eliminate_why

eliminate why

SCIENCE, MYSTICISM and NEW MEDIA

A large-scale video projection depicting circular forms pulsing, throbbing, expanding, and then collapsing into themselves, only to grow again and again. ‘Eliminate Why’, is a convergence of an evolution of ideas, technology and a personal obsession with circles. The result of years experimenting with found, man-made objects and a myriad of tests with photographic film and paper. These images, digitized many years later, take on a vibrant new life in kinetic form with this installation.

For Blaise, in this work, metaphor does not exist. These objects are not metaphors or representations of the universe, but the universe itself. The definition of abstraction has changed since Kandinsky’s early discoveries. In an age where science approaches mysticism, what is more abstract than what exists in the empirical universe? Quantum mechanics dictates uncertainty and chaos theory confirms the impossibility of complete prediction. Within this framework, ‘Universes’ are found by Blaise in common objects from the corner deli. In his eyes, disposable coffee cups and plastic lids are more than the sum of their parts, they are infinity.

Initially attracted to the inherent power of this form, Blaise came to understand that what is seemingly finite is actually without limit. “I began collecting circular objects, things which appeared absolute, but transcended their physical properties. At the time, I was conflicted by ‘binding’ thoughts of limitation and a feeling of contradiction. I felt that living within an infinite universe, our lives contained vast potential. At the same time, I understood that our day-to-day existence seemed very measured and limited. I began to understand my work as an expression of the infinite within finite means.”

For Blaise, everything is more than it seems. Like Plato’s Cave or Genet’s prison cell, the universe is not limited to obvious physical restrictions. This video installation and corresponding photographs are a manifestation of the idea that boundaries are permeable and that reality has a formal structure that cannot be definitively known.

By manipulating forms and symbols within this structure, the artist creates a unique visual language or code, believing further, that these man-made designs and absolute forms can be utilized as instruments or tools to realize ourselves more completely.