I think the theory of relativity was solved by rainbows. Green and Brood a tood.

For my research and art project, I am focusing on the work of artist Paul Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer works in a variety of media, including sculpture and photography, but focuses mainly on video work. Pfeiffer explores themes of identity, celebrity, spectacle, and interaction with the supernatural. One of his most common techniques is the removal, through digital manipulation, of elements of an image. Pfeiffer does this by digitally painting background over top of objects in the scene. I found this technique fascinating, as it allows the artist to explore the way we view the spectacle of sports by removing the sport, leaving only the spectacle.
Another common element of Pfeiffer’s work is the manipulation of perspective. Several of his pieces rigidly limit what the viewer can see. For instance, one work takes video of a basketball game and crops out everything but the ball and the area immediately surrounding it. By showing us such a small area of the scene, Pfeiffer displaces the ball from its usual context. All we see is a ball and a constantly changing blur of colors in the background. Another piece, Dutch Interior, features a live feed of one perspective inside a reproduction of a staircase while a peephole gives another perspective of the interior. I was especially fascinated by this piece and how, by only allowing the viewer to see the reproduction through two very specific viewpoints, the artist almost turns the three dimensional piece into a two dimensional picture. Pfeiffer can frame our view of the piece however he wants.
The use of a peephole in Dutch Interior was very interesting to me. After seeing the piece, I thought about how merely adding a frame can allow an artist to enclose a part of the world and show it as an image. Ordinarily, we move through three dimensional space and two people rarely see the world in exactly the same way, even as far as just the composition of the image before our eyes. By adding a frame, we can ensure that everyone who looks through it will see something similar. The smaller the frame, the more controlled the view. When the frame is small as a peephole, all viewers will see essentially the same composition of forms, even if their eyes perceive colors and light differently. For my studio project, I plan to experiment with this kind of forced perspective. I plan to place viewfinders, telescopes, or peepholes in specific places in order to frame elements of the three dimensional world in a way I find aesthetically pleasing or interesting. This will essentially create living photographs. These images will constantly change based on time of day and movement of objects, but the basic framing and immobile elements of the images will remain constant.
I would also like to experiment within the idea of the forced perspective. I may try frames of varying sizes, thus controlling the amount of variation of composition. Larger framing devices would give more power to the viewer to control their image while smaller ones would put the control more in my hands. I would also like to experiment with altering the image seen through the frame through magnification (telescope), refraction (kaleidoscopic lens), and other methods (paint on the lens). I might even explore Pfeiffer’s technique of removing part of an image by painting background over top of it. I could digitally paint the background of an object in the frame the same way Pfeiffer does, then print out that “background” and place it in the frame so that is covers up the view of the object. This technique would only work in an extremely restricted frame such as a peephole.