For many years, my paintings have investigated in different ways the idea of superimposition, its implications and effects. Of my paintings from the last five years, there are notably three different manifestations: abstract field over the figurative, tactile field over the figurative, and figurative over figurative. Although these manifestations are seemingly dissimilar, they nonetheless are based upon the idea of superimposition as such: neutralization, fragmentation, and duration. All three aspects help to create a heterotopia, a space whose proliferation of possible meanings and relationships obscures any unifying ground, thereby dissolving each stable object into an incoherent multiplicity which would then metamorphosize into a complex and singular piece of reality. However, during my experimentation (1996-1997), I encountered a fundamental problem with this system of superimposition. I have come to recognize superimposition as a conceptual and analytical construct that dictated the production of my paintings. This construct apparently stands at variance with the experience of painting, as I conceive it. Briefly, I feel that the experience of painting is a constant oscillation between the state of "jiga" (a Buddhist term for worldly desire which roughly translates to "ego") and that of "muga" (which approximately translates to "self"). This experience is a certain drama, which consists in a complex weaving of "jiga" as the intellectual and emotional aspects within the world of logical differentiation, and of "muga" as the inexplicable fusion between the painter and Nature. Within the development of this drama, if the painter is lucky, he will be able to infuse the state of "muga" into the painting. In this way, the painting will possess the unexplainable quality of Nature and be able to exist as an individual, autonomous reality that transcends, although it may include, the painter? ideology and his socio-political environment. If the painting conveys this quality, it can thus be described as extra-temporal: it exceeds the confines of personal ideology and social or artistic trends. A strong painting is evidence of this drama; its energy derives from the painter? life force, which is transmitted to the painting during the creative process. In light of these recent reflections, it seems to me that it is essential to investigate this rather mystical aspect of painting.

ika

CUTTLEFISH PROJECT

Why do we make images, where do they come from and what is their primary function? Human image production and image distribution system has taken a rapid growth to the level of unimaginable saturation in urban contemporary life through design, architecture, city planning, Internet, fine arts, etc… The Origin of Image Making: Behavioral Ecology of Cephalopods and Art brings together science, humanities and arts attempts to investigate these ever critical existential questions by examining cognitive and interpretive system of a cuttlefish adoptive coloration as a model to code and to re-map visual information such as paintings, photographs and video. More specifically, Cuttlefish camouflage pattern will be triggered by replacing natural substrates (sand, mud, seaweed, etc…) by major 20th century paintings, photographs and video documentations. Upon collecting a data, I have produced an installation entitled SELF WORLD - cuttlefish project - which consisted with both muti panel photographic piece and a video. The work entered for this competition is a part of this installation.

The quest of modernity, which lasted over 200 years, has come to its’ final phase in the form of post modernism. Many of the past victorious attempts to define “individualism” and “self” seem to have found the wall of linguistics structure and categorization as governing principals of human consciousness. Postmodernism tends to recycle façade of preexisting methods and theories, thereby creating fragmentation and dislocation. Simultaneously, the presence of computer technology is rapidly reshaping the our visual culture by offering the potential for more streamlined production and distribution possibilities, i.e. YouTube claims have 65,000 videos uploaded everyday and has over 100,000,000 viewing per day. Considering this current socio-political, philosophical and cultural environment, it is essential to investigate the effect and implication of the visual culture, which may include social behavior, biological necessity, evolutional progress and visual communication, by asking such existential questions as Why do we make images, where do they come from and what is their primary function?

In order to answer some of these question. I have focusing on the cephalopods behavior as biological and metaphorical model that may provide certain key information need to uncover the mystery. Cephalopods such as the cuttlefish are known for their ability to camouflage themselves quickly into their surrounding environment. Dr. Roger Hanlon of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is a leading scholar of this subject. In his research, he explains that the biomechanical system of cephalopod camouflage is governed by contracting and expanding four different layers of colored pixels called chromatophores in their skin. In other words, the visual information gathered from the environment is processed and converted into layers of different colored pixels, which allow cephalopods to create almost infinite varieties of colors and patterns to match their surroundings. This complex camouflage system does not stop at mimicking natural information. Recently, Dr. Hanlon has successfully documented a cuttlefish that camouflaged itself into artificial, computer-generated patterns.

Dr. Hanlon’s and other researchers’ studies helped me realize uncanny similarities between the process of painting and digitally manipulated images, which fuses multiple independent layers of information into a single and comprehensive image on one plane and the structural and cognitive process of cuttlefish camouflage, which is also composed of multiple layers of chromatophores used to create a whole. In short, cephalopod camouflage is very similar to paintings by Georges-Pierre Seurat, for example. Seurat employed a new technique of placing many small dots of different colored paints near one another (visual information) with the result that viewing from a distance revealed A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884, (the comprehensive image, the muse for Sondheim’s musical “Sunday in the Park with George” and the foundation for a new painting system called pointillism). Although the objectives for cuttlefish are very different from those of artists—survival and reproduction for the cuttlefish and aesthetics and metaphysics for artists—the fundamental three-step structure [exterior information - the environment, an individual interpretation - the act of camouflage or painting, and visual output - the new shape and color or the painting itself] remains very similar between them. This parallel between the process of paintings/digital images and cuttlefish camouflage behavior is the main premise of this project.