The UMPTEENTH DIMENSION (UD)

DIMENSION OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

“It’s not surrealism, it’s “sure-realism”

 

The first Renaissance artists consider it necessary to combine their work with the writings that found their arts (such as the well-known mathematician, philosopher, painter and theorist – De picture- in 1435- Leon Battista Albert)

My recent conceptual and plastic research meets that remarkable necessity of the renaissance years, a necessity that is unfortunately still neglected by a great number of artists today.

ART, this language in its own right: decorative, narrative, critical, political, mythological… speech of form, light, matter or colour, it has always been the reflection of all human worries and the frame of all scientific inventions.

 

THE SPACE DIMENSION: SCIENTIFIC AND ARTISTIC OBSESSION.

Since the prehistoric painting, the pictural picture has headed towards various directions through the exploration of different dimensions. At first, painting was distinguished by bidimensional representations and a rigorous (frontality) (such as the paintings of Egypt and ancient Greece)

In the XIV century with renaissance, painters as Leonardo Di Vinci, Michel Ange or Raphael brought painting to its third dimension and toward its highest level thanks to an unprecedented improvement of pictorial techniques and their use of the perspective according to a set of rules that aim at creating the illusion of depth or the bidimensional surface, that’s to say to create the impression to see a real space in three dimensions (depth, light, plans, volume …)

The physical discoveries of Albert Einstein at the beginning of the last century consider that the fourth dimension is not only a spatial dimension but also a temporal, time is a dimension within the context of space-time, and that its alteration has an influence on the other dimensions. This mathematical concept of the fourth dimension has also been popularized in art and the artists have become so cerebral to the point of suggesting it on a plate painting (cubism)

The artists have thus moved to the fourth speed with their contemporary production that seem to want to go beyond all the limits : to watch , to observe, to examine the dimension differently and to express them in other ways, starting from Henri Matisse’s expressionism (1910) to Kandinsky’s abstraction (1920-1940) going through de Marcel Duchamp’s Dadaism (1916) or André Breton’s surrealism (1924) and Juan Miro (1930) until the last form of artistic expression of the last century such as the experiences of the primitive arts al Amulf Rainer (1940) , the action painting tendency represented by Jackson Pollock (1950)  , Andy warholl’s pop art (1960) or the optical illusion phenomenon of op art produced by Victor Vassarely and the language of the conceptual art conveyed by Joseph Kosuth

At last, the suggested contemporary space metamorphoses have been conveyed in the virtual art in the years 2000, the pictural synthesism or in the actual numerical art, these new experiences have transported the relationships between the space dimensions to the limits of the unimaginable.

With the numerical means, many trials are supposed to be worldwide; space is virtual and doesn’t have any limits. It is tenfold. The suggested space and the literal space can sometimes exist together in some works.

The plastic, esthetic and semantic problematic laid by the notions of the fourth dimension at the level of the choice of components and their organizations have been able to give birth to a range of interpretations, a rich variety of expression and consequently to reveal the specifities of the different spaces(literal,frontal,suggested,physical,mixed…..spaces).

This richness has given me the opportunity to go for an immense internal trip, a trip that allowed me to connect the ancient wisdoms to modern practices. Nevertheless, I realized the possibility to be able to go from this fourth speed to that of the UMPTEENTH DIMENSION.

 

THE UMPTEENTH DIMENSION: Dimension of the HUMAN AWARENESS or rather DIMENSION OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

The umpteenth dimension is not certainly a mathematical, geometrical or physical dimension; it’s not a spiritual or metaphysical dimension, either.

The n-eme dimension is conveyed through the infinite dimensional of the imagination that we have, it’s the infinite variable of the human awareness. It’s these dimensions of the human awareness that travel through time and space and that allow us to join the past with the future going through the present, these dimensions offer us this analytical panoramic of the whole and permit us to examine and dominate all the situations through their numerous forms different visual angles to be able to transform them into limitless spatial and temporal synergies.

If we consider that reality is simply a materialized experience that is limited to the present place and instant, we can in this case only talk about a mistral of reality, we would  need to look for the complete reality, to find it,  all we have to do is to extend and enlarge our field of vision in time and space to savor the secrets of “SURE-REALISM”, open the doors of what is deeper, more real than the present, to change the traditional rules of all standard forms, because, in fact, everything is ephemeral, everything is variable through time and space.

In this way the “SUR-REALISM” would be a term to describe a sphere of existence, supernatural in its start, but sure-real in its outcome, it is a matter of expressing and producing a deeper reality, more extended and more complex than the reality of the present disconnected from its historical, temporal and spatial heritage, expressing one complete reality , RICH WITH ITS ALL DIVERSITY ,without extravagance and without looking for it beyond what is spiritual that tends to define a form superior to existence and goes closer to the philosophers’ notion of ethics like Kazimir Malevitch’s supermatism.

The n-eme dimension would thus be an unchanging foundation of the “SURE-REALIST” approach. Everyone of us will be able to take this exercise that will probably bring us some innovations in different fields, give total freedom to the imagination of consciousness, travel through time and space, wherever and whenever we like, link the ancient wisdoms with the modern practices, synthesize to produce at last a synergic resultant; what you are doing now is a boundless dimensional of your imagination, supernatural in its start but convertible into productions totally real in its outcome.

New possibilities of analysis and synthesis would in this way be offered to all plastic writings and in any other field (fashion, architecture, design….theme of our in process foundation) through the exploration of different sources, the development of multiple styles and mainly the possibility to compose and join parts of time and spaces; it is a question of blurring all the frontiers between what is imaginary and what is real towards looking for and expressing the “SURE-REALISM”.

THE UMPTEENTH DIMENSION: the expression of

“SURE-REALISM”

This n-eme dimension has plastically allowed the multiplication of plans, the creation of spatial and temporal fragments, a technical diversity and a mixture of styles and sources, it is a matter of looking from away,dominating space and time; this way a great many things will change at the level of the composition of space, rhythm, colors and mainly constructing ways; it is a matter of offering the possibilities to gather what is incoherent and harmonize opposites. It is also a matter of offering an external ballad in the dimensional infinity.

Space that we observe is generally constructed in relation to the horizontal because our perception is fixed, narrow and limited in time and space; this way, the vertical has always been a dominant point of reference in the suggested space. All we have to do now is to stand back, to keep distance and move beyond the usual terrestrial movement, so that the observation and the oblique and diagonal construction becomes again an indisputable dominant (that can perhaps be scientifically demonstrated).

The painting that accompanies this writing witnesses this new cooperation between the different plastic components of the space of umpteenth dimension, it is entitled ”ENERGY OF LOST PARADISE” or ADAM sin according to a “sure-realist” writing (a painting 150 cm x 100 cm).

A writing that looks for a creative cooperation between the different aspects and moments of human life through the search for the diversity of plastic components of pictural space:

-Different spatial fragments of this universe gathered in order to reconstruct a new space.

–Distant moments of life brought closer to question and to reassert the value of time.

-A variety of forms and colors, sometimes pure and natural (color and form of the apple), sometimes symbolical (the orangey of prisoners’ uniform) and other times abstract and expressionist (the form and colors of the apple tree) to be able to synthesize one of the universe mysteries and of the human nature characterized by the necessary existence of opposed and contradictory things.

-The cohabitation of different forms of space: the suggested space with the physical and literal, the frontal with the three-dimensional, the fourth dimension is also present.

All these means could be brought together thanks to the umpteenth dimension,

 the superhuman dimension of the human  CONSCIOUSNESS .

The UMPTEENTH DIMENSION: it is not surrealism, it’s “sure-realism”

A subject to debate, common sense, I’m convinced, will prevail soon.

Mourad Elloumi

Professional artist-painter

Teacher of art

Tunis