Method of abstracting binary
Still unhappy with the method of abstracting the binary code, I am using Maya I can recreate the turbulence within the original painting by Turner, and emit particles in the same direction and motion as the paint strokes. Each particle is either a 1 or a 0, with the amount of each dictated by the binary input from the photograph of the same scene I took in Margate. The amount of particles emitted is controlled, so the scene is made up of the same number of binary numbers. The effect produced is abstract in itself, however two levels of turbulent displacement create a more storm like effect. The final animation is abstract, however with occasional viewable binary gives the viewer a reference point. Due to the speed of movement however, it is impossible to follow, moving the image into the unfathomable. I feel this output is the most complete so far. It utilises digital technology, recreates the power of the natural sublime in a way which is not just imitation, and has a working methodology which relates directly to the goal of evoking a sublime state. The following images show the methodology in four steps. The first demonstrates the motion of the original painting. The second is the emission of particles, assigned with the binary from the photograph, from the key areas. The next image is the final render, with added turbulence, distorting slightly more. The final image is the final output overlaid so it can be contrasted with the original painting.
Binary Input
Rather than using Turner’s painting as the input, I have travelled to Margate and photographed the same settings as the paintings. I have then translated the photographs into binary by recreating them in Maya (3D software) and saving the data out as binary code, the most basic form of computer language. This binary data has become my input, as it the invisible, unreadable, endlessly complex script which dictates anything which happens within a digital universe.
Rejecting Painting Input
Using paintings as the original input that is subject to abstraction is not providing satisfactory. Direct comparison is invited, and the exploration of the digital world is not taking place, as it is using someone else’s work which already exists and obtains its own merit. In order to explore such inputs in a more in depth fashion, a new approach is needed.
Hands Off Approach
I have been randomising the process of abstraction by sacrificing control in order to create something unexpected. This is proving unsuccessful at present however, as the inputs need moderating or they simply don’t work. I had presumed that if I was in control of the elements of the piece, then they would be controlled and therefore lack sublime quality, however I now see that as false. It is the output which must be sublime rather than the process itself. The inputs are the equivalent of paint strokes; many are needed to create the work, however the final painting is what provides the overall impression. This does mean I need to reassess my method of abstraction.
Interaction
While the psychedelic movement was dedicate to enhancing a sublime experience, I am wary of comparison, as it means the work is showing that which already familiar. Ultimately it will be inevitable, as psychedelic is now a descriptive word to describe that which is abstract and mystifying. If it had come before the abstract art movements no doubt they would be called psychedelic as well, as they are mind manifesting, much like the period was. To avoid similarities, it is necessary not to replicate all hallmarks of the era, otherwise I will be creating a pastiche rather than a more original piece of work. However, if a viewer is reminded of psychedelia and the abstract sublime more than a depiction of the natural sublime, it is not a negative, as both are equally as valid.
Evoking Psychedelia
While the psychedelic movement was dedicate to enhancing a sublime experience, I am wary of comparison, as it means the work is showing that which already familiar. Ultimately it will be inevitable, as psychedelic is now a descriptive word to describe that which is abstract and mystifying. If it had come before the abstract art movements no doubt they would be called psychedelic as well, as they are mind manifesting, much like the period was. To avoid similarities, it is necessary not to replicate all hallmarks of the era, otherwise I will be creating a pastiche rather than a more original piece of work. However, if a viewer is reminded of psychedelia and the abstract sublime more than a depiction of the natural sublime, it is not a negative, as both are equally as valid.
Scale
While the romantics believed that the wonder of the sublime could be in any form of nature, from the ocean to a blade of grass, scale has remained an important when considering the sublime. Burke described the causal structure of sublime objects as vastness, infinity and magnificence, and Schopenhauer’s (much mentioned in this document) example of the universe as the most sublime of objects, suggests that larger forms evoke the sublime more easily. The abstract expressionists painted large canvasses to envelop the viewer in the same way. Diane Thater’s work uses architecture as it already surrounds the viewer, and so by manipulating the surfaces, they become part of the artwork. The need for a sizeable installation becomes evident, as to involve, envelop and impress the viewer, they much be part of the installation. If I project a 16:9 rectangle on the wall, it will appear no different from a large television screen.
To fill a wall with a projection is to make it dominate the room through its impressiveness, leaving a great impression through its expanse. With this scale in mind, it is also possible to manipulate the piece to give it a false sense of proportion, so the top of the piece, at well over head height, can be scaled to look down over the viewer, or appear smaller, and even higher than the placement of the element itself.
I observed this technique being executed perfectly in a series of paintings by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, in the Royal Museum of Fine Art, in Brussels. The museum has a large gallery dedicated to his work, painted crimson, standing at twice the height of the rest of the rooms. Immediately on entering, it is evident how huge the paintings are, with each wall hosting two smaller paintings (still huge at around five metres tall) standing either side of an enormous piece which reaches to the ceiling. To take the piece in, you must stand so far back you are underneath the other huge painting on the opposite wall. When observing from a reasonable distance however, you notice the content of the paintings themselves, working from ground level up for instance the side of a mountain or ravine, with the figures corresponding to the height of the their placement, looking down, over you, as opposed to one fixed view point, where everything responds to the eye line of the viewer. Combined with the size of the piece, the effect is immensely powerful. The technique can be used to assign power to an individual as well as a landscape. Sir Anthony Van Dyck was the court painter for King Charles, a short, weak man, who did not have the statuesque presence of Henry VIII and other past rulers. To counter this, he was placed on a horse, elevating his position and giving him a sense of empowerment. Van Dyck knew that this particular painting would be hung in Saint James Palace, high up at the end of the gallery, and so exaggerated the format, painting as if he was looking up at Charles from directly below, rather than on level terms with him.
To fill a wall with a projection is to make it dominate the room through its impressiveness, leaving a great impression through its expanse. With this scale in mind, it is also possible to manipulate the piece to give it a false sense of proportion, so the top of the piece, at well over head height, can be scaled to look down over the viewer, or appear smaller, and even higher than the placement of the element itself.
I observed this technique being executed perfectly in a series of paintings by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, in the Royal Museum of Fine Art, in Brussels. The museum has a large gallery dedicated to his work, painted crimson, standing at twice the height of the rest of the rooms. Immediately on entering, it is evident how huge the paintings are, with each wall hosting two smaller paintings (still huge at around five metres tall) standing either side of an enormous piece which reaches to the ceiling. To take the piece in, you must stand so far back you are underneath the other huge painting on the opposite wall. When observing from a reasonable distance however, you notice the content of the paintings themselves, working from ground level up for instance the side of a mountain or ravine, with the figures corresponding to the height of the their placement, looking down, over you, as opposed to one fixed view point, where everything responds to the eye line of the viewer. Combined with the size of the piece, the effect is immensely powerful. The technique can be used to assign power to an individual as well as a landscape. Sir Anthony Van Dyck was the court painter for King Charles, a short, weak man, who did not have the statuesque presence of Henry VIII and other past rulers. To counter this, he was placed on a horse, elevating his position and giving him a sense of empowerment. Van Dyck knew that this particular painting would be hung in Saint James Palace, high up at the end of the gallery, and so exaggerated the format, painting as if he was looking up at Charles from directly below, rather than on level terms with him.
Digital Animation
One of the advantages of using digital technology is the limitless possibility and creation of form. As mathematical algarhythms and manipulation of the digital canvas can stretch well beyond human capabilities, the ability to process endless streams of data with great ease can create pattern and shapes that would not be possible in physical format animation. Multiple points of animation can manipulate the entire canvas, rather than a single area, fulfilling the criteria which Barnett Newman believed made a painting large in terms of content. Complexity from such points can be subtle in size, however when projected appear much larger, so pockets of movement can be noted all over an installation. The process of abstracting an image requires a starting input and methodology, which is currently lacking from the animations I’m producing.
Input as paintings
The input device has been changed to two paintings, Rothko’s Seagram Mural and Turner’s snowstorm, two classic examples of the sublime in painting, from different movements. I’ve separated the images down to three colours, and recorded the RGB numerical values of each. These numbers chosen randomly form the input numbers for the filters which lead to abstraction. I was curious to see if when distorted, any essence of the original is retained. The finite detailing is interesting, as when projected on a large scale, the whole image moves.
Animation test
This animation does not repeat throughout, instead evolving with advanced complexity as it continues to evolve. The numbers for the inputs are chosen at random in order to remove a level of control from the piece, so I’m unaware of how the piece has been created. The starting point is still blocks of colour, and needs work.
Land Art
Land Art in its most basic sense is the manipulation of natural landscapes for artistic effect, using both natural materials (rocks, water, earth) and/or man made elements (concrete, metals), in such a way that the man made element is part of the landscape itself, rather than an introduced medium using the landscape as its host.
The movement rose to prominence in the mid sixties, and reflects the mixed idealism at the time, with the artists practicing in such a manner not aligned under any particular philosophical banner, often holding conflicting principles. The sixties were a particularly turbulent period of the twentieth century; mass protests were taking place many western countries, particularly of note are France, America and Britain, with an ideological shift away from capitalism, imperialism, and the conservatism of the first half of the century. The prospect of nuclear war was a very real possibility, and countries were still involved in major, unpopular wars, Vietnam being the most notorious example. With ideology causing conflict, even if it was a campaign for unity, and so the mixture of a utopian vision, coupled with destruction and terror caused a paradox which would ultimately reflect within the movement itself.
While it could be assumed that land art is concerned with environmental sustainability due to the medium, this was not always the goal of all the artists; the act of manipulating the landscape itself is editing natural elements, even if it is with sustainable materials, creating a moral conflict between awareness raising artistic statements and whether or not this process would undermine the declarations being made due to the destruction within the action.
This issue could be countered by the usage of land reclaimed from industrial businesses, or temporary words designed to erode over time, with nature reclaiming the work. Other artists implemented a ‘leave no trace’ philosophy, creating temporary installation before removing them entirely, repairing any marks left to the landscape.
These were not the only conflicting issues, with American and European land artists clashing over their economic attitudes towards their practice, Richard Long accusing the Americans of creating ‘true capitalist art’ (Andrews, 1999, p215) due to their buying of land and machinery, as well as reliance on money to be an artist at all, in comparison to what he described as his own ‘thoughtful view of nature…using ideas, walking, stones, tracks, water, time etc in a flexible way’ (Andrews, 1999, p215). In contrast to this admiration, the American artist Heizer declared the atomic bomb to be ‘the ultimate sculpture’, proudly asserting that his sculpture Complex One could survive an atomic explosion (Gabriel, 1982, p48).
While artists may not have been ideologically aligned, there were certain thematic qualities which were shared between them, which while not as decisive as a manifesto or declaration of intent and alignment, still unites them under the umbrella term land art.
The most immediate of these is the direct interaction between both the artist and viewer, and landscape, conducted in person. While records and photographs were recorded, this was not the art itself, in the way a painting can be a representation of a landscape through its medium. The lack of a studio or gallery in which the work is constructed is also important, as it meant the work was outside of the art world’s most foremost circles, although the artists were often sponsored by patrons. It also led to discussions about the reassessment of presentation of artwork, as well as ownership of work.
Land Art relating to the sublime
To investigate land art in relation to the sublime, work would ideally be assessed on an individual basis, as to understand the artists’ intent as well as the nature of the work in terms of material matters, location, etc. This process remove any generalizations, however with such a varied group of artists who are not grouped together, there would always be exceptions to any statements.
It is possible however, to contrast the ideas that define the sublime to the ideas that form land art, even if the artists’ intent is not to have evoked feeling of the sublime as part of the work itself.
This paper would hold that regardless of the form or goals of any piece of Land Art, it can never evoke the feelings of the sublime, as defined by any theorist.
The sublime moment must always have the duality of provoking beauty and terror. The twin formats that this state can be achieved through are certain cases of nature and abstraction, as both move human understanding beyond comprehension, evoking feelings of awe due to an altered comprehension of reality, triggered by the perceived form.
Land art, while using nature, often in an abstract way, should in theory be a perfect example of art work evoking the sublime. However, the manipulation of land by an artist means that the alteration of nature has taken place, regardless of the form of the artwork.
The overwhelming power of nature is therefore compromised, as a human can control and change the course of nature, undermining its power, even if the work can be reclaimed over time. This is important, as it removed terror from the emotions of the viewer; there is a clear element of control.
The scale of work can evoke feelings of beauty and awe; however there is always the interference of man within the scheme of the work, even if it is to draw attention to a natural, sometimes fearsome element.
To illustrate this point, I will use three examples which could be argued as sublime, explaining why each of them falls short of this category.
Case Studies
The lightning field (above) by Walter De Maria is an installation in Quemado, New Mexico, constructed in 1977. The piece consists of 400 steel poles, laid out in a 1 kilometer grid, each pole standing 67 meters apart, with a height staggered between 458 and 815 centremetres, depending on the land elevation, so the tips are all of an equal height. The visibility of the piece varies depending on what time of day it is viewed at; dawn and dusk casting the most dramatic light and shadows, whereas at mid day the piece practically disappears as the sun is directly overhead, however the landscape is still dominating due to the spacing and form of the installation.
The piece is designed to attract lightning, with the poles acting as attractors, and the sight chosen due to its regular lightning storms.
In practice, there is a lack of actual strikes; storms only pass overhead on average for three days a month, with strikes rare within this timeframe.
However, examining the work on its intent, the theoretical experience of a large area experience multiple lightening strikes within a small area of land sounds like it could provoke a sublime experience; lightning proving beautiful yet fearsome, particularly in the isolated location that work is situated in.
This situation could ultimately provide the opposite experience; with lightning raining down overhead, the feelings evoked by its beauty would be dominated by feelings of terror; a deadly force provoked by man would cause alarm and panic in anybody within viewing distance of the work. It would also be the lightning providing the sublime experience, as a bi-product of the installation, making the experience of nature sublime, rather than the work itself. If the lightning is not present, then neither is the potential for a sublime moment.
Wrapped Coast (above) by Christo & Jeanne-Claude (1968) was an installation which, as the name suggests, involved the wrapping of 2.4 kilometres of coast line, with height varying from sea level to 26 metres on some cliff faces, using 90,000 square metres of erosion control fabric, secured with 56.3 miles of polypropylene rope. This huge operation involved a large team of experienced rock climbers and art & architecture students. The operation was funded entirely by the artists, and lasted for ten weeks, before the material was all removed and recycled, leaving the site in its original state.
Christo & Jean-Claudes’ reasoning behind this and all of his pieces of work is that of pure aesthetic enjoyment, saying that “we will build because we believe it will be beautiful.” (Pagliasotti, 2002).
This is the reason the work does not fall within the boundaries of the sublime, although, like the lightning fields, this piece should be utterly within its realms; cliffs, the classically used personification of the state, are beautiful yet fearsome in their structural form. They remain beautiful when wrapped, with their form and shape insinuated by the fabric. Because of their scale, they remain fearsome and therefore sublime, however this is due to their original form, characterized by nature. The act of wrapping highlights beauty, rather than fear, and due to the power asserted over nature by wrapping, undermines the posed threat, meaning that the objects fall into the artist’s aim of making something beautiful.
My final example is New York City Waterfalls (above), by Olafur Eliasson, 2008. Four man made waterfalls, varying from 90 to 120 feet tall, were installed at various sites around New York City, running for four months. Made from common building materials which were later reused in line with the aims for minimal ecological impact, water from the East river was collected in filtered intake pools under the water surface, to avoid the possibility of marine life being introduced into the system, where it was then pumped up to the top of large scaffolding, before dropping across a large trough and finally into the water, creating the effect of a waterfall. In his artists statement, Eliasson acknowledges the waterfall as a sublime object observing that they ‘convey a feeling of powerlessness, or insignificance’, however his aim for the artwork is not to evoke the feeling of the sublime; he continues by saying that he believes the waterfalls can ‘strengthen our relationship to the landscape, while enhancing our feeling of being sensing subjects (NYC Waterfalls, 2010).’ As a naturally occurring phenomena, a waterfall can evoke beauty with horror, however in a mediated environment, the element of danger disappears; water pouring from scaffolding, while impressive in height and power, can never duplicate the surge of a river cascading ferociously over a rock face, carving into stone with its sheer force. Also its positioning in a busy city reduces its dramatic impact amongst manmade objects and buildings, reducing a man made waterfall to another feat of engineering.
Conclusion
I have chosen the selected examples because they are pieces of work that use natural phenomena that when occurring in nature, are capable of leaving a sublime state within the viewer. The Land artists have created beautiful, thought provoking, awareness raising pieces of art, however none could be categorized as being truly sublime, as the moment man mediates nature successfully, he undermines it, removing the fear, as it is the unconquerable element, or the efficient cause, as Aristotle called it, that gives the object its fearsome essence. This is not a criticism of the work; none of the mentioned examples were setting out to try and evoke the sublime, and when examined on another axis, the work could no doubt be recorded as a resounding success. However the purpose of this paper was to remove Land Art from investigation into the sublime, as ultimately man can only edit and add to nature, never recreate its awesome power.
The Digital Sublime
This entry consists of two parts. The first will examine the digital realm as sublime in its existent format, discussing issues of tangibility and ownership. The second will discuss how digital technology can portray sublime concepts in ways not possible within analogue mediums.
To recall Schopenhauer’s previously mentioned analysis, he stated that the highest feeling of the sublime is the contemplation of the scale and longitude of the universe.
The digital realm runs alongside our own existing one, through human made devices, but with limitless freedom and space, its own invisible universe, with parallels to draw with our own reality.
The strongest link is the concept of scale. Neither our universe, nor the digital counterpart, has an outer limit. There is a constant expansion occurring into nothingness, making both impossible to map or to put into perspective. The digital world is neither a container nor an object, and so it can never be filled with data, which serve as the replacement for physical objects in this universe based metaphor. Rather than being added to a form, there is a spread outwards, unconfined as the space has no boundaries. Servers to host web space can be brought and set up, as can new storage devices. The only limitation is the demand of the users; if there is no need for extra space, the demand for the products will stop and the devices will subsequently stop being manufactured. Trying to draw a sense of scale from this immeasurable expanse pushes the imagination to its limits, relating back to Kant’s theory on the sublime as a psychological state where the mind fails to process the information it is presented with.
To address Schopenhauer’s assessment again, duration can factor once again in both worlds. NASA has estimated that the age of the universe is “around 13 billion, give or take a few billion.” (NASA, 2011) The first computer, ENIAC, came to fruition in 1946, 65 years ago, a miniscule amount of time, which may make the comparison of duration sound completely absurd. However the issue is not the amount of time, but the progression of technology within those sixty years, and where it will be in another sixty. The rate of evolution is what gives such a comparison more gravitas; within the said time machines have moved from basic mathematics to displaying interactive virtual environments. The technological revolution is well documented and on-going, however it is the impossibility of prediction what it will lead to in a larger amount of time, for instance 1000 years (still a tiny amount of time when compared to the universe) that engages the mind in implausible speculation that is similar in feeling to that when contemplating the estimated 13 billion years of the universe.
This rate of progression also reveals the fleeting nature of the files with which we fill our digital worlds. As technology updates, so do the formats in which files are stored, as the language from which files are read evolves, and previous forms become inert unless translated and updated, much like human language. Eventually files are left as symbolic strings of binary, the final base language of computing. Even the devices that these are stored on, DVDs, USB pens etc., will become obsolete and unreadable, in the same way floppy discs are no longer in use with personal computers. Photographs, films, personal documents, without a physical copy such as a photo album or film reel, will become lost in the seas of endlessly generating data. In this aspect, data can be serving as a metaphor for human existence; consider how difficult it is to trace a family tree past a few generations. This momentary existence ties into the duration of the earth, and how it will continue for billions of years again, once this moment has passed.
Digital files very existence can be called into question however, removing them from a comparison to humanity. If a file is intangible, it is difficult to prove its existence other than through its presentation as a translated medium displayed via the light of an output device. If a computer is taken apart, the files are not found inside. Even the base language of binary is not viewable, just a collection of connected hardware devices. Timothy Binkley summed up this key difference in type between analogue and digital respectively; “One is focused on concrete preservation and presentation, the other on abstract storage and manipulation”. (1990)
This makes it difficult to place value on a digital creation, as the format is temporary, intangible, and as a string data, repeatable, with the idea of an original invalid after duplication, as Timothy Binkley noted:
“Digital media have no original. The information is immediately spirited away into electronic circuits and magnetic disks that are inscrutable by the human eye and ear. It moves freely from one digital medium to another, and by the time it is finally “saved” in what is likely to be a tentative version after a session at the machine, it has to be reinscribed and masticated numerous times. There is no authoritative original.” (1990)
A file could contain a literary work, a piece of digital art, a mathematical algorithm, any of which could potentially be ground-breaking, astounding pieces of work, but with the above issues factored in, a contradiction is created, and work becomes invaluable unless a physical version can be generated. A piece of digital artwork can be observed, admired, and owned in principle, however like natural elements such as cliffs and waterfalls, remain invaluable.
With the format itself displaying philosophical sublime characteristics, there possibility of the format to convey feelings of the sublime take on a new possibilities, as both medium and metaphor.
Digital artwork has more in common with abstraction by the nature of its medium. The romantics used nature directly to depict the natural sublime, leaning towards the abstract as a method of expressing feeling, whereas the abstract impressionists used abstraction as an experiential device, effectively stepping into the emotional output of the romantics. By combing projections and animation in an environment, the digital medium can repeat the gesture, by bringing the abstraction into a surrounding, responding form, even if the illusion is not concrete. Although installation artists such as Jams Turrell have already explored this gesture, digital projection can be mapped and transferred onto any surface.
One such artist who does this is Diana Thater. Using multiple surfaces of the available space, her work ascends traditional methods of displaying multimedia.
Peter Luminfeld writes “Thater, to begin with, eschews what video artists routinely embrace: the black room fetish, the desire to transform portions of galleries, museums or found spaces into videoteques, darkened pseudo cinemas for the contemplation of video artwork. Instead, she has long held fast to the dictum that her work should be seen in ambient light, that it should function within the constraints of its space and flow plan and work within a video’s limited colour palate.” (2001: 137)
By using multiple surfaces, images can take tangible forms and distort them using light, changing a surface which we would ordinarily regard as static, and moving the viewer into a state of confusion, at the edge of understanding.
Luminfeld continues “Dealing as it does in scale designed to dwarf the body, architecture is the only art that can strive towards the sublime; Thater’s trick is to turn video into architecture, throwing the image up to play over the found space of her installations.” (2001:141
As mentioned in the previous chapter the concept of large scale canvases to evoke the sublime was mentioned repeatedly by the abstract expressionists, as a means to encompass and act as an environment. The Rothko Chapel (above) can draw parallels with the colour washes of White is the Colour (2002) (below), where the entire room is a washed with a calming blue pulsating projection.
Jennifer Steinkamp is another artist who uses computer based projections to create moving canvases of static architecture, using “dead space” to create projection mapped illusions. Her larger works, such as Swell (1995) (above) encourage user participation, inviting the viewer to become part of the environment through the interplay of projection and shadows, offering the person but to participate by no choice by placing the projectors low and at the back of the available space. Through this immersion and participation the person can feel linked to the large images in front of them, as opposed to a distant observer, operating outside of the work.
Projection and digital arts do however, have an underlying link to the natural sublime through the use of light as the method of display for digital art. Be it via a screen or projector, the most powerful element at work in nature still entices the viewer, linking even the most advanced displays of technology to something fundamentally primitive.
Hyper real computer graphics are at the other end of the scale to abstract imagery, however the inability to truly capture natural environments through exact portrayal due to the lack of other sensory involvement, in the same way the Romantic painters could never evoke the scenes they painted with immaculate detail, instead opting to reveal the feelings behind the painting, means a lack of empathetic response, so there are some issues of conveyance which the medium will not transcend. Oliver Grau comments:
“It is not possible for any art to reproduce reality I its entirety, and we must remain aware that there is no objective appropriation of reality – Plato’s metaphor of the cave shows us that. It is only interpretations that are decisive. This has been one of the major themes in philosophy in the early modern era the work of Descartes, Leibniz and Kant can also be viewed as marvellous attempts to reflect on the consequences that result from perspective, the notions of presentation and thus the cognitive process, which ultimately cannot be overcome”. (2003: 17)
Technological advancement has also allowed for the revealing of the previously invisible. Simon Starling’s Inventar Nr. 8573 (Man Ray) (2006) (above), involves an automated slide projector enlarging a photograph by Man Ray. With each image, the picture moves closer, revealing the ink which makes up the print of the image. Using microscopic technology the silver particles become photos in their own right, complex worlds invisible to the eye. The detailed minutiae become as sublime as a grander narrative due to its endless complexity, which goes on indefinitely. This overwhelming amount of detail contained within a small image is reminiscent of Hugh Honour’s comment on the Romantic painters finding the sublime in a single blade of grass. The enlargement process and endlessly generated detail finds itself at home in digital practice, as mathematical algorithms allow the continuous growth of an image, particularly in the form of fractal art, which follows the same form of endless evolution.
These three mentioned strands of digital art all share in common the ability to amaze and inspire awe by creating imagery which challenges viewers perceptions of reality, by editing and manipulating structures, items and surfaces which are tangible to create realities which relate to our world, but in ways which we cannot understand as real, so the seemingly impossible happens before the person. Lyotard refers to the connection between the artistic avant-garde and the sublime with the term novatio, defined as "the increase of being and the jubilation which result from the invention of new rules of the game, be it pictorial, artistic, or any other." (David, 2011) This breaking from tradition comes with the relatively new format of digital art, which can redefine assumptions about what reality means. Lyotard supports this idea when discussing post modernism, which he believes "cannot exist without a shattering of belief and without discovery of the 'lack of reality' of reality, together with the invention of other realities." (David, 2011)
To recall Schopenhauer’s previously mentioned analysis, he stated that the highest feeling of the sublime is the contemplation of the scale and longitude of the universe.
The digital realm runs alongside our own existing one, through human made devices, but with limitless freedom and space, its own invisible universe, with parallels to draw with our own reality.
The strongest link is the concept of scale. Neither our universe, nor the digital counterpart, has an outer limit. There is a constant expansion occurring into nothingness, making both impossible to map or to put into perspective. The digital world is neither a container nor an object, and so it can never be filled with data, which serve as the replacement for physical objects in this universe based metaphor. Rather than being added to a form, there is a spread outwards, unconfined as the space has no boundaries. Servers to host web space can be brought and set up, as can new storage devices. The only limitation is the demand of the users; if there is no need for extra space, the demand for the products will stop and the devices will subsequently stop being manufactured. Trying to draw a sense of scale from this immeasurable expanse pushes the imagination to its limits, relating back to Kant’s theory on the sublime as a psychological state where the mind fails to process the information it is presented with.
To address Schopenhauer’s assessment again, duration can factor once again in both worlds. NASA has estimated that the age of the universe is “around 13 billion, give or take a few billion.” (NASA, 2011) The first computer, ENIAC, came to fruition in 1946, 65 years ago, a miniscule amount of time, which may make the comparison of duration sound completely absurd. However the issue is not the amount of time, but the progression of technology within those sixty years, and where it will be in another sixty. The rate of evolution is what gives such a comparison more gravitas; within the said time machines have moved from basic mathematics to displaying interactive virtual environments. The technological revolution is well documented and on-going, however it is the impossibility of prediction what it will lead to in a larger amount of time, for instance 1000 years (still a tiny amount of time when compared to the universe) that engages the mind in implausible speculation that is similar in feeling to that when contemplating the estimated 13 billion years of the universe.
This rate of progression also reveals the fleeting nature of the files with which we fill our digital worlds. As technology updates, so do the formats in which files are stored, as the language from which files are read evolves, and previous forms become inert unless translated and updated, much like human language. Eventually files are left as symbolic strings of binary, the final base language of computing. Even the devices that these are stored on, DVDs, USB pens etc., will become obsolete and unreadable, in the same way floppy discs are no longer in use with personal computers. Photographs, films, personal documents, without a physical copy such as a photo album or film reel, will become lost in the seas of endlessly generating data. In this aspect, data can be serving as a metaphor for human existence; consider how difficult it is to trace a family tree past a few generations. This momentary existence ties into the duration of the earth, and how it will continue for billions of years again, once this moment has passed.
Digital files very existence can be called into question however, removing them from a comparison to humanity. If a file is intangible, it is difficult to prove its existence other than through its presentation as a translated medium displayed via the light of an output device. If a computer is taken apart, the files are not found inside. Even the base language of binary is not viewable, just a collection of connected hardware devices. Timothy Binkley summed up this key difference in type between analogue and digital respectively; “One is focused on concrete preservation and presentation, the other on abstract storage and manipulation”. (1990)
This makes it difficult to place value on a digital creation, as the format is temporary, intangible, and as a string data, repeatable, with the idea of an original invalid after duplication, as Timothy Binkley noted:
“Digital media have no original. The information is immediately spirited away into electronic circuits and magnetic disks that are inscrutable by the human eye and ear. It moves freely from one digital medium to another, and by the time it is finally “saved” in what is likely to be a tentative version after a session at the machine, it has to be reinscribed and masticated numerous times. There is no authoritative original.” (1990)
A file could contain a literary work, a piece of digital art, a mathematical algorithm, any of which could potentially be ground-breaking, astounding pieces of work, but with the above issues factored in, a contradiction is created, and work becomes invaluable unless a physical version can be generated. A piece of digital artwork can be observed, admired, and owned in principle, however like natural elements such as cliffs and waterfalls, remain invaluable.
With the format itself displaying philosophical sublime characteristics, there possibility of the format to convey feelings of the sublime take on a new possibilities, as both medium and metaphor.
Digital artwork has more in common with abstraction by the nature of its medium. The romantics used nature directly to depict the natural sublime, leaning towards the abstract as a method of expressing feeling, whereas the abstract impressionists used abstraction as an experiential device, effectively stepping into the emotional output of the romantics. By combing projections and animation in an environment, the digital medium can repeat the gesture, by bringing the abstraction into a surrounding, responding form, even if the illusion is not concrete. Although installation artists such as Jams Turrell have already explored this gesture, digital projection can be mapped and transferred onto any surface.
One such artist who does this is Diana Thater. Using multiple surfaces of the available space, her work ascends traditional methods of displaying multimedia.
Peter Luminfeld writes “Thater, to begin with, eschews what video artists routinely embrace: the black room fetish, the desire to transform portions of galleries, museums or found spaces into videoteques, darkened pseudo cinemas for the contemplation of video artwork. Instead, she has long held fast to the dictum that her work should be seen in ambient light, that it should function within the constraints of its space and flow plan and work within a video’s limited colour palate.” (2001: 137)
By using multiple surfaces, images can take tangible forms and distort them using light, changing a surface which we would ordinarily regard as static, and moving the viewer into a state of confusion, at the edge of understanding.
Luminfeld continues “Dealing as it does in scale designed to dwarf the body, architecture is the only art that can strive towards the sublime; Thater’s trick is to turn video into architecture, throwing the image up to play over the found space of her installations.” (2001:141
As mentioned in the previous chapter the concept of large scale canvases to evoke the sublime was mentioned repeatedly by the abstract expressionists, as a means to encompass and act as an environment. The Rothko Chapel (above) can draw parallels with the colour washes of White is the Colour (2002) (below), where the entire room is a washed with a calming blue pulsating projection.
Jennifer Steinkamp is another artist who uses computer based projections to create moving canvases of static architecture, using “dead space” to create projection mapped illusions. Her larger works, such as Swell (1995) (above) encourage user participation, inviting the viewer to become part of the environment through the interplay of projection and shadows, offering the person but to participate by no choice by placing the projectors low and at the back of the available space. Through this immersion and participation the person can feel linked to the large images in front of them, as opposed to a distant observer, operating outside of the work.
Projection and digital arts do however, have an underlying link to the natural sublime through the use of light as the method of display for digital art. Be it via a screen or projector, the most powerful element at work in nature still entices the viewer, linking even the most advanced displays of technology to something fundamentally primitive.
Hyper real computer graphics are at the other end of the scale to abstract imagery, however the inability to truly capture natural environments through exact portrayal due to the lack of other sensory involvement, in the same way the Romantic painters could never evoke the scenes they painted with immaculate detail, instead opting to reveal the feelings behind the painting, means a lack of empathetic response, so there are some issues of conveyance which the medium will not transcend. Oliver Grau comments:
“It is not possible for any art to reproduce reality I its entirety, and we must remain aware that there is no objective appropriation of reality – Plato’s metaphor of the cave shows us that. It is only interpretations that are decisive. This has been one of the major themes in philosophy in the early modern era the work of Descartes, Leibniz and Kant can also be viewed as marvellous attempts to reflect on the consequences that result from perspective, the notions of presentation and thus the cognitive process, which ultimately cannot be overcome”. (2003: 17)
Technological advancement has also allowed for the revealing of the previously invisible. Simon Starling’s Inventar Nr. 8573 (Man Ray) (2006) (above), involves an automated slide projector enlarging a photograph by Man Ray. With each image, the picture moves closer, revealing the ink which makes up the print of the image. Using microscopic technology the silver particles become photos in their own right, complex worlds invisible to the eye. The detailed minutiae become as sublime as a grander narrative due to its endless complexity, which goes on indefinitely. This overwhelming amount of detail contained within a small image is reminiscent of Hugh Honour’s comment on the Romantic painters finding the sublime in a single blade of grass. The enlargement process and endlessly generated detail finds itself at home in digital practice, as mathematical algorithms allow the continuous growth of an image, particularly in the form of fractal art, which follows the same form of endless evolution.
These three mentioned strands of digital art all share in common the ability to amaze and inspire awe by creating imagery which challenges viewers perceptions of reality, by editing and manipulating structures, items and surfaces which are tangible to create realities which relate to our world, but in ways which we cannot understand as real, so the seemingly impossible happens before the person. Lyotard refers to the connection between the artistic avant-garde and the sublime with the term novatio, defined as "the increase of being and the jubilation which result from the invention of new rules of the game, be it pictorial, artistic, or any other." (David, 2011) This breaking from tradition comes with the relatively new format of digital art, which can redefine assumptions about what reality means. Lyotard supports this idea when discussing post modernism, which he believes "cannot exist without a shattering of belief and without discovery of the 'lack of reality' of reality, together with the invention of other realities." (David, 2011)
Abstraction
By using abstract form rather than trying to recreate nature, which will ultimately fall short, the generated image can allow the viewer to marvel at the scale, movement and complexity, assigning their own meaning to form. Having experimented with recreating a waterfall using particle systems, the effect is not satisfactory, in that it pales in comparison to the awesome power of the natural spectacle. Digital form, no matter how accurate, can never replace nature, in the same way Romantic painters knew that the goal was impossible. Abstraction can take the invisible elements which give a seen power; turbulence, scale, gravity, depth, complexity, and give them a visual representation that can hold its own form of sublimity, rather than competing with the natural.
The next two videos are experiments with waterfalls. The first is a literal copy, with the second using an unusual colour palate to remove the literal copying of a natural occurrence and move the interpretation to something more ethereal.
The third video is a slow moving abstract pattern, designed to entrance through its complexity and morphing function.
Abstract Expression and the Sublime
With the turn of Realism and Symbolism replacing Romanticism in response to its dominance and adaptation by nationalist causes, over the next hundred years the idea of the sublime laid dormant within fine arts.
The ideas resurfaced with the advent of modernist thinking. Some exploited the language, such as totalitarian regimes, which used the ability to overawe to control and manipulate, Simon Morley citing Albert Speer’s cathedrals of light choreography at the Nuremburg rallies as such an example. (2010b: 19)
The ideas were taken by artists later grouped as the Abstract Expressionists, who saw the sublime state in a less manipulative fashion, as a transcendent emotion, capable of revealing truths about the human condition and more complex feelings.
Rather than using imagery from the natural sublime as the romantics did, abstraction allowed the paintings to confront the viewer in the same powerful way as nature, becoming the spectacle itself, rather than depicting it. Werner Haftmann wrote on Mark Rothko’s paintings being linked to Friedrich’s: “Absorbed in the study of a very large painting (of Rothko’s), C. D. Friedrich’s painting Monk by the sea came to mind. But I was now the monk and was looking into the great breadth of an enormous, breathing space, stirred by the dark light.” (Baumann, 1971: vi)
This interpretation of the painting as an event would no doubt delighted Rothko, famously commenting “I don’t want my paintings to be of an experience, I want them to be an experience”. Peter Selz recognised the experiential qualities of the piece, writing how “these paintings are meant to be seen, they absorb, they envelop the viewer. We are no longer looking at a painting as we did in the nineteenth century; we are meant to enter it, to sink into its atmosphere of mist and light or to draw it around us like a coat-or skin.” (Mackie, 1989: 196)
Whilst separating the way in which the viewer must examine a painting from the twentieth century, describing with the comforting language of drawing something close, accustomed to the person, the familiar language of Romantic paintings, of mist and light, is still present. Rothko was not the only artist whose work can draw familiarities to other Romantic paintings. The action paintings of Jackson Pollock, splashed spontaneously across the canvas, in a feral, layered fashion are dynamic, passionate and above all, alive. (See above). Pollock noted the aims of his paintings to contain “organic intensity, energy and motion made visible.” (Mackie, 1989,: 144) As mentioned earlier, these are all qualities present in Turner’s paintings. In Rain, Steam and Speed (Below), similar wild strokes swirl around the entire canvas, with no fixed focal point, creating the same sense of uncontrolled chaos.
Barnett Newman painted huge colour field paintings, struck through with single lines. Scale was placed of upmost importance within his work, as he separated scale and size from each other, describing the need to create “total space”, by using the entire canvas in order to provoke transcendence, rather than have a fixed point of reference which thee person can look to. (See below) Instead, the entire painting emits energy, staring at the viewer with great intensity. The entire canvas was treated as equally important, allowing for a far stretching expanse to step beyond the boundaries of the painting.
Newman was particularly impressed by the Romantic painting Raft of Medusa, by Théodore Géricault (below) enthusiastically commenting on the work:
“Fantastic! The scale is marvellous. You can feel the immensity of the event rather than the scale of the canvas. Great! Wild painting! The space does engulf one.” (Mackie, 1989: 153)
From this talk of the immensity of the event overriding the scale of the work, Newman makes the psychical dimensions of the painting unnoticeable, as the space within the painting overrides the need for physical limitations. This evokes earlier romantic thought on how the sublime feeling of being overawed can be found equally in the universe as it can “in a blade of grass”.
However, Newman did paint enormous canvasses, in terms of dimension, so the painting could have far more power, due to being large in both scale and size. Rothko, another user of big canvases wrote:
“I paint very large pictures…The reason I paint them…is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside of your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn’t something you command.” (Mackie, 1989: 203)
The surrendering of control that Rothko wished to provoke again mirrors the sublime moment’s overriding power, where the viewer is passive spectator to the events in front of him. (Below)
James Turrell, like the abstract expressionists, wanted to envelop the viewer in his installations, which appear as enormous voids of light, physical versions of the colour field paintings of Newman. Rudolph Arnheim writes how “light is one of the most revealing elements of life, it is the most spectacular experience of the senses.” (Herbert, 1998:196) His works often have a sense of boundlessness, with lighting so even that the viewer becomes unsure of dimensions, caught between impossible boundaries. His work Gansfeld (2001) (first image below) is a rectangular void, lit entirely with even blue, evoking Yves Klien’s IKB 191 (second image below) in both colour and effect. Klien wanted to remove the tension of opposing colours with his custom resin colours that filled canvases, wanting to create the void which Turrell has realised. The compete environment of this particular installation induces boundlessness and intensity, allowing for entry into the work of the abstract impressionists as a tangible reality rather than a cerebral experience.
Morisaw Balka’s installation How it is (2009) (below) shares similarities to Turrell’s Gansfeld, but rather than using light, Balka uses the lack of it to create the boundless space. The work is a large shipping container, accessible only at one end. The darkness quickly surrounds the viewer the deeper they go into the literal void, until they unexpectedly find the back of the container. In the darkness, no dimensions are visible. If the viewer turns, a dim light serves as a vague point of reference, but the expanse is impenetrable, a negative of Turrell’s work, but with the same sublime provocation.
Psychedelic light shows
Light shows were part of a key fusion between image and sound, much like a psychedelic experience, and aimed to emulate the feeling of total saturation, creating imagery improvised around the music being played in whatever setting the show was being hosted. In the case of psychedelic rock, it was an example of a wholly engaging environment to accompany a psychedelic trip. The light show has its origins in the beat era, which were initially ordinary slides projected onto the walls of the venue when a poet or writer was performing. The methods used in light shoes started to improve with the birth of modern jazz. Needing an accompaniment, different techniques were tried out, with “hot coloured oils and inks were swirled in glass bowls under the glare of several overhead projectors” which were beamed out over the audience, the patterns made as spontaneous as the flow of the jazz. Regarded as the pioneer of the light show, Bill Ham created The Light Sound Dimension, using electric flow to stimulate kinetic material on a 6 x 4 board, as well as using over head projectors as the canvas for further paintings. As psychedelic rock took off, more light show companies formed, to point where there reportedly nearly one hundred in the San Francisco area. Two of the biggest names were Brotherhood of Light, and Headlights, who only worked with Jefferson Airplane. Branching out from oils and coloured lights, the variety of formats increased drastically, to include items such as “showing strange slides or super 8mm film loops of train crashes and autopsy footage that were speeded up or projected backwards to create a surreal effect.”
Further techniques were used to mirror even further the effects of LSD, where “the liquid lights would then be projected over so that the flickering image could only be partly seen, to give the illusion of an acid trip that had reached its peak” Over in Manhattan, New York, Bill Graham opened the Fillmore East, complete with Joshua White’s Joshua Light Show, which was regarded as one of the leading and innovative light shows of the sixties. Edwin Pouncey described the scenes as the light show was at work; “Glycerine, alcohol, oil and water spat, boiled and separated into amoebic patters during one of these so called “wet shows”, in which the skilled operators would, as in free jazz, visually improvise around the music, with White as the principle conductor.” White had an experienced background in fashion and stage lighting at theatres, so the shows always ran professionally, and with the trust gained from this, White and his assistants had the room to experiment with different ideas and techniques. The light show had a purpose built platform at the back of the auditorium, with the venue having a very understanding relationship with the group. Using various aniline dyes mixed with water, the unique way of layering different mediums gave Graham the edge over his competitors. Commenting on this technique, Graham said “we never just showed a film, it was always just a section of film mixed with a slide and something else. The results were arrhythmic and therefore it was the audience and musicians which gave it a rhythm.”
With the dawn of back projections came the ability to photograph the light show with a flash without losing the background. Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and Country Joe and the Fish’s Electric Music For The Mind And Body both used images with light show projections on their covers.
Light shows were not restricted to the US, with the UK’s evolution of light shows coming about in the same fashion, emerging from the coffee shops before spilling into music venues, the first one of note being the UFO club in London, opening on 23rd December, 1966, with Pink Floyd playing, and the lighting by Peter Wynne-Wilson. The Sensual Laboratory took over shortly after, ran by Mark Boyle, a notorious artist, who had previously used projection techniques in works such as Suddenly Last Supper (1964) and Son et Lumiere for Insects, Reptiles & Water Creatures (1966). Although not made for a psychedelic experience, it would be wrong not to mention Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable, due to the sheer ambition and scale of the piece, and the fact that it was a complete multimedia experience, in line with the reason that the lightshows in London and San Francisco had sprung up in the first place. The show was put together and toured from 1966 to 1967, containing a barrage of effects. Brandon W Joseph pieces the scene together impeccably in his description of the piece: “at the height of its development, the exploding plastic inevitable included three to five film projectors, often showing different reels of the same film simultaneously, a similar number of slide projectors, movable by hand so that their images swept the auditorium, four variable speed strobe light, three moving spots with an assortment of gels, several pistol lights, a mirror ball hung from the ceiling and another on the floor, as many as three loudspeakers blaring different pop records at once, one or two sets by the velvet underground and nico, and the dancing of Gerard Malanga and Mary Woronor or Ingrid Superstar, complete with props and lights that projected their shadows high onto the wall”. It is easy to gather from this description alone just how alarming stepping into this circus would have been; a sensory barrage of sound, light and colour, jarring reactions with the abundance of material to react to. The project had developed from Warhol’s earlier forays into film, the first incarnation created for the second annual New York Film festival, in the lobby of the Lincoln centre’s philharmonic hall, which has looped three minute segments of his films Eat, sleep, kiss, haircut projected individually but simultaneously onto the wall from Fairchild 400s. Another key influence into the final outcome was Barbera Rubin’s “uptight” collaboration, which involved her aggressively questioning audience members at Warhol’s film premieres. This level of confrontation was aimed for in the EPI, invading the viewer as a participant in the chaos. As technology evolved, the appeal of light shows diminished. The music changed and the musicians wished to be seen and remembered, rather than being hidden in the patterns, and modern lighting gained popularity.
Projections and immersion
The creation of an immersive environment through the use of projections has been prevalent in what is termed as “expanded cinema” since the invention of the stereopticon in 1894. This device aligned sixteen slide projectors in a semi circular room, curtained on the opposite side, changing the images in rapid succession. While this did not create a faultless image, it did pave the way for film projectors to break out of the traditional setting of a single image on a flat wall.
Using similar techniques, in 1900 the Cineorama; ten film projectors linked to create a 360 degree image was featured at the world exhibition in Paris. This marked the beginning of immersive environments at World trade fairs, which continued from this point to use prototypes in technology to create or show artificial worlds, be it through wall long, hallway length projections, such as Futurama in 1939, or Teleview, in 1921, which introduced 3D films to the American public.
While the 360 degree environment was not built on in a mainstream environment, coverage of 180 degrees was brought to the American public by Fred Waller. His Cinerama cinemas utilised three projectors in a semi circle, with filming undertaken by three cameras, with a slight overlap in their field of view. The audience however, were not in the curved section of the screen, meaning the curvature was unnecessary, as a flat screen would serve the same goal. None the less, the cinemas hosting the specially designed equipment proved popular, at their peak in the early sixties numbering over one hundred worldwide.
The next step towards immersion was the Sensorama Simulator. The device communicated not only visually, but hapticly, vibrating and letting off chemicals whose smells corresponded with the images in front of the viewer. The machines hosting the equipment were normally confined to theme parks however, as the experience was only relayed directly to the viewer, and not applicable for a wider audience seeking a social experience as well as an immersive one. Some traditional cinematic experiences attempted to bring some of these elements into their shows; Earthquake (1974) and The Tingler 1959) included specially designed vibrating seats, and Polyester (1981) gave out cards which gave of smell when scratched, to be used at certain points of the film.
Looking to immersion, the Omnimax cinema projected onto a huge overhead sphere, so the coverage was 160 degrees of the viewer’s vision. The company behind the Omnimax, IMAX, run cinemas with huge screens, where the audience must wear 3D glasses, creating immersive illusions in front of them.
Using similar techniques, in 1900 the Cineorama; ten film projectors linked to create a 360 degree image was featured at the world exhibition in Paris. This marked the beginning of immersive environments at World trade fairs, which continued from this point to use prototypes in technology to create or show artificial worlds, be it through wall long, hallway length projections, such as Futurama in 1939, or Teleview, in 1921, which introduced 3D films to the American public.
While the 360 degree environment was not built on in a mainstream environment, coverage of 180 degrees was brought to the American public by Fred Waller. His Cinerama cinemas utilised three projectors in a semi circle, with filming undertaken by three cameras, with a slight overlap in their field of view. The audience however, were not in the curved section of the screen, meaning the curvature was unnecessary, as a flat screen would serve the same goal. None the less, the cinemas hosting the specially designed equipment proved popular, at their peak in the early sixties numbering over one hundred worldwide.
The next step towards immersion was the Sensorama Simulator. The device communicated not only visually, but hapticly, vibrating and letting off chemicals whose smells corresponded with the images in front of the viewer. The machines hosting the equipment were normally confined to theme parks however, as the experience was only relayed directly to the viewer, and not applicable for a wider audience seeking a social experience as well as an immersive one. Some traditional cinematic experiences attempted to bring some of these elements into their shows; Earthquake (1974) and The Tingler 1959) included specially designed vibrating seats, and Polyester (1981) gave out cards which gave of smell when scratched, to be used at certain points of the film.
Looking to immersion, the Omnimax cinema projected onto a huge overhead sphere, so the coverage was 160 degrees of the viewer’s vision. The company behind the Omnimax, IMAX, run cinemas with huge screens, where the audience must wear 3D glasses, creating immersive illusions in front of them.
Testing abstract projections.
Testing animations, distorted in after effects to create completely abstract patterns. The input is block colour in a grid. These are effectively just pretty patterns if the methodology is not relevant.
Personal Account: Dover
Wanting to experience something of the sublime in England, I ventured to Dover’s famed white cliffs, in search of awe, wonder and dread. While the romantic writers were inspired by mountainous peaks and deep chasms, observed whilst trekking through mountainous alpine territories, these are not in abundance in South England. The iconic rock face proved just as fulfilling however, as the historic symbol of England provided its own spectacular response. While the bridleways are well worn and populated by tourists, dog walkers and local residents, rather than the craggy, narrow footpaths from the Romantic paintings, walking just off the beaten track, into the long grass near the edges of the rocks, allows a sample of magnitude and awe, in equal measure to the corresponding apprehension and vertigo. Moving carefully towards the steep decline, on one weathered outcrop, I looked to the east, gazing along the miles of ancient rock, white from the chalky earth, with brash streaks of black from flint, almost abstract in appearance, with the long, deep brows beaten out of the stone by years of stiff breezes, rain, and the ocean. Moving carefully towards the steep decline, on one weathered outcrop, I looked to the east, gazing along the miles of ancient rock, white from the chalky earth, with brash streaks of black from flint, almost abstract in appearance, with the long, deep brows beaten out of the stone by years of stiff breezes, rain, and the ocean. The sheer beauty of the scenery ultimately holds you; on reaching what seemed to be the summit, rich, green fields become visible, stretching out towards a forest in the difference, with frail fog whisking across, the sunlight casting kaleidoscopic patterns as it moves behind clouds. The rolling countryside is then sharply cut into by the ominous deep streak of white, which leads down to the pulsating deep blue. It is breathtaking. Later, further to the West at Abbots Cliff, the weather has become much worth, the wind is far stronger and constant, bring dense fog with it, dimming what is left of the afternoon light, which quickly descends into near darkness. The lights from Folkestone, a mile away, barely punctuate the thick haze, with visibility minimal. The cliff edge is only apparent when a metre or so away, the only indication of the drop being the glint of light bouncing off distant waves. While the elements are in full force, it is possible to admire the reckless authority nature holds over the area, it feels like you are only permitted to witness this scene because the forces are allowing it, with a change in wind direction capable of sending you tumbling from your vulnerable position. This experience proves more threatening, however leaves wonder at how much control nature has over you, leaving you totally aware of your limitations, vulnerability, and your complete lack of importance in the face of true epicness.
Projection mapping
Projection mapping is the use of projectors to manipulate a piece of internal or external architecture. This is achieved by covering the surface with light from the projector. If it is a particularly large, or three dimensional layouts, more than one projector can be used, and then linked through a single computer. Once the surface is satisfactorily covered, there is usually what is effectively an overspill, where light may be falling on the pavement in front of the selected surface, or onto the ceiling. These areas are then removed by applying a layer of black pixels on the screen in the correct place, so light there is no longer bright enough to register. The light in place works in the same way as a light bulb, so the surface appears lit by a spotlight if entirely black. With the work area in place, the surface needs to be laid out by using UV mapping, similar to 3D program such as Maya. This works by applying and moving a grid on the projection to be evenly placed, moving the lines to be an equal distance apart. Any separate walls can be laid out and added to a master copy. With the surface in place, animations can be placed onto the grid to correspond with the architecture of the building, for instance a window can be outlined with a V glow, or certain parts of the façade can be coloured. The surface becomes a breathing canvas, which can be edited however the artist wishes. Advertising companies are frequent users of the technique, manipulating flagship shops or newly opening buildings, however some have branched out, recently cars have become a popular surface. Acting as a lightshow, passersby and people who are aware of the event can revel in the attraction of seeing concrete architecture move, spin, fall apart, change colour and pulsate. Specialist software is available on commercial licences, and is popular amongst VJs in live arenas as well as architectural mappers. The technique of laying out UVs will be needed in some form should I press ahead with an environment.
Using Projections
The sublime as an experience transcends all possible forms of depiction; however this unattainable goal has always been noted; Romantic painters depicted the motion of water, and used impressionistic strokes to capture the essence of the images in front of them, with realism coming second to imagination. The abstract expressionists took the approach towards the capturing of the sublime differently, making the painting itself the experience, with representation becoming completely abstract, the transcendent moment coming from the energy and power of the paintings themselves. Both however, as paintings, have no physical motion, although due to the quality of work feel as if they do, allowing the viewers imagination to construct narrative around the painting, rather than have the artist choreograph the experience.
The use of animation can control the experience more directly, which leads to the issue of whether or not this helps the work towards evoking the sublime. As a personal experience, assigning personal meaning would be more likely to achieve success, although it requires the viewer to dedicate themselves to the artwork. Animation can show movement and help the person make the speculative leap, involving them in the work. However this comes at the price of controlling the movement in front of the person, making the sublime depiction in front of them believable, rather than at the edges of the imagination. Through projections, the viewer can become more involved with the work, bonding them as a spectacle themselves, rather than as a passive observer. It allows the next step towards immersion from abstract expressionist painting, as they themselves stepped into the scenes the romantics depicted. Installations such as the work of James Turrell have already achieved this, using light as their material, and projections work in the same way; the projection itself is just light filtered in a more complex fashion.
It is the presentation of digital form in a physical format however that can provide the catalyst for the sublime, as a world which doesn’t exist can become evident and tangible for the viewer, who would ordinarily see images from a digital environment on a monitor in front of them. This contradictory element, of the invisible and intangible becoming the exact opposite, can wow the viewer by testing their understanding of technological structures. By projecting onto an entire environment rather than just on wall, the work becomes confrontational, leaping from the now usual cinematic layout of a large screen on a single wall, reaching towards the audience, manipulating and moving the floor, so the most concrete and dependable of elements, the ground on which a person stands, is claimed back by the work, removing the reliability of ordinary perception. When moving in its entirety, the whole environment can seem to crawl, bend and breathe, provoking awe by bringing inanimate objects to life. For this reason, the ideal vehicle to carry a digital piece of art aiming to evoke the sublime, is a projection based installation.
Psychedelia and the Sublime
While often overlooked as a bi-product of the counterculture movement and an also-ran alongside the dominant Pop Art movement in the 1960s, psychedelia possesses enough of its own individual merit to stand as a continuation of Romantic thought, particularly regarding the evoking of the sublime.
The movement shares an intimate link with the popularisation of the psychedelic drug LSD, as the work created is directly inspired by the effects it produces. Psychedelic directly translated means “mind-manifesting” in Greek, and was coined by Humphrey Osmand in 1956 to author Aldous Huxley, writing ‘I have tried to find an appropriate name for the agents under discussion: a name that will include the concepts of enriching the mind and enlarging the vision…My choice, because it is clear, euphonious and uncontaminated by other associations, is psychedelic, mind-manifesting.’ The drug itself was created in 1938 by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman, giving it a very recent start date in comparison to drugs such as Psilocybin and Dimethyltryptamine, which had been in use for thousands of years. Arguably any work created under these substances the creation of LSD could retrospectively be called psychedelic, as the drugs are now grouped under the same umbrella in terms of drug classification, however the art movement itself was triggered specifically by the spread of LSD and an increased level of consumption and creative output, co-inciding with the growth of what is now called the sixties counterculture, a loose group of protestors and objectors to mainstream life and politics, liberal in leaning and more willing to experiment with substances.
The effect of the drug is important, as to understand it is to see why the artwork inspired and created for the experience tries to evoke the sublime.
On first trying the substance, creator Hoffman reported ‘a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed…I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours.’ (Hoffman, 1980)
Initially the drug was used in medical facilities, as it was thought to mimic the effects of schizophrenia, and also to treat other drug dependencies, such as heroin and alcohol, with 33 and 50 percent success rates reported respectively. Experiments also found a large creative boost when experiments were conducted on artists.
Researchers, scientists and other academics who had access to such supplies began to take the drug recreationally in private, but it was not long until through a mixture of enthusiasts such as Timothy Leary and medical trial subjects such as Ken Kasey, that word of LSD and the experience under the drug reached a wider sphere of people. Leary wrote books a conducted lectures, viewing the effects in an almost religious light, where as Kasey went on tour, promoting the drug at “Acid Tests”. Once dosages were being created by backstreet chemists, it was not long before the governments of all countries where LSD was popular banned it, in 1966, creating scare mongering adverts and imposing custodial sentences on those caught dealing and partaking. Eventually the movement petered out with the counter cultural movement, as protest movements stopped and more widespread crackdowns on the drug meant that less people were falling under the spell of LSD.
The artwork itself had hallmarks of the visions that the drug generated. Chris Grunenberg (2005a,7) writes psychedelia as ‘the result of a highly productive interaction between art, technology, politics, drug culture, music and many other influences, creating an extraordinary aesthetic exemplifying the spirit of liberation and freedom”, with Fred Tomaselli listing the aesthetic qualities:
‘…Psychedelia was the beginning of pop culture’s post-modern style war. It was a carnival of repressed histories and multicultural theft, hybridising German Romanticism, William Blake, Surrealism, Pop, sci-fi illustration, comics, jazz age cartoons, Asian, animist and Islamic art, druidism, hot rod and surf culture, art nouveau, leftist agitprop and, of course, cowboys and Indians’ (Tomaselli, 2005, 206).
The use of illegible text, clashing colours, deformed shapes, appropriated icons, surrealist elements and classical figures were all common and related to the feeling of being “under the influence”.
Psychedelic rock and pop aimed to enhance and capture the editing of sound as it is heard having taken the drug Simon Reynolds (2005, 147) describes psychedelic music below;
‘…hallmark psychedelic effects typically involve the smearing of sounds and chromatic intensification. Effects such as phasing, flanging, and ‘swirling’ blur the edges of specific instruments and create a miasmic effect, a cloud of sound seeming to swarm out of the speakers and enfold the listener.’
Light shows (see separate blog entry) accompanied the live playing of music, enhancing the experience to be multi-sensory and more stimulating, creating an environment rather than just a visual focus.
What has not been discussed is what makes this experience sublime.
LSD works by blocking sensory neurons which transmit data to the brain. This was explained in detail by Dr Karl Jansen in the BBC Horizon programme Psychedelic Science. ““Psychedelics can block the transmission of messages from the outside world to the inside and it does that by selectively blocking the action of chemical messages which carry the message from neuron to neuron. If you block that perception or sensation from coming in, there will be a bit of a vacuum in your mind, and nature tends to abhor a vacuum so you mind fills it up with memories, perceptions and meaning, if you like, so there are lot of changes going on in a neuro-electrical sense, and you give it meaning; your mind gives it meaning. As a result of that you can see the world in a new way.”
The effect that this produces is sublime as it is not of a rational world. The brain’s subconscious images are so removed beyond the realms of reality that, to paraphrase William Blake, the doors of perception are cleansed, moving the taker to a sublime state, where the imagination and subconscious make up the perception of the world around them. As there is no possible comprehension for such a state, as nothing is based on reality, the mixture of awe and wonder can be linked to the experiences of the natural sublime, where mountains and chasms held the same ambiguous structure, unfathomable yet visible to the eye.
The movement shares an intimate link with the popularisation of the psychedelic drug LSD, as the work created is directly inspired by the effects it produces. Psychedelic directly translated means “mind-manifesting” in Greek, and was coined by Humphrey Osmand in 1956 to author Aldous Huxley, writing ‘I have tried to find an appropriate name for the agents under discussion: a name that will include the concepts of enriching the mind and enlarging the vision…My choice, because it is clear, euphonious and uncontaminated by other associations, is psychedelic, mind-manifesting.’ The drug itself was created in 1938 by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman, giving it a very recent start date in comparison to drugs such as Psilocybin and Dimethyltryptamine, which had been in use for thousands of years. Arguably any work created under these substances the creation of LSD could retrospectively be called psychedelic, as the drugs are now grouped under the same umbrella in terms of drug classification, however the art movement itself was triggered specifically by the spread of LSD and an increased level of consumption and creative output, co-inciding with the growth of what is now called the sixties counterculture, a loose group of protestors and objectors to mainstream life and politics, liberal in leaning and more willing to experiment with substances.
The effect of the drug is important, as to understand it is to see why the artwork inspired and created for the experience tries to evoke the sublime.
On first trying the substance, creator Hoffman reported ‘a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed…I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours.’ (Hoffman, 1980)
Initially the drug was used in medical facilities, as it was thought to mimic the effects of schizophrenia, and also to treat other drug dependencies, such as heroin and alcohol, with 33 and 50 percent success rates reported respectively. Experiments also found a large creative boost when experiments were conducted on artists.
Researchers, scientists and other academics who had access to such supplies began to take the drug recreationally in private, but it was not long until through a mixture of enthusiasts such as Timothy Leary and medical trial subjects such as Ken Kasey, that word of LSD and the experience under the drug reached a wider sphere of people. Leary wrote books a conducted lectures, viewing the effects in an almost religious light, where as Kasey went on tour, promoting the drug at “Acid Tests”. Once dosages were being created by backstreet chemists, it was not long before the governments of all countries where LSD was popular banned it, in 1966, creating scare mongering adverts and imposing custodial sentences on those caught dealing and partaking. Eventually the movement petered out with the counter cultural movement, as protest movements stopped and more widespread crackdowns on the drug meant that less people were falling under the spell of LSD.
The artwork itself had hallmarks of the visions that the drug generated. Chris Grunenberg (2005a,7) writes psychedelia as ‘the result of a highly productive interaction between art, technology, politics, drug culture, music and many other influences, creating an extraordinary aesthetic exemplifying the spirit of liberation and freedom”, with Fred Tomaselli listing the aesthetic qualities:
‘…Psychedelia was the beginning of pop culture’s post-modern style war. It was a carnival of repressed histories and multicultural theft, hybridising German Romanticism, William Blake, Surrealism, Pop, sci-fi illustration, comics, jazz age cartoons, Asian, animist and Islamic art, druidism, hot rod and surf culture, art nouveau, leftist agitprop and, of course, cowboys and Indians’ (Tomaselli, 2005, 206).
The use of illegible text, clashing colours, deformed shapes, appropriated icons, surrealist elements and classical figures were all common and related to the feeling of being “under the influence”.
Psychedelic rock and pop aimed to enhance and capture the editing of sound as it is heard having taken the drug Simon Reynolds (2005, 147) describes psychedelic music below;
‘…hallmark psychedelic effects typically involve the smearing of sounds and chromatic intensification. Effects such as phasing, flanging, and ‘swirling’ blur the edges of specific instruments and create a miasmic effect, a cloud of sound seeming to swarm out of the speakers and enfold the listener.’
Light shows (see separate blog entry) accompanied the live playing of music, enhancing the experience to be multi-sensory and more stimulating, creating an environment rather than just a visual focus.
What has not been discussed is what makes this experience sublime.
LSD works by blocking sensory neurons which transmit data to the brain. This was explained in detail by Dr Karl Jansen in the BBC Horizon programme Psychedelic Science. ““Psychedelics can block the transmission of messages from the outside world to the inside and it does that by selectively blocking the action of chemical messages which carry the message from neuron to neuron. If you block that perception or sensation from coming in, there will be a bit of a vacuum in your mind, and nature tends to abhor a vacuum so you mind fills it up with memories, perceptions and meaning, if you like, so there are lot of changes going on in a neuro-electrical sense, and you give it meaning; your mind gives it meaning. As a result of that you can see the world in a new way.”
The effect that this produces is sublime as it is not of a rational world. The brain’s subconscious images are so removed beyond the realms of reality that, to paraphrase William Blake, the doors of perception are cleansed, moving the taker to a sublime state, where the imagination and subconscious make up the perception of the world around them. As there is no possible comprehension for such a state, as nothing is based on reality, the mixture of awe and wonder can be linked to the experiences of the natural sublime, where mountains and chasms held the same ambiguous structure, unfathomable yet visible to the eye.
The Sublime referring to Romantic painters
Romantic painter recognised their own thoughts in that of sublime theory, particularly Kant’s writings. Reacting to the rapid industrialisation brought on by the French revolution, the rational attitudes of scientists and thinkers of the era and the dominance of neo-classicism in arts, the Romantic artists were linked together by rebellion, rather than a pre-determined style. Many painters thought of now as Romantics denied all knowledge of the style as a movement. This does not mean that Romanticism was beyond definition. Jacques-Louis David called it “a revolution, not an insurrection”. (Honour, 1991: 16). Honour writes simply of ‘attitudes towards to art and life which differ fundamentally from those previously expressed’ (Honour, 1991, 12). Levi-Strauss ignored similar factors, declaring that ‘it is not the similarities but the differences which resemble one another’ (Honour, 1991, 12). Baudelaire spoke of the emotional content of work over any similar aesthetics; ‘Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in exact truth, but in a way of feeling.’ (Honour, 1991, 14), where as others resigned themselves and gave up; ‘it is that which cannot be defined’. (Honour, 1991, 14.) However, one theme which was recurrent within works of art was the concept of the sublime. Escaping to wild landscapes and the untamed natural world as a way of avoiding the urban sprawl of expanding industry, the awesome power of nature completely overriding humanity’s supposed dominance was the perfect riposte. Casper David Friedrich’s Wonderer Above the Sea of Fog (1818) (Below); one of the most famous examples of both Romanticism and the sublime within fine art exemplifies the artists stand point, with a lowly figure standing on the edge of a precipice, overlooking craggy outcrops, poking through thick, swirling fog, mountains tailing off in the distance. The landscape expands outwards from the painting, defying the boundaries of the canvas. The wonderer, rather than the super-human proposed by Longinus, is isolated, powerless and frail, his head bowed. Hugh Honour (1991: 81) described the figures painted by Friedrich as being “neither wholly of its world nor of ours, standing on the edge of reality. Motionless, isolated, they seem to be both within and yet somehow outside of nature, at once at home in it and estranged – symbols of ambiguity and alienation”.
John Martin’s The Bard (Below) calls to mind a similar sentiment. A dramatic cliff framed ravine, cut through with a rushing current of water cascading over a waterfall, set in mountainous terrain hosts a perilously placed castle, a symbol of man’s authority and protection balanced at the top of a far cliff, shaped around the terrain, politely borrowing the space from dominant nature. In the foreground, a tiny bard figure, harp in hand stands at the edge of a craggy precipice, his arm outstretched as a harsh wind whips his beard and cape upwards into the air. Like the figure in Friedrich’s painting, he is entirely at the mercy of the elements, overawed and gripped in a powerless state.
These depictions did not necessarily exist; the goal was never realism, but more a way to display a scene which could evoke the feelings felt by the artists when viewing nature themselves, metaphorical allusions to the sublime. Turner commented “I do not paint to be understood, I paint to show what a particular scene looks like” (Honour 1991: 31), however his paintings confirmed that a lack of reality was not detrimental to the aims of the painting. Snow Storm – Steam Boat off a harbour’s mouth (1842) (below) is almost entirely abstract, with waves and sky merging with frenzied, swirling brush strokes. Rather than painting the crests and foam of waves, frozen in an instant perfectly, the motion has been captured with quick, blurred movement, giving the moment a truer life and intensity, rejecting perception merely as eyesight. The boat itself is barely identifiable other than its silhouetted mast, a mere spectator to the roaring, ferocious snow storm that holds it. Turner’s paintings paved the way for abstraction in later years, as perception as captured by painters of the
time was questioned and rejected. Turner’s paintings see movement as non-concrete motion, elements as non-identifiable, and like Kant proposed in his writings, rather than looking at the final cause to identify the sublime, instead Turner looked towards the psychological effect that the sublime has, meaning his paintings have more to do with emotions then they do with the depiction of an event.
While the movement did not have a house style, it can be separated from other landscape painters of the era. ETA Hoffman spoke of Paul Huet’s attitude towards his art in the following passage, however it could be applied to the romantic artists, as it differentiates the attitude Huet took towards his painting from others who depicted similar scenes: “To seize nature in the most profound expression, in the most intimate sense, in that thought which raised all beings towards a more sublime life, is the holy mission of all the arts. Can a simple and exact copy of nature achieve this end? It is as miserable, awkward and forced as an inscription in a foreign language copied by a scribe who does not understand it and who laboriously imitates characters which are unintelligible to him. Some landscapes are no more than correct copies of an original written in a foreign tongue. The painter who is initiated in the divine secrets of art hears the voice of nature recounting its infinite mysteries through trees, plants, flowers, waters and mountains. The gift to transpose his emotions into works of art comes to him like the spirit of god”.
It is through the frustration at being unable to perfectly capture a scene which is truly sublime that the freedom to paint using the imagination, abstraction and exaggeration is released, as the experience of limitation provides the springboard for artistic freedom. This corresponds with Kant’s philosophical views on the sublime as a negative experience of limits, which allows us to reflect more freely on that which is within our comprehension.
Defining the Sublime
The notion of the sublime has been a part of philosophical discourse since the Roman author Longinus was translated by Nicolas Boileau in his text Du Sublime (1674). Proposing that “true nobility in art and life was to be discovered through a confrontation of the threatening and unknown, and drew attention to anything in art that challenges our capacity to understand and fills us with wonder” (Morley, 2010b: 14), his definition of the sublime remains accurate even after many philosophers have examined his ideas. However his positioning of the artist as a human who can contest the power of nature was challenged in the eighteenth century, where the sublime was understood to reveal the frailty of humanity as a powerless spectator to natural events, reversing the power balance addressed in Du Sublime.
Edmund Burke’s text A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1757) looked to the sublime as a psychological state or experience, rather than analysing certain objects, using the Aristotelian principle of causal structures. This principle held that all forms are made up of four causes; material, formal, efficient and final. The material cause was whatever the form was made up of, the formal was the aesthetic shape it existed in, the efficient being the action which bought about the form, and the final being the purpose of the form. Using this theory, Burke suggested that objects that are beautiful held a certain causal formation. The material, formal, efficient and final causes were smallness, smoothness, and delicacy, the passion of love, the calming of nerves and God’s providence respectively. Differing from these qualities, the sublime’s causal structure equated to vastness, infinity and magnificence, the passion of fear, the tension of nerves, and God’s battle with Satan, again respective to the separate categories. Calling the state “the strongest passion”, Burke proposed the state took hold when the self is threatened, separating the sublime from what would otherwise have been a state of beauty.
Immanuel Kant read and expanded on this theory in his publication Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1799), in which he held that emotional enjoyment stemmed from what he described as the ‘finer feelings’, of the beautiful and the sublime. Like Burke, he saw the beautiful as ‘pleasant and joyous’, giving the example of flower beds, whereas the sublime was ‘enjoyment, but with horror’, the example being mountain peaks. Kant then subdivided the sublime into the categories of lofty, noble and splendid, which provoked further feelings of dread, and melancholy, quiet wonder and beauty respectively. However the text rejected Burke’s emphasis on the formal cause, instead proposing that the sublime is an effect on the conscious self, as the mind is unable to process the information presented. This makes Kant’s sublime an issue of negative limits, rather than positive endlessness. With a lack of understanding and comprehension comes the state of terror Burke discussed, however this is due to the limitations of imagination rather than a physical entity being presented. Kant saw this experience as a positive; believing that whilst initially negative, the acceptance of limitations leads to the growth of the persons powers of reasoning within their own context of understanding.
Arthur Schopenhauer agreed with the internal struggles Kant put forward, writing in The World as Will and Representation (1819) that sublime situations require a person to gaze inwards at their internal void, confronting their “fearful inner abyss”. The same text listed objects and observations in order of the strength of sublime feeling which they provoked, classifying them from the lowest, which was the ‘feeling of beauty’, described as ‘Pleasure from a mere perception of an object that cannot hurt observer’, such as light reflected off a flower, to the ‘weakest feeling of the sublime’, deriving pleasure from beholding objects that pose no threat, yet themselves are devoid of life, for example light reflected off stones. A step up from this was the ‘weaker feeling of the sublime’, gained from seeing objects that could not sustain the life of the observer, for instance an endless desert with no movement, and above this a complete sublime feeling, gained from perceiving objects that threaten to hurt or destroy the observer, the example given as turbulent nature. The fullest feeling of the sublime was proposed to be extracted from beholding very violent, destructive objects, such as overpowering turbulent nature, and finally the most absolute sensation of the sublime was proposed to be the pleasure from knowledge of the observer's nothingness and oneness with Nature, with Schopenhauer giving the example of contemplation of the immensity of the universe’s extent or duration.
Introduction
"Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt"
Immanuel Kant, The Critique Of Pure Reason (1781)
The sublime is a point of both confusion and resolve; confusion as it is the when the imagination is stretched to the edges of reason, unable to process the information in front of it, and resolve, in that in the face of this misperception, it is possible to admire the abstract nature of the object and the thought.
When talking of digital technology or the digital realm within this document, the term is used as an umbrella for anything created and displayed via a computer, without tangibility, as opposed to analogue methods, be it paint or film. For example, a projection from a film reel has a physical element, as it exists as a reel displaying each frame on a film strip, as opposed to a projection from a computer, where although the computer is concrete, the data which is being projected is not.
Through this investigation I hope to gain a full understanding of the sublime, in order to evoke it through the digital medium, exploring abstraction as a link between the romantic period and digital age, whilst finding, if there are, the aesthetic values of a sublime piece of art. I intend the end of this investigation to result in a piece of digital artwork evoking the sublime, with the theoretical framework informed by my on-going investigation into the sublime and digital technology.
Immanuel Kant, The Critique Of Pure Reason (1781)
The sublime is a point of both confusion and resolve; confusion as it is the when the imagination is stretched to the edges of reason, unable to process the information in front of it, and resolve, in that in the face of this misperception, it is possible to admire the abstract nature of the object and the thought.
When talking of digital technology or the digital realm within this document, the term is used as an umbrella for anything created and displayed via a computer, without tangibility, as opposed to analogue methods, be it paint or film. For example, a projection from a film reel has a physical element, as it exists as a reel displaying each frame on a film strip, as opposed to a projection from a computer, where although the computer is concrete, the data which is being projected is not.
Through this investigation I hope to gain a full understanding of the sublime, in order to evoke it through the digital medium, exploring abstraction as a link between the romantic period and digital age, whilst finding, if there are, the aesthetic values of a sublime piece of art. I intend the end of this investigation to result in a piece of digital artwork evoking the sublime, with the theoretical framework informed by my on-going investigation into the sublime and digital technology.
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