By 2004 I had spent many years making proposals for works of art, the conception of which arises from between people and place….
…Constantly there are the questions – who are these people and what is this place? My trajectory in trying to deal with these questions has taken me very much towards quantum physics, and in particular to quantum entanglement.
Being an environmental artist means that I live my life in a constant process of referral to the people and places around me, it seems almost for my identity as a human being. Moment by moment do I realize the things around me – moment by moment. I knew this long ago when I was still at college. So for me the answers to the questions above are – I am these people and this place moment by moment.
Now consider that the comfort which quantum entanglement brings is the reason for my life’s trajectory. It is the phenomenon that seems to hold an answer to who I am, and which might confirm the oneness that I feel. So from 2004 onward, it has been my personal quest to comprehend and if possible, shed light on quantum entanglement and the quantum paradox.
But there are also less personal reasons for an artist to be interested in disentangling the quantum paradox. I was never going to be a quantum physicist, I don’t have the kind of mind that can read and retain the meaning of mathematical symbols. Neither have I the practical means of experimenting scientifically to further my knowledge. For me the pursuit of understanding is through the practice of art – I have to create real world symbols as the basis of my thinking.
The advantage of art is that its symbols, including those inspired by science, can be read as metaphors for the human predicament. In this case, we project the idea inspired by quantum entanglement – that in some paradoxical way we are all an entangled singularity, no matter how large or small we appear to be in reality and no matter how far apart in space or time. Thus quantum entanglement calls our intuitions of difference into question, as well as the languages that are based in these intuitions.
If the aim of art is not simply to interrogate language through deconstruction, but also in the same moment to reconstruct that language, then the strength of any linguistic reconstruction lies in the melding of the metaphorical with the symbolic – so that at each moment, that which is present is not simply a representation – a reiterated meme – but a symbol that carries the means of its own presentation. In this way might we speak with respect of the things, which although they appear to surround us, are actually our ownmost constituents.
And with these thoughts going around in my mind, in 2004 I started work on the environmental artwork called standing under understanding.
the visible part of the sculpture consists of two columns of figures that face each other. beyond the point of visibility, at the very tip of these columns, the figures (one female, one male) are infinitely small.
at the top of the sculpture (the point at which they become visible to the naked eye) the couple each have a height of 1mm; and from that point, they grow in size towards the planet Earth with the following proportionality…
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597…
… at which point they cease to be visible to the naked eye as they pass into the Earth and beyond.
at the very tip of the sculpture, there extends no space or time. so no matter how far the columns are placed apart, at the uttermost tip, the two figures are one – the pure singleness of Ourself.