To measure the stars
2022
19th CENTURY folding rulers
[Brass // bone]
DIMENSIONS VARIABLE
STAR
[ stär ]
(noun)
1. A point of luminescence [suspended in darkness]. A transitory beacon.
2. A focal point [both to look upon and aspire toward]. A radix that serves as both compass and anchor.
GAZE
[ ɡeɪz ]
(verb)
1. To look into, up at, upon.
2. To fix eyes with steady intent — to consider, to observe, to study. To arrest space with a glance that both pauses and holds [to linger as one contemplates].
3. An intimate act of visual suspension — a drawing out that is also a pouring in. A melding of thought and emotion [between what is seen and what is felt].
4. To see starlight as an expression of time. To look forward beyond the present and into the past; to witness a competition between the speed of light and an ever-expanding universe. To look for hour upon hour and catch but a glimpse — an incomplete snapshot — a moment of light and time passing, of motion and dynamics relative to no fixed centre.
5. To engage in an act of visual asymmetry. To look upward and outward, and paradoxically receive light directed inward from afar. To look at objects straight-on and to fix their position and physicality, only to be cheated by the reflection and refraction of light-in-transit [true origins are always shrouded by the beast of time].
6. To look at distant, burning orbs; gaseous clouds of elemental particles in the throes of nuclear fusion, and perceive humanity — a heavenly celestial sphere upon which the myth and rumour of imagination, of storytelling and exploration, are inscribed in the subconscious.
LIGHT
[ līt ]
(noun)
1. A natural agent that stimulates sight — that which makes all things visible.
2. A state of brilliant incandescence — a source of illumination. A measure made in lux, lumens, watts and wavelengths — a visible (and unseen) spectrum.
3. A fundamental quantity in physics; a universal constant. Electromagnetic radiation — a particle / [wave] / [probability-function] travelling at approximately 300,000 km per second. A signal that permeates the ether. An upper bound on speed in the [known] universe and a constraint on our ability to peer into the folds of time.
4. An oppositional entity — surpassed by none and yet defined relative only to nothingness. [A companion and counterpoint to darkness].
5. A carrier of information. A ghost that punctuates the present, a receipt of the past — a celestial artefact.
6. A concept bent to our own perception, with [sun]light and [star]light distinguished only by the position of our clocks [and the frame of our minds].
FRAME
[ frām ]
(noun, verb)
1. A rigid structure that surrounds as it supports. The encasement of an environment; an enclosure. [The structure, constitution, or nature of an abstract space]. A scaffold.
2. A point of [relative] perspective, of reference. A device for comparison, a metric against which one can subtract. A centre.
3. An assembly of stars into a structural apparatus — an elaborate fabrication. A stencil drawn onto [and into] the night sky.
4. An illusory construct [when considered universally]. An arbitrary choice set amongst wheels within wheels and cycles within cycles; [An infinite cascade / turtles all the way down].
5. A tessellation of the night sky, a set of constellations [arbitrarily chosen]. A plane upon which the measure of the universe can be computed and assessed [and be instead supplanted by imagined interconnections].
6. An alignment determined for functional purpose — a compression of the observable into legible terms. A chart, a catalogue, a map [that need not be folded]; a workable interface in the infinite expanse — a means of positioning, of bearing, of orientation.
7. A point of inversion; of transposition — a pivot about which the universe can be recontextualised. An acknowledgement of vantage point and indexation; that we view the universe from a terrestrial standpoint. An understanding of innumerable alternatives — a recognition that our sun is somebody else’s star.
TO MEASURE THE STARS definitions written by Sara Morawetz and Darren Engwirda for ‘A FIELD GUIDE FOR STARGAZING’ – DJINDA: PERTH FESTIVAL VISUAL ART PROGRAM 2023, curated by Annika Kristensen.