In this still life I was investigating how visual perception influences how one experiences reality. As the hologram is an exact optical reconstruction of the original scene, one can view the image with horizontal and vertical parallax as if the original still life were actually in front of the viewer. This can be disorienting since the actual still life is actually not there.
In the work I employed various optics as integral elements of the overall composition. The holographic medium encourages the viewer to examine the holographic space from various perspectives. In the work I have attempted to incorporate conceptual ties to the past. For example, reflections in the small concave mirror are reminiscent of anamorphic distortions popular in painting and graphics in the 17th and 18th century.
This hologram is one of a number of laser transmission holograms that I made in the 1980s and was exhibited in Images in Time and Space, an international holography exhibit during its Los Angeles Venue.
photograph of a virtual image of one view of this laser transmission hologram. The hologram was recorded on a high resolution holographic glass plate and reconstructed with an expanded laser beam.
This hologram was exhibited in 1988 and 1992 in Images in Time and Space, an international holography exhibit at its Los Angeles and Santa Monica venues. To my knowledge "Night Sky" was the first mixed media work combining photography and holography to be shown in either a gallery or museum setting. In the piece the stars appear in depth behind the clouds in the photograph, as they would if one were viewing the scene from the dunes in Death Valley.
reflection hologram, hand-tinted b/w silver gelatin photograph of dunes ca 1968, Death Valley
The practice of holography allowed me to investigate types of imagery that were outside of the scope of conventional photography which I have practiced from the mid-1960s to the present.
From the 1970s through the mid-1990s I practiced both the technical art of holography and holography as an artistic medium of expression. The archive of my holographic work contains a large number of holograms as single works and as series. Most of the numereous tests that I made are not included in this archive but are catalogued elsewhere. All of my holograms, either for artistic or non-artistic purposes, were made on holographic apparatuses of my design and implementation.
My holographic practice has included laser transmission holography, integral holography, and reflection holography. Two examples of my laser transmission and reflection art are shown on this page. Integral holographic art is shown on page two of this section. The technical aspects of the holographic apparatus I developed to enable my holographic practice are shown on page 3.
This photograph shows me at the recording plane of Fred Unterseyer's Pulse Laser Camera in North Hollywood, California
Man in Mask, Holographers Dan Schweitzer and Shawn Gibb, (clockwise from left)
Holographers Fred Unterseyer, Craig Newswanger, Unknown Man, Dan Schweitzer, Bill Hilliard. (clockwise from left)