Overexposure / Henrietta Swan Leavitt: The “Cinematic” Discovery of Cepheids—The Flicker of the Stars—A Digression / Send Me Sky, Henrietta (2018) / The Color Out of Space (2015) / On Darkness—Cinematic and Telescopic Observations / White Museum (2010–): Reordering Cinematic Space / Instruments In and Out
My art practice has long reflected an intense interest in a conceptual approach toward film. I tend to regard cinema in an architectural sense, whereby the environment (the space), the screen, and the projection can be combined or pushed forward to create another space “beyond.” I imagine this as existing in both interior and exterior space at the same time. It is a space shot through with a sense of uncertainty and speculation.
In recent years, I have been further struck by affinities between astronomy and cinema. On one level, both engage with concepts of light, time, and distance; indeed, it might be argued that both astronomy and cinema are essentially composed of only these elements. On yet another level, both can be understood as sharing, in different ways, fundamental aspects of uncertainty and speculation. The universe is made out of dark matter and only a very small part of our understanding of dark matter is based in factual knowledge. That is to say, an astronomy student can acquire all their factual knowledge around this in a very short time, as it forms only around four percent of their studies. Everything that follows moves beyond fact into a space of research and observation, into a space of, for lack of a better word, speculation.
When I refer to speculation, I mean a zone of reflection and discussion where hypotheses can be built up. A speculation zone exists to bridge real gaps in knowledge through imagining and inventing possible explanations for baffling phenomena based on scientifically informed research. One notable scholar who embraced the idea of mixing fact, confirmed knowledge, and speculation was philosopher and mathematician Imre Lakatos. HisProofs and Refutations from 1976 is written as a dialogue between fictional students and a teacher that concerns proof in mathematics, where Lakatos argues that mathematics is a dynamic process, against the backdrop of a formalist philosophy of mathematics: “Formalism denies the status of mathematics to most of what has been commonly understood to be mathematics, and can say nothing abo
