(text-style: 'blur')[Some things haven't always been [[visible->imaplant]].]
This motion towards sunlight by plant tendrils had been described before, but Darwin was the first to record //how// they ascended upwards and outwards. He was able to chart the particular eccentricity of their motions as they unfurled towards the sun:{
<blockquote cite="https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/darwins-diagrams-of-plant-movement">"He placed a plant between a sheet of paper and a glass plate and marked a reference point on the paper, attaching a thin wire to a particular part of the plant, such as a leaf or bud. He made recordings at regular intervals by lining up the end of this filament with the fixed reference point, and then marking its position on the glass plate." <a href="https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/darwins-diagrams-of-plant-movement">^^(Lawrence)^^</a> </blockquote>
}After making several marks upon the paper, these wanderings of plant-limbs were made visible for the first time by connecting the dots, charting their movement (click:"movement")[ – incremental, like drying paint –(stop:)] across space. Suddenly, he was able to chart the particular eccentricity of the tendril as it unfurled towards the sun. {
<p align="center">
<img src="images/circumnutation2.png" alt="a series of dots connected by lines. Each is marked with a date and time." width= "450px"
onmouseover="this.src='images/circumnutation.jpeg';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/circumnutation2.png';">
</p>
}Darwin documented the lively, although slow-moving, "circumnutations" of plants. Years later, other (faster) (text-style: "blur")[[[movements->muybridge]]] would become visible to the naked eye with the advent of photography.
{A trotting horse has all four of its legs up off the ground: flying, for just a moment.
<p align="center">
<img src="images/allfours.png"
alt="Horse galloping, all four legs in the air"
onmouseover="this.src='images/allfours2.png';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/allfours.png';">
</p>
This was the bet that Eadweard Muybridge settled in 1872, only 50 years or so after the birth of photography.^^1^^ Does a horse in trot ever have all four of its hooves leave the ground at once?
6 years later, he returned to the same ranch to capture a horse in motion, rather than a perfectly-timed shot of a horse airborne:}{
<blockquote cite="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/07/eadweard-muybridge/483381/">
A series of wires ran from the angled wall every 21 inches to the shed where they pulled triggers connected to an electrical circuit ... When the horse ran down the track it would trip the wires, pull the trigger that closed the electrical circuit, and release rubber springs loaded at 100 pounds of pressure that snapped the shutters closed at one-thousandth of a second. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/07/eadweard-muybridge/483381/" target="_blank">^^2^^</a></blockquote>
}The next year, Muybridge began showing his images of people and animals in motion (click:"people and animals in motion")[(live:1s)+(transition:"dissolve")[– published as a series named //Animal Locomotion// –(stop:)]] in a "zoopraxiscope". His invention allowed the images to be seen in quick succession. Suddenly, things that had previously been obscured by the blur of rapid movement were made visible: not only the way in which a horse in trot moved its legs, but the muscles and tendons it engaged.
Muybridge's innovation was a proto-gif and work of early [(text-style:'blur')+(t8n-arrive:"dissolve")(link-goto:"cinema", "NOPE")].
And then in the following century we became obsessed with the visibility of movement, not just in cinema (text-style:'blur') [[but in art also. ->also]]
^^1^^(text-size:0.5)[It should be stated that the .gif I am using is not the original //Horse in Motion// that Muybridge created with his "zoopraxiscope" but a later iteration by Muybridge of the same idea.]
<div id="imaplant">
You are a plant tendril. You want to grow.
<p>[(live:4s)+(transition:"dissolve")[An hour passes.(stop:)]] <p>(click: "An hour passes.")[(live: 2s)+(transition: "dissolve")[You stretch. (stop:)]]
<p>(click: "You stretch.") [(live:2s)+(transition:"dissolve")[You reach towards the sun. (stop:)]
<p>[(live:6s)+(transition:"dissolve")[More time passes. (stop:)]]]
<p>(click: "More time passes.") [(live:2s)+(transition:"dissolve")[You inhale. (stop:)]
<p>[(live:6s)+(transition:"dissolve")[Exhale.(stop:)]]]
<p>(click: "Exhale.") [(live:2s)+(transition:"dissolve")[You twirl slowly, but effortlessly.(stop:)]]
<p>(click: "twirl") [(live:2s)+(transition:"dissolve") [You [[reach->darwin2]] into light and air.(stop:)]]
</div>
<div id="muybridge">
<img src="images/muybridge.gif" alt="a .gif of a man riding a horse in gallop."> </div>
[(live:5s)+(transition-arrive:"dissolve")[(goto: "horse")]]||||||=
<p>
<p>
<p>
<div id="rider">
<img src="images/rider.gif" alt="close-up gif of the rider on the back of the famous image of Eadweard Muybridge's horse">
</div>
=||||||||
<p>
<p>
<p>
<p>
<p>
<p>
<p>
<blockquote>“Did you know that the very first assembly of photographs to create a motion picture was a two-second clip of a Black man on a horse?”</blockquote></p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
(live:7s)[(goto:"NOPE2")]
Muybridge’s //Woman descending steps, plate 137// becomes Marcel Duchamp’s //Nude descending steps//.
<p align="center">
{
<img src="images/woman2.png"
alt="A series of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge, depicting each second of the movement of a nude woman descending a set of stairs" height="400px"
onmouseover="this.src='images/woman.jpeg';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/woman2.png';"/>
<img src="images/duchamp2.png"
alt="A cubist painting by Modernist artist Marcel Duchamp called //Nu en descendant un escalier//. It depicts a woman descending a set of stairs and, like the Muybridge, shows each movement of her body as a series of bodies." height="400px"
onmouseover="this.src='images/duchamp.jpeg';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/duchamp2.png';" />}
[(text-size:0.5)[Eadweard Muybridge, //Woman descending steps, plate 137// (1887) and Marcel Duchamp, //Nu en descendant un escalier// (1912).]]
</p>
In just a few centuries (click:"centuries")[(live:1s)+(transition-depart:"dissolve") [– and then, in just a few decades –(stop:)]] our field of visibility [(text-style: 'blur')+(t8n-arrive:"dissolve")[[expanded->earth]]].
In Jordan Peele’s //Nope//, the visibility of the horse’s movement is undercut by the //invisibility// of the rider upon its back. The name of the series of images is //Gallop, thoroughbread bay mare, Annie G//. Annie G is the name of the horse; today the name of the rider – a Black man – is still unknown.{
<div id="nope">
<p align="center">
<img src="images/NOPE2.jpg" alt="still from Jordan Peele's NOPE: Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya stand with a horse, Kaluuya holding its rein and Palmer grinning broadly"
onmouseover="this.src='images/NOPE.jpg';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/NOPE2.jpg';">
</p>
</div>
}In //Nope// the invisible rider is the great-great-great grandfather of the Haywood siblings, and the implications of visibility and invisibility in //Gallop, thoroughbred bay mare// are further amplified by a politics of vision throughout the film. One article – <a href="https://www.incluvie.com/articles/the-power-of-looking-in-nope">“The Power of Looking in //Nope//”</a>– points out that the Haywoods' quest to photograph the alien who devours those that dare to gaze up at it is not about the fame and glory of capturing the image of a UFO, but about opposing the gaze, reflecting the gaze back unto itself. (text-style:'blur')[["It's about who has the right to look, and who is being looked upon."->horse]]
||||||==
In 1959, the Explorer 6 satellite sent back the very first picture of Earth from the outside: a blurred and mostly imperceptible image of the Pacific Ocean and its cloud cover.
In 1966, the Lunar Orbiter 1 took the first photo of Earth as seen from the moon. But only a portion of the Earth can be seen; the rest is blanketed in shadow. Grainy and imperfect, it is lined with noise and still very, very beautiful.
In 1972, the first image of Earth in its entirety, a //Blue Marble// swirling with clouds. Here, the sun was perfectly positioned behind the Apollo 17 crew who snapped the image, bathing the sphere in light and revealing each detail of its surface from one side.
<p>
In just 13 years, Earth pulled into focus. And then–
</p>
<p>
<p>
<p>
<p><p>(set:_t to 0)And then (live:4s)+(transition-depart:"dissolve")[(set:_t to it+1)(nth:_t, "raging storms on the surface of planets", "stars, twinkling in the distance", "swirling nebuli", "comets flinging through space", "selfies from robot rovers", "solar systems being born", "ancient resevoirs on Mars", "the shining expanse of the universe"). ]
<p>(text-style:'blur')[[But–->obfuscation]]</p></p></p></p></p></p>
=====||||
{
<img src="images/explorer62.png"
alt="blurred image of a pale streak across a dark sky"
width="370px"
onmouseover="this.src='images/explorer6.jpeg';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/explorer62.png';"/>
<img src="images/earthrise3.png"
alt="an image of Earth, only partially visible from the light of the sun, taken from the surface of the moon. The ground of the moon can be seen taking up the foreground of the shot." width="370px"
onmouseover="this.src='images/earthrise4.png';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/earthrise3.png';"/>
<img src="images/bluemarble2.png"
<alt="an image of Earth, fully in view. It is "upside down", with the North pole seen on the south end of the Earth."
width="370px"
onmouseover="this.src='images/bluemarble.png';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/bluemarble2.png';"/>}
But this expansion of vision remains in question.
Invented at the end of the 16th century, the microscope allowed us to see microbes for the first time: matter which surrounds us but can't be seen with the naked eye. (text-style:"blur")[And yet–]
(click:"And yet–")[(live:2s)+(transition:"dissolve")[And yet the microscope is more complex than just seeing through a lens. More complicated than a magnifying glass, the microscope has to be //learnt// to be used. You might need to slice the specimen, and you will likely need to stain it with a dye. "You learn to see through a microscope by doing, not just by looking."<a href="https://joelvelasco.net/teaching/3330/hacking85-microscope.pdf">^^1^^</a> It is an act of alteration and of manipulation: not simply an act of observation.{
<p align="center">
<img src="images/microbes2.png"
alt="diagram of various microbes, mined from the human mouth" width="505px"
onmouseover="this.src='images/microbes.jpeg';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/microbes2.png';">
</p>
Even the camera Muybridge used to capture the horse in trot, and Darwin's glass and paper method of recording writhing plants can be called into question. They're tools which (text-style:"blur")[[interpret vision->gursky]] for us, rather than allow us that gift ourselves.}(stop:)]]
And then in 2022, NASA released a photograph they had taken of Sagittarius A*: the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. And yet the image is not a normal photograph of what appears through the telescope.
<blockquote>
Because black holes trap everything, including light, they can only be seen by that which they're not; their gravitational pull is so fast and so powerful that it causes the gas and dust it's swallowing up to glow. The image of the black hole is the shadow of one; but this shadow gleams. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-first-picture-of-the-black-hole-at-the-milky-ways-heart-has-been-revealed/" target="_blank">^^1^^</a> </blockquote>
And so an Event Horizon Telescope was needed to capture this burning shadow. Collated from the data of radio observatories across multiple continents, the resulting photograph is a kind of [(text-style:"blur")+(t8n-arrive:"dissolve")[[composite image->gursky2]]]. A black hole hybrid.
<p align="center">
<img src="images/blackhole.png" alt="a black hole, looking like an amorphous ring of light" width="525px"
onmouseover="this.src='images/blackhole2.png';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/blackhole.png';">
</p>
{In Andreas Gursky's photographs, individuals appear to be swallowed whole by the expanse of technology, commerce, industry, and infrastructure. The images are huge; extremely detailed and blindingly colourful. Once, I put a Gursky up on a projector in a study room in a library. Even with the loss of resolution and size from the real thing, I felt that the works began to engulf me, too.
<div id="gursky2">
<img src="images/gursky2.png"
alt="A seemingly-infinite, very brightly coloured supermarket. People browse goods."
onmouseover="this.src='images/gursky.png';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/gursky2.png';">
</div>
Because photos lose resolution the more that they're scaled up, Gursky has constructed a method of photography that allows him to create these immense landscapes. By taking many photos from different positions, Gursky is able to digitally stitch them together, resulting in a seemingly infinite commercial irreality.}
[(text-style:"blur")+(t8n-arrive:"dissolve")[[And–->gursky3]]]
And like the image of the black hole at the centre of our galaxy, these composite images make visible the invisible. As novelist Alix Ohlin writes:{
<blockquote> "The connections that constitute globalisation–computer networks, international exchanges, trade relations are less visible ... So Gursky's work forms a striking image of a phenomenon that is in many ways hard to pin down ... In other words, to show globalisation as it really is–to make the invisible sublime, the image must be altered." <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/00043249.2002.10792133?needAccess=true" target="_blank"> ^^1^^</a></blockquote>
}And yet it is so different from seeing. These images capture a flattened landscape, which immobilises the eye whose habit is to find something to focus on while everything else remains in the periphery. Gursky's images are flattened because light is diffused evenly, like the level glare of an overcast day or the downlighting of fluorescent bulbs. They're uniformly chaotic, from edge to edge; there's no one point to rest the eye on. There might be individual expressions, individual gestures of people within the image, but the mass of throbbing visual excitement that surrounds them causes distraction. The eye whips around the composition: restless, overstimulated, exhausted and detached. But the inability to really //see// the image allows for the machinations of contemporary capital to reveal themselves. Our eye is restless and overstimulated and exhausted and detached because //so are we//.{
<p align="center">
<img src="images/wallstreet.png"
alt="A seemingly-infinite, very brightly coloured supermarket. People browse goods." width="550px"
onmouseover="this.src='images/wallstreet.jpeg';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/wallstreet.png';"> </p>
}[(text-style:"blur")+(t8n-arrive:"dissolve")[[So–->end]]]
Obscurity becomes a tool for reinterpretation, for making the invisible visible.
In //Nope//, scenes that took place at night were actually shot during the day. To capture the crystal clear, expansive darkness that extends far beyond the borders of the ranch, the cinematographer (click:"Hoyte van Hoytema")[(live:1s)+(transition:"dissolve")[– the cinematographer for //NOPE// –(stop:)]] set up a rig that combined a normal camera with an infrared camera. The result is a glowy, moonlit darkness; [(text-style:"blur")+(t8n-arrive:"dissolve")[[visibility in obscurity. ->End2]]]
<p>
<center>
###a short wander through the (recent) history of visibility
</center>{
</p>
<p align="center">
}
<img src="images/locomotion.png"
alt="each frame of a dove flying and flapping its wings"
width="800px"
onmouseover="this.src='images/locomotion.jpeg';"
onmouseout="this.src='images/locomotion.png';">
</p>
(live:5s)[(t8n-arrive:"dissolve")(goto:"imaplant")][(live:2s)+(transition:"dissolve")[Darwin, with his hand-made marks in ink, between paper and glass. (stop:)]]
<p>[(live: 7s)+(transition: "dissolve")[Muybridge's device, with its trip-wires and multiple cameras. (stop:)]]
<p>[(live: 12s)+(transition: "dissolve")[The light microscope, with its series of lenses, mirrors, and dyes. (stop:)]]
<p>[(live: 17s)+(transition: "dissolve")[The Event Horizon Telescope, a sum of countless radio observatories and wavelengths of x-ray light.(stop:)]]
<p>[(live: 22s)+(transition: "dissolve")[Gursky, and his Frankensteined photographs. (stop:)]]
<p>
<p>
<p>(live: 27s)+(transition: "dissolve")[From miniscule and within reach to distant and colossal, and from the slow-moving to the swift. [(text-style:"blur")[These layers of obstruction between our naked eye and the "real" produce a new kind of vision, one that allows us to see beyond the human dimension.]]]