Abstract

Dichotomic mechanism is a light emitting mechanism that explores multiplicity of the sublime experience.

In the 1st century AD Longinus discussed the sublime as something that is great, elevated, or lofty. In 18th century Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant introduced horror as a source of the sublime. These prompted even more definitions of the sublime in which the biggest question remains the experience of it. My interest is not in the numerous definitions, but in the multiplicity of the sublime experience. In this project I am focused on dichotomy between pleasure and pain, divine and hell, as different instances of the sublime that I will address in their singularity.

The project will be set in a dark room. By dimming the light and restriction vision, we are able to take in the full extent of our surroundings. The absence of light or darkness is essential to phenomenology because it is in which visual sensitivity weakens. Even if a person is extremely familiar with a space, darkness lessens this familiarity and gives the inhabitant a sense of innocence within the space. As this weakens, it activates the other senses and increases their sensitivity to participate in the experience. My goal is to further examine sensations of light and darkness by changing their position, scale, intensity, and timing in space.

Once the visitor enters the room, a tiny point of light, in the same color of the outside light will appear in the corner of the room. The point will gradually spread and appear as if the outside light is gradually bleeding in. At moments, the entire room will be pitch dark then, in different set of motion and speed, covered with splatters of light until it’s fully lit. In certain instances, there will be light only on the large scale (5 feet high) and very mechanical looking mechanism that simulates the outside light bleeding inside of the room. My goal is to turn it into a literal deus ex machina, a god in the sublime making machine.

“Such is our way of thinking-we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the pattern of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.”
Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows