First Light at Lincoln Cathedral 2011

Martin Griffiths is embarking on a major commission for Lincoln Cathedral which will emerge in 2011. As we feel that this is going to be a beautiful and fascinating project we thought it would be interesting to present the project as it develops, through conception and production to installation and exhibition. Here follows the proposal which has been accepted by the Cathedral. Here also follow Martin's first diary entries as the project begins to take shape. We will add further entries, working drawings and photographs below as the year progresses and the project nears fruition.

This project is made possible with the generous assistance of the Arts Council.

FIRST LIGHT
Light Sculpture Installation Proposal – Martin Griffiths

“The first corporeal form is…. light,” wrote Bishop Grosseteste (1170 - 1253) in his work On Light or The Beginning of Forms. His belief in the primacy of light and its extraordinary, expansionary nature corresponds closely with my own exploration of light as a primary medium in sculpture. The purpose of enhancing the activity of light through artwork has been to try to reveal the power of its true nature – by showing, for example, how a very narrow line of light can defy all expectations in transmitting its presence clearly over a distance of several hundred feet. “…light possesses of its very nature the function of multiplying itself and diffusing itself instantaneously in all directions,” Bishop Grosseteste wrote. “…it is corporeity itself.”

I believe that in contemporary art, the contemplation of light can give rise to deep spiritual moments – can, perhaps, transform self-perception, giving insights into our relationship with the universe at a level more fundamental than thought and identity. But which dimensions should light be given, and how should it be presented in space? The architectural progression from early English Gothic to late Gothic (from the solemn strength of mass to the elevating power of the perpendicular) was inspired by the spiritual conviction that the transcendent could be paraphrased by the perpendicular, and in this installation it is the influence of perpendicular light on mind, body, heart and soul that I wish to explore.

The installation would include a light sculpture up to 3m. high in which narrow, convex plates of highly polished stainless steel enclose a golden yellow light-line of chromatically enhanced natural light so intense it appears electrically sourced. This is achieved by optimising the transmission of light through a transparent panel containing light-enhancing dyes, an effect which is further intensified by the receding, darkly reflective exteriors of the surrounding frames. A work of this kind would be stabilised by a 1m. square solid metal base. A small number of supporting sculptures would likewise be tall and narrow, take up little space and activate without electricity.

The proposed installation would be optimally sited in the cloister quadrangle near the west end of the north aisle, and approached from the east end. The curved, mirror-like frames of the main sculpture would optically ‘disappear,’ so that you would see from perhaps 200 feet away only a tall radiant line of light suspended in mid-air, an encounter which may have a power and intensity that suggests light breaking through darkness – communicating a sense of the first primal command.

On approaching the front of the work you would experience your own attenuated, Giacometti-like reflection shot through by an incandescent, upwardly rising light coursing the body’s central axis, an allusion to the ‘Inner Light’ of which Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1328) speaks. At the same time, the darkened reflection of the body may give an aptly medieval, even mysterious feeling.

Eckhart’s ideas, which inspired my work in earlier years, have again emerged as one of the roots of the present formulation. The side elevation of this sculpture, instead of revealing the source of the ‘electrifying’ light, will instead open out, surprisingly, into an empty, light-absorbing window. Radiance on one elevation will emanate from apparent emptiness on the other, an opposition of experiences which I feel resonates with another of Eckhart’s ideas – that of the Christian becoming an empty echoing chamber which gives birth to God in the ground of the soul.

On stepping back from the work, your reflection in the convex plates will contract into the central light-stream, so that you will experience the opposite of certain remarkable works by the sculptor Anish Kapoor – instead of your body vanishing into darkness, it would dissolve into light. The viewer, after experiencing light breaking through darkness, will merge from darkness into light.

Creatively, my work has also been inspired by the symphonies of Anton Bruckner, and more recently and directly by his three Masses. My hope is that the new perpendicular light works I am developing may give rise to the kind of heart-opening and elevating experiences this music has given me. The perpendicular – which is both the direction of growth and, I feel, the trajectory of music – could perhaps be called the primary direction in the element of space. And if perpendicular movement is given to the first form, it may be possible to unify both elements in a primal experience.

It would mean a great deal to me to install these site-sensitive works in the spiritually uplifting and sacred context of the Cathedral, which would, I feel, optimise their effect. If it were possible for this installation to take place for a month in March 2011, I am anticipating that it would run concurrently with another related installation at The Collection in Lincoln, which has been provisionally agreed for March 2011.

This dual event would help support an application for funding to Arts Council England, who have expressed interest in the drafted works, to meet some of the development costs. It would also allow me to assess the quality and intensity of experiences received by the public and the influence of the work on surrounding spaces. And it would be interesting to discover in what way different environments affect the perception of the work. During the installation, I would be very pleased to give a free slide lecture which would explore expressions of the spiritual in western art from the age of Duccio to the present, and would include broad references to theological writing, religious music and western literature.

The dramatist Samuel Beckett believed that beneath the subconscious there is a silent indefinable presence that has no qualities or characteristics, and this, I feel, relates to Meister Eckhart’s reference to ‘that region within where neither time nor light of image has ever penetrated.’ I believe that light can stimulate responses which are ultimately independent of time, mind, body and senses, and can give unanticipated and profound experiences which may be in the vicinity of this ‘region within.’ It can, perhaps, even help people to experience it.

First Light Diary

First entry, April 19th, 2010
The Cathedral installation proposal was originally intended for a ‘covered’ location in the Cloister’s north arcading. The agreed site is now the quad in the centre of the Cloister, which calls for a different, though related work. The work described in the original proposal will go to the Orientation Space at The Collection in Lincoln, and this installation will run concurrently with the Cathedral installation throughout March 2011.

First experience, April 19th, 3.40pm, Lincoln Cathedral
Contemplating the entirety of the West Front of the Cathedral – the second largest cathedral in Europe – from an exactly central position 50 yards away surpasses, in a most surprising way, the experience of merely looking. The vast, tall, deeply recessed central archway transforms into a dark inner emptiness of the body. Above this, the outwardly expansive force of the dominant, horizontal string course, which extends out across almost the entire width of the elevation top, is experienced as a powerful, expanding stream of movement across the upper chest – a momentary horizontal flash of force, and a break in the ascendant surge that carries on up through the towers and central pointed gable.

The experience reinforces my conviction in the power of the basic directions of space as they are felt on the physical body.

It carries with me into the contemplatively serene space of the Cloister, which is, surprisingly, surrounded by a fairly fast regular rhythm of double Gothic arched windows on three sides. The contradiction is intriguing. The fourth elevation, on the north side, has a slow, broader rhythm of Romanesque arches which support the Christopher Wren library above.

The West Front experience keeps merging with a revelatory experience I had when listening to the concluding passages of Anton Bruckner’s 4th symphony on May 25th, 2004: as the sound vibrations from the music coursed up to the solar plexus, then up to the heart, then up to the crown of the head, a reciprocation of force exploded outwards, at each level, creating a powerful horizontal ever-expanding radius which flowed out into the surrounding space. On reaching the crown, this expanding stream connected with the unseen dimension in the space around which was manifested in a condition of dynamic equilibrium. These experiences today also mingle with feelings about another project recently in development – a sequence of 19 mirrored cubes with regular horizontal yellow light-lines extending over 43 metres wide.

The possibility of truly yielding to the first striking impression of the West Front and its immediate connection with music, and allowing this to somehow flow out from lines of radiant light that emerge harmoniously from within the Cloister space – in which the ‘external’ horizontal line of the West Front is recapitulated but subordinated to a dominant ‘interior’ vertical line within the Cloister – becomes perhaps one opening for the work.

More and more the serene beauty of this space fills me with a wish to allow the lines of light to emerge naturally from the spaces and rhythms of the architecture. To achieve this, I must contemplate the experience of the space from zero and allow it to shape the formation of the work. I want to enable an experience of light to arise from the past, present and future life of this space – in an expression of full accord.

April 26th, 2010, 4.30pm, on site

On three sides of the Cloister, the walls are pierced with a fast ornate rhythm of double Gothic windows with pointed arches. The vertical and horizontal emphasis of the installation will not harmonise with these elements, so the decision is provisionally made to allow the installation to emerge out of the slower broader rhythm of the arcading extending across the width of the Christopher Wren Library. Here, the arches are circular and will harmonise with the basic directions of space – the arcading will become the ‘canvas’ behind the work and could determine the scale, proportions and dimensions of the whole installation.

An experience: a white dove settles on the string course a few paces from the absolute centre of the north wall. I wish that it will move a few paces to the left – it does so and is positioned for a few moments in the dead centre directly above the central location for the work!

The installation could comprise a rhythm of structures which are opposed to a single isolated vertical structure in the centre of the quad, the height of which corresponds to that of the upper string course.

Intention: to establish one tall central installation with a strong vertical emphasis and to oppose this with a background sequence of horizontal lights pitched at above-head height, spanning, if possible, the whole width of the arcading.

The central work, 3.85 – 4.5m. high, could comprise a tall narrow stand rising to above head height. The sculpture would begin at perhaps 2.3m. high, with a central piercing yellow light-line rising to the top. The form for this work also corresponds with experiences from music – those of the heart-opening Bruckner Masses heard in February 2009 – while the above-head rising light-line comes from an experience immediately after listening to a work by John Taverner, in March 2008.

First aim – how to physically support up to 9 horizontal light panels at 2m.+ high, located in a continuous sequence across the width of the arcading. Possible solutions: 1) The supporting structure is a hollow rectangle, with narrow side walls. 2) The structure is open on all sides with narrow corner supports. 3) It is a narrow aerial horizontal structure which would be connected directly to the pillars.

May 7th, 2010, in studio

The simplest form emerges as a solution to the above: an empty space flanked by two vertical supports for each light panel, but no base (i.e. an arch-like structure). The form meets the intention that the centre of each work should be void, transparent or lit with a narrow light. The experience of form in the centre of any part of this installation is, I feel, entirely inappropriate. There can be the potential of movement, of living force, in a gap or through the medium of light – but form is inert. We ‘become’ what we see, and I feel that here, space itself or light should be allowed to flow, unencumbered if possible, through the very centre of every part of the installation, and we should experience this at the centre of our being.

Rather than being separate solid objects of contemplation, these simple forms would go a step further – becoming portals which you could walk through and which would give rise naturally to the experience of a journey from… and to… And it would reinforce two things: the experience of being the subject of the work oneself, and the experience that the work has no content

May 8th, 2010

The Portals
To ‘float’ the warm fluorescent yellow light-lines over a cool perpendicularity, deep Prussian/ultramarine blue could be applied over each support. Tonally these should harmonise with the dark arcade they would front, so that the blue tone would merge with the ground while the blue hue would vibrate against it. Conversely, the yellow light-lines should ultimately vibrate with a shrill intensity and in absolute contrast against the dark tone of the arcade.

If the tall light-line of the central vertical work begins its upward journey from the same height as the level at which the horizontal yellows ‘float,’ a concordance may be achieved. The impression, surprisingly, brings to mind something of a resonance with the final passages of Bruckner’s 4th Symphony. There is the possibility of an emerging upward tonal journey – lower, grounded deep tones, perhaps corresponding to the deep velvety tones of nature at dusk, and a higher tone of percussive intensity, perhaps corresponding to the shrill sensation of sunlight blazing across the sea. For both experiences to vibrate equally and for a genuinely centrifugal force to expand out from the central work while a perpendicular movement lifts upwards, the light-line proportions must correspond effectively.

May 19th – June19th, 2010

The experience of harmony involves separation – it involves a duality or multiplicity which fuses – while emergence is related to the experience of oneness. If the work truly emerges from its context, and attains contentless emptiness, it may connect the observer to the flow of the dimension beyond the senses, which is more significant than the appearance of the specific work. This is a gift of the space itself, an historic space of contemplation, a gift which lies beyond the wishes of the artist. It is only with a total respect for the space that a truly affirmative transformation can take place – that the space itself can transform the work into an active channel giving positive experiences. The appearance, dimensions and scale of the work are only the by-products. But their resolution is essential. Light will be the only part of the work which is not a by-product, as it is connected directly to the unseen universe – it is the first element.

Sequence of 7 arch-framed portals with horizontal lights facing a centrally located vertical light-line rising from tall stand.

Colours/Lights
Portal verticals: deep light-absorbing ultramarine-Prussian blue.
Lintels: deep light-absorbing purple.
Crowning horizontal line: electrifying golden yellow light.
Central work (white stand and white light-line frames): electrifying golden yellow vertical light-line.
Central work (above head-height window, side view): transparent pink light.

Blue, purple and golden yellow are the colours I have experienced in meditation when attention is focused respectively upon the inner body axis at throat level, centre of forehead, and at the crown

Arising from an inner volition, the installation may give a journey of upwardly de-materialising light effects, in which experiences pass through absorbed light, reflected light, transparent tinted light to pure transmitted light.

Practical considerations
The slightly uneven nature of the ancient stone flooring of the arcading, makes this choice of installation challenging in terms of attaining robust stability, verticality and consistency in light-line level.

Second Installation ‘Idea’
This would re-instate the original idea of installing a tall mirror-framed light-line, which on one side of the quad would flank the central taller light-line of the first installation ‘idea’ (with its above-head height light-line). It would balance symmetrically with another mirrored work, a cube with a gold-plated interior which would internally flood with brilliant red light, located on the quad’s opposite side. Gold significantly intensifies red reflectance. If effective, the mirrored exterior would essentially ‘disappear,’ the interior would become a solid red-light volume and form an illusory, square light-plane suspended in mid-air, several feet above the ground. Red is associated with the earth. In this context it might represent the beginning of a development – leading from: -
Earth – horizontal red (work on the left side of quad); through body – mirrored reflection (work on right side of quad); to space above – vertical golden-yellow light (work in centre of quad). This last colour and the space itself are related to the crown of the head, from which level the work would begin its upward ascent.

THE MIRROR FRAMED LIGHT-LINE WORK in progress.

A mirror framed light-line work would be the first choice for the installation at the Collection Museum in Lincoln, which will run concurrently with the Cathedral installation throughout March 2011. But a mirror framed work could be installed at the Cathedral also.

Front and side elevations of mirror framed light-line work, drawn by engineer Tom Carter

The specifications for this work, which is being developed by Benson Sedgwick Engineering Ltd., Dagenham, are very exacting and are in the vicinity of the absolute limit of stability that a stainless steel work can sustain. A work like this has never been made before, and the final outcome cannot be fully guaranteed. The integrity of the central acrylic light panel cannot permit any material to pass through it. This means that the whole structure has to be held together without any form of bolting, welding or bonding. Through the expertise and ingenuity of engineers Barry Goillau and Tom Carter, remarkable solutions to these challenges have been found – but doubtless there will be further challenges as the project advances.

Engineering Drawing No. 2 – showing clamping structure attached to mirror framed light-line work, by Tom Carter.

To stabilise the long, narrow stainless steel bars they were firstly heat-treated at very high temperatures – to remove dormant tensions. The bars were then machined to exacting specifications by Steve Toby and then from these, he assembled the work provisionally and clamped it in four places to ensure that when the curve of a radius of 152mm is machined on the two front and two back faces of the work, there will be no movement of the narrow bars. The radius needs to be precise and consistent over the full nearly 2m. length, in order to give the correct elongated reflection of the observer at viewing distance. The two curved faces will later be mirror-polished and will frame a nearly 2m. high electrifying yellow light-line. At correct viewing distance, the mirror reflections of the body need to harmonise perfectly with the central perpendicular light-line, which in the reflection will course up and down the central axis of the body.

Engineer Tom Carter in the B&S workshop inspecting the clamping structure for the mirror framed work.

June 24th

Portals: Paintings whose central emptiness the visitor is invited to walk through.

July 13th

All works in the two installations will have either emptiness or transmitted light defining their vertical axes. The two main works will both oppose emptiness to light on their two vertical axes. These characteristics, which emerged from my earlier practice of painting, make me feel that each of these works functions aesthetically as two paintings which oppose one symmetrical experience to another on 90 degree different planes, without one experience confusing the other. The works therefore present two planimetrically viewed ‘faces,’ which each function as a complete and independent experience.

July 15 th and July 19th

Reaction to first full-scale model for the mirrored stainless steel work: the experience of the tall light-line is predictably powerful with an electrifying tension between the intense centrifugal force of the perpendicular yellow light-line in opposition to the centripetal force of the mirror reflections. As the vertical mirrors are flat and set at angles of 8 degrees, they do not give an elongated body reflection. The spherical radius of the mirror reflections in the final work will draw the full height of the viewer’s ‘elongated’ body into the full force of a centripetal and illuminated perpendicularity. This work was made primarily by Gary Scott of The Mill, Old Wood North, Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire, and went through numerous revisions in the making. Further minor revisions to the form were made before Benson and Sedgwick began fabricating the stainless steel work. The experience of the tall pinkish-orange tinted window elevation has exceeded my expectations. Seen against a white background, the soft tinted light gives an affirmative experience of uplift and serenity, while the muted transparency gives a deep centripetal calmness which recalls some of the very late pastel tinted works of Rothko. The feeling of association is somehow very strong, but the difference in formulation shows deep respect to this revered artist.
Ideally the elevation of emptiness should be experienced before the elevation with the vertical light-line, which would mark a progression in meditation from emptiness to light.

July 19th

I will experiment with placing the work against different background values and will gain further reactions to this model.

August 7th – 18th Project overview

My wish at the outset of this project was to experience the Cloister space in a state as close as possible to absolute zero and to allow the installation to form from a process of unconditional inner volition unhindered by ego or intellect. In this way the project would arise from pure intentionality, and through submission, might become an empty channel for the flow of the universal.

I realise now that this project – and it has only just become clear – may integrate a three-stage journey into an installation which will present stringent encounters with the primordial directions of space. It may take the viewer through, firstly, an inward journey, then an ascending journey and then an outward journey. The process will ‘open’ with the portals, which will ‘frame’ the observer on entering the work. These enclosed spaces, giving a dark-blue colour vibration around the body, may encourage thoughtlessness and ‘going within’ and inspire recognition that the universal truth each of us is searching for, whether through art, music or literature, lies within. In my experience this truth can’t be apprehended through language, intellect, the emotions or the senses, but can only be experienced in the present moment when we have reached absolute zero. Having passed through this ‘threshold,’ the viewer’s attention will then be drawn upwards by the vertical light rising from above head-height in the middle of the Cloister quad, a light which emits a semi-circular radiance and gives an ascending experience leading to open space – to the sky – and so connecting inner to outer space.

The final stage of the journey will begin after the viewer has passed the central vertical light and can then survey the entire work from the optimal vantage point – on the opposite side of the quad. In advancing towards this comprehensive viewpoint, the three stages of the work may build like Bruckner’s 4th Symphony which emerges from nothingness and opens with an orchestration of the celestial sound of nature, ‘the sound of zero.’ This beautiful, continuous and variable undulating tone, changing sometimes in pitch, frequency and intensity, is heard from above the head. As I write, I can hear it quite loudly now. From this foundation sound, the 4th Symphony makes a gradual vertical ascent and then finally expands out into a great circumference of energy – connecting the listener (as I described at the start of the project in April) to the energy in the surrounding space, which manifests in an undulating equilibrium. When viewed from the final vantage point, the installation will present an outward distribution of light coursing up the vertical axis and streaming out across the horizontal axes. In this way, the work may pay homage to the final bars of the 4th Symphony in which an accumulating mass of percussion and sonority build towards an expansive culmination, opening the heart to the entire universe.

Having immersed myself in meditation, nature and certain areas of art, music and architecture, and having experienced the movement of light and energy within and without, I have realised that the primordial directions of space are the centripetal, the vertical, the centrifugal, the horizontal, and the circular. It’s therefore a source of some amazement to me that this project, arising from pure intentionality, should in its final form inspire a process of meditation and move towards expressing the primordial directions.

The realisation of this trajectory, and the final experience of the work, will depend upon many factors. The latter will be dependent upon the viewer ‘reading’ the complete installation almost as an image suspended in space on a ‘two-dimensional picture plane.’ To try to lock the vertical and horizontal lights onto one plane in space, the horizontal light-lines (which will be positioned 8620mm behind the vertical light-line) will require a greater intensity. This can be controlled by the depth and thickness of the light panels. Experiments will be carried out to balance these intensities at two different depths of field. The intensity of vibration given from the blue verticals will have to be harmoniously subordinated to the crowning intensity of the horizontal yellow light-lines, and these will have to correspond with each other in a ground–figure relationship. And for the horizontal light-lines to be supported at exactly the same level, the portal bases will require concealed levellers to allow for slight variations in floor tile levels.

A full-scale model of the central work is currently being made in wood by Lincolnshire woodworker Gary Scott, and may be completed in early September. Tom Carter, of Benson Sedgwick Engineering, will be converting the current drawings into engineering drawings, which may then be slightly modified after the wood model has been finished. The central work is to be fabricated from solid aluminium and Steve Toby may start machining the aluminium in mid-September. The anticipated time frame is 8 -12 weeks.

The final construction drawings for the portals will soon be completed, and the first trial will then be made by Gary Scott in early September. The time-frame for completion of all woodworking is 12 weeks.