This project is draws attention to the activity of seeing as a two-part process that is both physical and phenomenological. “Seeing” involves the physical act of registering physical stimulus combined with the cognitive act of the brain recognizing and interpreting information. We cannot look at the sun directly or know the details of the moon’s surface without a mediating instrument that aids the eye. Sun/Moon mimics the act of looking and understanding by registering images taken by a digital camera attached to a telescope multiple times within fractions of a second. All of the images are visibly impacted by the telescope and camera. There are visible distortions and reflections from the inside of the telescope within the images. Each attempt to capture and look at the physical object of the moon or sun is frozen for scrutiny with a time date stamp printed onto the image. The aggregate time sequence of multiple moons or suns laid out next to each other become phenomenological—the trace of the experience of looking and recording. These sequences posit understanding as cumulative act in which the ideal of the moon and sun remain elusive.

 

SHARON HARPER