Visual Alterity by Randall Halle

Author:Randall Halle
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780252052590
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Eine unerledigte Arbeit (An Unsettled Work) (Fischli and Weiss 2000–2006). © Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery

Untitled (Fischli and Weiss 1997–1998) 1. © Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery

There is something here we should note that defies the action of chunking. The superimposition is typically discussed only briefly and then often described bluntly as “mesmerizing,” “kaleidoscopic,” “transient,” “changing,” “time-based,” “ephemeral,” and “sublime.” Analysis ends there—in part, perhaps, because these are moments of non-sense making. It is worth noting that although kaleidoscopy, spectralization, abstraction, cubification, and so on have been central points of exploration in the arts, neuroscientists have focused on the perception of the objective world and the process of sense making in perception. Neuroscientists have looked at fractals as a way of explaining the folds of the brain and not as a form of patterning that the brain seems to find pleasant.21

To pursue these considerations we can shift our attention to further work. In 1998 Fischli and Weiss began displaying selections of new work as superimpositions of still images, first as “Untitled (Flowers)” and “Untitled (Mushrooms).” These projects have a kippbild quality to them. The experience of depth perception is disturbed, leaving the viewer experiencing a multilayering. The experience of superimposition disrupts distinctions of fore, mid, and background. Shapes, textures, and colors interact in ways that lead into and out of abstraction. A sensation of dizzying unsettlement can set questioning or cognitive grappling into motion based on the images recognized out of the layers of the superimposition: Is it a frog or a strawberry toadstool? Is the bee on the mushroom or the grape? Is the flower in the cactus or is it in the stars?

Fischli and Weiss intensified this work with Unsettled Work/Eine unerledigte Arbeit (2000–2006). Unsettled Work, originally titled Freakshow, Monsters, relied on 162 slides recorded on a hard drive and played in a process of superimposition using two slide projectors. It followed on Untitled (Flowers) and Untitled (Mushrooms) (1998), an exhibit of still-image superimpositions of flower on flower or mushroom on mushroom. What is telling about these images is that these are not superimpositions in which the one image is a ghostly background to the other. They are two images of equal intensity, each on the cusp of perception. They are ultimately not just a superimposition but a kippbild, in which the act of perception switches between recognizing the predominance of the one and the other variously. Unsettled Work selected images from the body of work that went into Visible World but were considered too disrupting. In this project the process of transition, the process of fade in, linger, fade out, is timed equally so that each cycle of images is broken into equal quarters. There is a period in which the image is singular, a moment of equal imposition as it fades out and the other fades in, a singular moment of clarity, and then the beginnings of distortion as the process of fading takes place again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.