|
|
| Samuel Verbiese | 2003-01-08 23:42:22 |
| Coming back here after my first comments of yesterday...
I took the time to dig into the guestbook, to discover it contains a few very crisp and deep thoughts that painstakingly and precisely cristallise unspoken-out impressions many readers might have experienced somehow, in the perception of both the original print and its "completion". One of the excellent features of this site really is this guestbook facility, that allows to expand and elaborate even more on the fascinating subject. Dutch natives deplore the site is in English, but it should be realised that drawing the vast numbers of foreign admirers of Escher into such a discussion calls for a more universally known language, English(-like : I talk for myself...). May I suggest somebody (the contributors themselves ?) to translate the few main contributing comments for all interested people to grasp their interest, and have them bundled together in an additional topic, complete with the comments of the very authors of this project? This indeed would certainly substantiate a most interesting on-going discussion that brings additional insight and in certain ways alternative thinking shedding even some more new light on the project itself and the perspective in which it could be understood and even expanded.
In the meantime, summarising a bit the interventions so far, here are the main elements of thought that where brought up, with my own interpretations and understanding (I'm not a mathematician), but an engineer-artist fond on weird constructions :
1. Firstly, while the vast majority of commentors like myself were so much amased by the work, its idea, its implementation and its presentation/broadcasting in this excellent site, leaving often therefore unanswered feelings in the shadow, there were, based on artistic grounds and/or on perceptions of the nature of Escher's mind and work, some folks acute enough to raise interesting reactions that can be formulated as follows : "Is the actual print necessarily uncomplete, or, wasn't it the intention of Escher to have that mysterious white blurred spot in the middle, where he signed his work ?" The answer will never be known as the artist is no longer there as a witness (unfortunately, because he would certainly have been pleased himself ! By the way, Hans de Rijk alias Bruno Ernst who approached Escher during the making of this print might perhaps further elaborate on this, than what he contributed here and in his book ?...) But the only fact to think and discuss about it indeed is integral part of putting things in percolating perspective.
It would appear that there are basically two ways to interpret the "Droste effect" (called "mise en abyme" in French -with y instead of Î, after André Gide- ), i.e. the difference in semantics between a circle view around the fuzzy center of a part becoming the whole and an endless spiralling digging towards the infinite central point, a process now often referred to as fractals. In the first case, one is lead to take the undeformed print reconstructed by this team, but comprising the glasshouse of the gallery upfront (which indeed must have been Escher's "original", as can be seen in the mapping of its preparatory work as shown on Fig. 214 of "The World of Escher", 1971, edited by J.L.Locher), cut it in the lower right hand side towards the gallery depicted in the print the young man is looking at, and stretch it, as if it were drawn on a rubber sheet such that the gallery depicted comes to be expanded and aligned with the shrinked-down right side of the upfront gallery itself. The infinite interpretation on the other hand, conveys different semantics, so the brilliant and elegant project here could probably be presented more as an "extension/augmentation" of the work, rather than its "completion", possibly in another direction. It is striking indeed, that Escher didn't continue filling-in another cycle into the spiralling center he outlined himself which clearly shows the inception of a leap to infinity in his grid as can be seen in the presented original material, but rather put a blurred circle in the middle with his signature, not even suggesting there should be any continuation inside. In other words, the comments in this guestbook bring me into thinking Escher's intention might be more like using the "construction trick" of the Penrose triangle effect (studied in great detail and expanded by Pierre Lison), where two different points in space (when considering the 3-d non-closed model that features one projection view showing this paradoxical impossible object) are brought into coincidence, in this case bringing the depiction of the gallery into the real gallery, an effect Escher has elaborated on in many works. In still other words, the typical grid Escher developed was then only used to realise the needed "deformation", and the spiralling center is then useless, thus "erased" somehow, the blurr being necessary, as a precise ending is not artistically pleasing, if not impossible. The interpretation of the present project proceeding rather in the direction of Escher's familiar quest towards infinity is perhaps going beyond his intention in this case. But one can speculate that if he had known ways to pursue practically the work in that direction, he might have done it...
(see Hans de Win, hansdewin@wenw-vormgevers.nl 2002-09-02 21:35:17+02, Bert Terpstra, Bert.Terpstra@synergon.nl 2002-09-03 12:13:37+02, Jan Kerkhof, kerkhof.johannes@skynet.be 2002-09-11 22:21:10+02, Michel van Adrichem, michel@sdb4.nl 2002-09-01 20:17:46+02, Erik Zuurbier 2002-08-27 12:09:24+02, Jerome´Bertrand, jerome.bertrand@informaat.nl 2002-08-26 09:51:02+02, Coert, info@djcryptor.nl 2002-08-26 00:27:54+02, and in humorous way, M. C. Escher, M. C. Escher@bgtt57.tmfweb.nl 2002-08-25 18:35:22+02, Paul, p27_a6@hotmail.com 2002-08-25 03:52:26+02, Martin Majoor, martin.majoor@planet.nl 2002-08-24 22:18:37+02, Ian Thal, thal@gis.net 2002-07-31 15:00:00+02, morrison@avaya.com 2002-07-31 04:28:36+02 (suggesting that leaving something "unfinished" is in conflict with his usual work), and quite a few others who just asked themselves the question without developments).
2. D'Genard's claim of anteriority on an endless "Droste effect", in his view through lateral thinking, is indeed yet another way to play around with this print, departing perhaps even more from Escher's intentions here, despite the fact that indeed such "encounters" appear in his work. (see D \'Genard, het.experiment@interspace.be 2002-10-08 08:00:10+02 and his sweet/sour "sister-site" (in Dutch) of this one in www.interspace.be; see also yet another avenue with Johan Hesselbach, a.hesselbach@chello.nl 2002-09-18 22:14:16+02).
3. The fact any work of art might be "interpreted" and even augmented (I'd use the metaphor of the "cadence" or "ornament" from the world of music, where the interpreter of a piece may improvise), is interesting as long as the purpose is clearly defined and is not meant at downplaying the original, which certainly is not the case here, the whole undertaking functioning rather as a real tribute to the artist as most commentors explicitly say. The animations indeed work as triggers to understand the print, even if it possibly was not meant to go to infinity ! (see answer of Jan Kerkhof, kerkhof.johannes@skynet.be 2002-09-09 11:12:20+02 to Hans de Win, hansdewin@wenw-vormgevers.nl 2002-09-02 21:35:17+02 and Hans' answord to Jan, hansdewin@wenw-vormgevers.nl 2002-09-09 13:29:58+02). Other kinds of augmentations in Escher's work are plentiful, just mention the very interesting "kaleidocycles" by Doris Schattschneider (who congratulated the team in this guestbook) and Wallace Walker, and Escher-like works by Peter Raedschelders, peter.raedschelders@planetinternet.be 2002-08-25 21:54:51+02.
4. The conformal mapping process Escher used by hand adapts differently on the edges of the print than the mathematical transform presented here just used unchanged up to the frame. The original print indeed looks more aesthetically pleasing, namely with the upper side of the frame of the displayed print being fully visible, and the glasshouse nicely straight in the lower right corner. Does this induce further room for digging, designing a hybrid grid perhaps ? Escher did it by hand, computers must be able to get there too... (see Hans de Rijk, bruno_ernst@introweb.nl 2002-09-08 21:42:44+02)
5. Other paths to going even further ? (see Steve Lehar, slehar@cns.bu.edu 2002-08-01 15:31:37+02, Michael Richards, Michael.Richards@gartner.com 2002-07-31 05:49:07+02 )
6. Zooming out instead of in (see Jerome´Bertrand, jerome.bertrand@informaat.nl 2002-08-26 09:51:02+02 and Joshua E. Barnes, barnes@ifa.hawaii.edu 2002-07-31 07:53:53+02 )
7. Relationship to tiling in the sense of "time-tiling" ? (C. Abrams, abrams@beloit.edu 2002-07-31 05:09:07+02)
8. Finally, many visitors think that the full mathematical formulas would indeed merit another topic on the site, if not even a full book ! Could I suggest that this research with contributed paths to expansions/interpretations could form an interesting paper in the forecoming "Bridges" meeting on art & science, architecture & mathematics, in Granada, Spain, this summer (brought to my attention by George Hart) ?
Sorry for having been a bit long, but I'm so amased by it all that I felt this summary of nuggets buried in such a multitude of excited comments might be appreciated by other Escher admirers... Congratulations again for that most inspiring work ! |
|
