Mythology

"That it doesn’t strike us at all when we look around us, move about in space, feel our own bodies, etc. etc., shows how natural these things are to us. We do not notice that we see space perspectivally or that our visual field is in some sense blurred towards the edges. It doesn’t strike us and never can strike us because it is the way we perceive. We never give it a thought and it’s impossible we should, since there is nothing that contrasts with the form of our world.What I wanted to say is it’s strange that those who ascribe reality only to things and not to our ideas move about so unquestioningly in the world as idea and never long to escape from it.

...

An entire mythology is
stored within our language."

- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951)

Temporality #3

 "No permanence is ours;
we are a wave
That flows to fit
whatever form it finds"

- Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962)
The Glass Bead Game

Postscript. One last "improvisation" on finding ways to render the ephemeral beauty that lives and dwells in flame (as described in Temporality #1) before I move on to other images and musings. The base images in this example are selected from the same set I used for my earlier examples (i.e., roughly 100 or so macros of flame, exposed between 1/2000th and 1/5000th sec). Also, just as in the last example (Temporality #2), each panel of the triptych is effectively an average (in terms of luminance) of three separate images. But this time, I loosened the constraint that individual photographs must retain their original orientation. I've written a short Mathematica program that automates the process of assembling triptychs of luminance-averaged layers, wherein each image either remains "as is" (i.e., in its original upright position), is reflected horizontally or vertically (as in a mirror), or is reflected both horizontally and vertically. Of course, this vastly increases the set of randomly assembled images. Assuming 100 "base" images - i.e., original flame macros - a 3 panel assembly consisting of 3 layered base images, each of which can assume any of four orientations, leads to over 50 million! combinations! But, while this makes it difficult, if not impossible, to sample even a small fraction of the "abstract triptych space," it can also yield striking images that would otherwise likely remain unknown. Of course, there are myriad associated aesthetic, conceptual, and philosophical depths that can be mined here (e.g., "What does the space of all possible 'creative' excursions from a starting set of images even look like?" - echoes of Stuart Kauffman's space of the "Adjacent Possible"), but I best end the discussion here, and let the lone exemplar above speak of what lives in that unimaginably larger universe of latent realities.

Temporality #2

"But what about "time"? After all it is not a bundle in which past, future and present are wrapped up together. Time is not a cage in which the "no longer now," the "not yet now," and the "now" are cooped up together. How do matters stand with "time"? They stand thus: time goes. And it goes in that it passes away. The passing of time is, of course, a coming, but a coming which goes, in passing away. What comes in time never comes to stay, but to go. What comes in time always bears beforehand the mark of going past and passing away. This is why everything temporal is regarded simply as what is transitory."

- Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976)
What is Called Thinking?

Postscript. A lesson my dad (an artist, who passed away a much too long 19 years ago) implicitly drilled in to me - oh, ever so gently, as it was simply a way of life with him; something he did as instinctually as most people breathe - was the importance of constant play and experimentation (something I've underscored before in another context). As I wrote a few days ago, I am "revisiting" - and rediscovering - the ephemeral beauty that lives and dwells in flame. And so, in the spirit of my dad's freewheeling jazz-like improvisation, I've been toying with alternative ways of "seeing" - after the fact - more deeply into what only my lens can see when the flame I am pointing my camera at is alive. My first stab (as shown in an earlier post) was to use triptychs to emphasize the "dance" within the flame; the preliminary fruits of which have already spawned a small portfolio (with more to follow). An example of an "improvised" second take on this idea is shown above. It is still a triptych, but here each frame merges three separate images, captured in rapid succession during a given sequence (individual images are still exposed between 1/2000th and 1/5000th sec). The implied enfolding makes the flame look even more organic and alive! Perhaps - with a nod to Goethe, who famously described architecture as "frozen music" - I ought to call these ethereal moments frozen fire.

Miniature Universe

"All the matter of the world that surrounds us, the food that we eat, the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, the stones that our houses are built of, our own bodies — everything is permeated by all the matters that exist in the universe. There is no need to study or investigate the sun in order to discover the matter of the solar world; this matter exists in ourselves and is the result of the division of our atoms. In the same way we have in us the matter of all other worlds. Man is, in the full sense of the term, a 'miniature universe'; in him are all the matters of which the universe consists; the same forces, the same laws that govern the life of the universe, operate in him; therefore in studying man we can study the whole world, just as in studying the world we can study man."

- P. D. Ouspensky (1878 - 1947)

Temporality

"The moment is that ambiguity in which time and eternity touch each other, and with this the concept of temporality is posited, whereby time constantly intersects eternity and eternity constantly pervades time. As a result, the above-mentioned division acquires its significance: the present time, the past time, the future time.

...

A moment as such is unique. To be sure, it is short and temporal, as the moment is; it is passing, as the moment is, past, as the moment is in the next moment, and yet it is decisive, and yet it is filled with the eternal. A moment such as this must have a special name. Let us call it: the fullness of time.

...

The fullness of time is the moment as the eternal, and yet this eternal is also the future and the past. If attention is not paid to this, not a single concept can be saved from a heretical and treasonable admixture that annihilates the concept."

- Søren Kierkegaard (1813 -1855)

Postscript. What you are looking at are three closeups of a small flame (less than a few inches in height) captured at about 1/3000th of a sec. While I have toyed with "abstract flames" many years ago (e.g., see here), those earlier experiments used fairly large open flames; such as when my family and I would gather around our backyard firepit after an autumn barbecue. This new series (that I've only just started playing with) is decidedly different. I still use a "firepit," but one that is only 5 inch wide! The beauty of the minimalist "ephemeral sculptures" - that dance so elegantly to and fro - is mesmerizing! Part of the appeal is undeniably philosophical: these sculptures live far too briefly to be visible while "alive"; their presence may be felt only long after they have ceased to be. Testaments to both temporality and the fullness of time.

Beyond One's Reach

"What is frequently appreciated
in many so-called symbols
is exactly their vagueness,
their openness,
their fruitful ineffectiveness
to express a 'final' meaning,
so that with symbols
and by symbols one
indicates what is always
beyond one's reach."

- Umberto Eco (1932 - 2016)
Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language

Imagination Itself

"The tree which moves
some to tears of joy
is in the eyes of others
only a green thing
that stands in the way.
Some see nature all
ridicule and deformity...
and some scarce see
nature at all.
But to the eyes of
the man of imagination,
nature is imagination itself."

- William Blake (1757 - 1827)