The fleeting retinal afterimage, which cannot exist concurrently with
the thing or phenomenon that produces it, expires shortly after its
perception— after its recognition. This dislocation from the present
reflects the impossibility of an instantaneous vision. Here, the past—
and its image— haunts the present and "gnaws into the future…" gnaws
into the retinal field.1
(I've been told that "the retina is the part of the body with the
greatest continuous energy demand."2 It makes me think about
metabolizing, consuming photons— and how my gaze often feels
insatiable.)
The physiological blind spot in our vision is called the punctum
caecum. The punctum is Latin for the wound, the bruise, the prick.
This original, optical wound prevents us from seeing objects at a
close distance, from certain angles. It's a space in the visual field
that lacks photosensitivity—
is empty,
invisible to the brain.
What is in
—visible?
A mirage is just an image of water— a vision of water.
This is a water-
image.
"The imaginary green is the accidental colour of red," said Joseph
Plateau— a nineteenth century scientist studying the optical after-
image.3 He stared directly at the Sun to induce these apparitional
images and became permanently blind.
"The image of the Sun constitute(s) the absolute limit."4
For Roland Barthes, the punctum reveals the force of the photographic
detail; it jumps out to wound you. In other words, the photographic
punctum opens up a hole in the observer's body.
A mirage is just an image of water— a vision of water; something close
to air.
To understand what is in the visible, Joseph Plateau, Sir
David Brewster, and Gustav Fechner all stared directly at
the Sun. According to historical records, Fechner went
"mad" after his eyesight was damaged—
"mad" from the sun.
This is a water-image.
The turbine in this solar tower produces on average of 947Mwh of
electricity per day.
It is one of three at Ivanpah; the largest solar thermal plant in the
world, located in the Mojave desert. The facility, which sits on a dry
lake bed, derives its name from the native American Chemehuevi for
"clean water."
A mirage is just an image of water— a vision of water; something close
to air. This is a water-image.
When I'm filming on site, I imagine watching the
Ivanpah lake evaporate. When a liquid becomes a gas,
nothing is lost (except for when that liquid is water,
and that water is not water at all but is a name and a
place).
Evaporation is a critical part of energy production in a solar thermal
system. The facility relies on this trans/formation; this trans/lation
from water to air.
The plant is slated to close in 2026.
They say the system is not productive enough, that there is not enough
sun.
This is an optical illusion; one that is less optical and more…
epistemological. Occasionally, my vision stands in the way of
seeing it—
seeing this—
seeing what is behind the image.
There is not enough sun. (Or, there is too much
distance between what we want
and what is real.)
The punctum is Latin for the wound, the bruise, the prick. It opens up
a hole in the observer's body. The imaginary wound is the accidental
colour of blue…
—black.
1 The way Bergson describes the endless flow of time is relevant for thinking about
the persistence of vision. Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution. (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1975), 7.
2 Viegas, Filipe O.; Neuhauss, Stephan C. F. "A Metabolic Landscape for Maintaining
Retina Integrity and Function," Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience. (2021), 14.
3 Brewster, Sir David. "Accidental Colours," Edinburgh Encyclopedia, 1: 88-93.
4 Doane, Mary Ann. The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the
Archive. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 73.