Daguerrean Dream, Visual Symphony - Part IV

Daguerrean Dream

Visual Symphony – Part IV

Etat Soutenu

 

  From the very first moment we gain consciousness, to the time it leaves us, all our experiences are sustained and defined by neurological system of the brain.  Physical sensations, emotions, and dreams are stored within and interpreted by the same biochemical system of neurons, a nebulous grey matter web.  What is real, what is normal, what is beautiful or ugly, all determined and catalogued within the same confined space we call our mind.  Stacked and staggered impulses blend into a fine mesh of perception.  Fantasy and and reality seem to dissolve each other and morph, as we are carried forth by fabric of time.  Cranial wonders, secrets, and revelations guide us along an essentially existential experience of continuity.

  Encounters during waking hours may be as fleeting or as significant as those during dreamtime.  Both can have as little or as much impact as we choose, and both add color to our awareness of self and all that surrounds us.  While passing days bring tangible objects to which we assign a label of being real, times of rest provide for time during which a cocktail of truth and fiction flows unabated into shapes of its fancy, only rarely providing us with any degree of control.  Life is a blend of the two, nothing more, nothing less.  Amount of attention paid to proportions within this mix, and to which we decide to assign more significance, largely determines our journey through larger tale of history.

 

  Consisting of ten 4x5in plates, Part IV of Daguerrean Dream series addresses my take on that which supports the state of my Being.  Cacophonic selection of real objects and dream visions, fixed upon silver plates in roughly chronological order.   As in life, continuity, afforded to us by things physical and familiar, is maintained via nano-scale network, one that is living and ever evolving.  Daguerreotype technique is most natural choice for best representation of a singularly unique path of ones lifetime.  With nearly infinite detail, and being intrinsically unrepeatable, daguerreotype images have their own personal presence.  Opalescence effect is akin to the dynamism of neurologic network, with its lively play of color and shift of tone, changing right in front of your eyes. No two connections and no two interactions will be the same, just like in life we can’t walk into the same river twice.  Infamously difficult to reproduce in digital or printed media, each of these daguerreotype plates will outlive me by hundreds of years, and will refract light from their surface and into the eyes of those who hold them in same way my eye saw it.

  For daguerreotypes, video presentation format provides an experience most closely reminiscent of actual in-person examination.  A moving image also mimics the play we see unfold in front of us as, we make our way from start to finish of life.

Anton