Getting Closer and Getting Further Away

Media: Digital prints vinyl cutouts and acrylic on Forex, acrylic on wall
Dimension: 950cm X 300cm

“Getting Closer and Getting Further Away” was developed in the spring and summer of 2005 while the world was celebrating 100 years of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. 10 years ago, I took classes in modern physics, and wrote my final paper on the theory of relativity. I was interested in this theory because it affects each one of us: it transforms a macro system into a micro one, it introduces new concepts and ideas such as “relative time”, and “space-time”, and perhaps most importantly it suggests a set of rules to describe and predict the behavior of our universe (e.g. predicting the Big Bang, or an expanding universe). Thus, the theory of relativity modified the way we look at things today.

“Getting Closer and Getting Further Away” is a body of work that explores possible experiences with ideas such as growth, expansion and Infinity often based on theories and observations such as Leibniz’s paradox of infinite series, Mandelbrot’s development of the Fractals Geometry and Hubble’s observation that the universe is not static, thus confirming previous predictions by the theory of relativity and leading to the current theory of the expansion of the universe.

The work displays a “mini universal system” constructed by a variety of patterns, which are based on landscape images. For example, images of organic and non-organic objects seen in our nearby environment that embody some properties of expansion and growth (such as roots, trees, forests) and images of elements with qualities of transformation (such as snow).

Using a digital transformation process the landscape images are removed from the context in which they are known to us in our daily lives, and are reorganized in a different context. The original images are broken down into digital patterns (deconstruction phase) which are later assembled as “building units” into new images to be displayed (reconstruction phase). Thus, offering the viewer new systems to consider. Further exploration of these new systems in terms of their potential growth is performed by the building layers of digital prints, vinyl cutouts, acrylic paint, and wall painting.

“Getting Closer and Getting Further Away” as an art installation aims to invite the viewer to examine the different patterns and images used as the building blocks of the work installed, their possible relationships between each other, as well as the set of rules based on which they are constructed. Eventually, the work aims to encourage the viewer to confront his/her own conceptual ideas regarding growth, expansion and infinity to those coming out of the installation.