| | | Claudia Kunin
3D Holy Ghost Stories
In late March 2006, the morning before visiting the island of Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, I had a revelatory dream. The dream was later confirmed in waking life.....I was to follow a new path, barefoot......upon "Holy Ground". I came back to America knowing that I was ready to commence a new series called "Holy Ghosts". I studied Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. A good soaking in Caravaggio, Rubens and Hieronymous Bosch paintings followed. I read parts of the Bible, and Dante’s Inferno, as well as Daniel Defoe’s "The Secrets of the Invisible World Disclosed". I was in pursuit of recreating iconic stories that have been told since the birth of Western Civilization. There is a long standing history of art as a transcendental experience. Using "virtualizing lenses" isn’t a new idea. It has been a way to materialize the immaterial.....to enrapture an unwitting audience, and convince them there is evidence of a life unseen. I have experienced many profound coincidences in pursuit of each image. The meaning is clear. I must continue to make these images......I am being called to do so......
Claudia Kunin, 2007
The groundwork for the 3D Holy Ghost Stories was laid many centuries ago, when the Jesuits invented the projection of images. They used this mysterious magical apparatus to convince people that miracles do indeed exist. Much of art has been used to communicate to the people a sense of awe and fear, so they could be more easily manipulated.
With the invention of photography came a tool that was the closest yet to imitating nature perfectly. Stereo photography followed closely on the heels of the daguerreotype. Then in 1858, Charles d’Almeida projected stereoscopic images using magic lanterns filtered with red and green, and provided the audience with red and green glasses, creating 3D images for an astonished audience. Louis Ducos DuHauron, exploring the principles of color, was the first to filter black and white film with red, yellow, and blue filters, creating a three color separation. He was to dub the red/green process the "anaglyph". It was the closest replication of nature yet......in color, and three dimensional!
The "3D Holy Ghost Stories" utilize the anaglyphic method to create a visual space where the natural and the supernatural collide.....bringing a sense of awe to those who don the 3D glasses. The "Holy Ghosts" are a montage of photographs, all of which I have taken. These images are then knitted together, opening the door for the viewer to reconsider various traditional narratives.
The composite images in the series are portals, thresholds between this world and the "other". They tell tales that bring us to the nexus of fear and faith, reuniting us with popular ideas whose threads have run through Western civilization for millenia. A new realm of the deep occult is created, allowing the viewer to experience a rich and ambiguous space.
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