Representing Energy in Art

written by Susan Waters-Eller on April 25, 2009

We have few images of the larger reality of energy fields in which we’re imbedded. Without images it’s hard to conceive of ourselves as a particular manifestation in this immense spectrum and to reflect on the ways we may be influenced by levels of energy we don’t see. To think that the slice of information provided by our senses encompasses reality is to ignore how much we use levels of information we can’t see. Technology has enabled us to decode frequencies beyond the scope of our senses, has measured how we are affected by magnetic and electromagnetic fields and gravity. We’ve detected higher frequency cosmic radiation that our instruments aren’t advanced enough to tell us much about. Our underlying concept of reality has grown. Now we need art to envision it and provide a structure for others to build their own ideas and models of reality. Theories grow from seeing an underlying structure.

Michael Faraday saw how iron filings lined up around a magnet and deduced from that the presence of magnetic fields operating on matter. We know there are radio and television frequencies because if we have the proper receiver we pick them up. Our receivers, in the form of our senses, are geared to practical living, but we shouldn’t assume what we receive is all there is. Different creatures have sensory systems tuned to frequencies that map an entirely different model of the world. Many levels of our own processing decode surrounding changes without our conscious awareness.

Sri Aurobindo wrote, “Our minds are indeed constantly acting and acted upon by the minds of others through hidden currents, of which we are not aware.” This is just one level of energy, he sees as operating through us, that what we think of as ourselves is just a surface phenomenon comprised of multiple levels of consciousness. To be able to envision planes of consciousness that may exist in unseen dimensions requires imagery that gives them tangible presence. Limited by our understanding of reality in spatial terms, the dilemma is how to “see” a non-spatial dimension.

Historically, higher energy levels were portrayed as light. In early Christian art the dimension of the divine was pictured as a glow, around saints, around Jesus, around God, or anything that was meant to be seen as infused with divine presence.

As more individuals become aware of levels of reality not conventionally accounted for, they strive to find ways to represent the range of energies in which we flow.

Traditional figure-ground relationships, which make a point of separating objects, reinforce a way of thinking that looks at the world as isolated things in a mechanical universe. Whatever breaks down those boundaries suggests influences that connect us, thus opening the mind to the levels of information on different energy frequencies.

The artists of the Energy Art Movement shift importance away from separate things and toward the invisible realities in which we are embedded. With energy art the focus is on livingness, the dynamic flow of unfolding patterns rather than things in isolation. Boundaries are more flexible, the shifting light and color moves through and around traditional form suggesting presence in what was formerly thought of as absence. Showing our immersion in an ocean of energy that nourishes and guides us, the image can dissolve our illusions of separateness. Instead of isolated things we might picture interpenetrating regions of influence.

The techniques of illusionism offer a way to make that presence convincing by giving energy the appearance of reality. The image reveals what’s been hidden from conscious attention. By creating a stronger sense of the real, using techniques normally used for realism, to see the unseen, spatial illusion can call into question the mechanistic model of the universe. Though many scientists and philosophers have realized the machine model is too limited to include quantum physics and inadequate as a model of reality, the inability to visualize a more comprehensive paradigm interferes with the spread of a model that copes with multiple variables. Illusionistic techniques revolve around an extreme sensitivity to tonal variation. Subtle variations in the dark and light are processed unconsciously and the more processing engaged in the viewer the more present and real it will seem. Because it requires skill, it commands authority through the attraction exerted by the anomalous appearance of the intangible.

Artists interpreting the energy around us serve an important role providing images for the larger reality, offering a foundation for a more organic, interconnected paradigm than that of the dead machine.