Looking at the Sun

Video installation evolving on the audience's retinas as afterimages. Part of the Flashwork series using the retina as a canvas.

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It’s the 8th of April. I am sitting on a meadow - somewhere on the border between Vermont and New York. I remember the touch of grass below me very well. Not soft, but harsh and surprisingly dry.

My view has been programmed. Everything I see is in relation to what I have been taught. Light bouncing off everything around me, transformed and sent as signals towards my brain. The so-called reverse inference: My brain constructs a world based on outer signals and past experiences. An artificial paradise of light.

The grass runs across the landscape in waves covering the small hills around me. We are getting ready for a rare astronomical event. One that they haven't witnessed since long before my time.

The sun is still here. It is too bright to look at it directly, as it would burn into my eyes. The ultraviolet rays would slowly decompose my retina's cellular structures. Eventually marking a permanent dark spot, where there once was light.

Overstimulation abandons the scale of light and darkness. It creates Afterimages beyond that range. Short term, alternative visions, partaking in the collage of perception. I am not trained to read them.

My eyes are alone with the sun. Protected by cheap cardboard frames and black polymer lenses they watch the moon slowly cover the light. It goes much slower than I expected, so I wait with the grass. At precisely 15:24, the sun gets so thin, it disappears.

I find myself in darkness. Uncertain of this loss of vision, I take off the glasses and peek around the meadow. It won’t tell if it’s dusk or dawn. So I dare to take a direct look up – to see with my own eyes:

A big ring of light is in the sky. The sun is so powerful that only once the last percent of it is covered - does the sky darken and the air cool. Energy worth over 25 hundred Atomic bombs a second bend around the moon. My gaze is attracted to the sun's atmosphere, but I am wary of its effect. I am caught looking straight into the source of our light. A burn would be unnoticed and painless.

I close my eyes. The sun is still with me - it blends visions of the past and future. Is there anything beyond light and darkness?

I am here – looking at the sun.