Ergodicity and (Abstract) Art

I am both blessed and cursed with a need to simultaneously nourish two complementary sides of my soul: physics and art. So, typically, even as my camera and I happily enter an otherwise ego-less state of tranquil communion with nature's sublime forms and patterns, the "other" half of my soul inevitably intrudes - albeit gently - with somewhat more cognitively-inspired thoughts and impressions (and an occassional impromtu equation or two;-)

Thus we come to the subject of this Blog entry, which has to do with what may be a curious conceptual overlap between ergodicity and art (fused, I will argue, by a conscious act of selection). "Ergodicity" is a technical term used in stochastic physics, that, roughly speaking, refers to any process whose "time average" (taken over a single realization) converges to the corresponding "ensemble average" (taken over many realizations). At the risk of oversimplification, think of an ergodic process as one in which one may understand what happens at a single point (in a system's phase space) by either averaging over what happens at that one point over a long time, or by averaging over what all of the points are doing at a given instant in time. In other words, for an ergodic process, a spatial average at one time is equivalent to a temporal average at one spatial point.

What does this have to do with art, photography, and abstraction? Well, one way to characterize the difference between what a traditional artist (such as my dad) does and what a fine-art photographer (such as what I am slowly trying to teach myself to become) does - assuming each is exploring, in his/her own way, the conceptual equivalent of an ergodic artistic landscape - is to look at how the two respective types of artists arrive at their art; or, more precisely, to look at how artists and photographers go about creating the physical form of their art (a painting or a photograph).

The traditional artist sits at his easel (either in a studio or "in the field"), which thus defines a physical space-time "region" for his brush, and actively creates the art on a canvas. To fully "understand" this traditional artist's art - of which each individual painting is but one example - one can imagine taking a time-average over all possible art-works that the artist's brush can "create" over the artist's lifetime; or, equivalently, one can sample over all possible "mind states" that the artist traverses over his internal artistic landscape (while sitting at the same easel at the same physical location!).

In contrast, the photographer wanders over (sometimes enormous stretches of) the physical landscape in hopes of finding an exemplar or two of what it is he/she wishes to express though his/her photographs. The photographer's equivalent of the traditional artist's "brush" (which sits roughly at the same "point" in space and whose subtle movements reflect the artist's inner world) is the camera, which roams over the physical landscape in search of what is, effectively, an already completed canvas. While one can argue that the photographer also has a "brush" of sorts in the guise of a "darkroom" (analog or digital), the most important element of the photographer's "art" is also arguably the moment of "capture." In order to fully understand the photographer's art - of which each individual photograph is but one example - one could imagine taking an average over all possible photographs that the photographer will choose to "create" over his/her lifetime; i.e., an average over all possible "physical states" that the photographer traverses in his search for exemplars of his inner artistic landscape.

Note that while both kinds of artists select their work (out of all possible realizations in a huge multidimensional "art" landcsape), they do so in complementary ways. The traditional artist selects by sampling over an inner landscape of the mind/soul, commiting only those images to his/her canvas that communicate a desired vision; he "selects" to use one type of brush instead of another, and this color and quantity of paint instead of another, and so on. The photographer's selection is also born of an inner vision (as is true for any art), but the selection is not made incrementally, as though the photographer has individual control over which pixels (on a digital camera's CMOS or CCD ship) will receive which signal; rather, the selection is made all at once, when all the tones and textures and forms of a scene are just right for the finger to press the shutter. The photographer selects his art by literally finding it, or, more precisely, by finding some worthy exemplar of the message the artist wishes to impart via his art.

Toward the end of his life, my dad (who passed away in 2002) created some truly extraordinary art that might conventionally be "labeled" as abstract expressionist. A generous sampling of his later work can be viewed here.

While my own art also leans heavily to the abstract, I have not been blessed with my dad's gift of expression with brush and paint. I must instead rely on my inner eye to guide me (and my camera) to examples of "abstract art" as they appear in the world. Out of all such exemplars that I thus discover, I "select" those that come as close as possible to what I would have created myself, if only I had my dad's ability. Such is the photographer's art.

While my dad looks inward to create such works as...





...I must instead hope to stumble across some composition, somewhere out there in the real world (whether by chance alone or enlightened synchronicity!), that captures - in an abstract form - what is in my mind's eye (that I cannot express nearly as well with my camera as my dad did with his brush). I must thus content myself with images such as these...





While I have not "created" any of these images, in the strictest sense of the word, I do take responsibility for carefully - and, I hope, artfully - selecting precisely those ineffable points in time and space that, when rendered by my eye and camera, communicate essentially the same message I would have communicated had I had my dad's artistic genius (and substituted a brush, paint and canvas for my camera, lens and compact flash card.)

Ultimately, the purest form of art, whether it is manifest in painting, photography, sculpture, architecture, or dance - or all of these things, at different times of an artist's life - resides in the life and soul of the artist. Art is seldom found "in" (or confined to) the work that an artist produces, but can readily be observed - even by non-artists - by looking closely at how the artist creates his work (and lives his life!): art is a soul's meta-pattern of willful creation.

I know this to be true, because I saw first-hand how "art" is lived (by a soul known to others as Slava the artist, and whom I simply called "dad"). To help heal my heart after my dad's passing, I sometimes imagine that, somewhere on my multidimensional ergodic artistic landscape, my photography and his art have finally brought the two of us together to some magical space-time-averaged "point" where we are each able to see the beauty of the world through the other's "artistic" eye.

Finally, how does all of this connect back to "ergodicity" as defined at the start of this entry? My "theory" is that just as one can get "to know" a traditional artist (his "style") by looking over a lifetime's worth of work (i.e. by taking a time average over all the works the artist can produce while sitting in roughly the same point in physical space), so one can get "to know" a photographer by looking over all possible images the photographer can take from all possible vantage points in space (i.e., by taking a spatial average over all possible images the artist can take at one time). Of course, this leads open the possibility (even likelihood) that the "styles" of artists change, and evolve, in time. But as a crude conceptual characterization of the fundamental difference between how traditional artists and photographers "create" their work I think it offers an amusing stepping stone.

At the very least, such musings (what might be called ramblings by some;-) beg questions such as "What does an "artistic landscape" look like?", "To what extent does it characterize an artist's unique style and vision?", and "How do different artists traverse this landscape in search of their art?"

"Artist at Work" ;-)

My Blog (and I) have been off-line for a while, as my family and I enjoyed a well-earned vacation. This short entry, to recouple myself to the Blog world, is titled "Artist at Work" - and contains a wink, ";-)" - at the end because I am decidedly poking a bit of fun at myself. While I aspire to one day attain the right to call myself an "Artist," I have also retained enough objectivity in my short life to appreciate I have a way to go to get to that point. The image shown above is a before and after shot. The before shot (on the left-hand-side) exists by courtesy of my beautiful (and brave) wife, who was with me on the Florida beach as yours truly was (incredibly, and somewhat idiotically!) taking a series of Hiroshi Sugimoto-like long-exposures of some pylons sticking out of the water as it, the beach, and my wife and I were pummeled by close-to-hurricane-level winds! The after shot (on the right; "after" referring to the physically banged up state my wife and I were in after braving the inhumanly vicious winds!) was among the several images I somewhow managed to capture without my hat, camera, tripod, and bag being blown half-way to Cuba. Suffice it to say that I now understand two things about my photography (and physical state): 1. That it is not why I take the pictures of the things I tend to take the pictures of (leaves, reeds, vines, dilapidated buildings, ...) that people stare at me when I take pictures with a mixture of bemusement and incredulity; rather, people stare at me with a mixture of bemusement and incredulity because of how I take my pictures. 2. The reason my back (and neck, and shoulders, and knees, and ...) seem to hurt all the time has less to do with the inevitable age-creep (I'm only 45 for Goodness sake;-), and everything to do with the contortions I put my poor body through to get that next shot! (The irony is that my body, in the act of capturing the beauty of dilapidated buildings, is itself succumbing - rapidly - to the same entropic decay!) When I said to my wife (while laughing at what I thought was a "fluke" picture of me in a comically and awkwardly wrenched position), "Hey, you were lucky to catch me like that!"... it was my turn to stare at my wife (with a mixture of bemusement and incredulity;-) when she gently, but firmly, assured me that I always look like that when taking pictures. Whether I am in a mini-hurricane (as above), or precariously balanced on a ledge on some cliff in Hawaii, or delicately (and typically not all-too-well) poised on one leg on a small rock in the middle of a babbling brook, I'm always scrunched up like a pretzel! The "Artist at Work" indeed!

Science "Abstract"

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day website (which is a must-save bookmark for anyone with even the slightest interest in science and imagery!) contains an incredible digital composite of the sun's corona (taken during the recent March 29 eclipse). The composite was created by Koen van Gorp.

The Sun's "atmosphere" (i.e., its corona, which consists of extremely hot gas with a density less than one billionth that of the earth's atmosphere), scatters light from the Sun in all directions. Since this scattered light is very dim compared to the light emanating directly from the Sun, it is normally difficult, if not impossible, to see the corona. However, the corona becomes visible during a total solar eclipse, when the Sun's disc is covered by the moon and its atmosphere becomes visible as a bright, shimmering ring around the moon. Nonetheless, even during such favorable viewing times, it is difficult to capture - at least, to capture in a single image - the typically 10,000 to 1 range of luminance levels.

To circumvent this diffulty, and as explained at the site, the composite image shown above contains 33 separate digital photographs, that collectively reveal remarkable detail that would otherwise remain invisible. Individual exposure times range from 1/8000 sec to 1/5 sec. The resulting image is, in a word, breathtaking!

This extraordinary image is also a great example of how a purely aesthetic experience may be enhanced (indeed, profoundly intensified!) by appreciating the science on which it rests. To be sure, this image may certainly be appreciated purely on its own terms, without the slightest understanding of what it depicts or how it was created. It is a marvelous "abstract" that any abstract expressionist artist would be proud to call his or her own. But to learn that the image is emphatically not the isolated product of a creative artist (drawing on inner inspiration) - rather, that it is a creative collaboration between artist and nature, in which the artist draws upon science (by using scientific tools to visualize otherwise unseen processes and enhance his/her understanding of natural phenomena) - for me, only transforms an already impressive image into something truly special!

Perhaps the only important difference between those who choose such fields as physics and mathematics as lifelong pursuits, and those who do not, is that those who do are able to see the same kind of resplendent, radiant beauty displayed by this image in the very equations that describe the physics that underlie it. Thankfully though, for those for whom "equations" were more of an anathema in school than a stepping stone toward enlightenment;-), such a deep level of understanding is not needed to appreciate nature's gentle grace, elegance and beauty!

Kafka's Door

As I completed my list of Ten Epiphanous Photographs, with Josef Sudek's At the Janacek's being the tenth and last selection, I was reminded by Sudek's Kafkaesque-like imagery that I have recently been lucky enough to capture an image that would (I think) do Kafka proud...

 

The image was taken a few weeks ago at Forest Glen, Maryland, a wonderful "park" that consists of acre-upon-acre of old, abandoned buildings that (dating back to the 1880s) were used, in turn, for a tobacco plantation, a hotel, the Norfolk College for Young Women, a seminary, and, in 1942, an Annex of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. 

Today, the estate is essentially a relic, but is soon to be renovated. For photographers (particularly those whose "eye" leans toward the beauty of entropic decay;-) it is a veritable paradise for a weekend safari. What went through my mind as I encountered this marvelous site (sandwitched atop two buildings on the portion of the estate closest to the main road) was Franz Kafka's parable, "Before the Law" (or, more precisely, what the door in this parable will look like, years and years after the events in the parable have taken place)... 

"Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.... ...During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law... ...Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law...Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper... ...“Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.” 

 The viewer certainly doesn't have to (or need to) know what goes through the photographer's mind the instant the shutter is pressed, but it is hard to look at some images in any way other than how the photographer envisioned it after being told what that vision was! I thus present to you, gentle reader and viewer, what can henceforth be seen only as Kafka's Door!

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #10

The tenth (and last) "epiphanous photograph" - in a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is...

Epiphanous Photograph #10: Josef Sudek's At the Janaceks (1948)


Josef Sudek (1896-1976) was one of the great photographers of the 20th century, and perhaps the best-known Czechoslovakian photographer. Sudek was already an accomplished amateur photographer when he was called up for combat in WWI, and continued to photograph during his military service. Having lost an arm in the war, Sudek was able to get a free scholarhip for a photography course, from which point his life's course was essentially set.

Like Andre Kertesz, Sudek's photography is subtle, and intensely poetic. Though the works of both artists reflect a deep inner meloncholy, where Kertesz focuses (though not exclusively) on daylight scenes and subject matter than spans his travels, Sudek's images are confined mostly to Prague (indeed, to his own studio!) and are often dark and charged with a palpable mystery; few, if any, of Sudek's images would appear out of place as "illustrations" of a Kafka novel!

Consider my tenth, and final, selection as an "Epiphanous Photograph," Sudek's At the Janaceks. Using the simplest of aesthetic primitives - a chair, a window, light and shadow, and diffused light - it simultaneously evokes mystery (of undefined, hidden, meaning) and intensity (in the tangibly psychological presence of the "life" that pervades this room); a seeming paradox of clarity and ambiguity!

It is precisely because of the ambiguity of visual cues and delicate nature of the image - the hint of a yard and fence outside the window, the subtle suggestion of either a candle or small light bulb as an additional source of room light, the small, but otherwise distinctive "peeks" of furniture and a picture (?) in the corners - that the image is able (as so many of Sudek's photographs are!) to strike such powerful emotional chords in the viewer. In Sudek's hands, the camera (with help from Sudek's artistic eye!), becomes a magical tool to capture, probe, and ask what are ultimately unanswerable questions of the meaning and purpose of everyday life.

Sudek once said of his own work, that...

"...everything around us, dead or alive, in the eyes of a crazy photographer mysteriously takes on many variations, so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light or by its surroundings....To capture some of this - I suppose that's lyricism."

To which I can only add that - if one spends even one afternoon gently immersed in Sudek's work - one can only conclude that in the eyes of a crazy but preturnaturally gifted artist, no part of the world is ever devoid of life and inner radiance. Although this is surely a basic lesson that all photographers, to one degree or another, teach, an examination of any of Sudek's best works makes this "lesson" almost obvious. I am humbled to know that on those rare days on which I dare call myself a "photographer" I at least share a common vision (if not divine gift of expression) with a true genius by the name of Josef Sudek. There is no question that in the right hands, photography is art.

Indeed, perhaps the shortest answer I can give to the original question that led to my soul-searching selection of ten personally "Epiphanous Photographs" - rephrased to read "How can you demonstrate to a non-photographer the nature of fine art photography and why you are so passionate about it?" - just look at any of the photographs by Josef Sudek! (More of Sudek's work can be seen here (#1) and here (#2).)

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #9

The ninth of ten "epiphanous photographs" - a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is...

Epiphanous Photograph #9: Aaron Siskind's Jerome (Arizona, 1949)


Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), an American abstract expressionist photographer, began his career on his honeymoon, after receiving a camera as a wedding gift. Originally an English teacher, he later taught photography (with Harry Callahan) at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (from the 1950's into the 1980's). As an artist, he started taking documentary photographs of Harlem in the 1930s when he was a member of the New York Workers' Film and Photo League, but later evolved into a deep abstract impressionist, focusing his attention on cracked walls, peeling paint, fences, and graffiti. His own transition from documentary-style photography, and its strict adherence to the primacy of subject matter, to abstraction, as a conceptual and artistic vehicle for individual expression, marked a general turning point in twentieth-century American photography.

His Jerome, Arizona image is a good example of his unique artistic eye; it is also the very first image by Siskind that I can recall seeing (and being mesmerized by ever since!) While it shares the same basic abstract impressionistic aesthetic space as Weston's Pepper, Minor White's Capitol Reef, and Harry Callahan's Ivy Tentacles on Glass, it (and Siskind's whole general approach) represents a subtle departure from those other photographers.

For Siskind, the flat two-dimensional frame of the picture surface is the sole frame of reference of the photograph. As Siskind describes in an exhibition catalog of his work in 1965,...

"...The experience itself may be described as one of total absorption in the object. But the object serves only a personal need and the requirements of the picture. Thus, rocks are sculpted forms; a section of common decorative iron-work, springing rhythmic shapes; fragments of paper sticking to a wall, a conversation piece. And these forms, totems, masks, figures, images must finally take their place in the tonal field of the picture and strictly conform to their space environment. The obejct has entered the picture, in a sense; it has been photographed directly. But it is often unrecognizable; for it has been removed from its usual context, disassociated from its customary neighbors and forced into new relationships."

Weston, White and Callahan all taught (me) that "ordinary things" may be viewed (and understood) as symbols of abstract "otherness" (and, in White's case, of one's "inner state"); Aaron Siskind has taught me that when the last vestiges of all conventional reference frames are removed from a composition - deliberately, so as to force the viewer to rely on a more primitive language of context-less shapes and tones - a even deeper, ineffable beauty emerges. And Siskind's Jerome, Arizona is another reason I love fine-art photography. (More of Siskind's photographs can be seen here (#1) and here (#2).)

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #8

The eighth of ten "epiphanous photographs" - a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is... Epiphanous Photograph #8: Galen Rowell's Rainbow over the Potala Palace, Lhasa (Tibet, 1981) Galen Rowell (1940-2002) pioneered "participatory (wilderness) photography," in which the photographer becomes an active creative participant in fine-art image making. An accomplished outdoorsman and adventurer, his deep emotional connection to nature pervades virtually all of his photographs. Another signature characteristic is his vivid use of color during the "magic hour" (at sunrise and sunset); indeed, it is arguably true that Rowell was as much a "master of color" as Ansel Adams was a master of black & white. (It is fitting that he received the Ansel Adams Award for his contributions to the art of wilderness photography in 1984.) The life of this extraordinary artist was cut tragically short in 2002 when the plane carrying Rowell and his wife (Barbara Rowell, herself an accomplished photographer) crashed as they were both returning home from a Workshop in the Sierra Mountains. Rainbow over the Potala Palace is, according to Rowell himself, one the great photos of his life. I have selected it as one of my own epiphanous photos for two reasons: (1) it is a magnificent Wagnerian-like "epic" photograph, that is jaw-droppingly beautiful as a print and even more so as a symbolic synergy of aesthetics and spiritual meaning, and (2) it is a quintessential example of Rowell's lifelong practice of participatory creation. According to Rowell (see The Power of Participatory Photography in Inner Game of Outdoor Photography, pages 41-43), this image was captured not long after a trekking group (consisting of about 15 people) that Rowell was a part of in Tibet was called to dinner. A rainbow suddenly appeared in a field below them, though not (from the point of view of the trekkers at that particular moment, as they were all settling down to dinner) in the spot that it appears in Rowell's subsequent photograph. Rowell, relying on his years of experience with optical phenomena in diverse environments, imagined in his mind's eye the precise spot he must get to from which the rainbow would appear to emanate from the roofs of the Dalai Lama's Potala Palace. Dropping his dinner, and running into the fields as fast as he could to get to where he knew he had to position himself, he managed to capture this incredible photograph. None of the other trekker/photographers budged an inch; although many later "claimed" to have captured the same image. In fact, none of the other images even came close to having the same drama, with the rainbows in other "versions" (having been captured from obviously wrong angles) either badly missing the Palace or invisible altogether. Only in Rowell's photograph does the rainbow rise majestically out from the Palace. Only Rowell had the forethought, intuition and strength of will to get himself, his camera and his "eye" into the right place at the right time. Rowell, in his essay (see above), quotes Jacob Bronowski, who finds a similar pattern in the history of scientific creativity: "The mind is roving in a highly charged active way and is looking for connections, for unseen likenesses...It is the highly inquiring mind which at that moment seizes the chance...The world is full of people who are always claiming that they really made the discovery, only they missed it." Rowell's Rainbow over the Potala Palace taught me that a great natural scene is not always (perhaps even rarely!) enough, by itself, for a fine art photograph. It is not enough to be properly attentive, but then sit patiently, passively, awaiting the right confluence of light, tone, texture and form to present itself; one must imagine the exact space-time-soul point where that magical confluence will arise, and then act swiftly, and decisively, to grab it!