Antwerp cut-up

The secret life of plants

The Secret Life of Plants refers to the 16th-century homo universalis Robert Fludd, who was at once a physician, a physicist, an astrologer and a philosopher. The composition is a visualization of Fludd's central thesis that there is an analogy between microcosm and macrocosm. The withered flowers are tulips. The memory of their floral splendor is swept away by the wind. But their life force survives in the bulb.

This remarkable building has survived a particularly eventful history like the breaking of the vessels that were meant to contain the emanation of God's light. As a result, evil - incarnated as Lilith - was introduced into the world.

The result was the isolated  existence in Pyramiden, an arctic ghost town and abandoned mining site which flourished under the Soviet regime. Here roads and money were nonexistent.

What remains is a desolate landscape scarred by battle. Seemingly dead nature. But new life is budding in the shape of poppies. A little moisture would suffice to bring it back to life. Their color echoes that of the spilt blood, but their sedative property also promises relief from the pain.

That is the secret life of plants. The Calvary garden could easily be a still from an epic film about Christ's suffering and resurrection. This work is not so much about the suffering of Christ as about his sacrifice and triumph over death. It connects heaven and earth.

Bohemia by the sea

Bohemia is a border region in the Czech Republic that has been the stake in many wars. It does not lie 'by the sea' as claimed in the title, which refers to a poem by Ingeborg Bachmann about the power and the endless possibilities of the sea.

This composition incorporates calculations by Velimir Khlebnikov, a Russian author who theorised that important naval battles recur every 317 years.


Observatory

The world's largest stone observatory is located in Jaipur, India. The steps leading to the observation platform are like a ladder connecting heaven and earth. Aptly described as "stone lacework" its northern tower still dominates the skyline.

As we continue to chart the infinite universe, we meticulously record the coordinates of the stars and the planets, pinning them to a precise location. But these series of digits are not coordinates, but inventions.

Merkaba is Hebrew for "chariot". Jacob's Ladder' stands for spiritual growth: a series of meditation exercises and the study of certain Kabbalist scriptures yielding a better understanding of the relationship between God and man.

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I don't have much space and have to throw away notes and cuttings regularly. I had collected a stack of brochures during my Antwerp visit. I could not bring myself to throw them away. Finally I made this cut-up of brochure texts, scanned pictures and my own photographs of the visit. I will have to revisit Antwerp. It is a fascinating city with many layers.

I don't expect this piece to be particularly interesting for others. It is a personal experiment about mixing reality, history, religion and imagination. Layers of reality that need not be separate.

References:
Anselm Kiefer - Antwerp City Museums, M HKA and KMSKA – 23.10.2010 - 23.01.2011 - Original text by Christien Deblaere
Anselm Kiefer - Exhibition Pictures
Boris Becker - Photographs, 1984-2009 - FoMu-Galerie – Antwerp – 24.09.10-16.01.11
Boris Becker - Fascinating photographic works!
Ville Lenkkeri – The Place of No Roads - FoMu-Galerie – Antwerp – 18.11.10-16.01.11

Brochure - Monumentale kerken Antwerpen - www.MKAweb.be 

UFO landscapes

Recently I bought the book Ufonauten in opmars (Ufonauts on the rise) by Julien Weverberg. Reading it gives me nostalgia for the wonderful UFO era of my youth. I remember the feeling of mystery the UFO books gave me. And although I never really believed in UFO's I was always intrigued by the grainy pictures of UFO landing places. The Weverbergh book shows that the feeling is as strong as ever.

It is difficult to analyze the feeling. The low definition of the picture is part of the charm. And the "matter of factness" of a picture without artistic intent. But also the romantic feeling of the lonely places "out in nowhere". Somehow the mystery of the "happening" seems to enter the landscape.

UFO-books with their atmospheric pictures have transformed my experience of these landscapes in real life.

I also like the arrows that are often part of the photograph. They accentuate the fact that something happened here. But that something is invisible - it is left to the imagination. But the here is very exact - it is a real tangible place. You can go and visit it. You can touch it.

Even better are the photographs where witnesses point to the place where that something happened. The place and time are exactly determined. But the expressions of the witnesses show that the something is strange and unexplainable.

Places like these are portals - where the landscape of the imagination meets the landscape of reality. These places are rare. We must treat them with respect.

Chris Wilder and Mike Kelley have some interesting observations about UFO landscapes:

In Project Blue Book, a lot of times the pictures are landscapes where reported UFO sightings took place. It’s as if you are supposed to imagine the sighting. The photograph documents the place where the “big event” happened, but now it’s just blank terrain. They look like Robert Smithson’s photographs. It’s the same with a “UFO crash site”: it looks like any other part of the desert.

UFO photo's are like police photography, specifically the feelings induced by photos of murder scenes after the body’s been removed. Because of its association with death, the mundane scene is loaded with heavy energy. And the uncanny effect is heightened when the evacuated scene is especially “normal.” UFO photographs are very much like that. They don't look “real” unless the locale is bland. UFO photos set in visually extravagant places don’t look natural. For example, I’ve seen a UFO photo set in Bryce Canyon National Park; it’s a place that’s simply too weird-looking for me to accept that something unusual could happen there. Such a proposition stretches the limits of plausibility.

Because of Conceptualism, that UFO photographs are now seen to resemble art. Conceptualism adopted the snapshot photograph because it didn’t have aesthetic value — and because snapshots have the look of “truth.” But because of their use in Conceptual Art, the random quality of amateur photos became a recognizable aesthetic trope. What Conceptualism did was make artists very conscious of the formal qualities of the snapshot.

And also Marte Aas has interesting things to say about UFO landscapes:

Classical UFO photography that depicts flying saucers or light phenomena is intended to serve as evidence for the existence of UFOs. This photographic "evidence" is inevitably blurry, grainy or badly exposed. The descriptive power of the UFO photographs is, in other words, highly inadequate. One may perhaps query how detailed an object can be depicted at the same time as remaining "unidentified".

It is the absence of the UFO that triggers the imagination and creates images in the minds eye of the beholder. 

References:

Weaned On Conspiracy: A Dialogue Between Chris Wilder And Mike Kelley

Chris Wilder - Excerpts from projectbluebook

UFO-Landscapes - Marte Aas

Das Magische – Der Paranoia-Diskurs. Conspiracies, UFOs und Verschwörungsdenken - Sven Drühl

Susan Hiller: Witness

Minimal poetry

I would never have known the poems of F. van Dixhoorn if the library had not put them in their poetry exhibit.   Weird titles like Two little beeps and Then at the maritime academy. Enigmatic minimal text and huge areas of white space:

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however carefully done

on the other hand, the risk

binoculars

1. in moonlight

2. unnecessary redundant

3. a long season

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2. usually ending

with the purchase

of a red vase

naturally cheerful

3. zinc

corrugated steel

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In less able hands this would be a cheap trick. But these poems have been assembled like artful clockworks and they are thrilling. Some comments by critics:

• The poems are like the fragments of a vase. We only have the fragments, but we are able to reconstruct an approximate shape of the original object.
• We have been conditioned to use language according to fixed patterns and structures. The poet tries to de-construct, reconstruct and reassemble language. Force the brain to leave the accustomed linguistic paths and explore unknown terrain.

The last comment is fascinating. It seems to work with language. Could it also work in physical urban space?

Could a method of movement, observation and interpretation be devised that has the same thrilling effect? A real-time conspiracy theory assembled from random fragments of urban space?

Sources:
F. van Dixhoorn - Twee piepjes - De bezige bij - 2007
F. van Dixhoorn - Dan op de zeevaartschool - De bezige bij - 2003
Information about the poet and some translated poems - in English
Some translated poems - in English
Some translated poems - in English
Audio and video - in Dutch
An attempt at interpretation - in Dutch
Photograph of the poet

Amateur observation guide

The digital camera as a research starter

The digital camera gives everyone a cheap and easy method of recording the standard daily surroundings. Anything can be interesting when viewed over an appropriate time span. Changes become apparent, emergent properties can be detected, comparative studies become possible.

A nondescript water surface suddenly becomes interesting.

Views of a water surface during one windy afternoon.

Amateur research steps

Doing research as a hobby should be fun. The goal is to enlarge your daily horizon - not to gain deep knowledge. Puzzlement and confusion can be pleasant emotions. One should take pleasure in the humiliating insight that the world is unfathomable any time and everywhere. Even in the most boring places. The steps to take are: 

• Active observation – what do we see here?
• Intuitive model building – how does this work? Here we are limited by our personal knowledge. We will make the wrong assumptions and we won't have a full understanding of the phenomenon. But that should not stop us from analyzing.
• Further research – is our model complete and correct? The Internet is a wonderful research tool. Often someone has already written about this phenomenon and we can deepen our understanding.
• Deciding it is enough – we do not intend to become specialists in this field. Or do we?

Intuitive model - water surface example

 

• Each ripple has a convex surface and it reflects its surroundings like a convex mirror. It reflects a big part of space – including the sky and the landscape. The dark parts reflect the landscape, the light parts reflect the sky.
• When the ripple is more curved it reflects a bigger part of the surroundings.
• When the ripple is smaller it forms a smaller picture of it's surroundings.
• There will always be small horizontal surfaces at the top and bottom of waves, so there will always be some “normal” reflection.
• The result is a “normal” reflection overlaid with random noise. The volume and frequency of the noise depends of the size and curvature of the waves. And this again depends on wind speed.

Further research - water surface example

Of course Marcel Minnaert has written about this phenomenon. But he only analyzes one detail - the length of moon reflections on a rippled surface. The mathematics he uses is not trivial and the results of the analysis are not very enlightening. The Internet produces one more article. Again the mathematics are difficult and the results are not worth the trouble. *

* Believe me - I took the time to understand the math. See references if you want to try yourself. I like my own model better - my model uses amateur information theory.

But there is more to be learned from studying the waves that cause the reflections. Again the digital camera shows the enormous richness of shapes and textures.

Waves on a water surface during one windy afternoon.

And there is a wonderful book that explains it all in simple language. It's a book by another amateur observer whom I respect highly (he has also written The Cloudspotters guide and he has given a formal name to a previously unrecognized type of cloud, the asperatus).

In the first chapter of the book he introduces two types of waves:

• Capillary waves - are produced by light breezes, they have a low amplitude and a low wavelength. They propagate in the elastic medium formed by the surface tension of the water, that tries to annihilate the disturbance in the water surface.
• Gravity waves - are produced by more powerful winds and they propagate through the action of  gravity, as it tries to pull the wave crests down to annihilate the the disturbance in the water surface.

A quick look on Wikipedia opens huge vistas into physics and mathematics and shows that the intricacies of these mechanisms far exceed the scope of the amateur. Isn't it amazing that this new discovery-space is presented to you for free, while you're relaxing at the waterside?

Further research - advanced observation exercises

Of course Marcel Minnaert has also something to say about the art of wave observation:

85. Exercises for observing water waves

There are two modes of looking at fast moving water:

• One can focus the gaze on a fixed spot. One perceives that a stone, that protrudes above the water of the stream, is surrounded by a nice wave pattern, which remains perfectly at rest. This is the image one gets if one takes a photograph.
• One can also move the gaze along with the water. Some exercise is necessary for that purpose: for example, follow a floating leaf with your eyes, or look through half-closed eyes. Suddenly you will see all kinds of waves that follow the water flow, and the seemingly smooth surface turns out to be full of irregularities and structures.

The art of wave-watching can be practiced when it's raining and you stand on the shore of a pond. Waves cross the surface in all directions. Let your gaze slide slowly and evenly over the water surface and suddenly you will see ripples that are moving in this direction as one coherent wave-front, while ripples moving in other directions appear invisible or very unclear.

The exercise of the eyes that one acquires with such observations is of great value for the study of standing and running waves in streams, waterfalls, the surf etc. Vaughan Cornish, who devoted a big part of his life to these investigations, claims that he could distinguish some wave phenomena only after several months of training.

Further research - a life devoted to observation

And Vaughan Cornish himself writes in a very interesting way about a life spent in wave observation. Notice the poetic paragraph that I have marked and notice that he calls an earthquake "good fortune":

Thus having surveyed the whole subject of waves, I decided to confine myself for the purpose of original research to the study of the surface waves of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere, or air, water, and earth, calling the subject "kumatology," and classing it as a department of physical geography.

This is the practical form of the idea which has led me by an untrodden path to the Land of the Unknown. In this country there are no sign-posts to direct the traveller, no roads for him to follow, no maps to show him how to shape his course. Here watchfulness, patience, and docility to experience are the only passports. But it is a delightful land, and its call is like " the call of the wild."

At first my home on the South Coast was a favourable position for observations both of waves of water and of sand, but presently travel became necessary in order to develop the subject. The home was given up, and I wandered abroad among sandhills and snowdrifts, explored amphibiously the sandbanks of estuaries, measured waves in storms at sea, timed the thtobbing surge of torrents, the heaving of whirlpools, and the drumming thunder of waterfalls.

I was by good fortune in Kingston, Jamaica, when the earthquake of January, 1907, wrecked the city, and I mapped the seismic waves which traversed the island. Later, I studied on the spot those curious gravitation waves in volcanic rock which so greatly hamper work on the Panama Canal by bulging up the bottom of the Culebra Cut, and I am now pursuing the study of this kind of wave.



References:

The Wave Watchers Companion - Amazon

Marcel Minnaert - dnbl

Reflections on rippling water - jstor

The Cloudspotter's Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds - Amazon

Waves of sand and snow and the eddies which make them - Vaughan Cornish

Kadochigai - mistaking a door



 One euro was enough to buy me this Japanese dictionary in the Rotterdam book market. When I have to wait, while my computer boots or while my scanner scans, I browse its contents. Each time I'm surprised how language and culture are intertwined. My latest discovery opens a whole Murakami-like world.

"Mistaking a door" was a concept that had never entered my world. But this simple phrase contains a universe of possibilities. One moment you mistake a door and the next moment your whole life has changed.

 

And this single page contains even more cultural treasures like:

•  Kadobi - A funeral fire.
• Kadomatsu - Pine trees set up for the New Year's decorations.
• Kadotsuke - A strolling shamisen player.

For the Japanese these words are ordinary words. For me they are very exotic and poetic. They show a glimpse of a foreign Haiku-like world. A world that enlarges my horizon even though I can never become a part of it. I may not be able to go through that door, but I can peek inside.



The sound of paintings

I have to admit that this is not my own idea. Several years ago one website presented a large collection of famous paintings and their sounds. When I found the website, it was not maintained anymore and the sound didn't work. Then the site disappeared or I could not find the right search keywords.

But I found the idea fascinating and decided to recreate it on a smaller scale.

It is an interesting experience to stand in front of a picture with your microphone. People look at you strangely and they lower their voices when they notice the recorder. But the exercise forces you to spend some quality time with a painting. You look better and remember more afterwards.

The combination of sound and vision has added value - like a cut-up by William Burroughs or a random juxtaposition by John Cage. The tower of Babel resonates with chaotic language fragments and the Mondriaan has a more abstract sound. 

Pieter Bruegel   1525-1569

The tower of Babel 1565

Piet Mondriaan  1872 - 1944

Composition nr. II 1929

Source:

Boijmans Museum - Rotterdam

Analog database

I am very happy that I've seen this poster, because it changed my perception of the city. In my translation:

Inside the "global village" the city is an analog database. All urban architecture and all architectural elements, from bus shelters to transformer houses are potential carriers of information, images and adventure. Logo's, brand names, billboards, marquees, murals, graffiti and stickers have transformed the city into a mass medium.

Amidst its overkill of media and information the metropolitan area requires a new talent from its users: the ability to learn to read the city. Information must be filtered from the noise: how do we "hack" the codes of public space? How do we transform the noise into pink noise?

But my interpretation of this text by Siebe Thissen is slightly different. The original meaning of the text is that the city surfaces have become carriers for human-created information. My personal interpretation is that the city itself is a storage vat of regional history that can be decoded by practising deep topography (1).

For example, below are two pages from the city's stone book of recorded events (2). The writing is beautiful, asemic (3) and reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy. Does it contain a message from the city? Is it decodable? Can we learn to read it?  Or is it only accessible through the imagination, like Kafka's message from the emperor (4):

But you sit at your window and dream to yourself of that message when evening comes.

 References:
De Hofbogen - the poster series containing the analog database
De bekladde stad  - the original text of "the besmirched city" by Siebe Thissen - PDF format
Analog computer - the "analog database" does not really exist in practice, but it is a beautiful idea
[1] The concepts of "storage vats of regional history" and "deep topography" have been coined by Nick Papadimitriou. Video clip here and here.
[2] A shameless rip-off of the "stone tape theory".
[3] Some examples of asemic writing: thenewpostliterate, wikipedia asemic writing.
[4] Kafka: an imperial message.