One Thousand Points of Light is an exhibition about
light and looking. Over the last year Dutch artist Melvin Moti has
been exploring the vast collections of National Museums Scotland.
His new film and the objects shown in this exhibition make
connections across traditional disciplines, combining the natural
and the man-made, the ancient and the contemporary.
Moti's film Eigenlicht was made in response to the
collections at National Museums Scotland. Shot on 35mm film,
Eigenlicht flys silently around glowing, crazily-coloured
rocks, or planets, or particles. Slowly rotating against a black
background the film gives no indication of scale; we could be
looking down a microscope or out into space. Eigenlicht’s
subjects are UV-reactive minerals, minerals which absorb UV light,
transforming invisible light into visible, vibrant colours.
Eigenlicht means ‘intrinsic light’ and Moti’s fascination
with these rocks is their apparent ability to produce their own
light. Moti has said 'however dead the material of the rocks might
be, they still seem to communicate to us.’
Above: Fluorescing mineral.
Alongside his film, Moti has selected objects for this
exhibition that exhibit a similar quality; a material ability to
translate invisible energy into something we can see. From
scorpions to scent bottles made with uranium glass, Moti suggests a
different grouping of objects than is usual in museums, bringing a
disparate group of objects together because of a shared phenomenon.
Within the exhibition these objects seem to be the only sources of
light in the darkness. Transformed under the UV light, they are
completely different to their normal daylight appearance.
Above: Uranium glass perfume bottles from
the Ida Pappenheim collection.
Moti chose to begin this exhibition with a small, and quite
strange, papier-mâché head. This head, while it looks like a
child’s toy, also visibly responds to an invisible force.
Originally owned by William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the inventors
of photography, the head formed part of Talbot's collection of
optics and scientific apparatus. The head was used by Talbot to
demonstrate static electricity. When explosed to an eletrical
charge, the human hair on the head would stand upright.
Photography too is an important consideration for Moti.
Eigenlicht, like all his work, is made using analogue
processes. Moti chooses to use film, rather than a digital
media, because he is interested in slowing down and making his
work less readily consumed. Analogue processes, like that invented
by Talbot, are based upon chemical reactions to light. The process
of photography is simply the capture of light. The word
photography comes from photos meaning light, and
graphos meaning drawing or writing; literally writing with
light. Photographic plates mimic the process of looking, the light
hitting the photosensitive material, as the retina responds to the
light that enters our eyes.
Above: Tugtupite, one of the minerals
illuminated in Eigenlicht.
The mechanics of vision have long been discussed and debated.
Ancient Greeks were divided between thinking of eyes as receptors,
or as much more active agents, considering looking as emanating
from the eyes, like a laser beam scanning the world. Today
science demonstrates that our eyes are receptors, not projectors,
and yet the belief in the physical, active agency of eyes is not
entirely fanciful.
In the dark, or when we close our eyes, the world behind our
eyelids is never completely dark. Spots of colour and light swim in
front of our eyes. This phenomenon is, as Moti describes, ‘an
entirely physical manifestation and no hallucination. The light
forms are created by our eyes themselves.’ Through this creative
potential, a seeming ability to create light, Moti draws a
parallel between our eyes and the UV-reactive minerals; both
responding to external stimuli, but also transforming and creating
new information themselves.
Above: Glass jellyfish models made by
Leopold Blaschka.
One Thousand Points of Light is a visual experience.
Moti asks us to look equally at ancient fossils and scent bottles,
to associate across milennia and from the natural to the man-made.
To reflect on looking and to consider the most basic processes of
how we come to know the world around us.