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Tony Oursler's Optical Timeline Optical Timeline by Tony Oursler 1 Iris is thought to be derived from the RED Symyaz leads the fallen angels. Archimedes (c. 287212 b.c.) is said to Greek word for speaker or messenger. According to Enoch, they came to earth have used a large magnifying lens or Seth, the Egyptian god most associated of their own free will at Mount Hermon, burning-glass, which focused the suns Fifth century b.c. Chinese philosopher with evil, is depicted in many guises: descending like stars. This description rays, to set fire to Roman ships off Mo Ti, in the first description of the gives rise to the name Lucifer, “giver of Syracuse. camera obscura, refers to the pinhole as a black pig, a tall, double-headed figure light.” “collection place” and “locked treasure with a snout, and a serpent. Sometimes And now there is no longer any “I have seen Satan fall like lightning room.” he is black, a positive color for the difficulty in understanding the images in from heaven.” (Luke 10:1820) Egyptians, symbolic of the deep tones of mirrors and in all smooth and bright Platos Cave depicts the dilemma of fertile river deposits; at other times he is surfaces. The fires from within and from the uneducated in a graphic tableau of red, a negative color reflected by the without communicate about the smooth light and shadow. The shackled masses parched sands that encroach upon the surface, and from one image which is are kept in shadow, unable to move crops. Jeffrey Burton Russell suggests variously refracted. All which phenom- their heads. All they can see is the wall that “it is possible that the redness of ena necessarily arise by reason of the fire of the cave in front of them. As a result Seth helped make red the second most or the light about the eye combining of being locked into physical sense common color, after black, of the with the fire or ray of light about the perception, they are doomed to view Christian Devil.” smooth bright surfaces. Or if the mirror only shadows of truth on the wall of the be turned vertically, the face appears cave. In Platos metaphor, an unseen fire upside down and the upper part of the behind the shackled illuminates a rays are driven downwards, and the Balinese Shadow Puppet marionette or puppet show taking place lower upwards. (Plato [427-347 b.c.], above and behind their heads; the Timaeus. Translation by B. Jowett, The GreeN puppets movements represent the inter- Dialogues of Plato [Oxford, 1875]). actions of true contemplation, visible to In the Book of Revelations it is stated, 384322 B.C. the masses only as indecipherable Aristotle writes De Meteorologica. His “There is a need for shrewdness here: if shadows projected on the cold stone treatise devotes a substantial amount of anyone is clever enough he may before them. space to a penetrating discussion on the interpret the number of the beast: it is causes of the rainbow, luminous halos, the number of a man, the number is Homer equates the rainbow/Iris with a northern lights. This section may in fact 666.” One theory of the numbers serpent, a sentiment shared in African be taken as the first truly systematic puzzling origin has anti-Roman groups mythology, in which the colors material- theory of the rainbow that has come giving letters numerical significance so ize as a giant consuming snake attacking down to us. that coded messages could be passed the unsuspecting. In the tribal myths Egyptian God Seth During an eclipse Aristotle notices among themselves. By obscure calcula- of South America we find the rainbow many images of a crescent sun on the tion the number 666 has the letter value personified in evil figures, and in Eastern The Devils Arc ground below a tree. He later discovers of Nero, who ruled 5468 A.D. Nero is Europe the colored light sometimes A person who crosses or passes directly that whatever the shape of the aperture, known to have enjoyed peering through sucks up water and children. below will change sex. jagged or smooth, the images projected a rudimentary lens crafted of the are the same. The riddle is known as gemstone emerald, which has the The prophet Zoroaster of Persia First reference to the persistence of Aristotles Problem. property of enlargement. This is one of describes a character similar to the vision: “This [perception of motion] is the first records of the use of a lens. ~300 B.C. Christian Devil. He teaches that Ahura to be explained in the following way: Euclid publishes Optics, in which he Ibn al-Haytham (a.k.a. Alhazen), a tenth- Mazda, the god of light, is in battle with that when the first image passes off and isolates the concept of a beam of light, century Arabian scholar, publishes the evil Angra Mainyu. A dualist, the second is afterwards produced in suggests the eye sends out visual rays to Optics, which is the basis of Europes Zoroaster believes the world is divided another position, the former is seen to the object that the viewer wishes to see. knowledge on the subject until the between dark and light. have changed its gesture.” (Titus sixteenth century. In it he describes the Lucretius Carus [9855 b.c.]). camera obscura. He also expands on the 2 1200 optical understanding of the Greeks, Alhazen, who was no fool, wrote his that viewers of an eclipse use a hole in invented a new type of press. 1452 Sep explaining that light spreads out in all Treatise on Aspects: the wise naturalist their roof and a board as projection 30, The 1st book was published, directions from an object. In addition he who would learn about the rainbow screen to avoid blindness from staring Johannes Guttenberg’s Bible. describes the linearity of light through must consult this book and must also directly at the sun. the use of three candles and one pinhole, possess notions of geometry to under- FORMUla for A HomUNCULUS proving that we see objects by viewing stand the demonstrations in this treatise. It should be noted that a colorless lunar light reflected from them. He will then be able to find the causes rainbow is widely considered to be an ill “Place human semen in a glass vial and and the potency of glasses which possess omen. nourish with blood for forty days and Shen Kua (103195), Chinese astrono- marvelous qualities: the smallest things, forty nights, keeping it at the tempera- mer, mathematician, and poet, expresses the most minute lettering, tiny grains of In the thirteenth century, Arnaud de ture of a horses belly: and from it will be the first moral equivalent of the inherent sand, are seen so big and thick that they Villeneuve, showman and magician, born a genius, a nymph, or a giant” qualities of the camera obscura. He can be exactly distinguished and even utilized the camera obscura to stage (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus makes an analogy between the camera counted from afar, which seems incred- presentations somewhere between Bombastus von Hohenheim [1493- obscuras image inversion and the nature ible to one who has not seen them or shadow play and cinema: players 1541]). of mans vision, which can be so polluted does not know the causes thereof. performed warlike or murderous 1558 as to see right as wrong. Others burn and consume things episodes outside in the bright sunlight, Giovanni Battista della Porta publishes placed before them if the rays of the sun while inside the audience was shocked details of construction and use of the Christians link the colors of the rainbow which strike them are cunningly made to and delighted by sound effects linked to camera obscura in the widely distributed to the seven sacraments. converge… . the dramatic gestures of the projected and popular Magiae naturalis: Others cause different images to images. The fact that the audience First of all you must close the windows The Comic Devil appears in popular appear, straight, oblique or reversed. So would stay inside and watch such a in the room; you will make a round hole medieval dramas. His role is slapstick- that mirrors according to how they are mediated event when they could have the size of ones little finger and opposite screaming oaths, making obscene arranged, can show two objects instead gone outside and viewed the event you will stretch pieces of white sheets or gestures, and executing pratfalls. Like of three, eight instead of four (Jean de directly points to a victory of the virtual white cloths or paper; and the result will Hell, the character was an inversion of Meun, Roman de la Rose). image over reality. The disembodiment be that all things which outside are norms of the day. of the moving image and its removal illuminated by the sun you will see “Vision is of three kinds: direct in those from the recognizable physical laws that inside, you will see mthose walking in Robert Grosseteste (c. 11751253) who are perfect, refracted in those who bind the body of the viewer imbue the the streets with their heads downwards, translates the works of Alhazen to Latin. are imperfect, and reflected in evildoers image with a magical quality at once as if at the antipodes, and the things on and those who ignore Gods command- distant and intimate. the right will appear on the left and all ments” (Roger Bacon [121492]). things over and the further they are French astronomer Guillaume de Saint- Albrecht Drer (14711528) illustrated from the hole the larger they will appear.
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