The Origin of Darkness

Where does it come from? Why and when did my physics/math/engineering art decide to only dwell on black backgrounds?

I am sure there are proper theories in the history of art. I can come up with some armchair psychologist’s explanations – blaming popular culture, clichés, a collage of archetypical memories.

I am hacker. We hackers have to use black backgrounds in any software app, if not cover our windows with black shades.

Ethereal structures on black remind me of structures in the cosmos. The Cosmos with capital C, as presented by Carl Sagan. A universe resounding with Vangelis’ ethereal music.

Dark has felt appropriate in the past two years. I’ve created art from typographic characters – one for each death of the capital C pandemic. I’ve been working on a pencil drawing of my antique black phone – using a negative photo. Completed it hours before Russia invaded Ukraine. It became inverse art, photographed and inverted, turning black again. Since then, I saw mathematical structures cast in hues of yellow and blue, on black.

Exploring my path in the dark, I take an image from each post, starting from the oldest ‘black posting’. Then I pick a few phrases, found-poetry-style. Advance in time until the present! I am not allowed to turn back and edit.

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pushing and popping through levels of meaning
unreachable places in the fabric of spacetime


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yellow characters
have died

Candle, ASCII art

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the end of the dystopic corridor
you can reach it

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They all seem to live in the same space
In a world that feels like a different galaxy
Electron diffraction patterns, distorted
~~~
Trapped inside the light cone
on a path of eerie fire.
Causally connected
to your past

Drawing - worldline of a particle in the light cone

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thin white bones on black canvas
Corona discharges.
art keeps me sane

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rotate space and time into each other
keep angles intact and map circles

~~~
a human-like observer
makes all the paradoxes go away

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You don’t care where you are
only ‘rotated half-way’
The same applies here
You can change

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white fragile space probes
twisted the ribbons by changing the perspective

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 I am searching for
sort of a ‘response’
of the unconscious mind

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pair it with engineering
I found the mother lode

Diffraction patterns by elkement, collage with 1945 patent drawing

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They shall shine in the dark.
I used artistic license

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still on duty today
Never accept anything less than your best
do not be afraid, and do not tremble

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Now is the time for art
replenished by radioactive decay
space slowly peters out

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At the other side of the worm hole
driven by the pleasures and pains of
a dark secret tied to technology

Diffraction patterns by elkement, collage with 1945 patent drawing

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So modest, so sublime.
Transform. Distort. Play!

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The interstellar void
going down much faster
determined to take over

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dedifferentiating the materials
extending to minus infinity
not to get trapped

Freehand drawing of contour lines of real part of complex function 1 over z

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fraying fabric
closing off the structure
had stayed on the sphere

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create a serene environment
A paradox. An irony.
the best of all worlds

Collage of public domain technical drawings of vintage scientific instruments.

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Where does it come from?
a universe resounding with
mathematical structures cast in
found-poetry-style
I am not allowed to turn back

~~~

The last sentence was from this post, thus the last sketch is a new one, from this post; there is no link to another post. The sketch features Dirac’s belt trick (background here).

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