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LE RAYON VERT 

the marginal phenomena

Introduction                     






The aim of this artistic research is to open-up a set of reflexive topics departing from the green ray astronomical phenomenon, and its exceptional qualities across disciplines, such as science-fiction, optics, mirages, delusions, myths, geodesics, which combined, lie on underdetermination, what could be called as disruptive knowledge.

Such trembling appearance and difficult classification became of major interest during the rise of European modernism, but got somehow constrained by the trend of enlighten romanticism of this period, that focused on the observer’s achievement and a western conquering of cosmology.    

I propose a re-activation of these qualities from a contemporary approach, by putting it in tension with situations or experiences that foster transnational and transcultural adaptations, transmissions and translations, which are displayed in the form of artefacts.

This necessarily rises questions, that I condense, as follows:

Why is the green ray a speculative and disruptive source of knowledge?

How to be aware of the worldwide impacts from the western historical dissemination of logics, in order to produce less-directed forms and aesthetics?

What is the role of underdetermination or loss of specificity in the development of a near future?

These main questions may elicit the objections of artistic research, once it opens new possibilities, throughout artistic conceptualization.

This project invites to a reflection upon the future and how illusion must be consciously integrated in pace with the times, in order to maintain a more lucid and fair stressing of reality.

I hope that the publication of these artefacts will contribute for the recent debate about the intertwines of knowledge not only from different disciplines, but from peripheral subcultures, as well. I wish to gather some pertinent key thoughts capable to dialogue without constraints, combining conceptual objections with experimental practice. I also expect to provide a visual glossary that functions as clues for other envisions.    







https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Green_flash

The Green Ray: a doubled double image

                     
Bibliography
Visual Notes




The green ray is only perceivable due to mirages, often mistaken or claimed as miracles. It is a projection of the real, like the allegoric shadows projected in the cave. However, such indiscernibility leads to open up knowledge towards opportunity/chance, the apparent and to regain a lost value on cosmological rites.


    The Green Ray,[1] (mis)described as green flash or green dot, is an astronomical phenomenon, perceived at the first or last glimpse of the sun light in the horizon, that appears as a vivid and astonishing green ray. It is rarely observed, taken up and dealt with in several myths, legends and other assumptions[2], which often have their origin in western coasts, once the best scenario for its observation happens while observing the sun set, with a clear and unobstructed view, that is, towards the west horizon.  

Its either scientific[3] or fiction-based references[4] were, as it seems, firstly introduced uniquely by the European culture, once first publications mentioning it appeared in Europe. Even though there are reported green ray observations during expeditions[5] in other geographical locations, such as Indian sea or in African territories, they all appeared some decades later and were always reported by European navigators that already had previous knowledge about it.  


As a simple explanation, it consists in an astronomical refraction effect of the first or last observed sun ray (during its arising or setting), bended by the curvature of the Earth, thus happening when the sun itself is actually out of the eye view, that is, invisible.


   Although, this explanation by the scientific community was dubious until last century and even nowadays it is often mistaken, as an exclusively optical effect and not understood as a real physical phenomenon.[6] (the references below list three letters by first Cassini experiments on refraction, being the third letter (without date) – Epistolae Tertia – an argument against Mengoli’s definition of a Table of Refractions for every degree of altitude, which Cassini claims to be false. Cassini’s theories were later reformulated by Huygens and other scientific articles (see footnote 13). Cassini’s works do not concern directly with the green ray, but it demonstrates the problematic in defining terrestrial refraction, and consequently the causes of the green ray, which persisted unclear in the scientific community, until the XX century[7]. Only at the beginning of the XX century, with the appearance of new mediums, such as photography and video, it became more evident that the theory referring to the green ray as a strict optical effect (being until then justified with the retina cells extra-sensibility to the green colour) was not correct[8].  In fact, it is partly true, as green is better perceived by the human eye than other colours of the light spectrum. Although, the same green colour was finally registered by cameras, proving it was not only a naked eye effect. Still, it has the potential of a trompe-l’oeil, with all its illusionary tricks, once what is in fact observable is always a mirage. The green ray is as real, as it is a visual effect. Despite being an astronomical phenomenon, it requires the qualities of affection to observe it, in the terms the observer must get attached to a landscape, in this case, the adaptation to abstract landscape, in order to recognize it. The green ray has a complex form of appearance and it constantly requires new ways of observation.

  By being a rarely observed phenomenon, the challenge of understanding it, requires from its observer a constant reformulation of strategies. Such experiments are in my opinion of major importance for an utterly reflection on new strategical approaches with visible and invisible matters. This can be particularly valuable for science, as a demanding acceptance of indiscernible elements, and for the arts, by regarding at forms of activations, through embodied knowledge and mutable processes, that promote new aesthetics.   








[1] Meinel, A. and M. (1983) Sunsets, twilights, and evening skies. Cambridge University Press, pp.21


[2] Fraser, A. B. (Jan., 1981) “To see a dazzling festival of light, just raise your eyes,” Smithsonian 11, pp. 72–79


Botley, C. M. (1971) “The green ray,” Weather 26, pp. 354–357


Sitwell, O. (1940) Escape with Me! An Oriental Sketch-Book. Harrison-Hilton Books, New York, pp. 20–21.



[3] Corliss, W. R. (1984) Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows and Related Electromagnetic Phenomena. Sourcebook Project, Glen Arm, MD


[4] Verne, J., et al. (2017). Le Rayon vert (illustrate), Clap Publishing, LLC


[5] Notes: This observation was made west of the southern part of Ceylon, on board the S.S. "Tosari", 12 September 1924, 6.15 p.m.


Verschuur, A. D. (1926) “Groene straal”. De Zee 48, pp. 446–448


Notes: Green ray report observations in Tibet


Knight, G. O. E. (1923) “Atmospheric optical phenomenon”. Geographical J. , pp. 61, 390


Swift, H.  and Davies, D. A. (1951) “Green flash, Indian Ocean”. Marine Observer, pp. 21, 218



[6] Cassini, J. D. (1672) “Three letters of Jo.Dominicus Cassinus, concerning his Hypothesis of the Suns motion, and his doctrine of Refractions; printed at Bononia in 4°,” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond. 7, No. 84, 5001–5002 (



Cassini, J. D. (1692) “De solaribus hypothesibus et refractionibus epistolæ tres,” in Miscellanea italica physico-mathematica. G. Roberti, ed. Typographia Pisariana, Bononiae, pp. 281–340.



Riccioli, I. B. (1665) Astronomiæ Reformatæ Tomi Duo. Ex Typographia Hæredis Victorij Benatij, Bononiæ



[7] Huygens, C. (1945) Treatise on Light. University of Chicago Press, Chicago



[8] Notes: first known color photographies by Maurice de Kerolyr.


Touchet, Em.  (1931) “La photographie en couleurs du `Rayon Vert',” La Nature 59:2, No. 2862, pp. 100-104

Negative dip, distortion and the afterimage

                     
Bibliography
Visual Notes




This sub-topic aims to reflect on the possibility to introduce the doubled or mirrored image as an operative tool.

The negative dip or Kimmfläche (named by Lutz Hasse and Biot)[1] - and one of the factors of green rays - is the capacity to observe a mirrored object which lies under the line of objective view. The incredible potential of either refraction and mirage promotes, let’s say, result in fictionized observations. Therefore, the quest in play is the one of appearance, rather than a restricted apprehension of objective forms. The horizon is even scientifically named in such cases the apparent horizon[1], once it is composed by a trembling appearance. The green ray operates in-between the instant image and the afterimage. an afterimage is the persistence of a retinal impression after the removal of a visual stimulus, caused by the continuity of the photochemical activity in the retina. It is named positive, when the color or brightness corresponds to the original image or negative, also known as counter-image, when the brightness intensity changes or the colors become complementary to the original (Swan, 1883)[2]. Reasons why Flammarion recalls the habit of the horizon as a criterium to observe the green ray. These fluctuations in objectivity differentiates traditional scientific methodologies, as it demands an abstract or imaginary thinking of the source.  

An afterimage is the persistence of a retinal impression after the removal of a visual [GS1] stimulus, caused by the continuity of the photochemical activity in the retina. It is named positive, when the color or brightness corresponds to the original image or negative, also known as counter-image, when the brightness intensity changes or the colors become complementary to the original (Swan, 1883)[1]. As an example, after a prolonged view of a bright magenta stimulus, it will appear green, as soon as the exposure to the original has ceased.

  The persistence of an afterimage for approximately one sixteenth of a second on the retina, explains why the black spaces, that appear between each movie frame on a film stripe (technological basis of Cinema), are not perceived and the appearance of continuous movements is achieved. It is also through this lack of conscious perception that subliminal images are intended – the exposure to quick visual stimuli, i.e. a flash with the duration of 16.7 milliseconds, may unconsciously influence the observer, once they happen bellow an individual’s threshold for conscious perception. This measure of detection, known as absolute threshold, is very subjective as it corresponds to the smallest amount of stimulus that a person can detect half of the time, having several influential factors like scale, distance, intensity, and psychological conditions, functioning as variants of those measurements.[2]


To induce afterimages, counter-images or negative dips as a method, one should magnify or invert perception. Such experiences result in the assumption of the obsoletism of the real, even though it is associated to psychologic lucidity and responsive materializations.

The fact that anaesthetic drugs are healthwise prejudicable and that mental illnesses provoke unreal visions, might inflect such prejorative associations against indiscernible matters.  However, it is of my understanding, that by stressing out such technics one could provide a beneficial alternative for such non-classificable knowledge.

Such wider perceptions of the real are, in western societies, marginally employed to deviate from fixed social structures.

To rethink what is marginal or peripheral is of great importance for this research.








[1] Swan, W. (1883) Green sunlight. Nature, 29, p. 76


[2] Biot, J. B. (1839) “Sur les réfractions astronomiques,” Additions a la Connaissance des Temps, pp. 3–114


[1] Swan, W. (1883) Green sunlight. Nature, 29, p. 76


[2]  Reingold, E. M. and Merikle, P. M. (1988) "Direct and indirect measures to study perceptions without awareness". Perception and Psychophysics. 44 (6), pp. 563–575

Filmmaking as an afterimage operator

                     
Bibliography
Visual Notes




To induce the spectator to a simultaneous relation between effect-affection, in order he may question himself about how is himself/herself positioned as an observer in relation to what is being observed  and the inherent knowledge that may propel from these questions, is also of my interest as a strategy to compose artefacts and displacing them into public sites . The affect as a consequence of the effect, that is to say, the combination of visual distortion with an idealization/script of the new meanings for far-view and the further.

Pursuing this subject, I deeply analyzed Jules Verne’s novel Le Rayon Vert and the cinematic version by Eric Romer[1], alongside the studies about the astronomical and optical effect in itself; its first reports and integration as a scientific phenomenon during the XIX century, that replaced the mirage and optic theories.

The brief synthesis of the state-of-the art regarding the green ray, is particularly pertinent to perceive how an unclear categorization was enabling new approaches regarding either aesthetics, either emergent objections. Actually, I found Eric Rohmer’s own interpretation of Jules Verne’s novel, remarkably distinct than others. He induces a very quiescent dimension to his film, that for example, Verne excluded .

Rohmer plays directly with the spectator, motivating him to imagine the film at first glance, and then expecting from him a rational analysis, exploring the critical sense of the phenomenon within and outwards the narrative.

  “Il s’agit donc de disséquer le flux imaginant, en restant fidèle à l’émotion première qui indiquait, sur le mode d’une fulgurante intuition que nous appelons le Rayon Vert, ce qu’il importe de dire, maintenant, de ce film. Question de fidélité au spectateur d’alors qui s’impose à tout critique sincère: un détective dont le premier indice est un affect.”[2]

The same way, Rohmer’s main character wander without certainty, leading the spectator to lose expectations, as he was allowed to do meta-readings of the main phenomenon.

Heidegger refers to “this kind of seeing, that which is an issue for care does not lie in grasping something and being knowingly in the truth; it lies rather in its possibilities of abandoning itself to the world”[3]. Thus, concern doesn’t disappear in rest. However, it is in the lousy torpor that the observer, or the Dasein as Heidegger refers to, become more open, once there is no fixed aim, every possibility may play a role. This has an evident approach to the Eastern thinking.

The green ray appears in Rohmer’s imagery, within the silence of the affect, taking the spectator to a feeling of torpor, where no main occurrences really happen, while Delphine - the main character, who is having a vacancy period, feels the pressure to have fun, to be entertained, to attain some aims – instead, she wanders from place to place, from conversation to conversation, without attaining any conclusions from her own reflections, becoming affected by the idea of non-activity, non-efficacy and how she could relate with the openness of these summer days. Delphine uses a relevant formula to qualify her indeterminate states of melancholy:

"I am not operational".

In the gaping hole opened out of the operational, there is an absence of present normality. The word "obviousness" becomes unclear, because nothing is "self-evident".

Rohmer thus tries to escape the architecture of the narrative, presenting a décalage[4] between the authority of the character and the indeterminacy of the actions. It is about presenting the effectiveness of an ideal not in the order of choice, but in that of the evidence. " Rohmer rehearses the realization of an absent history, of a reality of which no narration can be entrusted" (Vicent Amiel)[5].   By assuming the insufficiency of the narrative, it gives place to an insubordinate real, that does not allow itself to be subjugated by the logic. That is to say, the common fixed aim, the logic, is substituted by an intrinsically relation between affect-effect, resulting as an embodied knowledge . Affect is neither objective nor subjective, and it is by imprecision that the story develops.


The green ray is equivalent to this possibility - the moment when it becomes possible, the retrospective understanding of what was so intriguing and trembling. Conjuring this up, I recall Michel Serres criticism of the scientific universal Enlightenment, directing it to examples such as Laplace’s work in astronomy attempting to define methods and systems of measuring that neutralize every aberration. Serres emphasizes the notion of randonée[6](wandering), similar to what is emphasized in Eric Rohmer’s Le Rayon Vert, where geography is settled as uneven and unpredictable – like the sea horizon.  Actually, we could see the green ray as the third zone that Michel Serres mention, where neither the Sun nor Earth is the center. He claims the real center of an orbit lies between the bright orb and the shadowy point (recalls the dark side mentioned in chapter 2.1), that is, in a third place[7].

Peraphrasing Maurice Merleau-Ponty:

We must habituate ourselves to think that every visible is cut out in the tangible, every tactile being in some manner promised to visibility, and that there is encroachment, infringement, not only between the touched and the touching, but also between the tangible and the visible, which is encrusted in it. [8]


This is precisely the condition of analysis, in which the production of new knowledge is achieved throughout an indiscernible torpor and therefore of major influence in my research in its relation to the Arts.











[1] Rohmer, E. (Director) and Les Films du Losange. (Producer)  (1986) Le Rayon Vert [Motion Picture]. France



[2] Retrieved from: https://www.rayonvertcinema.org/rayon-vert-verne-rohmer-spectateur-melancolique/



[3] Heidegger, Martin (1962) Being and Time. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. P. 172



[4] Notes: fig. Manque de concordance entre deux faits, deux choses. Le décalage entre nos théories et nos expériences

Perroux, L'Écon (1964) XXes., p. 27



[5] Amiel, Vincent and Vassé, Claire (1998) « Entretien avec Éric Rohmer : des gestes proches du dessin ». Cahiers du cinema. N° 452



[6] Notes: “Sans plan, comment visiter la ville? Nous voilà fourvoyés dans la montagne ou en mer, parfois même sur la route, sans guide.”

Serres, Michel (1996), Atlas, p. 11



[7] Notes: “Le centre reel de chaque orbite gît exactement à une tierce place, juste entre ses deux foyers, le globe étincelant et le point obscure.”

Serres, Michel (1991), Le tiers-instruit, p. 69


[8] Maurice Merleau-Ponty  The visible and the invisible, trans. A. Lingis (Evantson: Northwestern University Press, 1968) p.134.

The Marginal Phenomena

Bibliography
Visual Notes




As other cosmological events, the green ray either scientific[3] or fiction-based references[4] were, as it seems, firstly introduced uniquely by the European culture, once first publications mentioning it appeared in Europe. Even though there are reported green ray observations during expeditions[5] in other geographical locations, such as Indian sea or in African territories, they all appeared some decades later and were always reported by European navigators that already had previous knowledge about it.   

First known reports of the green ray appeared in documents dating nearby the year 1829[6] , despite the studies by W. Groff in “La plus ancienne observation d'un phénomène naturel ou astronomique,”(1893)[7], which associate the use of the green color over ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, representing the sun and death. He also suggested possible earlier observations of green rays in the sun set – but the fact is that there is no proven evidence of these observations, even though there is a large probability of their occurrence. References I found contesting it must be a long-known phenomenon, suggest it may actually not have been firstly discovered by westerns.

"Now, what is this thing that no one you happen to be with has seen or heard of, but which is as old as the Ocean and probably has been obscurely mentioned in thousands of old papers and argued over in forecastles and cabins for centuries?"[8]

We may also regard again at Flammarion reflections, who also transcribes a very interesting quotation by Diodorus Siculus, even though it lacks a precise bibliographical reference, it raises the questioning of the habit and the method, by saying inhabitants, the ones who are used to intangible observations, have by consequence, a different approach than strangers. Stranger’s lack of habit, is the cause which turns them particularly affected by such visual effects.

An extraordinary phenomenon occurs in Africa at certain periods, especially in calm weather; the air becomes filled with images of all sorts of animals, some motionless, others floating in the air; now they seem running away, now pursuing; they are all of enormous proportions, and this spectacle fills with terror and awe those who are not accustomed to
it. . . Strangers not used to this extraordinary phenomenon are seized  with fear; but the inhabitants, who are in the habit of seeing it, take no particular notice of it.[9]


This assumption also denotate that western engagement with such low-visible phenomenon is actually not as efficient as it is claimed, by affirming it was discovered by Europeans. I argue that the lack of published reports in other cultures doesn’t mean it wasn’t a known event, and the only credits to Europeans regarding its discovery could only stand in the capacity and will of publishing it in scientific magazines and papers, many times over centralized in its own views. Unfortunately, it is true that there are no evident proofs of this statement, I still engage in this research with such assumption, once to me it is crucial to raise these questions about the actuality in western knowledge and its rapports to indiscernibility.

The first published reports from the XIX century seem to regard to green flashes more than green rays . Green flashes are often wrongly attributed to green rays, but there is a major difference, which is defined by the sudden appearance of a green sun in the case of green flash, as J.G. Wood refers to:

(. . .) what Mr. Cobbold (. . .) describes as a green `flash' is in fact a change in the apparent colour of a small sector of the sun during an appreciable, though short space of time (…) If we are to arrive at a satisfactory explanation, we must carefully distinguish the two phenomena.[10]

  The green ray has the particularity that it is defined not only by the refraction of the green color, but also by its vertical beam shape, which would only occur as the last brief glimpse of the sun; nonetheless, green flash reported observations are still relevant as part of an increasing knowledge on the specificities of these effects. According to Schaefer (1992) the green flash can occur in about 25 per cent of the clearest sunsets[11] (Schaefer is not referring only to the naked-eye observations, but he includes instrumental observations, such as lens and telescopes). As Greenler (1980)[12], who includes the commonplace telescopic observation of green flashes; Schaefer also seems to appropriate the same definition in his own terminology - hence the apparent high frequency of occurrence.

     The questioning about atmosphere colorations was being raised since Greek antiquity[13], however the first scientific explanation on the green ray causes and properties (distinct than previous reports which stand in descriptive observations) was introduced by James Prescott Joule, in a letter to the Manchester Literary and philosophical Society, in 1869 [14].  Relevant aspects of the green ray phenomenon were added by D. Winstanley, in 1873[15] , while the definitive explanation was proposed by Lord Rayleigh, in 1899[16].












[3] Corliss, W. R. (1984) Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows and Related Electromagnetic Phenomena. Sourcebook Project, Glen Arm, MD



[4] Verne, J., et al. (2017). Le Rayon vert (illustrate), Clap Publishing, LLC



[5] Notes: This observation was made west of the southern part of Ceylon, on board the S.S. "Tosari", 12 September 1924, 6.15 p.m.



Verschuur, A. D. (1926) “Groene straal”. De Zee 48, pp. 446–448



Notes: Green ray report observations in Tibet



Knight, G. O. E. (1923) “Atmospheric optical phenomenon”. Geographical J. , pp. 61, 390



Swift, H.  and Davies, D. A. (1951) “Green flash, Indian Ocean”. Marine Observer, pp. 21, 218