SCIENCE. ART. ILLUSIO

NS

OP!

“OP! Science. Art. Illusions” is an exhibition cum dialogue, created in the style of an experimental laboratory, bringing together optical instruments of the late 19th to early 20th century, from the collections of the Polytechnic Museum, with pre-cinema optical toys and fairground attractions from the collection of the media ‘archeologist’ Theodore Mikhailov; and also contemporary art, created on the foundation of precise knowledge – works by artists inspired by the laws of optics and the psychology of visual perception.

Photography, animation, film, stereo-vario and 3D effects, microscopic and telescopic vision, the infinite multiplications of reality – here is all the variety of consumer and professional processes, natural phenomena and technical instruments created by man to meet the many and varied challenges faced when operating under the laws of optics and biophysics. Since the middle of the last century, artists have actively exploited the expressive possibilities of optical illusions, chanelled within a single direction: ‘op-art’ quickly gained an international character, it was widely used in interior design and advertising graphics, marrying kineticism and other artistic methods; and in simple terms telling about the achievements of science through the language of contemporary art. The OP!! exhibition picks up on the manifesto of the Solyanka Gallery – to look at the process of art – and attempts to explain, with exhibits representative of all ages, professions, characteristics, and mechanisms of various optical illusions, inviting one to explore the mysteries of optics and eyesight, to make optical toys with ones own hands, and experience the movement of reconstructed historical fairground attractions.

Among the exhibits shown is a French “Magic Lantern” projector from the years 1900–1910; a KOK silent film projector made by Pathè Fréres, dated mid-1920s; a Gaumont stereoscope from the years 1900–1914; a solar microscope made in the workshop of the famous French mechanic Jules Salleron, in the 1850s; a Glyphoscope stereoscopic camera made by the Jules Richard company, about 1905–1910; a telescope made by John Dollond, the English optics maker and inventor; the first mechanical television sets, and other optical instruments, together representing the very beginnings of photography, animation, film and other fields of science and art, associated with the making, storage and playback of visual images. The creation and development of film and animation is illustrated in the exhibition by the optical toys and ‘pocket’ fairground rides of the 19th-20th centuries, from the Animoptikum collection of Theodore Mikhailov. There are shadow theatres, boxes with telescopic views, cinematographs, animated spinning discs, the first stereo-vario photographs, hold-to-light postcards with ‘hidden’ views, a Lumière brothers home cinema, kaleidoscopes, flipbooks, praxinoscopes, zoetropes, and thaumatropes, all of them allowing one to experience those first experiments that gave new life to drawings and photographs, adding a third dimension to two-dimensional images.

The dialogue between professional optical instruments and animated objects from the world of fairground entertainment, that can be seen here in one single exhibition space, illustrates the progress of modern science resulting from the free interpenetration of ideas and discoveries in various fields of human activity – the artistic devices of illusionists, the manufacturers of optical toys, and the laboratory studies of the greatest scientists of the time. One can also see the architectural solution offered by the “New” collective bureau, bringing together exhibits from different eras, and the creative objects made for children, employing the motif of light rays used in the study of such historical exhibits; and experimenting with modern replicas, creating their own optical toys. “OP! Science. Art. Illusions” demonstrates how the simplest devices and technologies generated by the imagination of fairground illusionists provided the impetus for the development of animation and cinematography. In their turn, the researches of professional scientists formed the basis for the visual experiments of famous artists: influenced by the work of the German physicist and chemist Johann Ritter, ultraviolet radiation was discovered; the avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov founded Rayonism, one of the first Russian abstract art movements; the Dutch artist and geometrist M.C Escher worked with decorative graphics using the mathematical principles of asymmetry; a study of the laws of visual perception led the Frenchman Robert Delaunay to a new style of abstract painting – Lyrical Abstraction, a method of recreating the illusion of movement on canvas, expressing a musical rhythm, using the interpenetration of the primary colours of the spectrum.

What are the similarities between artists and scientists? Why is a vivid imagination such an important tool for scientific progress? To see one thing in perspective, you need to stand at a distance away from it, but to see another, stand as close as possible! Have you ever thought about this? Why is our perception subjective? Is it important to broaden ones horizons? What is meant by interdisciplinary activity, and why is it that the work of the scientist is somehow thought of as less exciting than the workings of contemporary art? To these and many other questions, “OP! Science. Art. Illusions” presents some possible answers; it is an exhibition about the creative energy of both scientists and artists using mathematical precision. You might well find yourself hurrying up to the second floor to start your own research, applying the knowledge gained in the basements of the gallery, and having seen the work of contemporary artists.

Solyanka State Gallery

Tuesday-Thursday — 2pm–10pmSaturday, Sunday — 12pm–10pm

Friday — noon till midnight

solyanka.org

APRIL

4MAY

12

MICROSCOPIC AND TELESCOPIC VISION

2 FLOOR

-1 FLOOR

STEREO-VARIO AND 3D

SPECULAR REFLECTION

EXPERIMENTS AND CREATIVE TASKS

INERTIA OF VIEW

CONTINUOUS MOVEMENT

CONTEMPORARY ART ON THE BASIS OF EXACT KNOWLEDGE

CONTEMPORARY ART ON THE BASIS OF EXACT KNOWLEDGE

IMAGES OF REALITY

LIGHT PROJECTIONS

ANIMATION ON PAPER

1.3 of the Earth. Ilia Fedotov-Fyodorov

Stereo reconstruction of Tatlin’s TowerViacheslav Koleichuk

The elevated Vladislav Efimov

The Impossible Object. Viacheslav Koleichuk

Day by Day. Archaic (sketch) Maxim Ksuta

At the bottom of 3DRostan Tavasiev

1981-2001Teppei Koseki

The portraits of architect Yuriy Grigoryan and artist Konstantin KhoudiakovAndrey Topunov

Four CubesViacheslav Koleichuk

Snopanema, Cristo De Gelo, Snofavela Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich

The Penrose’s triangleAndrey Topunov

Reconstruction of zoetrope

Reconstruction of praxinoscope

Reconstruction of fenakistiscope

Projection of the “Magic lamp”

OP!! offers the opportunity of exploring the ways in which today’s artists make use of an exact scientific knowledge of optics and visual perception in their works; artists such as Teppei Koseki, Vyacheslav Koleichuk, Andrey Topunov, Vladislav Efimov, Rostand Tavasiev, Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich, Maxim Fedotov and Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov.

The High meditative installation of Vladislav Efimov encourages one to forget about time, and watch the movement of clouds using stereoscopes. At the bottom of 3D is a video by Rostand Tavasiev; the result of an experiment with a stereo anaglyph. The artist has combined two different films, a staging of the play The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky, in the blue channel, and an underwater film by Leni Riefenstahl, in red. Through the red filter one can only see the blue film, through the blue, the reverse. One is superimposed at the bottom of another, causing not a visual, but rather a stereo effect; each film begins to complement and comment on the other. From childhood, Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov was keen on microbiology; to create the installation Earth 1.3 he made use of the possibilities of a microscope, making pictures of the earth in different variations. The interactive graphics of Andrey Topunov demonstrate the metamorphosis of the “impossible triangle.” His diptych portraits of Yuri Grigoryan and Konstantin Khudyakov are derived from low-resolution images, representing the effects of changing coarse grayscale raster images by applying an opaque glass. The trilogy by Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich, Snopanema, Cristo de Gelo and Snofavela have been created using stereo-vario optical technology, while the Stereophotography of Tatlin Tower by Vyacheslav Koleichuk explains the effect of 3D. His Impossible Triangle, viewed at a certain angle refutes the laws of geometry, creating the illusion of the material embodiment of the [impossible] Penrose triangle. Four Cubes has been created using barcode stereography; applying multiple notches to a steel surface, and so creating the beautiful illusion of a three-dimensional object in contact with a directional light playing on the etched surface. For his Day by Day. Archaic collage, Maxim Kustoi collected 600 ‘icons;’ when viewed from a sufficient distance the work has the appearance of a vintage portrait. Teppei Kosekis is a representative of the new wave of Japanese video art. His video 1981-2001 is an example of his collage technique; fragments of portrait photos and background images glued together, illustrating how the film’s age changes over two decades.

Shadow theater

OP!