Speculation on Astronomy and Cinema

Overexposure / Henrietta Swan Leavitt: The "Cinematic" Discovery of Cepheids-The Flicker of the Stars-A Digression / Send Me Sky, Henrietta (2018) / The Color Out of Space (2015) / On Darkness-Cinematic and Telescopic Observations / White Museum (2010-): Reordering Cinematic Space / Instruments In and Out

My art practice has long reflected an intense interest in a conceptual approach toward film. I tend to regard cinema in an architectural sense, whereby the environment (the space), the screen, and the projection can be combined or pushed forward to create another space "beyond." I imagine this as existing in both interior and exterior space at the same time. It is a space shot through with a sense of uncertainty and speculation.

In recent years, I have been further struck by affinities between astronomy and cinema. On one level, both engage with concepts of light, time, and distance; indeed, it might be argued that both astronomy and cinema are essentially composed of only these elements. On yet another level, both can be understood as sharing, in different ways, fundamental aspects of uncertainty and speculation. The universe is made out of dark matter and only a very small part of our understanding of dark matter is based in factual knowledge. That is to say, an astronomy student can acquire all their factual knowledge around this in a very short time, as it forms only around four percent of their studies. Everything that follows moves beyond fact into a space of research and observation, into a space of, for lack of a better word, speculation.

When I refer to speculation, I mean a zone of reflection and discussion where hypotheses can be built up. A speculation zone exists to bridge real gaps in knowledge through imagining and inventing possible explanations for baffling phenomena based on scientifically informed research. One notable scholar who embraced the idea of mixing fact, confirmed knowledge, and speculation was philosopher and mathematician Imre Lakatos. His Proofs and Refutations from 1976 is written as a dialogue between fictional students and a teacher that concerns proof in mathematics, where Lakatos argues that mathematics is a dynamic process, against the backdrop of a formalist philosophy of mathematics: "Formalism denies the status of mathematics to most of what has been commonly understood to be mathematics, and can say nothing about its growth. None of the 'creative' periods and hardly any of the 'critical' periods of mathematical theories would be admitted into the formalist heaven, where mathematical theories dwell like the seraphim, purged of all the impurities of earthly uncertainty."2

Overexposure

Positioning the speculative and the uncertain as the essential elements of cinema presupposes a completely different approach to film and a different understanding of the medium.

Overexposure

too much light, blinking

1. overexposure

the act of exposing film to too much light or for too long a time

2. overexposure

the act of exposing someone excessively to an influencing experience

Exposure

the act of exposing film to light

By contrast, the certain and non-speculative character of cinema involves the given, normal functions of each component in a cinematic setup, such as the sound as an enforcement of the visual narrative, the visual information as the buildup to a structured narrative, and the architecture of a frontal screen in a darkened space with hidden machinery. I am rather looking for an unclassifiable fluidity in the connections between these elements.

Fictional Library

the inability of language to deal with this before or beyond language.

This is captured here through cinematic experiences in paraverbal modes, around, below, and beyond the word.

We feel we come close with language but not close enough.

Hubble Space Telescope image showing Sirius A, the brightest star in our night sky, along with its faint, tiny stellar companion, Sirius B. Astronomers manipulate images using cinematic techniques; in this case, overexposure was applied to the image of Sirius A to better reveal the presence of Sirius B.

As these elements are normally obscured by the hegemony of cinema's conventional terms, they can only be perceived when that prevalence is challenged by disassembling and reassembling those terms in unexpected ways. I will explain the oscillation of some conventional terms like "flicker" and "sound" in later sections of this book. Another of these terms is "cinematic space," which I investigate through different intersections, like that of astronomy and cinema.

Speculation

a zone of reflection and discussion where hypotheses can be built up and where a search for an unclassifiable fluidity in the connection between components of cinema can be undertaken

Using the intersection as an investigative tool in my work opens more possibilities, in the sense that it is a conceptual approach. For example, architecture is not considered a fixed structure but rather a potential passage, where the environment, the screen, and the projection can be combined into a unified structure and thus a cinematic situation. I am talking here about my methods and the making and thinking of my work. This practice exists and operates in the context of other writers and makers who regularly use the same terms, but use them differently, to different ends, with different purposes. For example, other contemporary practitioners who use the method of looping but in a different way than I do include Rodney Graham, who works with the loop as a self-perpetuating narrative device,3 and Malcolm Le Grice, who has interrupted a beam of light with a series of formal actions, which expand the work more to a performance space than a cinema space.4 I, however, intend in this chapter to question the definitions and relations of certain concepts and to work with their field of inquiry rather than with established facts.

Omit

From Latin omittere, from ob- "down" + mittere "let go"

Emit

From Latin emittere, from e- "out of + mittere "send"

Speculation and uncertainty in cinema are also emphasized when the "traditional" imagery of cinematic film is removed, which is a key element in my ongoing interest in and exploration of the "white frame" and the passage of light in many of my works. White frames can present white space or white images as media. In this way, space can be created through omission, by defining an empty space, and at the same time the image is freed from its two-dimensionality as it comes to describe a volume or a carved-out space. "White" gives a framework to ideas, since every image is a construct. White-which contains all colors-is a kind of universal metaphor for light as a sculptural medium. We cut from white what we don't see. White thus becomes an image; it is a trigger, a stimulus to decipher the situation in which you find yourself.

In my understanding, omission here is the action of creating a space that temporally makes use of exclusion for the benefit of highlighting a non-placed narrative. What is carved out? What is shaping what within those instabilities? I have come to the conclusion that it is only through light that we produce the particular experience of cinema.

A white cinematic projection is the omission of image. This omission, which allegedly leaves out any narrative, in fact does the opposite. By omitting the main narrative, the one that comes from the projector, the framed white light creates the opportunity for other narratives to emerge. Thus, this self-implicated omission of the projector has the potential to bring forward narratives that might otherwise have been omitted themselves.

At the same time, the light coming out of a film projector creates an emission. The projector discharges its light with an interrupted rhythmic stream caused by the constantly occurring empty space. This leads the viewer into another space of consciousness, a space that can enfold knowledge experienced through one's body and activate other parts of cognition. It is a space that is an encounter of elements.

Flick·er1

(flik´?r), v.i. 1. to burn unsteadily; shine with a wavering light: The candle flickered in the wind and went out. 2. to move to and fro; vibrate; quiver: The long grasses flickered in the wind. 3. to flutter. -v.t. 4. to cause to flicker. -n. 5. an unsteady flame or light. 6. a flickering movement. 7. a brief occurrence or appearance: a flicker of hope. 8. Often, flickers. Slang. flick. 9. Ophthalm. the visual sensation of flickering that occurs when the interval between intermittent flashes of light is too long to permit fusion. [bef. 1000; ME flikeren (v.) OE flicorian to flutter; c. D flikeren] -flick´er·ing·ly, adv. -flick´er·y, adj. -Syn. 1. flare, flash, gleam, shimmer.

From Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (New York,...