the ganzfeld effect (from german for “complete field”) is a phenomenon of visual perception caused by staring at an undifferentiated and uniform field of color. the effect is described as the loss of vision as the brain cuts off the unchanging signal from the eyes. the result is "seeing black" - apparent blindness.

"photography, it is said, is writing with light"

"the architecture of our time is turning into the retinal art of the eye. architecture at large has become an art of the printed image fixed by the hurried eye of the camera"

"it is only through light and shadow that architecture acquires shape"

viewed from the entrance platform 20:50 appears as a holographic field: simultaneously a polished floor, infinite clear pool, an expansive and indefinable virtual space that clinically absorbs and mirrors the gallery architecture. the room is in fact entirely flooded in oil.

- saatchi gallery excerpt

"mystery - if we can use an image here - is like a somber and unknown night which envelops us completely; it is also like dark space, homogeneous, infinite, such as we have before us when we close our eyes."

"darkness is not the mere absence of light; it has some positive quality. whereas bright space disappears, giving way to the material concreteness of objects, darkness is "thick"; it directly touches a person, enfolds, penetrates, and even passes through him. thus the "self is permeable to the dark but not to the light"; the feeling of mystery we experience at night probably stems from this."

roger caillois, 1935, the edge of surrealism: a roger caillois reader, p101

"since dark space enfolds me from all sides, and penetrates me much more deeply than does bright space, the role played by the inner/outer distinction and thus by the sensory organs as well [insofar as they enable external perception] is quite minimal"

eugene minkowski, 1933, etudes phenomenologiques et psychopathologiques

considering my visual presentation, i think clancy makes an insightful conclusion here. while i always expected the representation of light to form a large part of my thesis, i haven't to date considered it the focus of my studies. i can imagine that the strength of this masters thesis may rest largely on how well i communicate particular notions concerning light.

on the representation of light. it occurs to me that in drawing light i'm attracted to scenes of high [wide] contrast; and the boundaries where white light and deep black meet. it's at these boundaries that i form a sense of material and volume of light, or in some cases the space that light excludes. i find some similarity in anthony mccall's projections; smoke diffused rooms express the geometry and nature of the intersecting, space defining blades

i've considered the material qualities i inevitably invoke when representing light and space in one of my etched plates; a rough, coarsely textured surface for black and the rather polished perfection of intense area's of light. although i need not explain that light isn't attributed with qualities synonymous with matter, i find it increasingly useful to transpose descriptions of the ethereal and the material.

simply put, light and dark are two aspects of the singular phenomenon. i refrain from dedicating my work in this way and instead ascribe a desire to control and restrict illumination to the prevalent atmosphere of my prints and drawings. in one sense the darkness in the scenes is an aesthetic and somewhat psychological exercise to narrate the story. however i have found that through restricting incidental light a more tightly controlled experiment in light is the product.

designed by sean