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| Title: | Still from the video Constricted light |
| Authors: | Gorewitz, Shalom |
| Keywords: | Judaism
Kabbalah
Contemporary Art
Video
Shalom Gorewitz |
| Issue Date: | 20-Mar-2005 |
| Citation: | http://www.gorewitz.com/ |
| Abstract: | Still from the video "Constricted Light", 2003.
"Constricted Light is connected to Black Fire, Dark Light, and other videos that I’ve produced during the past thirty years that are more formal attempts to consider qualities of natural and electronically generated light. These are based on my ongoing experiences with meditation and spiritual practice." |
| Description: | "According to the Zohar, the central book of Jewish mysticism, we live in a world of indirect light. I’ve used the analog and digital tools to explore traditional aesthetic objectives relating to the study of light, color, movement, energy and form. The video also reflects personal mood as I practice while listening to news about ongoing wars in Israel, Iraq, Afganistan, and too many other places. The dog symbolizes my father’s spirit. The running man represents a time of looking forward and back.
Images were recorded on the Eastern End of Long Island. It begins with dark clouds intersecting a white orb. The screen flickers reveal footprints in the earth, somehow primeval, flashing blues, browns, and white, leaving trails like words in sand. As though shot from an airplane or satellite, the village landscape is devoid of detail. We only see silvery contours. Waves appear in the background, in the foreground, a seaside village of sand houses. The orb, behind it’s own negative image, leaks light from the edges, the thick clouds are illuminated textured gray, clouds shift turning orb red, then black over white, then grays zooming in and out, continuing sound of waves. Light hides light. “Is there a fire nearby?” The white orb floating first down, then up through the multicolored sky. A giant man runs backwards into the frame, then jogs in place; a smaller man in the distance runs forward and at some point they collide. A dog appears, turning on rocks, ambling across waves, looking, maybe for the last time. The moon or sun, everything is ambiguous and indirect, the runner again, an eclipse, circle over circle in the dark sky.
In this way I attempt to harmonize the process with the content. The heart is analog- ambiguous, emotional, able to hold several feelings at once. The brain is digital- analytical, calculating, and efficient. Analog processing leads to undeferentiated visuals, no boundaries between forms, colors. Digital processing clarifies and provides sharp borders. Analog/Digital; Yin/Yang, Left/Right, Up/Down, As Is/Is As, Overload/Compression. Meditation is analog, conscious dreaming, observing narratives without becoming attached to them, letting go of details to recognize the underlying patterns." |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/1964/440 |
| Appears in Collections: | 1. Kabbalah and Contemporary Art
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