Time on the Tilt

On the Expanding Borders of the Visible Universe:
Holography in an Artist’s Approach
Associating that which can be seen with that which exists is a
centuries old misconception. The maxim “seeing is believing”
can be heard quite often even today, though such a narrowing
of reason seem grotesquely humorous and refers more to the
person uttering it than to reality. Paradoxically such doubts may
also carry a positive momentum – or at least some thought
encouraging distrust – provided they do not lead into rigid
conclusions but relate to the manifest need of creating a mental
image of the world. We are living in a continuous electromagnetic
flux. The overwhelming majority of the electromagnetic
radiation is invisible to our direct perception. With the
aid of instruments however, man was able to expand the radius
of perception. In the twentieth century the importance of
instruments has become crucial. With regards to the expansion
of visibility instruments seem to display parallelisms with
the views of Paul Klee the excellent painter of the first part of
the twentieth century: The artist’s task is not to mirror, but to
make visible.
that rays of light would leave the eye and “feel the shapes of
objects”... This absurd explanation has been, in fact, realized
in this light mobile with the help of laser which is the protagonist
of the present revolution in optics:
A laser program activates three distinct realms of forms:
l. The scanner exploits the fact that the laser produces a
well-collimated beam. Changing the frequency modulates the
scanner’s movements and creates linear drawings of continuous
lines.
2. The modelled t:ansparent surface creates spatial webs
of pure interferences.
3. The superpositional method, elaborated in experiments
in my studio and the Central Research Institute for Physics of
Hun gary, produces light-images of the consecutive layers of
the modulated material. These are called pre-holographical forms
by physicists.(The method and the applied instrument were patent
registered in 1980.) The forms this method allows to produce
have led to a new style which creates metamorphical
changes by joining the spatial webs of interference with structural
images in a controlled manner. By continuously transforming
the optical constellation and by modelling the plastical
surface of the plate, specific forms or emblems can be ‘drawn’.
The method is also well adapted to commercial purposes. The
laser show is complemented by a continuous projection of images,
polarised into different forms and colours, on the background
simultaneously with the activation of the scanners.
The eye-shaped frame is made of plastic in subdued, greyish
colours. The instruments – a 40 mW helium-neon laser,
a superpositional light mobile, scanners, a polarizing projector,
electronic control, a light barrier, sensors, and optical elements
– are hidden in the plastic body.
A transmission hologram dissolving across fields, Cambridge MEDIA LAB, 1988.
32 33