Paradoxical Object

October 4th, 2007 Fred McVittie Posted in Art, Boundary, Centre, Object |

Here is a paradoxical object. We can stand at the centre of this object, such that its centre is our centre, and when looked at from within it has a solid, resilient, immovable core, and an increasing evanescent exterior. From this viewpoint it has something of the quality of a Gas Giant, the core of which is frozen with the dazzling weight of compressed energy. There is no surface to such a planet, but rather its substance becomes more and more rarified as we move away from the core into the reaches of space.

Let us imagine that by an act of imaginative will we can move ourselves away from the centre of this object and take a place at some remove, in the immensity of outer space. Here where we now stand, weightless and vacuous, the substantiality of this object is reversed. When seen from the outside it appears solid, its outermost regions forming a solid carapace around contents which constantly threaten to boil off into the vacuum. From this view point its core is invisible, transcendent, eldritch, the subject of speculation and disbelief. Its outer skin, on the other hand, is comfortingly visible, presenting itself to the touch of the eye like the knee of a lover, or the cheek of one’s own face.