E c l i p s e
Pascale Bardos, Celestial Sphere No.01, digital image, dimensions variable
“Our bodies and movements are in constant interaction with the environment; the world and the self inform and redefine each other constantly. The percept of the body and the image of the world turn into one single continuous existential experience; there is no body separate from its domicile in space, and there is no space unrelated to the unconscious image of the perceiving self.”(1)
The fusion of my research and work are inseparable and entangle together to form the poetic imagery that make up my practice. Notions of expansion and retraction are constantly symbiotically becoming through my exploration of theoretical and empirical research that subsequently informs my existence and therefore my practice. My work captures a collective experience of viewing the sky and holds universal understanding that echoes through collective and individual memory.
During the week I filmed the footage used for ‘Eight,’ there was a blood moon eclipse. The astronomical event encapsulated my conceptual contemplations into a singular moment of space and time. Early in the morning before the sun rose, the dark pre-dawn sky was illuminated by a red glow. A blood moon occurs when the light from the Sun passes through Earth’s atmosphere, which bends and turns the light into a deep red. The light falls onto the surface of the Moon as it passes through Earth’s shadow. The causal effect of the planetary alignment transposes a red light that illuminates the moon. Simultaneously, you are able to see both the sunrise and sunset from Earth captured upon the surface of the Moon.(2)
Perry Vlahos, President of the Astronomical Society of Victoria, describes that “What it actually shows is the solar system in action, and it gives you a bit of a better perspective of your own place in the scheme of things, in the universe.”(3) The expanding observations of a celestial body retract into a contemplation of self.
The eclipse added multiple layers of transition and time as I became aware of the causal effects of Earth’s position in space while watching the passing red shadow of Earth’s atmosphere upon the moon. This stimulated a mirrored understanding to perceive beyond and to view within. The experience held perceptive reflections of scale, distance and duration. Notions mirrored consciously and subconsciously in sight and within the mind.
The continuous revolution of our planet and moon that motion around the vital force of the omnipotent sun, has been observed by our ancestors and has been a historical reflection of the conscious self that orientates us to the terrestrial world. This astronomical event was something that we collectively experienced while sharing the encounter with our ancestors. The eclipse came and passed, I bathed in the aftermath of the planetary transition as the sun rose above the horizon. The warmth of the morning light filled my mind with reflections of our ancestral past, a shared conscious experience that transcends through space and time.
To view the sky is a worldwide collective experience that is familiar and ever present in our lives. The sky is seen through the individual eye, which connects us to an experience perceived by all humankind. An individual encounter that connects us to a collective experience of terrestrial life. This event encapsulated the fusion of my practice of scientific logic and empirical encounters and stimulated the notions of expansion and retraction as a union held in a transitional moment. The eclipse was witnessed by millions of people around the world, a planetary experience. Multiple people connected through the event of the eclipse and the embodied experience of planetary cycles. We were collectively held in a moment, connected to the same moment of time and space.
Juhani Pallasmaa, “Towards a Neuroscience of Architecture,” in Architecture and Neuroscience, ed. Philip Tidwell, (Finland: Tapio Wirkkala, 2013), 12.
Luna eclipse: Blood moon appears in longest such event of the 21st Century,” ABC News, last modified July 28, 2018, accessed September 20, 2018. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-28/centurys-longest-lunar-eclipse-creates-red-moon/10045472
“Luna eclipse: Blood moon appears in longest such event of the 21st Century,” ABC News, last modified July 28, 2018. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-28/centurys-longest-lunar-eclipse-creates-red-moon/10045472