I can say, “this is inspiring.” And I do say that once in a while. But sometimes as it might be the case now – I hope not – I fall under the skin of the word itself. At this time, I no longer feel secure with my knowledge of the word. I think that I do not know what it means to be inspired. This stage involves hopeless activities such as looking up the word in the dictionary. You have to imagine an architecture that represents this word, and then you have to imagine that I am wandering about inside the architecture. Or you have to imagine a cameraman inside a camera (remember camera obscura?). It is frustrating because I might feel better off if I treated the word from outside; if I moved onto the object of the inspiration, but I stayed inside and beneath.
Suspended. Since this architecture of “inspire” is a verb (that leads to an object), if I ride it, it might reach its object. The first image at this stage would be an image of a man looking at blueprint of the building he is in. A man holds in his hand a site on which he stands: a beginning of an eternal feed back.
I am not inspired by this image. This image functions as a map, a kind of geometric shape that reveals where I am. This image can be created by feeding a live video back into its own image on the monitor. Video shoots itself shooting itself, and by result creates endless shapes within shapes. If you treat this image as simple 2-D, the endless rectangles inside this image look as if they are in one flat space, but it is easy to prove otherwise.
Each rectangle is an embodiment of different times. For instance, if I put a rabbit in front of the image looking into the image, I would see the rabbit looking at the back of his own head, repeated infinitely. In video feedback, this eternal image, however, does not happen all at once. First, I see the first head. Then the second head, third head, fourth head, fifth head, sixth head enter all at different times in delay. There is thickness within this flat image. It takes time to navigate.
In writing, there is a short cut. Time is only latent between these two short lines of:
F (n+1) = “smaller replica of F(n) inside F(n)”
F (1) = “first image of the screen”
In this case, the operator of this function F is a video camera and cables. However, this algorithm can be still operated by hand without the invention of video camera. I can draw a rectangle inside a rectangle inside a rectangle in repetitive motion following the instructions in the algorithm. In this case, the operator of this function is myself, and the tiring hand of mine. Since it is handmade, it would take a longer time between the drawings of consecutive rectangles than would be with video. Too much longer to call it a delay. This is a consequential mind exercise for me because it makes me reflect on the technological object whose function I used to share with my hand. Again, I am holding a function F in which I am (or used to be) part of.
A few weeks ago, I read an article and saw a video on Dr. Hanlon, his cuttlefish, and its camouflage. These are some quotes:
I am interested in how nature works. And we have nature all around us. but we don’t pay much attention to it. But we are part of it.
Inspiration for lab experiments comes from watching cuttlefish [ and the relatives] in the field, I think field work is key to everything on the diving biologist. I think I have made somewhere between five and six thousand scientific dives in my career.
Digital photography and digital video have revolutionized our study of animal behavior, and this case under water. And the reason is that we can take, for example, a HIDefinition video camera that we are using now and each of the 30 frame per second is a 2 mega pixel still image. That is gold to me because we do image analysis for each image, and there is enough pixel to give us the resolution we need.
[the mystery behind camouflage] I am not gonna be able to answer it in my lifetime.
Sea, once only dabbled in by the shore and looked at in various surface forms (waves, bubbles, and horizon), now is penetrated with the development of underwater vehicles, gears, and apparel. His new video camera, he says, makes him see better. Where is he really? Somewhere between the tissue of a cuttlefish and the tissue of the ocean. Again, he is inside of some kind of function in which he is part of.
F (n+1) = “the tissue under the tissue F (n)”
For Dr. Hanlon, there are (1) an inspiration from his field work, (2) his endless endeavor, and (3) his lifespan not in synch with technological development, which to me seems to be in incredible slow mo. One day in the so-called future, an invention will allow him or his offspring to enter underneath the tissue of the octopus with the same ease with which he entered the ocean. He, now, is beneath one sheet of thick piles of images in the video feedback. He might not even be in F (1); he could very well be F (40) or F (million). His field of ocean is a function of recursive algorithm, spatially manifested. There are variant colors of blue, altered by light through the bubbly waves into the deep sea; and a creature with eight tentacles, one of which is longer than the others and is used for fornication, hides itself by assimilating to a mottled coral. When Dr. Hanlon closes in, the octopoid contour clearly outlines itself, inks at Dr. Hanlon’s face, and scurries off. This is inspirational.
For seeing this moving image, click here.
