I thought light is already quite 'formless' as a medium in art.
After reading the latest review of the new Turbine Hall( The Unilever series) association in Tate Modern, i can't wait to go there and this time, not just sitting on the cold concrete floor but walking with the artwork and listening to it.
Tino Sehgal is the first artist who brings intangible works- stories to the great big inspiring space, he has performers to be the stories teller, to every visitor.
Usually we view works either in the hall or stand right back on the balcony, taking an example of the last piece- a massive vertical projection to show tributes to a dying medium- film, by Tacita Dean, visitors sat or stood in front it while viewing, children bouncing around happily, couples embracing with arms around each others. Audiences became part of the work when they were viewed from the above; but still we were looking at the same direction, viewing a tangible artwork. To compare with Sehgal's work, it is very confusing to define what and where is the artwork. He takes the idea of interaction of individual and groups to the maximum, with very simple material, us- humans, the audiences. We are the artwork. We are the subject and so the object. Visitors go in and the story teller without any hints of identification approaches, telling you his most personal story, asking you questions like' When did you feel a sense of belonging?', these interesting encounters will surely make me think of a doing a proper self reflection. Knowing a bit of the artist's background, who has been living in a foreign country for many years, similarly to the fact that i had spent few years in the UK, well only for studying, i got attached to his straight away. Thinking I was leaving my own motherland, sitting in the coach station when waiting for the bus to Nottingham with absolute anxiety and shivering because of the temperature difference, but very soon i saw many people there were just like me. The emptiness was getting much greater, and as if there was a sound behind me telling to get use to the fact or you will have to suffer more.

I really enjoy spending an afternoon in the Southbank, let alone the Tate modern. Although it is getting much commercial, this thought is apparently came from the two popular solo exhibitions there( Yayoi Kusama and Damien Hirst), it still has a space to the public to get in touch with art( like the new space, tank), and most importantly for free. I was reminded HK is attempting to create a cultural space which is reference to the Southbank, for sure I have only disappointment and no expectation at all. Seeing those extremely tall luxury residences are being built up rapidly in such small city, art is seemingly the last thing to think about. I wonder how i can take a break or some fresh air between those skyscrapers here.

Mapping the mental perception in a space.

Perception

Pronunciation: /pəˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/

noun

· the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses: the normal limits to human perception

· awareness of something through the senses: the perception of pain

· Psychology & Zoology the neurophysiological processes, including memory, by which an organism becomes aware of and interprets external stimuli.

· the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted

In presenting context writing I mentioned about Repetition in relation to an approach to a new way of thinking. By describing different contexts, I shown how different senses can affect one’s perception; I suppose I was trying to say, repetition suggests time is no longer important but its existence. A new perception is extended from an autonomous perception. Which I have found its similarity to Buddhism thinking, but here I would like to focus on Carlo Bernardini’s work and using Buddhism as a lens to see his work, and open it up with questioning how does these affects the relation of the work and viewers’ perception.

“ Shadow and light are visible, although both are formless. Shadow is the dark projection of things. It occupies the other side of matter, increasing the perception of its existence, while remaining evasive and uncontainable.”[1]

Carlo Bernardini has high awareness of the relation of ‘Light and shade’; shading enhances objects’ existence, shadow tells us information of what it belongs to, take an example of one of Bernardini’s work (the above pictures), ‘PROGRESSIVE CODE OF THE SPACE ‘2009 shows the relationship between light and shadow, and transforming to the further stage: the mental side of the artist, his perception of seeing in a space. The triangle electroluminescent surface and its shadow are corresponding to each other within a shape, but the optic fibre ‘light lines’ are showing the ‘second visual condition’ that jumps out from the primary vision (2D), giving viewers an infinite points of observation, that travels perceptively around the space.

Benardini almost takes down every physical representation, using light lines as the ‘betweener’ of light and shade, as it were, just like what Buddhism believes its existence is located between the ‘Self’ and the nature. Self means realization;“Whatever we see is changing, losing its balance. The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance, but its background is always in perfect harmony. This is how everything exists in the realm of Buddha nature, losing its balance against a background of perfect balance. So if you see things without realizing the background of Buddha nature, everything appears to be in the form of suffering. But if you understand the background of existence, you realize that suffering itself is how we live, and how we extend our life.” [2]
The realization from the perception in Buddhism is an experimental approach to the understanding of the universe, in order to perceive everything from the emptiness, the beginning. It is an on-going life practice; we discover, understand, realize through experiences and most importantly, standing in a position that assuming not knowing at all. Similarly, Bernardini’s mysterious visual language is in a way showing the basic autonomous idea of light and shade; his own understanding of it is immaterial, attempting to approach the unknown area that is always existed invisibly. His works push against the limit of perceptions; a different position with different viewpoints, to see the whole view is to step outside of the work.

He once stated that corresponding the above idea; “In the visual Language between us and that part of us that emerges in image there is a no man’s land whose secrets we endeavor to find out… In such conditions the intrinsic interest of the images does not, therefore, lie in metaphorical or allusive aspects, but solely in its purely visual value, beyond which there may be nothing.”[3] This again shows that the notion of invisibility and thoughts provocative from visual essences.

‘Division of visual unity’ 2000] intrigues me to investigate Bernardini’s way of thinking, which based on his belief of art practice is not a ‘result’, a river that never stops moving. His works is static but with a notion of dynamic repetition, an endless journey from centripetal to centrifugal. ‘Division of visual unity’ 2000 is a sculpture with stainless steel and optic fiber, the former is visible by day and the latter is visible by night. At the moments when the sun becomes to set, the work immerses into a piece; Bernardini is asking viewers to combine the inner and outer as a whole, or to look at it from the external then moving to the internal, Vise Vera, until when there is sunrise again, a relative perception in terms of repetition. “ This process of form fading to give birth to other forms is of course reversed at sunrise”[4], the artist has inserted a poetic and immaterial concept with the infinite rule of nature within the work.

I found this similar to another medium: looping moving image; both of them are not mattering when you will see it, it matters if you stay longer with them, and realize something that are essential and the subtle changes, to gain knowledge from not knowing when is the start and the end. It is also playing around with the idea of expectation; Bernardini’s outdoor sculpture gives viewers different unique sensations, therefore every time the work looks different; since the work is located outside, with different sky, or amount of people, etc. Repetition provides infinite possibilities of interpretations; with a different context, the space becomes the environment. The particular point of observation is depending on the movement from viewers. “Every viewpoint becomes internal to the totality of the work: it may take in the global installation or close in on details of the structure with superimposition and fragmentation, possibly even losing sight of the whole.” This notion of being lost in an almost timeless and measureless space is somehow coincide with the emptiness idea in Buddhism. Every part of the work is a totality of itself and a totality as an installation; the artist is blurring the line between sculpture and installation, a sort of space in a space, this helps to approach to the mental endeavour of the artist.

Light as the intangible source, it always exists with an object and the shade. Bernardini takes away the physicality and shade, only leaves the light in his work; thanks to the technology of optic fiber that looks like a line is self- illuminated. I can imagine if I am in his installation ‘PROGRESSIVE CODE OF THE SPACE ‘2009, I will be immersed in it and keep questioning myself how would those lines be lighten up, and where are the light sources? Is it an illusory? I remember John Berge has mentioned in his book ‘Ways of seeing’: “ We never look at just one thing, we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.” [5] If I were in the installation, can I see myself as the shade of those lights? Or how should I address myself as an audience of the artist’s mental stage? If I were the artist, how would I visualize my imagination to viewers? And how would they visualize mine from the work I made? I suppose these questions would most likely to be raised when I am out of the installation; an immersive installation won’t let audiences to reflect or even think, it is a strictly delivery of the artist visual, immaterial mind. We as viewers will only think of those questions when we are out of it as we might start to have awareness of once being lost; and the solution might be to try thinking like the artist, to engage in the artist’s perception, and transforming it into ours. But in Bernardini’s works, the perceptive options are open; this implies the interactive opportunity of mental by physical movement or vision.

I suppose it never comes to an end when talking about a mental situation, because it is always changing. Space affecting man’s feeling, sensation physically and mentally; therefore perception is changed. Viewers stepping into the installation, as if being mapped in the artist’s brain; walking around and thinking the relation between themselves and the work, wondering what will happen when stepping out of the work, would it change the way we see in the reality?

“The viewer’s response to a work’s presence is sometimes dependent on the work’s familiarity, its resonance with our own experience. Yet it is also at times its unfamiliarity that has the most profound impact on our experience. “To some degree we become artists ourselves as we undertake this integration,” John Dewey tells us about perceiving something that stands beyond the realm of what we know. Through perception “our own experience is re-oriented.” And it is this experience that is “far more efficacious than the change effected by reasoning, because it enters directly into attitude.” Experience of art can be transformational experience.”[6]

To refer back to the Buddhism thinking, to achieve a greater thinking is to go beyond the physicality and the experiences; experiences can tell us what are the mistakes we wouldn’t want to make again. The area is very far away from the reality, but the practice of us or like art practice of artists can help us to go closer or get to the direction to it. What Bernardini is making is only the process to an unknown mental stage that his intuition drives.

Bibliography

Bass. J and Jacob M, 2004, Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art, University of Carlifornia Press

Berge. J, 1972Ways of seeing, BBC

O.F Bollnow, 2011 Human Space, Hyphen Press

Artist Writing, http://www.carlobernardini.it/File_uk/TESTI_INGLESE/WRITINGS_OF_CARLO_BERNARDINI.pdf [accessed on 2.4.2012]

Critical Essays, http://www.carlobernardini.it/File_uk/TESTI_INGLESE/CRITICAL_ESSAYS.pdf [accessed on 2.4.2012]

Cora. B, 2009, Carlo Bernardini: Space Designed by light

Caramel. L, 2006, The other side. The perception of the invisible and the immaterial

Ferrario. R, 2003, Light works/Light sculptures

Perilli. N,2003 Light system

[1] Carlo Bernardini, ‘Hypothesis for the division of visual unity’ 1995

[2] Shunryu Suzuki, quotation in article ‘In the space of art’ by Mary Jane Jacob

[3] Carlo Bernardini, ‘Beyond the visual there may be nothing’2009

[4] Carlo Bernardini, ‘Sculpture Project’ 2001

[5] John Berge, ‘Ways of seeing’

[6] Mary Jane Jacob, ‘In the space of art’

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Bass. J and Jacob M, 2004, Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art, University of Carlifornia Press