Enlightenment - The camera obscura and Plato's cave


In the seventh book of 'The Republic' Plato writes of a group of prisoner's, unable to see anything but the shadows of what is happening behind them. A prisoner becomes free and is compelled to stand up and turn around, at first the prisoner's eyes are blinded but gradually he adjusts to the brightness and he is able to see. His thoughts then turn to the other prisoners' situation and he feels compelled to tell them about the truth of their situation and subsequent perception.

The simplistic interpretation of this is of waking from the dream of life, becoming aware of the shadow makers as manipulators and finally, after a period of adjustment, to seeing the light for what it actually is. Plato refers to the light outside the cave as light from the sun. In book five of The Republic, Plato writes of the sun as a The form of Good. This has been interpreted as Plato's notion of God. So to follow the logic, we could interpret this light as a force for good or a God. In looking into this revelatory light, intrinsically good and exposing all, new experience is discovered and all is revealed as it trulyis. In the context of this research, truly as the personal understanding of scientific phenomena through experimentation.

Turrell describes the relationship between his work, his skyspaces in particular, and Plato's cave;
'We sit in the cave with our backs to reality, looking at the reflection of reality on the cave wall. As an analogy to how we perceive, and the imperfections of perception' (http://www.conversations.org/99-1-turrell.htm accessed 05-04-06)

This analogy of how we perceive is also prevalent in the camera obscura where an image of the outside world is viewed on a screen or on the walls of a room. The creation or apprehension of the image for perception creates a parallel reality where you can feel removed from the reality of what you are viewing. A similar effect is created in the Salvation Army chapel on Peter's Hill, London, here, a wall of reflective louvers reflect an image of the sky into the room. The effect is that the front wall of the chapel becomes a fragmented image of the sky. (A blog post on my visit to the Salvation Army Chapel can be found here)

"When a man realizes that he has two lives, an abstract one for his mind and a concrete one which is also for his mind, he ends up either like a madman, who, out of fear, hides one of his lives and plays the other as a role, or like the artist, who has no fear and who is willing to risk the both of them..."
Michelangelo Pistoletto quoted from Pistoletto, Division and Multiplication of the Mirror, The Institute for Contemporary Art, P.S. 1 Museum, New York 1988, p. 72.

Perhaps the duality of reality and detachment in the camera obscura and Turrell's skyspace are like the two minds Pistoletto writes about, the abstract mind and the concrete mind. In the Turrell quote above he speaks of creating a kind of mock up of Plato's cave to communicate the imperfections of our perception. Pistoletto's work often uses mirrors to create representations of space, in his work on the right he creates wells of space for the viewer to look into.

In looking through the viewfinder of a camera or when you put your digital camera between you and subject of a photograph, the camera becomes a barrier, both physically and psychologically. The barrier has the potential to become a tool to allow the abstract mind to express itself. What aperture or shutter speed do you use? Are you using an iso 50 film for a fine image or a faster film to produce a coarse grain? Do you use a telephoto lense to capture just a small part of the scene or a wide angle to draw as much into the image as possible? Then there's filters, flash, white balance, cropping, burning, dodging, the list goes on. As I quoted earlier in the introduction, Turrell speaks of 'creating your own reality' through the medium of the camera. The disconnection from the subject and the ability to change the light, focus, colour etc puts the photographer in the position of artist, with both a view of reality and a representation which they have the power to abstract.

Plato's cave can also be applied to the acquisition of knowledge and subsequent revelation. In this essay I've looked at light and our perception of it to give me, and you, some knowledge on the subject which we can then feed into our experiences of the world. We are on a journey out of the cave and into the light. The fact that we are learning about light serves to confuse the metaphor and make it overly literal or, perhaps it makes the analogy clearer?

As I mentioned in the introduction to this essay I see the ability for the viewer to change their reality as an important part of what I make. In giving the observer the power to change the parameters of the installation they can be drawn into the process of creation and have the opportunity to explore the phenomenon themselves. In the same way a camera maker creates a tool with parameters the observer can work with.

So far, having looked at Goethe's theory of a three-fold process of enlightenment and The Plato's cave allegory it seems sensible to combine these ideas and apply them to the process of light modulation. Goethe describes the acquisition of insight through the process of exploration, of changing the conditions of appearance. In observing the changes in appearance through altering the parameters of the experiment we can hope to find a deeper understanding of the phenomena involved. Having found this understanding it can then be applied to everyday experience. Plato might see this as part of the process of becoming free from the cave, gradually turning round to see the 'light' or phenomenon for what it really is. The feedback of knowledge to experience is the central aspect of both Goethe's theory and Plato's cave. Knowledge fueling experience.

The important factors are:

The separation of the phenomena from the everyday world so it can be viewed in isolation.

The ability to change the parameters that create the phenomenon to gain understanding of how it is formed.

The application of this experience to everyday life.

I want to apologise at this point for speaking continually of abstract 'phenomena'. In the final section I hope to be explicit about this in the proposal for my final installation.

The context of the phenomenon is important. Decisions to be made include whether the installation is presented as a continuation of the context (disguised) or whether it is clearly separated from everyday life and whether the way the phenomenon is created is openly expressed or hidden. Returning to the allegory of The Cave, the designer takes up the position as shadow-maker. Do the shadow-makers allow the prisoners to see how they are producing the effect or do they leave the prisoners chained in ignorance?

Appendix to this section

In studying light during this year I have been able to start the journey of understanding and applying knowledge that Goethe and Plato write about. As I began to spend more time studying sunlight I began to notice more and more phenomena happening around me, things that would normally have passed me by became fascinating. I have included some photographs of things I have noticed and found interesting in the photography section of this website. I hope they are interesting to others as well!

One man who made it his mission to observe every light phenomenon around him and explain it is M. Minnaert who wrote 'The nature of light and colour in the open air' (1966). The book is a catalogue of phenomenon after phenomenon with wonderful sketches of light rays on their journey from source to the observer's eye. It is a bible of light phenomena, in a similar vein to Goethe's 'Theory of Colours' (1810). Minnaret's level of insight and painstaking understanding is inspirational.

In the next section I want to explore the interactions between the phenomenon and the spectators.

interaction - some notes on interaction