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Alchemical catoptrics - Paul Ferguson - 10-21-2023
Richard Ashrowan.
Thesis. Full text.
"The transformation of matter and the reflection of light are at the heart of filmmaking and moving image practice, exemplified by Stan Brakhage’s assertion that “matter is still light. Light held in a bind.” Catoptrics is the use of optical devices, mirrors, crystals and lenses in the processes of focussing and directing light. Alchemy has a two thousand year history, commonly misunderstood as a form erroneous proto-chemistry in which people sought the Philosopher’s Stone to transmute base metals into gold. Alchemical catoptrics is the place where the disciplines of alchemy and catoptrics meet, encompassing an enquiry into the fundamental properties of matter and the possibilities for its transformation, bound up in range of pre-scientific belief systems and philosophies of light, matter and cosmogenesis."
https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/31017