HyperLightness is an ongoing project where the artist conceives an energy continuum visualised as Platonic forms self-reflected on optical illusions based on comparison between religion, science, art, philosophy and literature. It is a never ending search for a poetic and symbolic visualisation derived from eight fundamental symbols interconnecting different spiritual paths.
HyperLightness ad absurdum
2002-11
25 minutes digital animation experimental film of optical illusion
written and directed by Margarida Sardinha
Soundtrack and sound editing by António Vilhena d’Andrade
Voice – Margarida Sardinha
The optical illusion produced by the HyperLightness ad absurdum animation is due to a very fast pace rotation producing an afterimage compounding self-reflective, or mirror-images, of the original one icon/symbol. It is a hypnotic procedure leading to "extreme consciousness - visual telepathy" which links to key philosophical postulates of "innate vibrational" geometry that together foreshadow future technologies and evolution, thus, also the predicted involution of mankind at all levels. The use of sacred geometry embodies an alchemical process of unification with light represented by the cosmic egg and the sphere latent in the relationship between polyhedron ideal structures and their resultant divine progressions under a fractal rotational movement. Analogous to the optical characteristics of hyperspace and hypertime in a supersymmetric continuum it becomes parallel to Eastern and Western faith’s symbolisms with the ideas of Kabbalah and Christian omnipotent God revealing themselves as Buddhist or Taoist rotational mandalas or yantras giving much emphasis on illusion - Maya. The ideal of infinitude in Brahma and in Ein-Sof being the complete Void and nonetheless being a source of endless energy is one of the many coincidences between the referred faiths denoted as complete emptiness – Absolute Void – corresponding to an infinitely small dimension of space-time – singularity – which containing the “primordial atom” (energy) is visually evoked by a rotative torsion of symbols creating a spatial overlapping and forming what seemingly occurs in nature’s manifold illusion where several relative dimensional spaces seem to converge into successive fractions of one codimension.
Official Selections & Awards in Film Festivals - 2012
Winner of Best Experimental Film, Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival, Hollywood, USA
Take Two Film Festival by Salon du Ciel, New York NY, USA
Winner of Best Religious & Spiritual Film, Directors Circle Short Film Festival, USA
MIA@TheArmory, Pasadena, CA, USA
Winner of Best Experimental Film, Creative Arts Film Festival, USA
Beam Festival, London, United Kingdom
Winner of Best Experimental Film, Great Lakes Film Festival, Erie, USA
Winner of Best Experimental Film, Bridge Fest, Vancouver, Canada
MIX Open Call on Transmedia Writing and Digital Creativity, Corsham, UK
Winner of Honourable Mention, 23rd New Orleans Film Festival, USA
Award of Merit, Lucerne International Film Festival, Lucerne, Switzerland
Revelation Perth International Film Festival, Perth, Australia
Rockland Shorts, Rockland, USA
San Francisco Frozen Film Festival, San Francisco CA, USA
Gold Lion Film Festival, Manzini, Swazilan
7th International Streaming Festival, Hague, Holland
Magmart Film & Video Festival in Naples, Italy
10th In the Palace International Short Film Festival, Varna, Bulgaria
Indie Award of Merit Winner in La Jolla CA, USA
Accolade Award of Merit Winner in CA, USA
Merit Certificate from Rochester International Film Festival, Rochester NY, USA
Wave-Particle HyperLightness
270˚ hologram display animation film
full HD video display kiosk, glass square pyramid, USB connected
58x40x35cm
Neil McConnon, London 4th of June 2018
The work of Margarida Sardinha is constantly evolving. The medium can range from digital projection to animation, light-box and installation. Margarida’s latest works involve holographic techniques. As an artist, the driving force behind all these devices is an uncompromising quest for understanding and making sense of existence; space, time and matter. The various methods employed are but tools along the way, to be utilised where they can be to visualise the journey, making real and capturing moments that might usefully be termed absorption, contemplation and ecstasy.
Margarida’s journey is one of constant exploration, an archaeological quest of discovery, mapping out interior journeys for us, visualising aspects of the landscape that plays such a vital part in our existence.
This exhibition sees a new medium enter this mix, holography. The ‘image’ in this case oscillates before us, floating like a rogue planet. As in previous works, the concern is to demonstrate the illusion of kinetic movement, where the viewer places herself in the midst of the scene, a spectacle that arrests, seduces and hypnotises the participant. These are hard won images, arrived at through extensive research, spanning cultures and millennia, including studies in symbolism, physics, comparative religion and mythology. Ultimately however, they rely largely on grasping instinct, perception and feeling – feeling one’s way through forces that may well be beyond our mental reach.
Philosophy seems to find its conclusion in religion and Margarida finds solace and inspiration between these inter-connected worlds.
Neil McConnon (UK) wrote this text at Margarida’s request for he has been following her work since 2001. He is Head of International Enterprises at Barbican Centre, London. He is responsible for conceiving and producing some of the most challenging and successful exhibitions in Barbican’s history, developing major projects that launch in the UK and tour internationally. He has worked with some of the world’s leading cultural organisations – as co-producers and partners. Previously, Neil worked as a practising artist, freelance curator/consultant and at the ICA London. He has a BA Fine Art and Design (Central St Martins School of Art, London) and an MA Curating (Goldsmiths’ College, University of London).
HyperLightness in Synch
2018
HyperLightness in Synch is a happening where two independent pendulums set off in opposite ways surprisingly end up synchronising themselves according to the scale order of classical mechanics. The artist feels this phenomena to be akin to particle entanglement at a quantum scale - where the resulting particles of a splitting still connect by having the same spin even though they are light years apart in the universe. This phenomena pair is probably analogous and Margarida records it through light "drawings" made by photographic long exposures and time elapsed Gifs of the pendulums swinging movements which she believes to crystallize invisible feelings connecting people such as love.
HyperLightness in Synch
Happening of the synchronisation of two swinging pendulums with small coloured led lights photographed with long exposure on two mobile phones connected to a computer screen.
"It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do.” - Albert Einstein
Wave-Particle HyperLightness comprises six light-boxes and a hologram display, demonstrating the illusion of kinetic movement. In this presentation, each of Margarida’s work applies her usual kinetic analogy of movement’s illusion between object and observer, connected to quantum mechanics core paradox of understanding wave and particle properties.
This duality appears for the first time in the XVII century when the Huygens and Newton debate concerning the nature of light and matter emerged. It is understood in the project as the counterpart of body-spirit duality linked to alchemical and sacred geometry symbolism used as the foundation of the digital animation decoding eastern and western symbols of faith.
Photon Wave-Particle HyperLightness (video documentation)
by Margarida Sardinha 2018
lightbox composed of a background image with another juxtaposed image shaped as three-dimensional vertical waves
perspex, led lights, digital print on photographic transparency
150x20x14cm
Tau Neutrino Wave-Particle HyperLightness (video documentation)
by Margarida Sardinha 2018
lightbox composed of a background image with another juxtaposed image shaped as three-dimensional vertical waves
perspex, led lights, digital print on photographic transparency
150x20x14cm
Electron Wave-Particle HyperLightness (video documentation)
by Margarida Sardinha 2018
lightbox composed of a background image with another juxtaposed image shaped as three-dimensional vertical waves
perspex, led lights, digital print on photographic transparency
150x20x14cm
Electron Neutrino Wave-Particle HyperLightness (video documentation)
by Margarida Sardinha 2018
lightbox composed of a background image with another juxtaposed image shaped as three-dimensional vertical waves
perspex, led lights, digital print on photographic transparency
150x20x14cm
Higgs Boson Wave-Particle HyperLightness (video documentation)
by Margarida Sardinha 2018
lightbox composed of a background image with another juxtaposed image shaped as three-dimensional vertical waves
perspex, led lights, digital print on photographic transparency
150x20x14cm
Quark Wave-Particle HyperLightness (video documentation)
by Margarida Sardinha 2018
lightbox composed of a background image with another juxtaposed image shaped as three-dimensional vertical waves
perspex, led lights, digital print on photographic transparency
150x20x14cm
HyperLightness Articles and Interviews
Umbigo Magazine - Wave-Particle HyperLightness by Margarida Sardinha
e-Cultura - Wave-Particle HyperLightness de Margarida Sardinha