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Online...
Space Odyssey
Art Tower Mito's "Space Odyssey" exibition focuses on the mystery and beauty
of outer space, particularly the ties that link human beings and space. It consists
of paintings, photographs, installations and videos.
Featured Artists and Works: Michael Light (US), Charles & Ray Eames (US),
Thomas Shannon (US), John McCracken(US), David Malin (Australia), Wenyon & Gamble
(US & Britain), Thomas Ruff (Germany), Hiroyuki Moriwaki(Japan), Jiro Hirano
(Japan), Akira Kanayama(Japan)
Photographs by the Hubble Space Telescope and by the Subaru Telescope, etc.
SPACE ODYSSEY
Art Tower
Mito, Japan,
Feb. 10 to May 6, 2001
Participation by
Wenyon & Gamble supported with a grant from
The British Council |
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page © 2006 Wenyon & Gamble and authors |
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Airy's
Discs (r), Wenyon & Gamble, 1988, in Space Odyssey, Art Tower Mito,
2001
hologram,
300 x 1200 mm, on easel, with photo-projection background
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Holograms can deceive, straining
the ordinary distinction between object and image, real and recorded.
Defining what one sees in a hologram has intrigued us since we first began using
this medium nearly twenty years ago. The tensions between what is an illusion and
what can be seen as real can even exist within the hologram itself.
Such ideas were in our minds in 1987 when we took up the post as artists in residence
with the Royal Greenwich Observatory. The Observatory was founded in 1675, making
it the oldest scientific institution in Britain.
For most of its history, astronomy has depended on interpreting optical images, as
seen through telescopes. In the optical realm the physical basis of holography --
light -- overlaps with that of astronomy. We decided to make the science of light
the subject of our investigations. Rather than comment directly on the aesthetics
of nature as revealed by science -- the beauty of the cosmos -- we set out to explore
the conceptual processes of science and their visual manifestations. |
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The Fringes
of the Shadows of the Knives,
drawing in Opticks, Isaac Newton, 1730
(Royal Greenwich Observatory) |
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| The scientific study of optical
instruments began in the 17th century, motivated largely by the desire to improve
the telescope. Sir Isaac Newton's 'Opticks' was published in 1704, and the Observatory's
archives contained a first-edition copy presented by the author. Like an artist making
studies, much of it is speculative experimentation, often inconclusive. He describes,
for example, how he focused a beam of sunlight through holes, lenses or prisms, throwing
patterns and colours on a paper screen. |
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The Fringes
of the Shadows of the Knives,
Wenyon & Gamble, 1987
300 x 1200 mm hologram on easel
with black and white rear-projected slide |
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We decided to use Newton's technical
observations as a starting point for an aesthetic investigation in holography. The
phenomena of light interference and diffraction, which were behind many of Newton's
experiments, are the basic properties which enable the hologram to work.
Sir George Airy (1801--1892) gave his name to an optical form called Airy's Discs,
a disc with rings around it, that appears as the optical image of a star in a telescope.
It is an effect of diffraction.
Using these forms in holograms, we aim to invest these images with a peculiar power
of allusion. |
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The Stars, Edinburgh, circa 1970,
Wenyon & Gamble, 1994 (detail)
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Viewing this hologram is like
looking at negatives on a light box. The circular glass discs are astronomical negatives,
several millimeters thick, photographs of the stars taken through a telescope.
The image is an illusion: the hologram recorded the astronomical photographs taped
to the plate, yet the tape and circular plates -- appearing in detail as three dimensional
-- are a reality, a few millimeters deep, that is no longer there.
In these 'illusory' negatives, the stars take on the form of black dots, like bacteria.
In some they appear like flies, where the stars have been photographed through a
prism.
We selected these photographs from an archive at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh
in 1994, where we worked for a year as artists in residence. |
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The
Colour of the Stars, Edinburgh, circa 1940, Wenyon & Gamble, 1994 (detail)
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These tiny glass photographic
plates record the spectrum, or colours, of the light from stars. This data gives
the temperature of the stars and contains the colours emitted by different atoms
inside of them.
Wenyon & Gamble
March 2001 |
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Essay originally
published in Space Odyssey , the catalog of the exhibition at the Art Tower
Mito, Japan, Feb 10 - May 6, 2001
© 2001 Wenyon & Gamble and the Art Tower Mito,
ISBN4-943825-48-6
To purchase the catalog, please contact:
The
Art Tower Mito,
Mito, Japan, tel.: 029-227-8120 |
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