{"id":3289,"date":"2018-01-05T06:56:28","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T11:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=3289"},"modified":"2018-01-05T06:56:28","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T11:56:28","slug":"lighting-out-for-the-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=3289","title":{"rendered":"Lighting Out for the Territory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m in the early stages of thinking my way into a book project dealing with photographs of rock, provisionally titled <b>Just Rocks: A Lithic Menagerie<\/b>, including work I&#8217;ve done in the last few years and continuing some lines of thought I began in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/s\/9qi313tlabyrsso\/YMMVversion1plus.pdf?dl=0\"><b>YMMV: Studies in Occultation<\/b><\/a> [right-click to download large pdf]. <\/p>\n<p>\n<b>Just Rocks<\/b> will include rock portraits and tessellations which disclose creatures and designs hidden in geological formations. Most of the images are exercises in <b>visual imagination<\/b>, and address the process of developing and augmenting the capability to see forms and patterns that are not objectively <i>there<\/i>, but are imaginary tracings that abstract lines and shapes from background complexities.<\/p>\n<p>\nA few examples:<br \/>\n<center><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/36472040623\/in\/album-72157686774047334\/\" title=\"Great Wass rock 25\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4358\/36472040623_e89e3251d2_c.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"583\" alt=\"Great Wass rock 25\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>a sardonic grin<\/center><br \/>\nA wave-tumbled rock on a beach at Great Wass Island, less than 4 inches across and weighing perhaps half a pound. Ephemeral in that it was captured in the camera but not brought home, and is now lost forever. An object of contemplation, an exercise in naming (&#8216;sardonic&#8217; is my subjective reading, but you may see something else&mdash;and that&#8217;s the whole point).<\/p>\n<p>\nBeaches along the coast of Maine are the locus of many of the rock portraits, and the process of discovery is worth some attention. The scatter of beach rock is a stage in a random process of erosion driven by twice-daily tides, which eventually produce sand and so recycle the minerals locked up in stone. This is a view of a small part of Drift Inn beach, a couple of miles from home:<center><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/27723737229\/in\/dateposted-family\/\" title=\"wide view of Drift Inn\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4640\/27723737229_1d84043be0_c.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" alt=\"wide view of Drift Inn\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/center><\/p>\n<p>\nIn the last 10 days or so at Drift Inn I&#8217;ve done scores of photographs of rocks that seemed to have personalities, to express imaginative creaturehood, to be more than <i>just<\/i> rocks. Each day I&#8217;ve found new examples, though I&#8217;ve also returned to several to try to capture them better. Here&#8217;s an example of the process:<br \/>\n<center><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/39484228952\/in\/dateposted-family\/\" title=\"cubist1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4737\/39484228952_a031d9b543_c.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" alt=\"cubist1\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/center><\/p>\n<p>In the midst of the chaos of scatter, we observe a rock that has been broken into five squarish pieces. Bits of pebble and shell have found their way into the interstices<center><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/39514876501\/in\/dateposted-family\/\" title=\"cubist2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4644\/39514876501_65163f17e8_c.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" alt=\"cubist2\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/center> <\/p>\n<p>and were awaiting my discovery:<center><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/25523491918\/in\/photolist-23a5ZE9-23cN57a-ETqyVu-21bW5TX\" title=\"Cubist portrait\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4681\/25523491918_9307c20436_c.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"587\" alt=\"Cubist portrait\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>cubist portrait<\/center>Braque or Picasso would have been delighted. A West African mask maker might have imagined such a fetish. But it was <i>simply<\/i> time and tide that made this conjunction, and that will erase it before long.<\/p>\n<p>\nAnother example, this one a tessellation that unfolds a geological mini-saga of marble inclusion<center><br \/>\n<a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/27692210429\/in\/dateposted-family\/\" title=\"DI2i1831\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4638\/27692210429_8c4fcabce7_c.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" alt=\"DI2i1831\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/center><\/p>\n<p>\nto produce this:<center><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/27704231779\/in\/dateposted-family\/\" title=\"female avatar of Poseidon\/Neptune bracketed by White Whales\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4682\/27704231779_6f18e7ca02_c.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"321\" alt=\"female avatar of Poseidon\/Neptune bracketed by White Whales\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>female avatar of Poseidon\/Neptune bracketed by White Whales<\/center><\/p>\n<p>\nAs I&#8217;ve noted elsewhere (see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/s\/wu1lo8gmfbmru94\/Tessellations1.pdf?dl=0\"><b>Tessellations<\/b><\/a>  [right-click to download large pdf]), one may well ask if the avatar and the whales were there all along, waiting to be liberated, or if I created them by digital legerdemain, and\/or called them into existence by an onomastic hey-presto&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\nSo that&#8217;s some of the territory I&#8217;m lighting out to explore this winter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m in the early stages of thinking my way into a book project dealing with photographs of rock, provisionally titled Just Rocks: A Lithic Menagerie, including work I&#8217;ve done in the last few years and continuing some lines of thought I began in YMMV: Studies in Occultation [right-click to download large pdf]. Just Rocks will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-onomastics","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3289"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3292,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3289\/revisions\/3292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}