The work itself will be printed using archival pigments on panels for the exterior cladding of the stadium structure. The building is designed by leading architecture firm Gresley Abas.

The initial design concept

The project is due for completion by the end of 2010.

People often ask me “what is video art?” This question is often accompanied by a very puzzled expression. It’s a good question, especially when they go on to ask how it could be different from film.

This question threw me when I first encountered it. I don’t think there can be a straightforward answer; some video art is very akin to short film, even indistinguishable from it (other than by its context in a gallery setting, perhaps).

The best response I could think of was that the difference is not between distinct (if related) categories, but rather is more analogous to the difference between poetry and novels. Films, like novels, tend to use a narrative structure, and tend to be longer. Poems tend to be short and are less likely to use an overt narrative. The distinction between poetry and novels is sometime very blurry, or even non-existant (verse novels are a case in point) but we understand the difference all the same. The analogy has clear limitations, but it’s reasonably clear.

Time and the so-called still image

In moving, or extending, from painting to video, the relationship between video art and film has been largely irrelevant. The point has been to explore a kind of time-based painting, albeit in a way that doesn’t bear an overly close similarity to what I do with paint. That is, the video work is not simply an animation of my paintings, which would be pointless and possibly corny. Still, it’s worth exploring why that is.

One concern that I’ve had for a very long time is an interest in the nature of image making. Here on my website you can see reproductions of my paintings, but they really are poor substitutes for the real thing.¹ When looking at a painting you generally can’t, in fact, take it all in at once, even from a distance: the area of focus in the visual field is simply too small.The still image is therefore in fact a virtual still image, assembled out of a sequence of fragmentary perceptions. It follows that you examine a work over a period of time, even if that period of time is quite short. Painting is not so far removed from cinema as one might imagine, and a work such as Veronese’s Wedding at Cana is the perfect example of painting as cinema.²

For this reason, amongst others, it’s always seemed pointless to try to reproduce what I do in painting in video.

Video is its own medium, complicated by the use of cameras

Painting and video are distinct media, and attempts to make one resemble the other are often (though not necessarily) kitsch. Paint as such isn’t an essential requirement for painting – just think of Matisse’s remark that drawing is painting with limited means – and use of cameras is not an essential characteristic of video. Animation is perhaps a purer and simpler way to make video. More importantly, the use of a camera complicates the way in which the image is perceived by virtue of its nature as a documentary tool.

Finally, cameras don’t allow the same level of decision making that one has in painting. When animating, the image can be built both frame by frame and pixel by pixel. When using a camera, even if the footage is heavily manipulated, there’s always a degree to which the image is determined by contingency. The more the camera image is controlled at a fine level, the closer it moves to painting.

1. There are good reasons why certain works are more than 2 x 2 metres while others are quite small. (Of equal importance are questions such as the precise colour, which is never perfectly reproduced, and tangible elements such as paint texture and layering.)
2. There’s a second dimension to this, which is that one enters into an image imaginatively — that is, the image is experienced as a virtual space.

Many people view mathematics as a dry, abstract and rather scary subject. Because of this unfortunate reputation I’ve hitherto been fairly reluctant to discuss the relationship between mathematics and my work.

There are a number of risks in talking about this relationship, the most significant of which are that my work might be construed broadly as being about mathematics, or more narrowly as being in some way illustrative of mathematical ideas. Both interpretations would be misplaced and in my view difficult to sustain on a close examination — but such close and critical interpretation is rare.¹

My interest in mathematics, and geometry in particular, comes from a number of sources. The most important stems from my interest in physics. Of all the sciences physics is certainly the most dependent on mathematics, and in principle everything can be described in physical terms. (Whether such a description is meaningful or useful in a given context is a different matter.) It follows that everything can in principle be described mathematically.

This is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is intriguing that a field that in itself is the epitome of pure abstraction is so applicable to the real world. It’s obvious that if you model something mathematically, such as the acceleration of a falling mass, that a well designed model will make reliable predictions. What is far from obvious is why it should be that exercises in pure mathematics so often turn out to have real applications.

Secondly — and this is the topic that interests me most — one has to wonder why it is that we are capable of modelling phenomena mathematically and theoretically that we have difficulty imagining. My favourite example is the question of higher spatial dimensions. Mathematically it’s almost trivial to model forms that occupy an arbitrary number of dimensions, but our imaginations struggle with anything beyond three spatial dimensions. I’ve found that with practice I can visualise simple forms in four dimensions, but five is very difficult, and six dimensions is certainly beyond me. Perhaps it’s just a matter of practice — but clearly there are limits to what our imaginations can cope with. Further, I suspect that much of my visualisation (to use an obviously inadequate term) is merely imagination by analogy.

It’s here that we find that there’s a direct point of contact between the cool abstract realm of geometry and both our limitations and potential as human beings. With Kant, I regard the sublime as an aesthetic that arises from an indeterminate and ambiguous relationship between our imagination and our reason. In Kant’s view the mathematical sublime stems from our inability to imaginatively comprehend the boundless and infinite (whether infinitely large or infinitely small) despite our ability to comprehend it in purely rational terms.

1. I should point out that I’m a very mediocre mathematician and I find that I have to work hard at it, and I’ve started my mathematics blog (tangentarc.net as a way of focusing my efforts. My command even of basic areas such as trigonometry is rather shaky, so perhaps my natural inclination ought to be that of many in the humanities: shun mathematics at all costs! Not likely.