Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Light and Phenomenology at 2700°K

my chart for wire/fixture electrical polarity

"To be freed from this bondage [of Plato's cave], to be liberated, is thus to be brought into the light, for it is through light, sunlight, that the world, and our situation in it becomes 'unhidden'... We also remember that the prisoners in the cave stand for our situation in the world, then we can see that the fire represents the Sun, which is confirmed by Plato himself towards the end of the allegory."
-Gertz, Nolen. from Toward a Phenomenology of Light.

"There is indeed brightness, 'light', inside the cave, but from behind. The prisoners have no relationship to light as light, for neither do they see the fire that casts the light. [...] All this, things that cast shadows, fire that makes shadows possible, is opisthen, behind their backs, as distinct from ta prosthen, what they see before them. Only the latter is unhidden' the former remains hidden. Here, therefor, being human also means, among other things: to stand within the hidden, to be surrounded by the hidden..."
-Heidegger, Martin. The Essence of Truth (New York: Continuum, 2002), p. 12.

"In our original situation in the cave all we see is shadows, but that they are shadows is 'hidden' from us, for we do not see what they really are. It is not until we become aware of this distinction between seeing as seeing and seeing as knowing that we can see things properly. [...]
If the fire in the cave represents the actual Sun and its light represents the mundane way of seeing things, then the seeing of Ideas is represented by the light outside the cave and that highest of Ideas for Plato, the Idea of the Good, is what is represented by the Sun."
-Gertz, Nolen. from Toward a Phenomenology of Light.

This in line with my interest in light and a recent piece I finished. At the top is the chart I made so I would wire the fixtures correctly and below is a detail image of the piece. More images are on my website.

2700°K (light bulbs and light fixture) 2010

(refer to earlier posts Big Bang and Big Bang 2 for more info on the evolution of this piece)

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