History is white, with coloured patches here and there - not what you read in the newspapers; history is coloured, with white patches here and there.
level 1
A walk from T.V. to reality
Every television image consists of 625 horizontal image lines. There used to be 500 pixels in an image line. The image that you saw then was a misty representation of reality, sometimes a very snowy one. Nowadays there are 1000 pixels to every image line. Every one of those 1000 pixels is, in turn, made up of three pixels: a red, a green and a blue one. So there are 3000 pixels in every image line.
This resolution provides an extremely sharp portrayal of reality. In the future, more and more pixels will be contained on the same image surface. Reality and images of reality (a high concentration of pixels) will flow into each other in terms of matter.
Level 2
A walk through the exhibition
This 'mist walks' sales table was once exhibited at a gallery stand during an art fair.
The art fair was held in a large orb, a former gas container in which city gas was stored and from which it was piped out to streets and houses.
The 'mist walks' sales table was in its proper place there. Hundreds of people were walking around looking at art in a place where gas had once been suspended.
Walk leisurely through the exhibition and look at the artworks. You may feel more drawn to one work than to another. Some works come into you more clearly, more directly; others remain more vague, distant.
Even in a conversation about art that you have seen, you can perceive mist in language. I am thinking about groping, unclear sentences: someone who hesitates, as opposed to gloriously distinct word usage; matte, greyish forms as opposed to resounding colours.
Level 3
A walk through the suburbs (attributing the colour of things)
When one looks outside, one sees everything in varying intensities of colour. New things, such as modern apartment buildings, groceries and thrown-away newspapers, are very dull in colour, whereas older things - a retired couple, for instance, or an old painting, cobblestones somewhere in the historie centre of a town - have a greater intensity of colour.
Do not think that something fades with time. Think: the newer, the dimmer, the less colour there is.
When one walks through a new housing development, where red cheeked yuppies live, swathed in flashy clothes and driving away in brand-new cars, then it seems as though one has ended up in a mist.
Level 3 - another possible
walk A walk through the body
When someone has fewer than zoo T4 cells (white blood cells) in relation to a stable number of T8 cells (red blood cells), then this person is possibly seropositive. With fewer than 50 T4 cells, he or she has Aids.
A healthy person has more than 500 T4 cells.
The fewer the number of white blood cells there are floating around in the blood, the less visually present a body is - the more transparent, closer to nothing. The more white blood cells, the more visible a body is. A body suffering from leukaemia is more powerfully present than a healthy body. With leukaemia, the number of T4 cells exceeds 1000.
Level 4
Sitting down on mist (a sitting walk)
It is possible to sit down on one of the chairs or the stool in the vicinity of the 'mist walks' sales table.
These are old chairs full of nicks, scratches and dents. Traces of events. A coat of primer has gone over these traces. This was sanded then. And after this came another coat and more sanding, another coat and more sanding, another coat and so on...
Do you realize that a space has been created? A space consisting of countless layers, a space between you and the history of the chair.
Level 5
Looking at a wall (a stationary walk)
When one focuses on a part of a stuccoed wall, one sees plaster consisting of millions of white particles.
Tremors of different sounds, ever heard along this wall, have cleared themselves a way deep into the chalk.
Slowly but surely, lots of information has been absorbed. When removing a screw from the wall, compressed information remains. A very condensed mist.
Colophon
Edition of The Bifrons Publisher / Galerie van Gelder
Amsterdam ISBN 90-70510-03-0
© Voebe de Gruyter, Galerie van Gelder |
