Category: Indiana

Refractions II (McCormick’s Creek)

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Using a refractive filter to show in a single image what is before and behind you is a useful allegory of linear time, and the ability to split light into pretty rainbows can create the illusion that we understand its inner workings, like in the waterfall pictures above and below. There is a danger that the mere effect becomes purpose.

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I found another effect more compelling, using a filter patterned with many facets, a little like an insect eye. Below, at the spring, we can see reality repeated and made visible in ghost like images.

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What we see are slightly different views of the same scene, shifted against each other, resulting in a mild form of cubism, as in the quarry below.

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Much of this can of course done with a single image in Photoshop. Doing it with a movable filter has the advantage that you can play with the constraints of reality while there. You take a picture of what you see, and don’t create what you want to see afterwards.

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The effect can be subtle, creating the illusion of a cyclic space in which we can walk freely, refracted as well.

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The Roofless Church (New Harmony III)

Most churches I know make a clear claim about what they stand for. As one might expect, the Roofless Church of New Harmony, designed by architect Philip Johnson, is a bit different:

Trees, a brick wall, and behind all that, a hump. That is what it looks like from the outside.

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The distinction between outside and inside is already misleading. There is a proper wall on one side, a gate on the other, a door hidden by smaller piece of wall behind on the third side,

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and a large balcony on the fourth, with a view onto a lake. This gives the enclosure of the church the semipermeability of a skin, both offering protection and letting breathe.

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The interior is simple: A fountain, a few sculptures, no amenities like benches, chairs, or altar. The ambiguities continue with what I called the hump: It is a second enclosure, a large dome made out of cedar shingles, resembling both a bell and a flower that seems to hover over the earth.

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The appearance and the material are organic, but its function is to enclose sound. Lacking human visitors, birds have taken to it, exploring the echo of their voices. 

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I liked this place a lot. There is no force that locks you in or out. Wall and bell coexist in a paradoxical, perfect balance. It is your choice to feel inside or outside, to speak or to be silent.

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The Other Labyrinth (New Harmony II)

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New Harmony has an interesting history. If was founded by a religious group, the Harmonists, in 1814, and sold in its entirety to Robert Owen and William Maclure in 1825, who created an experimental community, offering a public school and library. While this community project failed, many people stayed on, and new and old traces of the traditions are still visible in this town.

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The Harmonists were fond of labyrinths for spiritual enrichment. The original version is gone, but there is a replica from 1939 that one can walk.

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There also is a marble floor plan of a more complex labyrinth. In its reflection, a third labyrinth becomes visible: The Athenaeum, designed by the architect Richard Meier. It is a labyrinth both in its interior and exterior.

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The term labyrinth is sometimes used specifically for the unicursal mazes used for meditation. The mythical purpose of the labyrinth was, however, to contain the Minotaur, and I don’t think a unicursal labyrinth would have helped.

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In the third volume of Julia Golding’s remarkable Companion Quartet, the author adds a twist to the labyrinth metaphor: Connie, the hero, has special abilities, she can bond with mythical animals. When evil forces (required ingredient in most children’s books) threaten to invade the maze of her mind, she makes a Minotaur to its sentinel. 

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In the fourth book, she faces the ultimate evil against which she cannot win, by definition. Her solution is mind bending: She lets it inside her labyrinth and makes it part of herself, becoming a new person.

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On top of  Richard Meier’s amazing building is a narrow bridge like passage, connecting the stairs that lead to the outside labyrinth with the winding stairs that lead inside.

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The Fence Had a Hole (New Harmony I)

The soul pattern of a bridge is a straightforward one, we use it to cross from one state into another. I have mentioned related patterns before, that of multiple crossings and that of the arch. Today we talk about the pattern of the closed bridge.

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This is the Harmony Way Bridge over the Wabash River in the town New Harmony (about which we’ll learn more next time). The bridge opened in 1930 and was used as a toll bridge, and was designated as structurally deficient, and has been closed since 2012.

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It has been clearly adorned with warnings, as you can see. But somebody cut a hole into the fence, and those who know me can guess what happened.

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Which brings us to the point of this pattern: A closed bridge can be used for crossing, but there is a price to pay. You don’t cross such a bridge casually, you hesitate.

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Angelopoulos’ mindshattering film The Suspended Step of the Stork distills this moment of hesitation. What happens in us when we consider to leave, to cross over? 

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Standing there, looking back, and looking forward can last an eternity. Don’t do this often.

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Flow

The recent flooding has once again changed the landscape in McCormick’s creek, removing everything from decaying leaves to trunks that have been around at least a decade.

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Rocks have been cleaned and assembled nicely.

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Even the obvious mud seems relieved and shows off curious patterns.

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It won’t stay long like this: Spring is around the corner.

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Things will grow and grow over, obscuring again what we should not see.

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Some rocks will be picked up and thrown. 

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No need to panic. The water will keep flowing, out of nowhere to nowhere.

Ice, Rock, Air

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Heavy flooding followed by a deep freeze without any snow fall left the floor of the quarry in the DePauw Nature Park in a perfect state to study everything frozen.

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Last week we took care of the plant life under ice, today we enjoy the even more abstract world of ice, rock, and air.

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Usually we think of frozen surface water as relatively thin, tw-dimensional layer of homogeneous white ice. Here, the few inches fo water were frozen solid and provided an unusual view into a short-lived world.

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 Of course the rocks and ice structures where already pretty, but streams of frozen air bubble provided a three-dimensional appearance that I hadn’t seen before.

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What else is there when we don’t look?

Just Looking …

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When you stand there looking at stuff, inevitably people stop and look, too (the major cause of traffic jams). This time, I drove the other lone hiker away by claiming that through shear conecentration, I would make the icicles fall. As it was way above freezing, I had not much to do for a proof…

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More serious was the encounter with the quarry warden who had been driving in his little electric cart forth and back along the rim trail, trying to clear the ice that had caused the responsible people to close the trail (it wasn’t that slippery).

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He had evidently spotted me down in the quarry, off trail, wading over frozen ponds, crouching down and using weird equipment.

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It took him 20 minutes to get to me. He turned out to be harmless, so I decided to pretend the same.

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I started talking about how the bubbles and the ice crystals had begun to emulate the shape of the frozen plants, and I was wondering whether there were any special spirits behind it. Off he went, leaving me alone with my little world.

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If I suddenly stop blogging, chances are somebody has seen through me.

Flatland

The recent dramatic temperature change from less than 30ºF below to more than 60ºF above within a few days left some woodland areas with quickly melting thin ice sheets that had previously captured some of the decaying vegetation.

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The unusual part here is that everything happened quickly, shock-frosting and shock-thawing, leaving everything in a rather pristine state.

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It felt like encountering the remnants of an alien civilization, that had left us some of its writing, with only hours to capture their message.

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Of course there was nothing else to do but frantically take pictures, hoping that what looked interesting might also be significant.

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The chances are of course slim that after this will have happened to us, an alien civilization will arrive in time to decipher what’s left of us.

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I am afraid it will be less beautiful anyway.

2008 Recap

Yes, that’s right. Let’s begin the year with a recap of not last year, but of 2008, the year 10 years ago.

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This year brought photographically two significant changes into my life: My move to full frame digital (and the ability to use a handful of SLR lenses I still had from film days), and the adjustment to the Indiana landscape.

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It is not that the Indiana landscape is featureless. It is more a assembly of countless insignificant features that tire the eyes, with occasional exceptions.

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Some are less obvious then others, but the only chance finding them is to look.

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Sometimes I am being asked why I bother carrying a heavy camera when there is nothing worth to photograph.

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Visiting some of the state parks has helped to open the eyes, like McCormicks Creek, Turkey Run, Shades, or Falls of the Ohio. This had been a good year.

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Grayness

Finally, the Grayness has arrived.

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Some places have a fifth season. California, for instance, has a few weeks of High Summer where the air seems fresher and the sky more lucid than usual. Indiana, on the other side, has Gray Winter.

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There are ways of resistance. One is through structure,

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another through subversive use of color.

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In Michael Ende’s masterpiece Momo, the men in gray talk people into depositing their free time (usually spent with relaxation or talking to other people) into retirements accounts, which is of course fraud, because the men in gray feed on other people’s time. Fortunately, there is Momo.

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Let’s not become the gray planet.