Beyond the Visible
Collaboration with Professor Brian Tanner
Beyond the Visible - Waterford cotton paper, uranium glass. 2019
Our visual perception occurs within a narrow sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. But in that sliver, all the millions of possible colours that our retina can perceive are translated from frequency to experience. The project sought to explore our need to extend our perception of that spectrum to those frequencies beyond the visible; infra-red, between 780nm and 1mm and ultra violet A and B 100 to 400nm. Human endeavour and curiosity has developed technologies that permit us to extend our perception; by incorporating uranium into the amorphous matrix of glass molecules we can create fluorescence under UV light, with the aid of sensors, electronics and processing we can “see” rather than “feel” infrared. These experiences of the electromagnetic spectrum are mediated, they still lie beyond our “natural” or “naked” abilities but are brought into view by technology and remapped into a range that we can begin to understand. The work serves as a metaphor for our epistemological searching and our need to reframe, to remodel and to bring more of the universe into the range of our tacit human understanding.
The video work is an overlay of the two mediated ends of the visible spectrum, one stream a standard visual spectrum camera capturing a uranium glass drip as it cools and begins to fluoresce green under UV light, the other interpreting the heat emissions of the cooling drip as “seen” through a FLIR Camera (forward looking infra-red).
There is an intrinsic interdisciplinarity to the work; Professor Brian Tanner, a physicist with a lifetime of experience of extending our knowledge was invited to become a beginner in another field, glass forming. The discussions that occured in the hotshop fed into the interpretation of the work, both conceptually and technically. Whilst the artifacts are transient the experience and exchange inherent in the work is its legacy.
The process of pyrography, (drawing on paper with hot glass) can be used as an effective first experience of glass as a free and creative media. There is little skill required to drip the glass on the paper, but the results can eloquently capture the fluid dynamics and temperature gradient in the material. The medium seemed an appropriate meeting point between the science of vision and the visual spectacle of the glass studio.
Pyrography, Prof. Brian Tanner
The setup, FLIR forward facing Infrared camera, UV stage cannon light, stretched Saunders Waterford cotton paper, uranium glass
The peculiarities of uranium glass; fluorescing when cold, it ceases to glow when the temperature is above around 300 Celsius, which is a surprisingly low temperature to affect the molecular structure of the glass itself.
Commissioned by The Ordered Universe Project
Supported by University of Sunderland
Images/Video: ©Colin Rennie. All rights reserved.