Light Over Time: Palimpsest Series
• Chamber Series • Manifest
Rites
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• Light Over Time •
"The scientist does not
study nature because it is useful to do so.
[S/he] studies it because [s/he] takes pleasure in it
and [s/he] takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful.
If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing
and life would not be worth living."
- Henri Poincare, Science and Method
This is knowledge as aesthetic experience.
I drew, photographed, and printed these chalkboard renderings to map and identify
the shared boundaries of sound, light, and time.
While chalkboards were material used for this series, the resulting images
are more akin to palimpsests. Initially used by monks, palimpsests are partially
erased and rewritten instructional parchments, which continue to transmit
traces of previous information.
The images represent that which attracts my attention and it is the fractal
collision of research on one surface that drives and deregulates the process
of making them. Most diagrams are wholly derived from my own conclusions.
Some are embedded with citation, appropriated, and reformatted to varying
degrees of their native author’s accuracy. These are not random selections;
rather they have been observed from pioneers who once championed their own
discipline. This collection seeks to aesthetically reclaim the progress, similarity,
and expression of their findings.
Intentional eraser smears are included to suggest that chalkboards and palimpsests,
like minds and photographs, have memory.
While parts of the work trace the history of light and optics, they also visit
how one processes knowledge.
In its essence this series seeks to operate amongst the whimsy of imagination
and sobriety of intellect. Through its guidance I have learned to oscillate
from the fixed point between them.
© Bill Davis, 2004
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•Chamber Series•
The Chamber series represents work, which addresses breathing and the growth
of organic space and matter through the forces of air. It is informed by my
research and practice of Hatha yoga. While breathing represents an expansive
power, the energy it brings to the body is often overlooked. Very few people
actually notice it because of its obvious involuntary activity. These images
are an attempt to sober the mind long enough to observe the practice and effects
of breathing. Air can fill a space as much as it can fill our lung chambers.
In that context, I am using simple black backgrounds to draw attention to
the distribution of air as it may be defined by the shape, capacity, and geometry
of the simple props with which I photograph. It is the goal of this Chamber
series to celebrate breathing and call it to the attention of those who have
yet to realize the benefits it offers beyond its pedestrian utility.
© Bill Davis, 2003
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•Manifest Rites•
The Manifest Rites Series has been respectfully included to highlight my background
and support the more recent series. As made evident in my digital c.v., these
images were exhibited and collected in advance of my thesis research. I started
this project in Prague and continued it in the U.S. It was initiated to address
conditions associated with pain management and chronic disease. However it
eventually grew to address the psychological effects caused by them.
The project was largely informed by the health connections between the mind
and the body. It is also a response to the chronic conditions under which
I have lived. The Manifest Rites series is so named because it parallels the
domain of the unavoidable and the rituals humanity may go through to reject
or accept their condition. I interviewed health professionals during this
project and none could agree on the reasons for why someone may become sick
or at times why they healed. Their arguments further fueled my image-making.
In a perverse way I hoped the images could answer that which the medical community
could not. In that context the shooting sessions became rituals themselves.
In the absence of information, humanity needs imagination.
© Bill Davis, 2004