Black Meets Light, Expansion Occurs and Knowledge Begins
By Anthony James
Alex Harsley. First Light #2. DVD/digital projection. Photographed by Madalyn Warren
Alex Harsley purchased his first "real" camera, an Exacta XV, in 1959. Later that year he was employed as a messenger for the New York District Attorney. He soon acquired the position of photographic technician at the office. Harsley furthered his dedication to the photographic process by founding the Minority Photographers Group, in Harlem and the 4th Street Photo Gallery. Harlsey has since been fixated on form as a modality for expression. In the 70s Harsely began to utilize unconventional methodologies to propagate his ideas and by the early 90s began working with video. Fresh Light II, a videographic montage, explores Harlsey’s interests in the unified field theory and the theory of relativity. Using natural light, sound and repetition this, the second part in a three part series, expounds upon Harsley’s contention with duality, form and content.
Interaction is the most relevant and quantitative quality of existence. It is through interaction that the self perpetually investigates its measure, worth, and meaning in reality. In his works, Harsley alternately affirms and interrogates monotheism. These concurrences provide a ‘stasis’ that allow for other cognitive functionality. Harsley absolved himself of directorial control as he filmed the interpretive movements of dancer Kayoto. A proponent of the qualities of indeterminacy, Harsley "allowed" the events to unfold. The filming took place at the Ready Mix Stage, intersected at East 20th Street and the East River, during a spring sunrise. Kayoto coalesces the inherent duality of ‘form’ and ‘content’ as a proverbial nucleus providing action, inside action; to act, in its homogeneousness, becomes context and/or content. The silhouetted cityscape unveils a phallic perversity against the flow of the East River as Black, the absence of form and idea, and Light coalesce themselves into coitus… interaction… relationship. Using selected excerpts of John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding read quasi-concurrently by actor Chris Brandt (in English) and Kayoto (in Japanese) Harsley further detaches the idea of the form from content. Crescendo and decrescendo piano music (performed by Harlsey) hallows as the sunlight refracts through the camera. Another layer of detachment is created through adding indeterminate music, providing an ‘existential periphery.’ Refractions of the sunlight create a blinding luminosity from which eventually emerges what Harsley identifies as the ‘triple helix’, a constituent of metaphysical awareness. Apparitions of the accelerating expansion of the universe situate themselves in nether regions as shimmering cobalts and subdued ambers radiating into one another. Form, as apparatus, shatters post-mortal constructs. After complexity comes primacy. Kayoto expatriates herself from the decisive process, consummation ceases, all is quiet and Idea is conceived. The third installment is scheduled for completion in Spring 2005.
