The Matter Of Light, The Matter Of Fact, The Matter Of Perception From Baroque To The Present

The Matter of Light, the Matter of Fact, The Matter of Perception from Baroque to the Present

Golden rays of celestial light descending onto a saint and an angel who is holding a spear pointed to the saint s heart constitute one of the most celebrated sculpture groups of Italian baroque- the Gianlorenzo Bernini s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (pictured below). The narrative of this piece originates from a document of faith- the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila herself. She writes of her experience describing an angel with a golden spear piercing her heart and her entrails, elevating her, through this pain which, in her words, is not bodily, but spiritual though the body has its share in it to the transcendental moment between the soul and God .

Artist: Gianlorenzo Bernini Title: Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (L`Estasi di Santa Teresa) Year of completion: 1652 Location: Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, Italy.

There are also painterly depictions of this scene- the late baroque Francesco Fontebasso s piece being one of them. In terms of their meaning, Fontebasso s painting, Saint Teresa s written account and Bernini s sculpture could be viewed as one and the same: They all contain the saint, the angel, the spear (arrow), and the light (fire), gathered and assembled to testify to the transcendental experience.

The sculpted light rays of Bernini s masterpiece are additionally illuminated by the actual natural daylight from above, through a hidden window in the dome of the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. The actual light and the sculpted representation of light working together thus compose a unique, interactive, baroque light installation. This trans-corporeality is simultaneously a light of sculpture and a sculpture of light. It is perpetually transformed in the interaction of the marble, the golden stucco, and the dynamics of sunlight, making the installation more or less illuminated , or bright depending on the weather and the time of day. Seeing it on the stormy night abundant with lightning and thunder is surely an awesome experience.

However, if we wanted to crudely dismiss the document of faith, the story of the saint and how it inspired Bernini to create the piece and enable its awesome interaction with the forces of nature, we could insist that it is a lump of stone, mortar and plaster. Speaking in these strictly and tangibly material terms, Bernini s masterpiece is a piece of marble, shaped to embody a figural representation of the angel and the saint. It is accompanied by a lump of gilded stucco: a hard, and fast- setting mixture of mortar, plaster and water with thin leaves of gold applied over its surface, shaped to embody the figural representation of celestial light coming from above, mounted above the central marble sculpture group. However, to look at Bernini s masterpiece in this way we would need to filter out the symbolism of the story, as well as the entire context in which arts stems from, interacts with and influences humanity.

The painted counterpart of the holy woman in religious ecstasy could serve as a similar exercise in the mundane- we could say that it is a mixture of cows urine and crushed bugs, oils and turpentine dabbed on a flat surface, and strictly speaking, we would not be incorrect. Namely, European painters of baroque, Fontebasso included, had access to two pigments (among others) due to trade with India and the conquests of the Americas: Indian Yellow, made out of the urine of emaciated and dehydrated cows, and Carmine Red, made out of crushed insects native to today s Mexico.

Artist: Francesco Fontebasso Title: "The Ecstasy of St Therese" oil on Canvas, Time of Completion: mid 18^th century Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary.

However, there is one thing that no one can deny: what human eyes perceive looking at both art pieces, no matter the medium, is, indeed, light and not only in its symbolic depiction. In its actual material, physical and natural properties, what we see is light. The light particles and waves, some absorbed, some reflected and bounced off the matter. Whether that matter is consisted of the pigment made of insects, marble, or the gilded mortar, the light interacts with it and with our eyes. Evolved and adapted to see (filter) the light of a certain spectrum, this trans-corporeality between the human eyes and the light particles allows us to shape the image that we, the humans, see: the pristine white of the marble, the gold of the rays, or the scarlet of the painted robes. Interrelationship with the arts and humanities further allows us to perceive the magnitude of the artist s talent, inspired by the story of fate, ecstasy and pain to undergo this laborious task. Complemented with actual physical light- the energy that builds our world on a subatomic scale, Bernini s labour resulted in a masterpiece, again allowing us to experience it in all its matter and meaning.

Funding, Labouring and Monopolising on the Light

Much has changed since the mid 16^th century, in how we understand, experience, package and sell light. However, there are some strong parallels threading through time.

Bernini s sculpture group took five years to complete. The funding for Bernini s sculpture group came from Cornaro family, who paid a handsome sum of 12 000 scudi, to provide material support in sustaining the artist and his disciples, as well as the material for the atelier. Moreover, they paid handsomely to be portrayed in life-size marble sculptures, seeming to observe the sculpted miracle scene from their boxes on each side of the central sculpture group of Santa Maria della Vittoria s Coronaro Chapel .

Applying an additional filter to this perception of the sculpture and the above mentioned painting in their materiality, we can also speak of historiographical implications: the labourers in marble and limestone quarries who provided the material for Bernini s atelier. Or we can, for example, chronicle the journey of the cochineal insects and the cacti that these insects feed on, over the ocean to be planted onto the European soil, further implying the loss of the monopoly that the Central American region held over the trade of the precious scarlet red pigment. And if we wish, from there we can enter the discussion of labour, body, power in the context of colonisation of the Americas.

Instead however, we shall follow another path, to draw a rather contemporary analogy of how light matters today. You have light, broken down into its smallest units or corpuscles, which are photons, behaving concurrently as particles and waves, which acts in the ways which researchers describe as counter- intuitive.

In this analogy, you have the people- researchers, who, using their expertise in quantum physics, work on understanding, measuring, naming and therefore harnessing the properties of light. You have the industry and government representatives looking to harness the researcher s findings. And you have the wider public, who often misinterpret the pieces of information which come to them through popular science articles on social media, and develop pseudo-scientific hopes, fears and expectations of what light is, what it means, and what it can do. Moreover, public fascination with the subject has been met with a plethora of popular accounts that, in the words of Karen Barad have sacrificed rigor for the sake of accessibility and entertainment from Sf movies, to the interpretaions of light brought to us by the new age westernized spirituality. While trying to grasp the light in these misleading ways, the public fuels quantum information, technology and research by paying taxes, a portion of which end up as funds for research hubs.

All these things represent the questions which we hope to unlock on this page: the matter of light, the matter of fact, the matter of imagination. The ethical component of informing the tax paying public is one of them. Another goal of this project is to set this interdisciplinary conversation in a way which the wider public will understand how light builds our environment, how it builds us as part of the environment, but also how will it influence our human bodies, minds and relationships.

Some examples:

In April 2016, the Bristol Quantum Information Technologies Workshop (BQIT:16), organised by the University of Bristol s Physics department, was concluded by a roundtable on Ethics of Quantum Technologies . The partakers were the leading scientists in the field, the representatives of Bristol, Oxford and MIT, among others. In the audience were the leaders of industries looking to harness the research results, including Microsoft representatives.

Discussing Quantum Algorithms, Quantum Metrology and Sensing, Quantum Communications and Networks, Quantum Computation and Information and Hardware, they expressed that the public needs to know the implications of the applications of those finds in the future.

Later that year in Tunisia, at the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly, Jaya Baloo, the Chief Security Officer at the KPN Netherlands voiced her concern thus: [T]he Cyber-security will only be in the hands of those who can afford it if we don t get to grips with quantum computing technology.

All the while, the researchers focus on understanding their specific research concepts, largely reluctant to make promises of when, if and how the quanta of light will be integrated into the chip of a quantum computer, or how light will measure and cure living cells, or how entangled photons will carry pieces of the unbreakable codes used in cryptography. In the meantime, the industries invest and expect, and the public tries to make sense of it all, (mis) guided by partial information. All of this is built of light, driven by light and enveloped in light in its various scales- from corpuscle to the environment.

Thus the analogy: Bernini s atelier is the quantum science research hub in, say, Bristol. The Coronaro family (commissioners) are the funders of their research.. The workers who quarried for the marble and mortar to be shaped into the light, the angel and the saint for Bernini s masterpiece are here the tax-paying public. The whole community, each in their own right, build the light, is built of the light, and build the understanding of the light, for better or worse. This is why a research set primarily in the environmental humanities, however consulting scientific research, is pivotal now, and will prove to be increasingly important in the next several years.