Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_00919 by guest on 30 September 2021 reimagining the moon a r t i s t ' s a r t i c l e The Semiotics of the Moon as Fantasy and Destination M i c h a e l B e T a n c o u r T T This essay surveys a 20-year period of the author’s studio-based Sitney’s discussion of “absolute animation” (a.k.a. abstract research into “spatial montage” and windowing, elaborating on his film/visual music) identifies this transcendent tradition RAC use of space imagery in a symbolic system describing the critique of through discussions of artists such as Len Lye, John Whit- BST fantasy::reality through symbols that are still used in the contemporary a ney and Harry E. Smith. The visionary iconography Sitney world---how the mythic dimensions of interpreting the “heavens” collide and contradict contemporary scientific interpretations. “Visionary” art discusses provides a way to address how our interpretations is the dynamic focus, with the Moon as the central icon, providing a unconsciously reiterate earlier symbols through forms with direct means for the author to consider ambiguities and complexities multiple meanings (Fig. 1). My imagery invokes, then cri- of symbolic transformation: earlier descriptions of heavens and tiques through conceptual dissonance, Sitney’s “visionary” Earth provide a visionary subtext to scientific exploration. The author tradition in both abstract art and visual music. These forms considers himself a “revisionary” artist whose work engages the implicit have a direct relationship to the esoteric ideas of Robert semiotics of visionary film/visual music to problematize the pseudo- scientific theories found there. Fludd, whose “musical monochord” described a pseudo- scientific organization of the solar system through an analogy with Pythagorean musical intervals [2] (as Scott Montgom- I grew up in the 1970s fascinated by NASA’s Apollo program; ery’s history of the Moon/lunar imagery noted, Pythagorean the Moon is a central image in my work. My collage novel, concerns have been linked to interpretations of the Moon Two Women and a Nightengale, functions as a codex for my since the 5th century BCE [3]). Whitney’s theory of digital later, critical motion pictures. Mine is not the personal, “vi- harmony shares this Pythagorean foundation for audio­­visual sionary” aesthetic based in the Romantic poetics described synchronization [4]. My use of this tradition is semiotic and by film historian P. Adams Sitney, whose bookVisionary Film has become increasingly explicit: Glitches and technical er- linked the historical “experimental” or “avant-garde film” to rors/flaws act as signifiers for earlier conceptions of the same earlier abstraction and transcendentalism: images. It enables the critique of pseudo scientific interpreta- tions with contemporary ones: this contradictory reversibil- The preoccupations of the American avant-garde film- ity of signs is inherent, an aspect I developed systematically makers coincide with those of our post-Romantic poets in my film Telemetry (2003–2005). and Abstract Expressionist painters. Behind them lies Concepts of “Heavens and Earth” provide a visionary sub- a potent tradition of Romantic poetics. The graphic text to scientific exploration. Culture is a layering, where new cinema . continued its evolution with diminished force ideas and interpretations form “sedimentary layers” over ear- throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The coming of sound to lier ones, contradicting them, forming new meanings for old film inspired several attempts to visualize music through symbols. This principle organizes the historical material in cinematic abstractions and to synchronize visual rhythms my book Two Women and a Nightengale (1996–2004) whose to music [1]. imagery is a reference point for my later movies: Telemetry and the shorts Aurora (2001), Illumination (2001), Contact Light (2012) and the Dark Rift (2014). These ideas also emerge Michael Betancourt (artist, historian, theorist, curator), Savannah, GA, U.S.A. Email: <[email protected]>. in my microwatt broadcast radio/video installation Recep- See <www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/leon/48/5> for supplemental files tion/Transmission (2006). Unlike Telemetry, Contact Light associated with this issue. and the Dark Rift, where the content of the movie directly article Frontispiece. The final collage (no. 56), from Two Women addresses both space and the Moon, Star Fish (2012) and and a Nightengale (1996--2004). (© Michael Betancourt/Artists Helios | Divine (2013) both draw on this iconography, ad- Rights Society, NY) dressing the fantasy::reality dialectic posed by the Moon ©2015 ISAST doi:10.1162/LEON_a_00919 LEONARDO, Vol. 48, No. 5, pp. 408–418, 2015 409 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_00919 by guest on 30 September 2021 in an implicit fashion, through its practical exploration of precedent double—the Sun. The reversibility and established forms arranged in of signifiers in these systems is what juxtaposed and composited struc- reimagining the moon informs the semiosis they generate. tures on screen. I create movies employing the formal language FanTaSy::realiTy (iconography) of abstract film/visual My research is bifurcated between music—those visual forms common the studio (art object) and my work to hallucinations identified in 1932 as historian/theorist. The opposition by psychologist Heinrich Klüver fantasy::reality structures my move- as “cobweb, lattice, spiral, and tun- ment between theory and practice. nel” [6]. Klüver’s synaesthetic form- Semiotician Umberto Eco’s chapter constants are the implicit vocabulary “Interpreting Serials” in The Limits of of the visionary tradition—apparent Interpretation provides a theoretical in Sitney’s analysis of alchemical protocol for selecting imagery and symbols in Smith’s films [7] and ob- structuring their assemblage into servable throughout the field of ab- antithetical signifying systems where straction and visual music [8]. This semiotic system of established “tran- the quotation is explicit and recog- scendent” meanings emerges via for- nizable, as happens in post modern mal structures. Klüver’s synaesthetic literature and art, which blatantly form-constants establish a “vocabu- and ironically play on the intertex- lary” I presented in an earlier essay tuality . aware of the quotation, [9] as a formal taxonomy; since my the spectator is brought to elaborate interest is neither formal nor vision- ironically on the nature of such a de- ary, but semiotic and conceptual, vice and to acknowledge the fact that this taxonomy enables the linkage one has been invited to play upon to visionary art; “transcendence” is one’s encyclopedic knowledge [5]. the most apparent part of “fantasy” Recognizable imagery performs as in the fantasy::reality opposition. signifier (earlier, quoted work) in a While my work often returns to new context, changing its meaning. themes of space, scientific imagery is This immanent identification is es- the antithesis to this “transcendent,” sential. Archival material provides which is always linked to fantasy (the inspiration and raw material: I draw Moon and lunar imagery). heavily on nineteenth-century im- This unstable relationship is de- agery, scientific footage produced by pendent on the immediate organi- NASA/JPL, and public domain foot- zation visible in a particular piece. Meaning emerges from the precise age from the Library of Congress and Fig. 1. Michael Betancourt, (top to bottom) stills from Prelinger Archives. Explicit quota- Aurora (2001), Mushroom (2001), Contact Light configuration of elements. Semiosis tion enables a synthesis, drawing (2012), Helios | Divine (2013), the Dark Rift (2014). proceeds from the dynamic of cur- attention to my reuse. However, in (© Michael Betancourt/Artists Rights Society, NY) rent vs. past uses, creating the range Eco’s theorization, this recognition of potential interpretations. The is central; his implied protocol for quotation is the start of opposition of fantasy::reality (an intentionally ambiguous the semiotic process. The fantasy::reality conflict depends duality) guides editorial selections. The Moon provides a on contradictory recognitions—immanent use versus its readymade source of imagery and symbolic forms: vision- historical meaning. By recognizing this contradiction, the ary art is a limiting fantasy, structuring and redirecting in- audience becomes aware of the fantasy qua fantasy within terpretation. It tempers the complexity and ambiguity of the interrelated, yet distinct, signifying systems: present through the collision of mythic and scientific forms; the Moon is indexical, an ambivalent symbol unifying the 1. the visual music tradition with its synaesthetic critical dimensions of my work. counterpoint of sound and image 2. quotational materials functioning as collage DiScussion 3. scientific and pseudoscientific (visionary/alchemical) Two Women and a Nightengale uses of the same symbols with This collage novel is one of two that I composed in the mid- different meanings. 1990s that remained unpublished until 2004. While Two Semiosis depends on the manipulation of recognizable Women and a Nightengale and Artemis: A Tragedy in Col- signifiers (the archival materials) and enables an engage- lage employ many of the same 19th-century engravings as ment with the meaning of this visionary tradition through source materials, Nightengale poses a critique of visionary 410 Betancourt, The Semiotics of the Moon Downloaded