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interferences 98-3e11 (2007)
digital image,

interferences: notes for a statement

'interference, interference! first time in fifty-three years!' (chips of brookfield). physics of interferences.

max bill (1936), richard paul lohse (1942), françois morellet (1950, 1952), ellsworth kelly (1951): art and systems. jesus-rafael soto: 'parallèles interférantes noire et blanches (1951, paris)

morellet 'deux trames en lignes parallèles' (1952), 'no 47' (1956), '4 doubles trames traits minces 0 - 22.5 - 54 - 67.5' (1958), '12.5 - 79', '0 - 20 - 70 - 90 - 110 - 160' (1959), sol lewitt (1968): 'trames' and grids. channa horwitz (1995): subliminals and weaves, (2007) fringe interferences.

morellet would use transfer drawing-paper to look into new configurations ('projet', 1961). " i don't know when those modern transfer processed designed for architects and advertising draughtsmen first came on the market. i first came across them in 1959 -- a marvelous find. not only did they allow me to save lots of time on my studies: they also meant i could obtain a result which was closer to finish painting." and "these transfer sheets saved me a whole lot of time. they enabled me to do things which i never had the patience to do with the means available to me before. i'd never have guessed that 2 grids of chevrons superposed might produce a checker-work effect with these subtle gradations of greys from one square to the next."

while morellet uses transfer paper, lewitt has others draw his pieces. while agnes martin does it simply by hand, horwitz often uses prepared mylar sheets and works by hand within their 1/8inch grids. i create software and uses devices as my system.

i have been inspired by these two dimensional geometries, and starting in 1986 i installed simple grids in higher dimensions. i found right away that projections of these grids back onto the paper plane created interferences and moire effects, as well as the superposition of grids 'black lacquer' (1988). i found later that certain grid angle combinations create interferences even in the plane. i once bought a small fun box of transparencies that one can play with to create all kinds of interference effects. horwitz has framed small stacks of such small transparencies for the same effect. her 2007 show at solway-jones gallery was absolutely stunning.

if i often initially fought in most cases to avoid moire and interferences, i now often use interfering lines quite consciously. i also recently endeavored sometimes to use and show the emergence of computational chaos typical of dynamical systems and pdes, to evidence saddle points, fixed points, hills, etc...