“The Hidden Image Life of Lenses” by Deirdre Feeney
Title:
- The Hidden Image Life of Lenses
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Artist Statement:
‘The Hidden Image Life of Lenses’ is an optical image system artwork which emerged from an encounter with a series of telescopic lenses made by the Dutch natural philosopher Christiaan Huygens in the seventeenth century. Witnessing these historical objects, they seemed to hold an invisible charge. As I contemplated the image-light inadvertently captured by these lenses as they looked towards the night sky over three centuries ago, all that they had seen seemed to be looking back at me.
In response to this experience, I developed my optical system as a speculative tool for making visible the charge I had sensed emanating from Huygens’ lenses. The making of the work explored different elements contributing to this charge- the agential seeing of the lenses; the stored memories of all that they had seen over centuries of time; the invisible transfer of light, and the source object directly observed by the lens but perceivable only to the human viewer in the form of the lenses’ auratic charge. The installed artwork brings visibility to a placeless place where object and human meet. It creates a dreamscape scenario where we witness the lenses dreams, an interaction which enables the charge of the lens be transferred from its material holding-form into the perceptual realm of the viewer.
