The Amazing Beauty of Invisible Shapes

We are surrounded by invisible shapes of amazing beauty. We feel their presence and sometimes they appear in our dreams.

A 5 minutes movie that I have watched yesterday is such a dream. It was at the Hirshhorn Museum, in their Black Box space.

British artists Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt have collaborated (under the moniker Semiconductor) since the late nineties on various forms of what they call digital noise and computer anarchy, including films, experimental DVDs and multimedia performances. Their aim has been to investigate the turbulence that we sense but do not see, all that percolates beneath the natural order of things.

Magnetic Fields was created by Semiconductor in 2007, during the artists' residency at the Space Sciences Center, UC Berkeley. They filmed the laboratories and recorded the voices of scientists, then they superimposed their own digital animation.



So, what appears at first view to be a scientific documentary is actually a universe created by the two artists.

It is another world, one in the infinite multitude of possible worlds, real or imaginary, a world where magnetic waves can be seen dancing in front of our eyes. It is gorgeous.



I am trying to imagine how would be this movie felt by me if scored by James Tenney? The ever-changing geometry of the waves, their subtle order in the apparent chaos, followed closely by the subtle delicacy of Phases? Or Ergodos?

Magnetic Movie was awarded best film at Cutting Edge and at the 2008 British Animation Awards and best experimental film at the 2007 Tirana International Film Festival.



(Hirshhorn Museum)

(Contemporary Art)

(Filmofilia)