“The Ultimate Cathedral” by Mordechai Omer and Avi Rosen

English translation – Sonia Dantziger.

This text is also available at http://siglab.technion.ac.il/~avi/. It’s republished here with permission.

The David and Yolanda Katz Faculty of the Arts, at Tel Aviv University.
Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.

Abstract

This article examines the development throughout history of the means that man has used to locate himself at the center of the Universe. It surveys cathedrals throughout history, from the prehistoric era from the Pyramids to the Tabernacle, to the Gothic cathedral, the Sistine Chapel, the Panopticon, the Eiffel Tower, the radio and television station, up to the cyberspace era. In parallel there is an analysis of the human icon as expressed in art, through the beliefs in the various periods. The icons and structures reflect the scientific knowledge, technology, and philosophy of their respective periods that seek to create aesthetic effect through compressing space and time. The conclusion of the article is that we are part of the ultimate cathedral developing in the Universe, whose building blocks are the communication networks, like cyberspace that link diverse subjects and objects in a closed space in the manner of Georg Riemann’s geometry . Existence in the ultimate cathedral is the continuous artistic act of a hyper-subject.

From the beginning of man’s existence on Earth, he tried to create tools to enable him, on the one hand, to increase the reach of his arm, and his senses, and on the other, to link his consciousness to the powers of the Universe active around him. Developments of new technologies changed his understanding of the universe, its meaning, and thus, the relationship between them. In ancient cultures, relations to the universe were based on local religious and cultural models of time and space; these are the components that make up the concept of reality. For the Babylonians, Hindis, and Aborigines, there was no clear separation of ‘subjective’ inner reality, and the ‘objective’ exterior space and time. Reality was a mixture of the products of the soul, dream, trance and myth, together with mundane tangibility. Similarly, the concept of time was no a single criterion, standard and exact, by which events could be measured, but an amorphous concept, that moved between myth and reality (Shlain, 1991, 28-30; Burke, 1988, 14-15). In pre-historical times, environmental sites were built, for example Stonehenge in England, with huge stones, about four meters in height, were placed standing in a ring with a radius of about thirty-three meters. The location of the site suggests a ritual use as an observatory for the objects of the sky, and prophesying eclipses of the sun and moon, when the observer stood at the center of the ring. In addition, its physical size and shape made a deep impression on anyone in the surroundings, by inducing a feeling of mystic elevation of the spirit through uniting the physical presence with the universe and the mighty powers working in it (Wikipedia, 2006, internet). Natural materials, such as rocks, made with simple tools, using great physical effort created an astronomical instrument that focused the exalted mythic world to the material reality in which the body of the observer existed. In cave art, painted on rock (silicon), from the same period one sees the icon of the hunter holding a bow that dramatically increased the range of his body, to the range of the arrow.

Picture no. 1. Photograph of cave, hunter with a bow. Sahara, Algeria. Approx. C6000 BC. in: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/ontheline/explore/journey/algeria/history.htm

The mythology of ancient Egypt describes space before Genesis, populated by one indivisible, unique power, embedded in the indefinable cosmic ocean (Nun) outside the definitions of real space and time. A picture portraying the beginning of the world shows Shu, space, separating the sky, Nut, from the land, Geb (Lamy, 1981, 42). This picture in the Pyramid is engraved in rock (silicon) in the burial chambers of Egyptian kings of the 5th and 6th Dynasties, C2700 BC. The role of the pictures and the Pyramids was to enable the buried kings to ascend to the heavens to be for ever at the side of their father, the chief god, in the form of a radiation (akh). The ascent to the heavens allows them to leave earthly time and space, and return to the energetic amorphous pre-Genesis space. The One, the unique creative power, which is also called Atum, which means simultaneity, all and nothing, the potential of the universe which has not yet received a shape. The cyclic nature of time after the Creation is painted on the ceiling of the burial chamber of one of the Pharaohs, when Nut, the image symbolizing the arc-shaped sky, with circles drawn within it symbolizing the sun in its course.

Picture no. 2. The sky and earth, in their eternal cycles, in Lamy, 1981, 21.

The goddess, Nut, drawn in human form swallows the sun in the evening and gives birth to it at dawn. The day’s cycle begins in her womb and ends in her mouth. Under her body is Geb, she is the image that symbolizes earth, bent in a spiral posture, suggesting rotation around her axis. The reach of Geb’s arm measures the circle that her body will describe in rotating. Her hand nearly touches Nut’s body and together they close the magic circle, uniting sky, earth and man, drawn in the circles placed on the palms of Geb. The god is portrayed in human form whose arm span and consciousness touch the extreme edges of the universe. The entity above is “He whose name is hidden,” “which is above the clouds,” also described as lightning, the possessor of ultimate speed. Later in history, lightning was also the symbol of the gods of the sky, Zeus, Jupiter, and Amon (ibid, 12). That entity is linked to the sun; its head is crowned with high plumes which cut through the sky, he seems to capture the celestial energy. The red ribbon secured around his head, transmits the energies and transfers them to earth. The image closes the magic circle of energy through its body.
The Pyramids constitute the ultimate “transportation vessel” withstanding the ravages of time, and guards the mummified body of the dead king during his journey from the material to the sublime unification with his father, the heavenly god. For celestial navigation purposes, “windows” aimed at the sky were set in the structure of the Pyramids, towards the “eternal” stars that never disappear under the horizon of the Earth, and thus symbolize eternity. The Pyramid with its contents is thus a capsule, carrying genetic, scientific, and artistic information; the measurements of the structure are based on exact calculations of lengths and angles.

Moses, who stayed in Egypt in the period of the Pharaohs, is described as he who spoke to God face to face, and after the amazing event “his face radiated.” Following that encounter, he wore a veil, kind of camouflage or device to hide his face from sight, in order not to frighten people approaching him. (Exodus XXXIV, 29.35). The Ten Commandments on stone (silicon) tablets that Moses brought down from his encounter with God, together with sundry holy objects, make up a code of behavior and communication between God and the Israelites. These objects were found in a place of exalted “connection” with layers of protection: a forecourt, a dwelling in which was an outer room called “the Holy,” after that was an inner room called “the Holy of Holies”, encircled by a pavilion of cloth; in the inner room was a casket (the Ark) and in that – the tablets. The Tabernacle itself, the location in which God connects with the nation through the agency of Moses is the tent including the additional layers: a frame of wooden shutters, covered with embroidered linen cloth, which in turn is covered by a woolen cloth, covered by red leather outside. Only the priest was permitted to enter the dwelling, an ordinary man was only allowed to enter the forecourt (Friedman, 2004, 31). Severing the link between the sons of Israel and their God is described by the expression,” hiding his face” (hester panim), “And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end will be:…” (Deuteronomy, XXXII, 20). Beyond the direct meaning of hiding and severing, the words can be interpreted differently. If we can imagine space and time as non-linear, but spherical (Georg Riemann’s geometry), then turning the eyes to the opposite direction will eventually bring us to the place from which we departed. In addition, using the apparatus in the manner of displaying “virtual reality” that covers the face will expose what is going on behind the End of Time and Space, (the Apocalypse) or at the distance of light years. This ultimate use of optics is the speed of light, when by the use of electronic means all the information in space and time focus on the consciousness of the observer, which is the singularity, in which meet the three spaces: the real, the conscious, and the virtual. One can assume that the “apparatus” is no other than what caused Moses’ face to radiate, like how the face of the observer glows in the illumination of the computer screen, or the VR headset.
The phenomenon of rational thought in Ancient Greece, signaled the separation of religion from enlightenment, and led to a new understanding of time and space. In the new linear space the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, and from here, determining that Euclidean space was fixed, constant, and homogeneous thus negating the possibility that space can be bent, like the surface of a ball, for example (Kaku, 1998, 50). In the Greek universe zero and infinity did not exist, and therefore there was no vacuum (Seife, 2000, 30).

If in ancient times, time was conceived as circular, mythic, and cyclic, as for example, life and death, the seasons of the year, day and night, ebb tide and high, along came Aristotle and decreed that time is linear, moving from past to future through the present. The three dimensions of past, future and present do not really exist. The past was already dead and gone, the future has not yet come, and the present is just a point on the boundary separating the two. Time is the number by which movement on a surface is measured in relation to before and after. “The concept of time obligates hypothesizing there being an exterior object outside man’s mind, the reality of a body in motion, for there is no time without movement, and no movement without a moving body” (Gabai, 1997 ,32). By means of linear space and time, continuous and abstract, logical rules of systematic thought are fixed. In the cause and effect method, “If so, …” it was possible to discover the truth without the use of astrology. According to Aristotle, the world and time were fixed and eternal, had no changed, and would not ever change. Pythagoras claimed that the Earth was situated at the center of the Universe, and the rest of the planets circled it, while being in separate spheres. The stars among the spheres were ordered and emitted heavenly music as they moved. According to Pythagoras, “everything is numbers”, investigation of nature and numbers that expressed it would reveal the harmony in it, for example, the Golden Mean used for structures consecrated to the gods was in accordance with its ratio (Seife, 2000, 36). Linearity of time also allowed the orderly and logical sequence of events in history. In such a society, for a man not to be logical was not to be sane. Knowledge of mathematics and geometry allowed man to understand the Universe in a new way.

The phenomenon of Christianity shook the concept of united linear space, and decomposed it into separate realms. In them, Heaven is above Hell, and both are separated from Earthly reality. For a religious person in that period, space was not continuous, but compartmentalized; even the sky was divided into seven distinct Heavens, (Tod and Wheeler, 1978, 14-16). Fragmenting space into separate units led to a gradual decline in the prestige of the alphabet, and illiteracy became the norm in the Middle Ages. According to St. Augustine, nothing had happened before the Creation; time did not exist before the Creation of the world. Time and space only came into being by the Hand of the Creator, some 5000 years before the birth of Christ, and they will come to an end on the future Judgment Day (Hawking, 2003, 43). On that fateful day, the present will finish, and will be replaced by eternity, an entirely different kind of time. In eternity things do not “happen;” history terminates because Earthly event – birth, death, love, work, no longer occur. Earthly time is related to the birth of Jesus and the diverse events of his life and death (Shlain, 1991, 38-39). Illustrations in manuscripts, for example one made by a German nun named Hildegard of Bingen, from the thirteenth century, describes the central involvement, even though passive, of man in the Cosmos structure. The spiritual world was just as real as the concrete world. The global Universe of the Middle Ages was portrayed with man at its center, with outstretched arms in the posture of the Crucifixion, enfolded in the Heavenly Embrace. The function of man in this world is to fight evil day in day out, so that on Judgment Day when it will be determined whether his spirit will reach Heaven. (Burke, 1988, 18; Fremantle, 1966, 61).

Picture no. 3. Man shown when crowned and enfolded in the heavenly embrace, in Burke, 1988, 18.

An illustration in a Middle Ages prayer book, created by the nuns Herrade of Landsberg, and Guda, enabled their union with the eternal glory, the God, and continuation of life after death through their portraits imprinted in the margin of the page. (Tiber, 1992, 23-24).

The Gothic churches that were built at the end of the Middle Ages were used as means of “channeling” between the believers and their God. The stained glass windows, translucent and colorful, provided the believers the possibility of glimpsing Heavenly Jerusalem, about which they heard in sermons and song, the City with pearly gates and things of beauty, stretches of floor paved in pure gold and glass panes. The believer who became addicted to looking at all the things of beauty could have felt he was approaching the mystery of a world beyond the material. The light penetrating through the translucent colored glass windows transformed it from earthly to celestial light, permeating the heart of the believer (Mishori, 2000, 306: Gomrich, 1956, 132). The believer who stands at the center of the cathedral’s lofty structure is awe-struck, the delicate ribbing holding the stained glass, and the arched ceiling produced in his consciousness an exalted vista of entering a heavenly singularity (Janson, 1966, 233-240).

Father Suger wrote above the doors of his monastery at St. Dennis near Paris: “The windows will lead you Jesus Christ” (Burke 1988, 52). On the soul reaching the sky there will be an ecstasy of divine light ,as Hildegard of Bingen described it: ”I saw a most glorious light and in it a human form of sapphire hue…all inter-existent in one light, one virtue and power” (Fremantle 1966, 68).

The structure of the cathedral is patterned on the Biblical description of the Temple, the building that replaced the Tabernacle previously described. As mentioned, those places were interfaces between the sons of Israel and their God. In the Middle Ages, the entry of the believer to the dimness of the cathedral from the exterior daylight resembled the passage to the heavenly world (Elson, 1966, 53; Aubert, 1968, 336-337). In the words of the Mass “This is a place of awe. Here is the court of God and the gate to Heaven” (Fremantle, 1966, 137). The ritual of Communion is the reincarnation of the bread and wine at the Last Supper, eaten at the altar. It symbolizes the flesh and blood of Jesus, exemplifying the new passion of people “to see and touch” myths (Walter Benjamin, indicated the same phenomena concerning the movies). This act unites the believer with godliness.

The Kabalistic doctrine developed in the Middle Ages, describes a condition prior to the Creation, in which godliness is concentrated at a singularity point whose origin was in infinity. This high and hidden point is the beginning of all things. In the creation process the ray of light that penetrates the space within the infinite and fills it with the emanations, including all the substance in the Universe, spreading in all directions. “Because with the appearance of light, the world expanded and in its hiding every kind of thing was created … that is the secret of ‘Genesis’ and he who understands, will understand” (Friedman, 2004, 265). This primal bang produced the dispersal of substance in space, from a state of compressing ancient space and time. The central purpose of the Kabala is to reunite the substance and carry out “repairs,” (Tikun) or to make a new meeting of God and man, while man must do his part in order to reach this exalted point (Freidman, 2004, 306).

Laying on phylacteries (tefillin) is the action of belief connecting man and the Lord’s law, as is written on the scroll in the tefillin: “And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thy hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes that the Lord’s law may be in thy mouth: for with a strong hand the Lord hath brought thee out of Egypt. Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in his season from year to year.” (Exodus XIII, 8-10).
These things were said to Moses, the only man in the Bible who saw God face to face. The tefillin are a ritual article whose inner structure is made with a rolled scroll in it and parchment; reminiscent of the structure of the brain, and the card in it includes the fundamentals or code of belief.

Picture no.4 Laying tefillin on head and arm. In www.bnaiavraham.net/photo_album/Misc_bac.htm

The tefillin laid on head and arm become emissaries of the body and soul of the worshipper, and produce extension of body and soul through the written code and the belief, uniting them with the sublime. A similar action is using the virtual reality head set device and the data glove, connecting the user in the real world to the virtual world, by means of the codes and protocols of communication. The “memory” in the eyes of the user is therefore a “virtual” elevated world projected onto the display and into his consciousness, through bending space and time into the singularity of his consciousness, through his arm wearing the data glove which changes the information space he is immersed in. Like the worshipper, the surfer is contemplative while concentrating on the data space; his intentions and body are “paralyzed”, frozen on the event horizon of the electronic data black hole.

Picture no. 5. Head set and data glove for Virtual reality navigation. Image courtesy: www.5DT.com

The invention of linear perspective at the beginning of the Renaissance, in which there is a single point of viewing a subject, that works according to the law of physics, mathematics, and logic (Mishori, 2000, 6), stabilized the experience of looking at a picture, and introduced objectivity and order into chaos, in opposition to that previous mythological view dictated by religion. The zero which until then had been the dwelling place of Satan, and the undefined infinity, from now on would be found in every painting (Seife, 2000, 94). Perspective determined a clear method for relating to space and time, and also effected the transition from symbolism to realism. From now on every man acquired a personal point of view of his own and a criterion for objects in time and space. “Now it was possible to copy objects in a reliable way, and reproduce them according exact specifications, at any place in space and to make various mathematical calculations concerning them” (Burke, 1988, 76). That ability allowed mapping different areas, and even the Earth; Jerusalem was no longer the center of the world as it was in maps in the Middle Ages.

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) created a realistic picture using the technique of “vanishing point”. The observer held a device in his hand with a small hole, through which the painted image of the baptistery in Florence was displayed before him. After removing the mirror in the device, the real image of the baptistery was revealed. The intention was that the observer would not distinguish the painting from the real thing. That simple device may be defined as the prototype of the electronic virtual reality device of our time. The concrete objects in the real world are three dimensional, and Brunelleschi’s device compresses the image on the axis of depth, transforming the object to a flat two dimensions. It also effects compression on the spatial axis, the object changes from a plane to a one-dimensional line with length, but no width or height. The repeated action, compressing the length axis will change the real object to an infinitesimal singular mental object, without length, width or height.

Picture no. 6. Brunelleschi’s perspective device. In http://www.kap.pdx.edu/trow/winter01/perspective/

In addition to the vanishing point in the picture, one can imagine a second vanishing point outside the picture, in the inner part of the observer’s eye. All the objects on the plane of the picture gather at this infinitesimal point and from there to the observer’s consciousness. The picture becomes an interface between two vanishing points, the one in the picture and the one in consciousness.

The Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, painted by Michelangelo in 1508-1512, is an assembly of “windows,” containing various scenes. The man standing on the floor of the Chapel at the center of the art work, he transforms his body from a physical to a spiritual dimension; the boundaries of his body spread towards the infinite. The higher he looks, the higher the measure of spirituality in the pictures also rises. From his position in the secular physical world, through the portrayed prophets who earned heavenly revelation at various levels, and to the events at the center of the pictures array, there is a peak point, the nearest location of God to man, at the time of the creation, when God almost touches man, and so with Moses. He is the man who sees God with his very eyes on Mount Sinai, in God’s words:
“If there is a prophet amongst you I the Lord will make Myself known to him in a vision and will speak unto him in a dream. Not so my servant Moses who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even to be seen, and not in riddles, and the likeness of God will he see. And why were you afraid to speak to my servant Moses?” (Numbers XII 6:8).
In the picture, the creation of man, there is a full-length representation of God, from the tip of his right hand to the toes of his feet, and his head too, is drawn in full profile. In contrast, man sits alone, unmoving, on a rock (silicon); he cannot yet make any movement on his own. He extends his arm in anticipation of the moment when God will kindle the spark of life in him. He is a universal power field that will give him life. In the small gap between God’s finger and that of man, a strong tension is created. Emil Zola pointed this out: “The wonderful movement, this small holy gap between the finger of the creator and the finger of the created in which hovers the infinite, hidden and mysterious” (Rolland, 1947, 151). The infinite is also described in the scene of the creation of the sun and the moon, in which the Creator hovering, while his right hand waves in a commanding gesture and touches the sun, while his left hand touches the moon. In the same scene, God is also depicted from his back as he distances himself from us, to continue the deeds of creation. The span of God’s arms, at the same time reaching the planets, the Earth, and his close proximity to man indicate the presence of God in every place and time throughout history. It invites comparison with the Egyptian picture shown previously, in which the sun and moon are contained in the body of the Sun goddess, and the outspread arms want to touch the boundaries of the Universe. One can see in this general description an expression of quantum mechanics in which particles are in a state of super-position, that is to say, at the same time in every location in space, until the moment when the act of differentiation is carried out, or the action of reading, or touching creation, that leads to collapse of the super-position wave function to a discrete state absorbed by the human consciousness.

Man too, is in super-position state, and is part of the Universe wave function that contains man, Eve, and God. God, in human image, contains the universe and man, from here, man is contained in God, and even touches him. The Chapel, like ritual structures that preceded it, is an “instrument” helping believers to bring about a collapse of the Universe infinite wave function of the Biblical stories, the New Testament, and the code of the church to a discrete state concealed in the consciousness singularity of the believer.

The wave function collapse occurs with the help of the structure of the Chapel, the light, the pictures, the location of the observer in space and time, perspective lines and vanishing points. The body and consciousness of the observer, whose size has inflated infinitely (his unification with God and eternity), created unity of the material and the spiritual. The results of the “traumatic” event, on the human body can be seen in the picture “Judgment Day” in the Chapel, in which the Creation of the World is depicted, man’s fall, and his ultimate unification with God. “Michelangelo makes love with Promethean happiness at realizing all the possibilities of movement, standing, foreshortening, and joining of man’s body” (Rolland, 1947, 161). In the composition, the Higher Power dominates and controls, sweeping everything into the whirlpool, into the singularity, in which material will return to the pre-Genesis condition, and the spirit of God alone hovers over the abyss. In the End of Days, the Big Bang of Creation and the great Collapse (compression) on Judgment Day, Michelangelo draws himself as a two-dimensional exterior skin envelope emptied of all content; held by the messenger Bartholomew who symbolizes the martyr (Janson, 1966, 3598-360). So it seems that the artist felt after returning to the material world having experienced the touch of God while painting.

The description of man in the Middle Ages as separate from the godly, living in a chaotic world, observed by God the all-seeing (Burke, 1988, 18), changed in a world ruled by the rational man, aided by tools such as logic, geometry and mathematics. In such a world man’s view was equal to the Creator’s, because both acted within the limits of reason. The extent of God’s reach, that at the same time touches the sun, the moon, and every place, is also the arm’s reach of man. This ideal man who looks directly and fearlessly at the world, like God, is seen in the drawing of Leonardo da Vinci, and Vitruvius Pollio (1500), (Tod and Wheeler, 1978, 38-39).

Picture no. 7. Leonardo da Vinci, drawing, in Tod and Weeler, 1978, 38-39.

Whoever stands in the Sistine Chapel, sees with his own eyes the image of God in full-length in all his glory, and even his aging face. Furthermore, he also sees him behind as though hovering with him at the time of the Creation and the rest of the historical events. In his work, Michelangelo corresponds to God, because he succeeds in describing the human point of view like that of God, while he hovers at the side in the background, and witnesses the fateful events.

Bernini’s altar portraying the “Ecstasy of St. Teresa” (1644-1647) is the vision of the revelation of the nun, Teresa “That is the moment of Heavenly Zeal when the angel pierces her heart with a burning golden arrow, filling her with sorrow mixed with happiness …The saint faints and rises to exalted heights on a cloud, towards beams of light shining from above” (Gomrich, 1956, 130). The two images of Teresa and the angel appear to be floating up to the sky on a ray of light from a hidden window above. The light is holy energy that charged the golden arrow waiting to pierce Teresa’s body, an act that transports her from the material body to the spiritual. Bernini chose to sculpt the moment of combined pain and pleasure with erotic connotations. The marble (silicon) from which the sculpture is made takes on the material characteristic of wax, real flesh and fabric. But the body has undergone sublimation to a meta-substance through exposure to the Holy Spirit.

Picture no. 8. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, “The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa”.
Sculpture: Marble Life-size Group, 1645-1652, Italy, Rome, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Cornaro Chapel.

The cathedral, by virtue of Baroque art, music, and song, locally produced, became a corridor between reality and the sublime (Elson, 1966, 109-110). The act of unification with the idea of the infinite, in which Teresa is portrayed, transports her to state of unconsciousness, disorientation, and immobility, is also typical of the sexual act. Her covered head, leaning backwards, her open lips, half-open eyes in a brief glance are suggestive of an intimate moment of sexual satisfaction. Bernini unites carnal passion and human existence with the godly, and thus compares their importance. A similar experience is felt by people who engage in activities in the environment of virtual reality. Those who are immersed in cyberspace become immobile (paralyzed like) in their place by the emotional experience and intoxicated senses; some even report a transcendental separation of soul from the body and lack of fear about facing death (Davis, 1997). De Gramont describes Bernini’s sculpture as accelerating materials in the direction of spirituality “look at the roots of heavenly paradise; they are made of stone” (De Gramont, 1969, 33).

The nineteenth century brought new theories and technologies related to mechanization, the physics of light, and electromagnetism. These innovations shook the old linear Universe of Newton, and replaced it with a new order based on constant change, the speed of machines, light rays and changing cognizance. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) effected a revolution in the concept of time and space, the dimensions which in the eyes of Newton were thought to be self-contained, became a priori concepts in that they were dependent on subjective experience. The mind does not only function on the appearance of reality as a passive linear mirror , but treats givens received by the senses by a parable method, in this way the sensed material, crates a subjective view of the world (Gabai 1997, 70-71).

These innovations are reflected in the work of J.W. Turner (1775-1856), portraying new technological objects of the period, such as railway engines, steamboats, rapid chaotic circular motion of light, water, and air. These features changed man’s relationship to his environment. The turbulent composition in the painting blurs the linear order of structural rigidity that characterized earlier paintings, in which the painter’s concept of the picture worked through Newtonian linear order, and reflected them. For example, the painting “Regulus” (1828) describes the new manner of movement of dazzling light and air, that by its power break up, blur, and swallow the sea, the sky , the buildings, the boats and the people on the canvas under painted in traditional linear perspective. The legend tells us that Regulus was a Roman commander captured by Carthage. His eyes were put out and he was forced to look at the blazing sun. Turner portrays Regulus’ reality of light turned to blazing energy that damaged the exposed optic nerves (Bohm and Peat, 1987, 168-170).

Picture no. 9 Regulus, Turner, (1828) oil on canvas. The Tate gallery, London.

The light bursts out strongly from a hidden vanishing point of the singularity, represented by the sun, moving energetically over the front of the picture and the observer in front of it, by melting every object in its path. The storm in Turner’s picture also describes the storm that raged following changes in the manner of observing, paradigms, and the world order, brought about by the industrial revolution.
“With the rise and frequency of railway travel in the 19th century, sight began to move. The change from a horse-drawn carriage to a fast train changed the travelers’ viewing to one detached from the world due to the speed, the closed compartments, and the windows. Attention had to be transferred from near objects to distant panoramas … the feeling of the train passenger was that his speed was like a projectile over which he had no control.” (Bukatman, 2005, 56-57). Turner, visited Italy between 1829-1844, was aware of the technological innovations of Volta, and Galvani, the Italians involved with electricity, electromagnetism and power fields.

The Panopticon, whose meaning in Greek is omni-seeing, is a model of an ideal all-purpose building, to be used for a prison, hospital, school, or factory, allowing central control by one single inspector. The installation was designed by the 18th century philosopher and reformer, Jeremy Bentham, to enable inspection and control of the inmates of the installation without the inspector being seen, and without any inmate having access to another, and without him knowing that he is being watched at any specific moment (Huxley, 1990-93). The installation is like a spider’s web, meaning that whoever is located in the central point controls the entire web. The imprisoned man is between two vanishing points (singularities), one is the eyes and consciousness of the inspector at the center, and the second is the external light source shining eternally.

Picture no. 10. Scheme of Bentham’s Panopticon, in Huxley 1990, 93.

The Panopticon, whose legend is the Euclidean geometry that governed for 2300 years, came to an end when in 1854 the German mathematician Georg Riemann put forward the new non-linear geometry. In Reimann’s geometry space can be bent, and have more than three dimensions. In Reimann’s bent plane, parallel lines always meet; the shortest distance between two points is an arc, not a straight line; the sum of angles in a triangle is more than 180 degrees (Seife, 2000, 156-161; Kaku 1998, 58-59). In Euclidean linear space, a man setting out on a certain journey will never be seen again, and will never return from his everlasting journey. Not so in Reinmann’s space; sooner or later he will return to his point of departure. In Euclidean space objects that were fixed, change shape according to their location in bent new space. The Pole in Reimann’s sphere is the zero point at which longitude lines meet at one point, and the latitude lines are compressed to zero. The Pole is the starting point of three-dimensional axis, similar to the vanishing point of two-dimensional linear perspective in which space is infinitely compressed.

Radio broadcasting technology applies principles similar to the laws of perspective. The source is the point from which waves spread in sphere. Microphones receive these waves and convert them into electric signals broadcast through antennae. The antennae function as a vanishing point for transmitting electro-magnetic waves that are broadcast in a sphere-like way in all directions in space. Radio waves move through the air around the earth when they are reflected between the ionosphere that serves as an enormous concave mirror, to the Earth. The radio receiver that receives the waves through its antennae, in turn converts the beamed wave by means of loudspeakers or earphones into sound vibrations that enter the listener’s ear, (Taylor, 1983 229) and the singularity of his consciousness. This way the range of the senses and the optical, linear perspective, limited by human sight and hearing captured by the horizon and physical obstacles, grows greatly through the electromagnetic perspective. This new perspective, as Virilio named it “tele-topological active optics” (Virilio, 2000, 57-58), utilizes the ionosphere mirror, in order to receive sound and information from beyond the horizon. In 1913, army radio broadcasts began from the top of the Eiffel Tower, which created unity of time and information among all those who were within reception range. In 1915, for the first time trans-Atlantic radio broadcasts of waves carrying speech were made. The origin of the broadcasts was in Virgina, U.S.A., and was received by a receiver at the top of the Eiffel Tower (Taylor, 1983, 227).
Radio broadcasting expanded, accelerating the listeners’ way of thinking because from now, in real time they were exposed to information and, diverse opinions different to those that previously dominated their “slow” local world. This was a continuation of the formative process that widened global communities through the railroads and highways, and accelerated the human sight, and also movement of goods and information from place to place. Robert Delaunay incorporated these new insights in a series of drawings – the Eiffel Tower. The special structure of the Tower is reminiscent of a modern cathedral of steel, with its base in the earth and its top in the sky. The Tower functions as a black hole whose base is embedded in the earth, and function as its event horizon. The Tower draws in the contents around it, and drains them, via iron constructions, to the immense radio transmitters towards the vanishing point (the singularity) of the antenna touching the sky. The electric radio signals are broadcast at the speed of light to all over the world, whose dimensions are compressed into a ball, 2 centimeters in size.

In the singularity of the Tower’s inverse actions are carried out, receiving information from afar and converting it into reality (sound waves) in the physical surroundings and the range of reception around the Tower. The Tower has become the “wormhole”, a bridge that compresses and links spaces and times that were separate till now. Wide distribution of radio sets and radio stations transformed every listener, giving him the ability to see through an electromagnetic lens that presented information to him from far off, in real time. For example, BBC news broadcasts began in November 1922; after five years there were more than two million radios in Britain. Each one of the radio listeners became a cathedral receiving and broadcasting information to the singularity of his consciousness, and at the same time, instantly joining the various other listeners.

Picture no. 11. Delaunay, Robert, Eiffel Tower, 1911, oil on canvas, in http://www.paletaworld.org/artist.asp?id=2616

Delaunay created a de-materialization of the Tower by using different observation points and different times to portray it. His painting depicts the effect created in a radio receiver when turning the dial of the station alternately brings the listener near to far places, and a possibility of receiving information of different types simultaneously (Rosen, 2005). The old technology of printing was characterized by linearity, and continuity of columns, letters, words, sentences and paragraphs. Electronic communication, such as radio, changed that perception and changed society, making it more centralized, as the text on papyrus in ancient Egypt, or paved roads in Rome did. The radio continued the revolution of the national newspaper in Europe, which detached people from local affinities and neighborhoods, and linked them to one national center (Shinar, 1996, 192). Receiving radio broadcasts moving at the speed of light produces common awareness among all listeners. In Delaunay’s works, one can see the influence of Einstein’ theory of relativity, that unites space and mass at the speed of light. The image blurs the clear distinction between objects and their surroundings.

The Cathedral Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, designed by Antonio Gaudi at the end of the 19th century, and whose building has been going on up to today, includes schemes in which spotlights are positioned at the peaks of the towers of the façade, casting their light far. Beams of light symbolize the sublime exterior to man. The light burst in through the stained glass into the Gothic cathedral, and permeated the consciousness of the believer. In Gaudi’s cathedral the sublime energy completes a short circle via the believers, converting substance to spirit, and burst out from the cathedral by means of a huge beam of light on the top of cathedral projected into the distance. This cycle appears at the entrance to the cathedral in the form of “Alpha Omega” sign, the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet, which symbolize God and Jesus. The symbol joins the beginning to the end, joins past and future in the present, and compresses space and time. The inner and exterior light unite in the singularity of the believer, burst out through the bending and compressing of space and time.

The artist Barnet Newman relates to the phenomena, by allotting names to works of art, like “The Death of Euclid” (1942) and “the Euclidean Abyss” (1942). Newman tried to create “sublime” art and to transmit transcendental content. For him, painting was an abstract “ideographic” symbol intimating the idea of the object without expressing it realistically (Newman, 1947). Newman claimed that in order to express the sublime, we free ourselves from the quagmire of memory, nostalgia, legend, myth, or anything else which was a means of expression in Western art. Instead of building cathedrals to Jesus, to Man or to life, we make cathedrals of ourselves, of our feelings. The image we create is proof of revelation, will be understood by anyone who looks at it, without the nostalgic common denominator of history” (Hadas, 2000, 357). The idea that, the work of art and the subjective body are united and become a cathedral, fit the ideas of Marshall Mcluhan that are suggested in his book “To Understand the Media” (1964), in which the human body grows extensions of the nervous system out into space through the electronic media.

The principle of relativity predicts that space, time, and energy can be compressed under certain conditions to a single geometric point, as happened at the Big Bang. A spot of this sort is therefore the singularity of a black hole. There are physicists who claim that the known physical laws of our “slow” linear world are not valid there, and that everything drawn into a singularity will cease to exist. In opposition, there are those who say that nothing is felt (occurs) during the passage through a singularity. According to Reimann’s geometry, the singularity is a “worm hole” between different spaces and times. It is possible to consider the singularity as the theme of a painting that describes abstract “power fields”, or pictures of “black planes”. The pictures are conversions of material to energy, or spirit. Among the artists who painted black canvases are Kasimir Malevich, Robert Rauschenberg, Franz Klein, Robert Motherwell and others. Ad Reinhardt painted black canvases repeatedly, because in his words, it was all he had to say and express, because it said nothing. The process is described by him in the text “Art on Art” (in Shlain, 1991, 364): “A square (neutral, shapeless) canvas, five feet wide, five feet high, as high as a man, as wide as a man’s outstretched arms (not large, not small, sizeless), trisected (no composition), one horizontal form negating one vertical form (formless, no top, no bottom, directionless), three (more or less) dark (lightless) no-contrasting (colorless) colors, brushwork brushed out to remove brushwork, a matte, flat, free-hand painted surface (glossless, textureless, non-linear, no hard edge, no soft edge) which does not reflect its surroundings – a pure, abstract, non-objective, timeless, spaceless, changeless, relationless, disinterested, painting – an object that is self-conscious (no unconscious) ideal, transcendent, aware of no thing but art (absolutely no anti-art).”
The black square canvas that suits the artist’s outstretched arms is the square that delimits the boundaries of the artist’s body and compresses the Universe to his physical dimensions and his consciousness. If, in the course of history, man appeared in paintings as symbol, so for Rhinehart the artist himself is the human image theme of the painting process.

In Andy Warhol’s works there is a different compression. He painted various mass-produced commodities in global consumer space: soups, bottles of Coca Cola, shoes, and also signs connected with the common consciousness that flood the media channels like: the electric chair, Marilyn Monroe, Golda Meir, dollar bills, and more. Warhol’s life style and art, designed and promoted him in the global media, introduced a new concept, the artist becoming a celebrity (Reinhardt, 2000, 148). Art became an intangible object (information) related to the artist, and distributed by the various media networks. The artists and the consumers that have become cathedrals tune in to the communication channels and aspire to unite physically and mentally with the distributed symbols, as was done with the holy wine and bread. The act of symbol consumption is performed at the commercial centers of the global network. “Post-modern man is busy in activities in and against commodities imposed on him by the affluent society. Those collect in protected sites of consumer bliss, such as malls, amusement parks, air terminals. All these become day to day “holy” sites (Gurevitz, 1998, 22). These sites are the modern cathedrals, through new technology connecting the inner space of the consumers that come through the gates to the upper global space. The new architecture that suits the higher space of electronic media (hyperspace) is in the process of forming, “as I will call it, in part because our perceptual habits were formed in that older kind of space I have called the space of high modernism. The newer architecture therefore-like many of the other cultural products I have evoked in the preceding remarks-stands as something like an imperative to grow new organs, to expand our sensorium and our body to some new, as yet unimaginable, perhaps ultimately impossible, dimensions” (Jameson, 1991, internet).
New technologies and the electronic media increase audience participation in artistic events, sponsored by economic or government bodies. In the late 50s and early 60s of the 20th century, the artist Allan Kaprow and the E.A.T. Group that included artists and engineers, carried out ‘happenings’ in the framework of the Pepsi Pavilion at the EXPO Fair in Osaka, Japan. The pavilion was built in the shape of a giant dome covered inside by convex Mylar mirrors that reflected the entering visitors. Laser beams illuminated the place in monochrome light. The enormous dome mirror allowed visitors to look at themselves and others while walking around; all sides of images were exposed as though they were holograms. “You can see the real image reflection of the back of the white hat of the person wearing the white hat and pointing” (Miller, 1998, 29). In the domed space a sophisticated sound system was working, that caused the mirrors and the reflected images to vibrate. In “Total” art of this kind there was no separating line between art, artist and spectator. The work of art continued a long while and changed with audience activities in the place (Kranz, 1974, 27). The viewer in domed space united the singularity of his consciousness with that of others present, and joined the growth of a common singularity, concentrating all the happenings in the space. The singularity is not constant; it is quantum, changing and vibrates by means of the mirrors. The viewer is the focus, the singularity of the black hole, and the Pole in Reimann’s sphere geometry. It is possible to find a similar affect in the sculpture of Anish Kapoor – Cloud Gate (2004) to be found in the Millennium Park, Chicago. The curved planes of the sculpture, polished and gleaming, cancel out the material feeling and create sublimation of the material into spirit. The images reflected from the convex surfaces of the sculpture are flat and distorted in accordance with Reimann’s geometry and Einstein’s theory of relativity. Reflections from the sculpture are similar to the phenomenon in which three-dimensional space is converted to electronic digital information, and is displayed before us in real time on flat television and computer screens, control rooms, and huge electronic displays, in the style of Times Square, New York, or Piccadilly Circus in London. Our sight, guided by our consciousness that surveys the happenings of the real world, changes them through making an instant “short circuit,” between action and reaction. The three-dimensional linear physical world, in which, with great labor, were erected with the material that built cathedrals and various structures mentioned previously, became a world of flat film information in the manner of Karl Guess, who claimed at the beginning of the 19th century, addressing amplified and extended geometrical methods “for as we can conceive beings (like infinitely attenuated book-worms in an infinitely thin sheet of paper) which possess only the notion of space of two dimensions, so we may imagine beings capable of realizing space of four or a greater number of dimensions” (quoted in Henderson, 1983, 19). Actually the human eye registers a two-dimensional image of the physical world, later; the human cognition converts it to “3D” representation.

This was a continuation of Copernicus’ revolutionary ideas that the Earth was not the center of the Solar system. Today we know that the Sun is not the center of our galaxy, and that it is one of billions of galaxies in the Universe, and that the Universe has no center at all. The physical theories of today hold that the three-dimensional Universe is nothing but a membrane in multi-dimensional space (Arkani-Hamid, Dimopoulos and Dvali, 2000, 54). The flat TV and computer displays, are tiny segments implementation of this idea, they are the extension of our retina.

On April 27, 1992, the sculptor Ezra Orion directed the performance “SUPER CATHEDRAL I”, in which at the same time laser beams from a number of places in the world were beamed up to the sky, creating a cathedral of monochrome light whose points of origin, at 90 degrees to the Milky Way, and the infinity of the Universe. This action is final detachment of the sculpture from physicality that had ruled it from pre-history epoch, towards immense energy fields, invisible and intangible that move at the speed of light in the enormous intergalactic distances. Laser technology is also used in communication, and has the ability to transmit great volumes of information. The laser beams that illuminated and created the cathedral left the Solar System in 5 hours, and today is 14 light years from the Earth. The laser beams join the cathedral of radio waves broadcast from Earth, and their height is around 90 light years. Orion proposed a continuation of this project, to be called “SUPER CATHEDRAL 4″. At the time when Earth, the Sun and Mars are aligned in a straight line, laser beams will be projected from Earth. The beams will join the four planets, and thus create a sculptural, inter-galactic cathedral moving at the speed of light towards infinity (Orion, 1992, internet). According to the laws of Reimann’s non-Euclidian geometry, eventually the laser beam will execute a loop in space, and will return here. The conversion of the sculpture’s mass to information in the form of light energy is the highest stage in development of the work of art. The creative thoughts and consciousness of the artist become an energy field and function at the speed of light on its physical surroundings and change it. This resembles the action of a Scanning Electron Microscope with which the observer transmits a high energy beam of electrons towards the part examined. The observer, actually changes the physical characteristics of the examined material, and thus also of physical reality. The boundaries of Orion’s cathedral expand to the intergalactic space that becomes part of the observing subject. The laser beam moving at the speed of light performs a intergalactic loop and returns to its origin consciousness.

The loop that creates compression of space and time and cancels the difference between subject and object, is found also at the basis of Zen tradition, as the following story describes: “Two monks argued between themselves about the flag waving at the top of the temple. One said, ’Look, the flag moves.’ The second said, ‘No, the wind moves.’ They argued and argued and couldn’t come to an agreement at all. Hoi-Nang, the sixth Patriarch, said ‘Good people. It is not the flag that moves, it is not the wind that moves. It is the consciousness that moves’. The monks looked at him in awe. Zen Kuan (Schiller, 1996, 332). According to Buddhist tradition, “the passage through the sun-door ensplendours all the powers of the self… the crown of the head flowers into a tower of heads, an epiphany prepared for with praying hands and greeted with uplifted arms. At the same time the radiance of this moment is reflected through the body a thousand fold , with a myriad of eyes set in a myriad hands” (Huxley 1990, 14). That is the moment of exaltation in which the Universe gathers through the body of the singularity of subjects’ consciousness. The body that grew experienced the eternal being through the eyes that see all, and the hands that feel everything. This happening is described in the sculpture image of Buddha in Vietnam from the 15th century.

Picture no. 12. Sculpture of Buddha from the 15th century, in Huxley 1990, 14.

The late artist Nam June Paik made the Video “Buddha” (1976-78); that is a sculpture of Buddha sitting in a posture of meditation opposite the closed circuit television image of himself. The video creates endless reflections of the body itself by means of technology working at the speed of light, and unites the image with physical body. In the work “Buddha Reincarnated” (1994), Paik upgraded the earlier work with Buddha meditating opposite a computer screen. The meditation does not take place through a direct look but through the electronic interface of a telephone, computer and modem. Buddha’s body is intertwined with electron components that symbolize his change to a “cyborg” that collects and catches his surroundings that are compressed by means of his expanded electronic senses (Hanzal, 2001). The real physical world and our bodies that underwent transformation and compression into information distributed in cyberspace, are described in the work of Paik from the 90s, “Mind and Body”, in which the shape of a circle containing the calibration image on the television screen appears on the square screen of a television set imprisoning a schematic human image composed of electronic parts. This image describes the present level in the understanding of a human subject relating to the Universe. The span of his arms and the consciousness of the subject are greatly expanded by means of electro-magnetic waves and reach everywhere where there is reception.

Picture no. 13. Nam June Paik “Mind and Body”, in
http://www.panix.com/~fluxus/FluX/ESH_Jpgs/Mind_and_Body.JPG

A new media artist, Steve Mann, applies this reality to his daily life through direct and continuous linkage to cyberspace by means of a wearable computer, VR headset, and a mobile, cordless network. Mann broadcast to far distances what his eyes saw and his ears heard, and received sights and sound of people all over the world. This direct link created permanent unification of himself and other subjects, and also a permanent link to the cathedral of digital information radiation. His life became an ongoing work of art, when the consciousness and body of Steve Mann generate a growing singularity, compressing within it space and time through the electronic equipment that became, as said, an integral part of his body. Steve Mann became a “cyborg” found in a constant state of ecstasy, like Bernini’s St. Teresa. The electronic arrow conducing the feeling of lofty exaltation, is everlastingly impaled in his body, while creating a “dialogue” with cyberspace and the Universe, like the believing Jew laying tefillin and joining his God, the mediating Buddhist, or the Christian consuming the holy wine and bread.
The transformation of the human subject to cyberspace and their joining is the topic of an interactive network piece: “1 year performance video” (2004), by a pair of New York artists, M. River & T. Whid, to be found on-line at the address:
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/1year/performancevideo.php The piece relates to a performance by the American-Chinese artist Sam Hsieh – One Year. Performance (September 29, 1978 to September 30, 1979). In the work he imprisoned himself in an isolated iron cage for one year without contact with the outside world. In the contemporary digital installation the two artists capture on video in real time the occurrences in their lives in two separate and isolated cells. The continuity of the videos is kept in files on a server computer linked to the internet. Every surfer entering the site watches the two artists according to the local time when he is surfing, for example if the entry to the site is in the morning hours the surfer will watch typical morning activities, and if late at night, he will see the artists sleeping. The network installation transfers the burden of staying in the closed cells from the artists to the distant viewer. The performance will be completed when the viewer finishes one year of accumulated watching, when he will gain a digital copy of the work of art. Before the surfer are displayed two windows, side by side, each occupied by one artist. The two artists wear black uniforms, are busy with activities in the cell. In the morning they wake up from their sleep; they eat breakfast, and at midday and in the evening. Sometimes they do physical exercise, surf the internet with a mobile computer that they have, gaze at the walls, exercise, use the toilet; towards midnight they go to sleep for the night hours.
The installation comprises about 160 various video clips, that were recorded and edited, but the surfers do not know definitely if the videos are live, or recorded. On every surfer entering, the control program chooses what to show, according to the time of entrance, the number and frequency of the broadcasts, and also the duration of the video clip. That control designates the server computer, the network and the program a power creating art, exactly like the two creative artists. The two cells in which the artists stay are identical in size (probably it is the same room) about 9 meters square, painted white, lighted by neon. Even the contents of the rooms are the same; a wooden bed, clothes hangers, a shelf, chair, table, thermos for drinks, towel, and toiletries; on the far wall there is an opening for “communication” with the exterior world, and to pass things into the room. On the floor are two white plastic pails for a lavatory and for rubbish. On the table is a portable computer. From time to time, T. Whid smokes a cigarette, and both artists read the newspaper. The two rooms look as though they have a common wall (a virtual wall), the wall facing the observer has been removed to allow watching, like in a doll’s house.
The video clips that compose the piece are sequences of digital space and time caught in the event horizon of cyberspace. The sequences observed unite the singularity of the consciousnesses of the surfers through wormholes, to that of the two artists. It is possible to open a large number of windows of the work in parallel, and see the artists in a number of different situations at the same time, similar to stained glass windows in a cathedral. If we change the local time and place of the surfer’s computer, it will accordingly change the occurrence of the two artists’ activities, and will convert the surfer into a director of the happenings on the screen before his eyes. The information that flows is two-directional, and also reaches from the outside world to the cells of the artists by means of newspapers, the portable computer, and the products put in for them. The surfer who watches the two artists becomes an observer in the electronic Panoptican, while the computer screen serves as peep-hole. Because the space of cyberspace is closed loop and behaves according to Reimann’s non-Euclidian geometry, then the pair of artists that make use of the computer and network cameras located in their rooms, in equal manner, can watch the surfers. A hint of this was given when M. River turned the mirror on the shelf towards the camera capturing the room. In that state the surfer “will see“ himself in the mirror, through the electronic closed loop.

The cells of the artists are detached from nature, they have no windows, the rooms are illuminated by neon; there is no hint of the time of day, place, or season of the year. The consumed food is identical- “quick food”, also their activities. Are they aware of the common doings of their virtual partner or the distant surfers? Due to the constant live camera presence, the pair of artists has no privacy, not even for using the toilet. It is possible that the two artists are not real, but “avatars” that represent them (as in “Matrix” movies). The surfers watching the artists are imprisoned in one claustrophobic space and time. This is a black hole, with an ever-growing event horizon. The gaze of the surfer “activates” the two artists, on one hand, and on the other, the artists activate the surfers, thus closing the loop. Without the actions and gaze of the surfers, the piece will not be realized. As with the electronic microscope case, that by means of an electronic current enables the components of examined material to change location, so the gaze of the surfer changes the actions of the artists. As we saw, the observers and the observed become one, a mass of particles in cyberspace, condensing to a super-atom, or one entity that acts consciously to the sum of its components, as happens to gas atoms in the Bose-Einstein condensation. The atoms act in a uniform way, synchronized with the whole Universe, through creating intelligibility.

Picture no. 14. “1 year performance video ” (2004), net performance. M. River & T.Whid
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/1year/performancevideo.php

In conclusion, throughout human history, man has tried to understand his relationship to the powers at work in the Universe, and to unite with them. For that purpose he built cathedrals that enabled him, to unite with the Universe through his consciousness, and to extend his body and consciousness to dimensions that allowed him to contain and to integrate the powers of the Universe. The structures in their respective generations, from pre-history to the Pyramids, the temples and the cathedrals, were instruments to unify man with his God, according to man’s technical ability, and his understanding of himself and of the Universe. Man’s hope was that unification would grant him eternal life. The digital media epoch turned cathedrals from physical structures to virtual structures of digital information, so man too was privileged to transform his physical body to virtual dimensions. This revolution led to a change in the way man is described graphically in the Universe. In the pre-history cave paintings the schematic image of man appears on stone (silicon), as he spreads his arms and legs in order to accelerate his speed and maximize the range of his body. The bow in his hands is new technology that enables further extension of his reach. Man’s extended consciousness was the basis of the created image, with the intention that it would actively and magically influence reality and the animals he hunted.

Today cyberspace has enlarged the range of human body and consciousness to the final boundaries of the speed of light, by means of electronic components (silicon), that connect man to the Universe. Man’s consciousness indeed influences reality in his vicinity directly and immediately. Reality has again become, as in the distant past, a mixture of the products of soul, dream, trance, and myth, together with the material tangibility of daily existence. The cyclic concept of time and space that dominated pre-historic culture, and were exchanged for logical, linear, Western concepts, returned to it’s starting point by the cyberspace closed loop of time and space.

Picture no. 15. The Super-cathedral containing the super-consciousness in cyberspace.

The Universe familiar to us became an ultimate cathedral linked to every surfer who had already become a cathedral himself. Cyberspace electronically compresses the events in the Universe to singularity of the electronic cathedral. Man is situated in the center of that cathedral, a finger of his hand extended to almost touch the finger of God opposite him. When he examines the reflection that is revealed to him, he discovers that he is inside a spherical structure lined with mirrors, reflecting the images of everything around him. It resembles a scene from the movie “Matrix 3″, in which the hero “Neo” confronts the creator of the matrix (the image of an aging man resembling God as pictured by Michelangelo) in a spherical room covered with flat video screens displaying the image of Neo throughout his entire life. For a minute it seems to him the world has returned to Pythagoras’ world, where man on Earth is the center of a flat Universe, with planets and spheres circling him, and the whole enveloped in God’s embrace, as in the Medieval illustration described previously. His finger is trying to reach God’s finger. To his amazement the surfer discovers that the Heavenly embrace and the finger of God that is trying to reach, and almost touches, is not God’s finger, but his own.

Cyberspace therefore realizes the saying that all audio-visual or textual information in every state travels from every point to every point all the time and in no time. When cellular technology in this country (Israel) and worldwide exceeds 100% assimilation, that is to say, on the average more than one cellular set per person, it means that life is carried in an electronic panopticon, in which the subject looking out from the center sees around him a flat world embraced by his own body extensions. In cyber art the schematic image of man appears on silicon, implanted under the subjects’ skin, which enables the ultimate extension of his body and consciousness.

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31. Seife, Charles. (2003). Zero the Biography of a Dangerous Idea. Hebrew translation: Arie Lerner. Mi-An Publishers. Ra’anana.
32. Schiller, David. (1996 ).The Little Zen Companion. Modan. Tel-Aviv.
33. Shinar, Dov. (1996). Communication Balance in Society: Demands and Supply. Unit 3. in Communication:Technology, Society, Culture. Open University Tel Aviv.
34. Shlain Leonard (1991). Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time & Light. New York: Morrow.
35. Taiber, Ada. (1992).The Artist as a Character in Narrative Paintings. Self-Portraits from the 14th and 15th Centuries in Central Italy. (Hebrew).Ot-Paz. Tel Aviv.
36. Taylor, Gordon Rattray. (1983).”Radio” in The inventions that changed the world. 1 st. ed. Readers Digest. London.
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38. Virilio, Paul, (2000). Polar Inertia. Trans. Camiller. London: SAGE Publications.
39. Wikipedia, (2006). Stonehenge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
40. The Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament Hebrew and English, British & Foreign Bible Society, 1919 London.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 24th, 2006 at 4:32 am and is filed under Art and Science, Contributed Texts, Theory, [3]texts & Interviews.