I spent a year (1994/5) with Jackie
Batey embedding visualisations of light into a multi-media database
on a cdrom - "The Art of Light". A departmental wrangle meant the product
of 18 months work was never published, seldom seen and generally ignored
in an institution where, it was supposed, ideas were paramount, and the
technical means of their communications of secondary interest. Given
the lamentable state of the Faculty's computer hardware, this was a most
convenient conceit.
For three days one summer Jackie and I made the computer
available in the University's gallery, surrounded by these images of
the ways in which we depict light. The concept of embedding visual information
within the space provided by the computer's screen was influenced by
Frances Yates' ideas of the Renaissance Memory Theatre from "The Art
of Memory". Robert Fludde's, "Theatre of the World" had been simulated
by the architect Paul Gammon with sound and music composed by Tim Howlett.
The next year we mounted a display in the Corn Hall in
Brighton and made many useful contacts at the University of Sussex and
elsewhere.
The navigational system was innovatory and mysterious.
The prevailing imagery was more Thomas Rowlandson rather than Myst. The
culture from which it came had little in common with Bill Gates and the
United States, and promoted a visual identity from Europe and the seventeenth
century in particular. The spirit of Andrew Marvell haunted tha landscapes.
The absence of Light was as important as its Manifestations. It was a
Manichean experience and almost infinite in its complexities. Small illustrations
on the packaging gave a clue as to the available terrain.
It was modelled in Director, and is now an inert
file in the external hard disk on my desk. My, but we had some fun before
the curtains came down on our Theatre of the World.
Representing GLOW
Representing SEARCHLIGHTS
Representing CANDLE LIGHT
Representing RAYS OF LIGHT
Representing LANTERNS
Representing SUNRISE
Representing LAMPLIGHT
The Headlight
Beam (The World of the Car)
The Streetlight
The Lamplighter from Pyne's Costumes of Great Britain 1808
EVEREADY TORCHES, brochure
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