed (own finitude). Depending on focus and perspective, there is a dim reflection of the viewer in the lens through which it is viewed. Series of charcoal drawings drawn with that material that reflect aspects of time, using the material which was once dead, but is not used to bring to light. Puzzle of creation (overlayed work like a palimpsest). archive notion of creation - information like a library stored for reading use. word search. God artifacts Wheel of Time cut edges off wood circular. Gravity makes round. Cycles of history. Microwave background artwork. Visualise light with Pedro. Light and sound intersect? SEMIOTICS Archive The act of naming something as an archive confers a certain status on it. knowledge is metaphysically basic. Cutting holes in tent - light comes through (tent is existence). Destruction of archive is empathised with because it is the destruciton of an image - the word. Text on stone - tablets of stone (permanence, difficult to inscribe, care taken) - cave paintings (primordial knowledge before organic life) - symnbolic repeition of meaning already inherent, trace of artist who made the marks. Creates dissociation between the organic and inorganic. Line structure of cathedral in creation - praise place. Roots & Rocks - life and depth height (grow old / root of Jesse), inorganic and strength foundation, durability (God). erosion. JUXTAPOSITION BETWEEN DECAYING, ERODING, WEATHERING, DECOMPOSING SUBSTANCES AND ONES THAT DON'T DECAY - WORDS DON'T DECAY, THEY LINGER ON. SEASONS - Hillsong Information rich systems cannot arise by themselves, they are encoded into reality by the One Who breathed it into existence. Our intellect is a product of intellect and design - as above so below. Vessel with thumbprint of artist's hand - signature. Why not take a photograph of the night sky and impose charcoal drawings on top? Artist's hand is missing from artwork - re-insert it to make a point about the existence and invisible presence of the creator of everything, hallelujah! Entropy - degree of disorder, chaos, or randomness - entropy increases, but something else keeps things going. Book made of charcoal - Marion Wassenaar Repetitive process of making - look at Derrida philosophy. (Read reference notes for burning matters essay - BOOK SHELVES IN NATURE'S ARCHIVE!). Relational Aesthetic Making of artwork through relationships between interactions between objects in gallery space. That which is fragile - porcelain - represents the skill and strenght of the one who made them!!! Beauty in delicacy reflecting strength of the maker. What causes meaning to resurface? Why do cycles rise again after falling, instead of just continuiing to fall? There is a force that upholds all things and sustains their rising and falling. Sound can be an imposition! It is one of the only sense that cannot be shut off - their sound has gone into all the earth. "Pine trees are easily the most commercially significant wood species in the history of forestry." ("Home Stratosphere", 2021). Home Stratsophere. 17 different types of pine wood for floors and furniture. Available: https://www.homestratosphere.com/types-of-pine-wood/#:~:text=Pine%20trees%20are%20easily%20the,over%20120%20different%20pine%20species. [2022, May 18]. porcelain - only naturally translucent material. Porcelain paper clay? paper is burnt off when fired. Use of built environment - what was intention behind the design? Why are we the centre? maps of meaning Climate change - why went wrong. Viewer says I don't believe = freedom of choice - that's what went wrong. tapestry of reality - string theory, unravelling video is record of reality, but is just code. It is an holistic picture of dimenstionality including time. Book exhibition equipment BY 20th JUNE! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScTJu6a6OWXQXybIVlruOt4F2sWZt-uEvwMF3-gjbfqxEXr-g/viewform What starts and ends Why do things grow? What grows? What changes and why? Why do things hold together. What type of tree is important Tree grows toward light Find tree that is phototrophic - wind affects growth of tree toward light. Tree branches that form fractal pattern Built associations to immediately recognise a symbol in nature. HOPE AND DESIRE IS ETERNAL --> points toward eternal source and destination. isochronic tones. Play > 22kHz sound together with another < 22kHz 432 Hz tuned music - sound in exhibition humming from big bang (shepherd tone) - https://science.howstuffworks.com/what-did-big-bang-sound-like.htm https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/04/04/listening-to-the-big-bang-in-high-fidelity-audio/ sound is constantly emitted by objects - affects perception? wave & partical nature of light - wave & particle nature of soul and body. Bio-informatics. Ask declan about visualization of light & sound or energy (or all of them). CYCLES - very rich hours (book of hours) of the duke of bery. International gothic. God is omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal - His attributes are invisible (eternal ability and power to hold all things together) creative and sustaining power - rational power of the Word through the Spirit. Knowledge itself is invisible, so is rationality and morality. They are applied to concrete structures and frameworks, but are themselves drawn out of / define the concrete universe (deconstruction theory paper, including concrete artwork to symbolise this). The operations and processes of the world are manifestations of the Mover's movement of them. He is not being, but the source of all being - the ground of existence. Beauty awakens the soul to act! Bishop barren 5 ways: 1) Justice 2) Beauty 3) Rational 4) Evanglization 5) New Media Waves of light and sound - manifestation of God's presence in creation through actus - potentiality. - blue light has a short wavelength and when it hits the skin, because it doesnt penetrate deeply, it makes veins look blue. Blue is life! Divinity is blue. LIFE SOURCE - red = humanity, clay, blood - flesh and corruptibility. In the Old Testament, oudem is translated “red clay.” https://crossexamined.org/reference-guide-to-the-biblical-symbolism-of-colors/ - white - holiness, light. (contrast between light and dark?) - black - stain, sin, darkness, death. - yellow - sun, gold - precious. That which is precious affects that which is not (purification). - green - life, growth. LIFE - orange - fire. - purple - royalty (blue + red). - bronze - strength. Turtle-Dove A man may very well say that the sun doesn't exist when he has been locked up in solitary confinement for many years. He may ask himself, "Where has the sun gone, and why does it not shine on me anymore? It it gone forever, and have I ever even seen it before?" This, however, is because his mind is dull and slow to remember that the deed which he did that he was put there for was done under the sun, and it was under the sun that he cursed the Name of God our Father, to Whom be all praise and glory and honour and power, now and forever always, amen. Owl on mountain - vision looking down Ear is clearer -, freedom, closer to heavens - solid foundation. Like a fortress or barricade. Difficult to get up but easy to come down. Mountain is itself inorganic but life comes from it. The mind is higher than the senses but is defined by them. It is better than the body but is nourished by it. Improperly orientated worship is on the "high places" - Babel like hubris. Intertwining of tree trunks - two become one, growing together and growing in years - no longer two but one, rooted and grounded in the same soil, to the praise and glory of the same God, who both drink of the same Spiritual Word and both soak up the same glorious sun. Love unites both in meaning and cause, knowledge and understanding, glory and might. They both bear fruit and are seen as one fruitful tree which bears it's fruits in summer and suffers together with itself in winter. breathe in the firmament that God has made, for your breath will one day enter back into it. Fruit comes from tree which heals the nations and sustains them. Fruit are thoughts and they sit in the heavens. They are plucked / fall done to earth ; blessings. The fruit contain the seed of the tree and fall to the ground to plant the next tree. Birds carry them away. Rooted so that it can grow high into the heavens - like hands lifted in praise, and like lungs that breathe the air of the heavens. They take in and produce. They give as they have received. They spread out into the heavens from one point - spiritual growth --> to receive more of God's grace (sun). Rain descends from above and waters the earth as a sign that the heavens provide what the earth needs for sustainable. The Sun and the water descend to give increase to the earth. From the midst of the clouds issues the voice of God through the heavens as light and thunder. Birds fly through the expanse of the firmament to deposit seeds hither and thither, flying in communities spierheaded toward their destination. Every animal breathes in breathe, the atmosphere - His Spirit gives them life. Into clay is breathed His Spirit of life. Into corruptibility is breathed incorruptiblity - the rational soul enlightened by the words it hears echoing through the firmament, and by the words it reads illuminated by the light of the sun. Each rotation of the earth brings glory to God, for as the earth rotates life and death are brought about: 1. Life and death in the seasons. 2. Life and death by years as measured by the earth's rotations. 3. Earth's rotations as a timepiece signifier to the birth and death of the heavens and the earth. The night and day are a type of life and death but when morning breaks the next day, life has begun again. When a seed falls to the ground and is planted, it signifies death and is buried, after which it springs up to new life. After the winter is the spring. Creation is cyclical. Both animals and humans alikke are born and die, and trees are planted and spring up to life. Fresh water runs into the oceans and is lost amidst the salty tumult of the waves, but is then risen out of the great expanse into the heavens again to water the earth. The arc of the heavens is furnished during rainful with the rainbow. It connects east tol South and North to west, arching upward into the heavens and down to earth again - a great door through which, if one enters, one will find great life and joy (the promise). The brightest light, which is white, is broken down into Seven colours of rest and completion, spanning from red to purple. They all glorify the source of light as they sing in brilliant harmony the praises of their Creator. The circle of the earth is hung upon nothing and speaks of completion, for there is neither beginning nor end to it's sphere. In this way it symbolises its creator - the one who is eternal - without beginning or end. The eye of man also follows this pattern. The eyes are the windows to the soul - the entry and exit points of the immortal part of man. From without comes knowledge and insight, and from within come tears - tears either of joy, or of sorrow, love or of hate. You cannot drink in the grace of the Lord more than you pour it out, for the soul in love with Him overflows with this Loving Kindness - tears of joy pour forth in extatic praise! Hallelujah to our most high God! Now the man has a heart just as the earth has a heart. The earth's heart, which is a result of its size, holds together the whole body through gravity. The human heart holds together the human body as it nourishes it, and the human spirit is held together by the love of God. That which makes manifest is light Growing. Into it. Human lifespan - tree rings (time). Link it to original meaning - oxygen. (Tree is invaluable to respiration - Covid). Centre is off centre. Meaning imbued by artist and meaning imbued by viewer. Cornelia Parker, XN (ALEPH HEH) Pine. Harsher living conditions -> longer life (bristlecone pine). Oldest living thing on earth. - taps into watertable - paint brushes made of wood, pencil, and most musical instruments made from wood. - home to creatures. -higest flora out of all living things. (reaching into the firmament). - Cathedral of all plants - wooden dome. -tabernacle of wood, arc of wood. -DOORS - Tree of life / tree of knowledge of good and evil. - Looking back in time(To the beginning) - Time has ended - Life, but memorial of death - Seasonal inscriptions / history - Times of want and plenty (Rain and draught) - Heart (Core wood) - centre Cross - Material for paper (scriptures are written on it). - The One who made furniture died on that wood. - Growth and regeneration. - revealed that which was hidden - seeing the heart (naked). -radial (earth, solar system). SUCCESSIVE growth. -growing toward the light. -strength and height increase with more successive layers. - a tree breathes, filters pollution, and provides shelter. Takes in toxic death and outputs life giving oxygen. - last supper table. - Nourishment, healing, fruit. - as much about height as it is depth (reaching up and reaching down) / rootedness. -As above so below. Mirroring that which is above. Sustain - Increase color of sand - Slow down sand - Set the hand scene before anything moves. - Hand on heart before growing twigs is too long. Pictograms Pull out more roots. Create timeline. Build up charcoal background. Higgs Field - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2016.0388#:~:text=As%20shown%20by%20this%20equation,of%20the%20standard%20electroweak%20theory. "In parallel, a narrative structure organizes semantic information into coherent sequences by assigning images to categorical roles, which are then embedded within a hierarchic constituent structure. Narrative constructional schemas allow for specific predictions of structural sequencing, independent of semantics. Together, these interacting levels of representation engage in an iterative process of retrieval of semantic and narrative information, prediction of upcoming information based on those assessments, and subsequent updating based on discontinuity. These core mechanisms are argued to be domain-general-spanning across expressive systems-as suggested by similar electrophysiological brain responses (N400, P600, anterior negativities) generated in response to manipulation of sequential images, music, and language." (Cohn, N. 2019). Sustain Meaning in Aesthetic / Symbolism Fig Charcoal - the fig tree represents life (long time to grow) but also covering. The leaves represent covering like the priest;y Ephode covering. Charcoal is made from burning away the covering -what appears to be destruction is actually uncovering. The charcoal is decomposed in order to create life -> death to life. From ash I am to ash I will return. Heart - this symbolises the centre. When the centre is burried, it becomes brings forth life, like a seed planted in the ground. It is the source and power of life. Heart as a rock is a contradiction therefore. A rock cannot decompose cannot die, but therefore cannot also spring to life. My hand - represents my strength, yet it is from God. As my hand touches my heart in the likeness of His hand sustaining my life, my hand in effect points back to Him as my source and centre. He is the source and centre of my source and centre. If I am made in the image of God, and I make an image that points back to God, I am in effect shinging the light of my contingency on a mirror of my own existence - the light is Him. X-Ray = illumination of inner parts where meaning lies => It is the fulcrum of narrative and reality. This is meaning - where the narrative world meets the material universe. Sun - show effects of sun but not the sun - describe its presence by its effects, even though you dont see it. It is the source of life, a fire. It burns and heats to illuminate that which is cold and hidden. Fruit - Embedded in the fruit of success are the seeds of decline. When a fruit rots, it also spreads its seed. Encoded Image - programmatically invert every image to mirror the flipped perspective or perpendicular nature of the interaction between the narrative world and the real world. Code is the inculcation of meaning - the synthesis of complex information into simplified information. Liminal space between earth and sky is divisibly small but of the utmost importance. Plants follow the pattern of death, burrial and resurrection. Meaning in aesthetic. Video by next week Monday - don't be too precious... play on it. grow from completely black to white and then red. sound possibilities of sustain - lingering sonic effect - echo-location. drawings & x-rays. Of X-rays? X marks the spot --- treasure? (Heart = centre). Meaning in Aesthetic Charcoal Dust I am and to dust I will return. Burnt from fire, heat and a limited supply of oxygen. Reconstituted but not consumed. Formed in the fire but not consumed in the fire. Isaiah 61:3: "to provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a mantle of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” That which was living but has died is not used to create/bring life to the understanding. Compressed charcoal - placed under pressure. Disintegration - it falls apart. Process of undoing and divergence is where ideas are formed, but when this gestural divergence handles meaning, a sort of reunification occurs - an integration back into the pattern of reality. Paper Projection on wall without computer screen is borderless. Paper is made from the wood of a tree. When charcoal meets paper, they are different forms of the same essence. One is reconstitued and the other is denatured. Reunification produces understanding as the marks on the paper imply meaning. Aquarelle As a medium, it is activated by water. This could be wine or dilluted wine. Where there is no water, there is desert, but when water gushes into a land, it produces plants and trees and all types of vegetation. The water also symbolises Wine Wine is made from the crushing of grapes. Affliction and suffering produce life. In this world, pain and affliction always precede life. The new life of a child only appears after the mother travails in pain for a time. A seed does not grow, which indicates life, unless it is first buried, which signifies death. Rain comes down from above before the soil drinks it in to produce life for the trees of the field. A diamond is created when coal is compressed under extremely high pressure and temperature. A natural pearl (often called an Oriental pearl) forms when an irritant works its way into a particular species of oyster, mussel, or clam. As a defense mechanism, the mollusk secretes a fluid to coat the irritant. Layer upon layer of this coating is deposited on the irritant until a lustrous pearl is formed. Bread Before the 1770's, bread was used as the principal medium for erasure. The bread symbolises sustainance and nourishment. It is grown and harvested, and the chaff is separated from the wheat. It is then ground into poweder and mixed with water and yeast, put into an oven and baked with heat. The erasure of a mark with bread symbolizes a process of covering and uncovering, removal and addition. Visual information is removed by the marks of an erasor, but this is also a process of uncovering. Inasmuch as erasure could be seen as removal, it can be seen as addition, because the very act of erasing involves the addition of marks that add visual information. We don't see the body absorbing nutrition from the food we eat, but we know the process occurs because we see the results and notice the pattern. The erasing of marks with bread signifies this act of knowing - this silent process of change. Wheat is broken down into flour but rises again in the oven. It is again broken down by the body, but rises up in another way inside us as we grow from its effects. Mirror Prism effect. Art on mirror - That which we see is the reflection of ourselves obscured by the marks of another. Viewer identifies with heart on glass because they have one. But we also see ourselves in a new light - framed by the information we view ourselves through. In ancient times a mirror was polished bronze or copper - part obscuring; we see in part. The negative spaces allow glimpses of oneself in the context of the artwork - you are only seeing within the spaces. Although what you are seeing is a reflection of the viewer and what lies behind them, the visual illusion is that of viewing what is beyond, In a sense, the mirror is reflective, but the artwork causes one to reflect and see onself in the future (doorway). Fragments of the reflection are viewed contextualized by the artwork - you become part of the artwork (God's artwork). You only see yourself in fragments, within the negative spaces of the artwork. You see in a mirror dimly. I have a silk screen at home - i might experiment with that for printing onto a mirror. See glass from multiple different angles involves two perspectives. Mount full size mirror in a door frame - accessing an artwork as a real door with real interactivity - a point of access and familiar home. It comes accross as though the door is open and inviting, and because of its familiarity, you would interact with it as you would a door. Instead, however, of entering through the door, the meaning on the glass enters into your mind. Computer Screen In the computer screen is an illusion of reality, which is really code. Reality is reflected to you as visual information, but it is code. A play on the very nature on what seems to be real. There is another world behind the screen working to reflect reality. That reality is a reflection of the reality the viewer exists in. Both are equally real, but in different ways. In the same as the physical world is only a reflection of a deeper spiritual reality. My ability to comprehend this information is due to the fact that i am an encoded being - encoded biologically (DNA), encoded rationally with systems of thought, and encoded with meaning. The act of creation - the point at which an artwork takes materials with tactile qualites and produces an artwork, the brush and the paint become an extension of the artist. However, as seemingly disconnected as digital media may be, the work is imbued with a different spirit. The challenge of digital work can be that sometimes it can appear sterile. Much of the digital work I want to do is an integration of traditional media with digital. It begins in one state and is transformed, processed and synthesises and played back. The process of painting involves layering - pushing and pulling, struggling, failing and reconstituting. It is exploratory. The process of video is layered, as is sound. I want to employ in video similar processes found in painting. A painting and a screen both have an illusion of depth, but are both constrained by a picture plane - 3-dimensional forms with illusions of depth. A painting is physically created with layering of paint, but a video is created with the layering of images on a timeline - the fourth dimension is involved in a video.... Create own font +> symbol to use with or in the place of code. Sound The visualization of sound is the uncovering of meaning hidden from view. It is a translation of information from one form to another. The perspective is different, but the meaning is the same. Fundamentally, sound is the compression and rarefaction of air. These patterns of meaning are picked up by the human brain through the ears. Symbolically, sound in speech is the distillation of information into meaning. A human voice contains intelligible words and breath. Words have a physical impact when they are spoken. How does this translate to when they are written?There is no breath or power behind them when they are visually presented - only when they are spoken. echo chamber echolocation - sound creating imagery. Imagery creating sound?? shepherd tone tritone paradox SEING SOMETHING IS MORE MANIFEST THAN HEARING, even though that which is spoken is of the same reality as that which is seen. Just as an image on a computer screen consists of code, the physical reality itself consits of code - all reality conforms mathematical laws - a system of code itself. Fig Tree Covering with that which is decomposable. MY OWN VISUALIZATION OF SOUND? Language text is a visualization of sound already!!! Art Concepts Baby mobile suspended on sound wave (Word). He holds all things together by the Word of His power. Sustain - entering into death is the way through into eternal life. Trees in lungs and lungs in tree Trees in mind and mind in trees (life). Trees as neurons connecting with electric synapse. Coding art using CSS. Anselm's ontological argument. Cloud veil over mountains. cloud veil over sun chimney coming from heavens - our God inhabits forever the highest heavens. Veil of shroud of Turin - marriage. Only through death can the veil be torn, through blood. Birth, marriage, death. Wrapped in cloth - baby (swaddling clothes), bride (righteousness), and death with the burial cloth. Wind is created when the light of the sun heats up the firmament and it ascends toward the heavens. The breath brings the rainfall or lack thereof, and physical structures on the earth shape the way in which air moves. Air represents breath and understanding, intellect and spirit. It symbolises communication, word, voice. It is that which is closer to the sun than the earth,- it is invisible, but moves the leaves of the trees and the cloud to in friction to produce lightening. Lightening produces thunder when air is heated and expands. Rain droplets fall to music - sound (the Word of God). The artists job is to translate, he is never far away from the role of a communicator - for by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, and they declare His glory. His glory is manifest in His Word. Take biblical imagery and translate it into a textual referential image that portrays the glory of God and communicates it past Babel, through to the eyes of the hearer and the heart of the watcher. AI in its infancy - AI rock paintings. Construction of ideas with scaffolding Heart of the mind and mind of the heart - mind the heart. Artivive fading due to age "That which makes manifest is light". "Arise" "Awake Sleeper" "Stirring" "Spring Down" "Tilled" "Break Open" "Reaping" "Harvest" "Dug" "Scattered" "Slept" "Together we will Grow" "Live in Me" "Live through Me" "Nebulous" "Come and see" "Come up here" "Welcome home" "Impartation" "Gift" "Living Seed" "Alive and Well" "Ladders of Success Descend to Hell" Soul is like wind - praises grow upward into the expanse of the heavens. POETIC LITERATURE NB FOR FINAL EXHIBITION Personalization is important. Projection on glass - digital in conversation with material. Make original artwork, photograph it - keep digital and destroy original and show original on computer and print out digital -- archiving of art but destroying it in reality -> reality gets flipped. Art itself is valueless. It's only given value by the artist and the meaning he inserts into the artwork. Ordering chaos through imposition of meaning onto chaotic material experimentation. Meaningful string of DNA characters that would produce a meaningful protein. By the early 2000’s there [were] number of experimental measures of their rarity of the functional genes and proteins versus all the gibberish sequences…for a short protein 150 amino acids long the ratio is one protein that will fold into a functional structure compared to 1077 gibberish sequences. According to the American computer scientist David Gelernter, “The theory [of evolution] understands that mutations are rare, and successful ones even scarcer. To balance that out, there are many organisms and a staggering immensity of time. Your chances of winning might be infinitesimal”. He goes on to say that the “from whatever angle you come at it, the answer is no, there has not been enough time” (HI, 2019). References Hoover Institute. 2019. Mathematical challenges to Darwin’s theory of evolution [Video file]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noj4phMT9OE&t=17s [2022, May 12]. Wanner, G. & Formanek, H. 1995. Imaging of DNA in human and plant chromosomes by high-resolution scanning electron microscopy. Chromosome Research. 3:368-374. Pease, R. 2012. DNA imaged with electron microscope for the first time. Available: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22545-dna-imaged-with-electron-microscope-for-the-first-time/ [2022, May 12].