Orange-space | Pseudo-works | images
Attila Csörgõ: Orange-space
Photo-object
The cardinal idea of “Orange-space” is the most complete possible photographic representation of space. For this purpose, I constructed a camera that functions according to completely anomalous principles, thus able to photograph the space surrounding it in its almost complete entirety.
In designing this camera, I linked two elements: (1) the comprehension of space as a sphere; and (2) the peeling of the sphere as approaching a plane.
(1) Mentally, we can easily map the space around us as the surface of a sphere. If we form an imaginary sphere around an arbitrary point in space, and proceeding from this centrepoint, we draw straight lines to points in space, then we can render the points in space unambiguously equivalent with the points of the spherical surface. The intersections of the straight lines and the spherical surface trace out the spherical image of space.
(2) If space can be represented as a sphere, then – analogous to orange-peeling – it is can also be peeled. In a geometrical approach, the peeling of an orange is connected with two rotational motions. While with our knife, we proceed from the North Pole along a longitudinal orbit toward the South, the sphere revolves several times along the N-S axis. As a result of the peeling, we obtain a two-armed spiral, which may be regarded as the planar image of the sphere. In this spiral, the sense is there in just the same way as in the spherical image, i.e., everything is visible, but here the continuity of the surface is disconnected, with connected elements sometimes ending up at a distance from each other. Employing the observations of peeling, the problem can also be approached conversely. Not only can the spherical surface be peeled and spread out onto the plane (or more precisely, almost to the plane, since spatial and planar geometry in this respect are not permeable); we can also approach space from the plane. We can also construe such a planar spiral that we can assemble into a quasi-sphere.
The “Orange-space” camera performs manifold rotating motions (in various directions) around the objective. I place black-and-white photo paper, folded into a sphere, into the camera, which I have cut beforehand according to the above described peeling method into a calculated spiral template.
I have been able to produce a synchronised connection between the camera, i.e., the transformation of the photo paper folded into a sphere inside of it, and the environment, so that the space is exposed onto the photographic paper as a single, continuous image. (That is to say, it is not a series of still images that represent the space, but a single shot.) It is only the top and bottom of the sphere that are omitted from each terrain; due to fixation, the image cannot be recorded here.
Due to the insensitivity of the raw material, the exposure is relatively long, in the case of normal light conditions in an exterior location, approximately 45-60 minutes.
I produce two images of each location. I fold one of them into a sphere, so that the original spatial condition reappears, while the other is presented as a spiral, as a planar image. Thus, two different conditions of space are visible simultaneously.
translated by: Adèle Eisentstein
