"Surrealism has sometimes seemed to signify a rejection of the exterior world, insofar as automatic writing, automatic drawing, and automatic painting are frankly oriented toward the "interior model," in other words, toward the unconscious."

- José Pierre The Great Exterior Object

The Son of Man
René Magritte
1964
Oil on canvas

"At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present." 

-René Magritte About the painting "The Son of Man"

Important facts about René Magritte:

"Resemblance - which can be made visible through painting - only deal with figures as they appear in the world: people, curtains, weapons, stars, solids, inscriptions, etc....spontaneously united in the order wherein the familiar and the strange are restored to mystery."

 -René Magritte Catalogue of the Magritte exhibition, Paris, Galerie Rive Droite, 1960

Easel

The Human Condition
René Magritte
1933
Oil on canvas

"The problem of the window gave rise to La condition humaine (The Human Condition). In front of a window seen from inside a room, I placed a painting representing exactly that portion of the landscape covered by the painting. Thus, the tree in the picture hid the tree behind it, outside the room. For the spectator, it was both inside the room within the painting and outside in the real landscape. This is how we see the world. We see it outside ourselves, and at the same time we only have a representation of it in ourselves. In the same way, we sometimes situate in the past that which is happening in the present. Time and space thus lose the vulgar meaning that only daily experience takes into account."  

-René Magritte La Ligne de Vie II, February 1940

A: the video of the sky has its real and unreal appearance - the opening to the outside world and a projection in the inside room.



The Human Condition

"Apropos the "invisible", I mean what is not visible: for example, heat, weight, pleasure, etc.There is the visible we see: the apple in front of the face in "La grande guerre" (The Great War), and the hidden visible: the face hidden by the visible apple. In Le banquet (The banquet) the sun hidden by the row of trees is invisible. It (like nothingness) is important not because it is invisible, but because it is absolutely necessary." 

-Letter from René Magritte to André Bosmans September 25, 1964

"At least it partially hides the face. Well then, here we have the apparent visible, the apple, hiding the hidden visible, the person's face. This process occurs endlessly. Each thing we see hides another, we always want to see what is been hidden by what we see. There is an interest in what is hidden and what the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a fairly intense feeling, a kind of contest, I could say, between the hidden visible and the apparent visible."
-From an interview by Sean Neyens, 1965 

A: In my work on the the ceiling, the hidden visible is yourself and the hiding subject is yourself.



Man and His Shadow

Decalcomania
René Magritte
1966
Oil on canvas

"As for the light, I think that if it has the power to make objects visible, its existence is manifest only if the objects receive it. Light is invisible as matter." 

-René Magritte La Ligne de Vie II, February 1940

The Empire of Lights

THe Empire of Lights
René Magritte
1950
Oil on canvas

"The landscape evokes night and the sky evokes the day. I find this evocation of night and day is endowed with the power to surprise and enchant us. I call this power: poetry.I believe this evocation has such poetic power, it is because, among other reasons, I have always felt the greatest interest in night and in day, yet without ever having preferred on or the other. This personal interest in night and day is a feeling of admiration and astonishment." 

- René Magritte Late April 1956

the hidden visible - the shadow
the cloud - the day light


the interior and the exterior - the outside world and the inside representation - the conscious and the automatic unconscious

Week11 Tues

This week of computer mapping testing is a further development of building structure exploration from last week. As Sean pointed out at class that the on and off of lights is not quite site-specific, I went back to the site and did few more experiments. And by projecting the sky from the outside on the an inside surface came out as an interesting result.

Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman
Green Light Corridor, 1970-71

"Nauman has the viewer right where he wants the viewer to be - on an uncomfortable edge between profundity and corniness."
-Jan Butterfield, "The Art of Light and Sapce"

"He didn't put it there and it's in my head; He put it there and nobody knows it but me; He didn't put it there and it's there anyway.
-Peter Plagens, "Bruce Nauman: Mapping the Studio"

"I think in terms of psychological aspects, how we locate ourselves in a room, how we fill a space and are comfortable in it. I am also interested in how we control a space......You do try to make yourself comfortable in a space. You try and know the space in some sense."
- Bruce Nauman

"Real obstacles don't take you in circles. They can be overcome. Invented ones are like a maze." 

-Barbara Sher 

“Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.”

- Gautama Siddharta

Week 10 Friday

Just a fleet idea that it might be interesting to have the light flickering as threshold between real & illusion. So the screen can be a normal mirror and a back-side-front digital mirror. 

Week 10 Tuesday

Idea development from week 9

Problems occurred in terms of facilities, for example low definition of web-cams, limit length of camera cables, the angle of the camera. As the idea of digital mirroring has been settled, I'll try my best to complete the whole composition. Here are several thing need preparing: a structure to hold 2 cameras on the ceiling (there is an iron wire on site); cables long enough to connect computers with cameras (two of them, look into fire wire camera or 5m USB cable wire); two monitors out of Resolume (Matrox Triple Head to Go card and its software); the projector distance and the screen size (big mirrors/ short throw lens/ www.projectorcentral.com). Another issue is to find 2 people to give a hand setting up, that might take a whole day to do the documentary and that also requires at least 3 days mock-up with all the devices and loan the Matrox Triple Head to Go card from Sean, it will probably happen in week 12 or the SWOT-VAC week (Oct.15-21).

So here's a rough schedule for what's happening for the next couple of weeks:

week10:
Sort out the cables, projectors and cameras that can be used, design and make the structure of camera holding system (wood? steel? http://www.bunnings.com.au/), drawing grids as digital mapping at site and script of the design

week11:
Go on building the structure of holding system; decide what animation's used in digital mapping and test in the model, readings and documentations of the project

week12:
Testing @ home, documenting @ site

SWOT-VAC:
Video editing, prepare on presentation

As the problem of not relating to technology and building structure came from last presentation, I need to add a playful video about the site as mapping the ceiling rafters maybe, more explorations have to be done asap. and in the end it can be edited into a movie with narrative happens in a real site.

This is getting rather fun and haaaaaaaard...
Finger-crossed...