Professor Gaetano Giaquinta, renowned Quantum Physicist and Senior lecturer in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Catanina as well as Nobel Prize Candidate and respected art critique in Italy. Professor Giaquinta has given his endorsement in English and more comprehensively through a scientific and artistic appraisal of my artistic endeavours in Italian (English translation supplied) with media interviews in Italian on the authenticity of the unique vibrational painting techniques founded on scientific principles that I invented and developed specifically for frequency sensitive pigments to create my paintings and have them visualized under both natural, UV light and complete darkness, as one of a kind art works that are non reproducible.
Dearest Tony, I am honoured and wish to thank you for your generous invitation to join the esteemed profession of Art Critics by requesting for my critical analysis of your artistic endeavours. This responsibility that I assume, I interpret to be as an intrinsic transformation from observer to analyst who confronted with such work of art is compelled to execute the analysis both in an independent and objective manner but in so doing be mindful of the limitations and constraints that are imposed by the artists perspective. In so doing the analyst will by association, in some measure assume the responsibility of representing the role of the author himself.
Indisputably your works of art or “paintings” (for want of a better word), provoke reflection on the singularity of their manifestation and their phenomenological and visual objectivity as well as the degree to which they instigate the myriad multiplicity of evocative and interpretative options of expression. The same can be said for the innovative instruments that you have availed yourself of, to enable the realization of your masterpieces which are necessarily and consubstantially organic in nature.
Thus it is instantly recognizable and thus consensually agreed that your artistry stands at the forefront of experimentation that is both ambitious and conceited, beyond the exasperating experience of “experimentation tout-court”, (an irritating and exasperating profession of vacuous creativity). As an artist you give form to an emotion, allowing it to mature through the expressive instruction of an idea , and succeeding in its manifestation, in addition, you enable the “living” experience of that emotion as an individualized form expressing the full breath of its semantic expression. These are singular labours, and in their complexity, are inconceivable without the invention and preparation of those expedient instruments that effectively and contextually enable the manifestations of the expansive horizon and connotations of the artist’s inspiration.
It is further recognised that the crucial argument of this Artist vs Critic encounter is to seek that epicentre of commonality in the activity and self consciousness of our reciprocal professions with yourself as Quantum Artist and I as Theoretical Physicist specifically Quantum Physicist (named so not just because of my profession but above all because I could not conceive of myself as anything else.) Thus we must liberate ourselves primarily from the fog and shadows that could obfuscate the horizons of this confrontation. In keeping with this objective, it is necessary to keep in mind this persistent perception or obstinate habit, pernicious to western culture, where the exchange of ideas is hindered by a surreptitious dichotomy that proclaims irreconcilable differences and intrinsic objections, where upon a more diligent and thorough examination would reveal similarities and consensus. This promptly occurs when such a limiting and inflexible view, becomes an instrument of oppression and deception in the development, in depth study and corroboration of ideas.
Thus this presumptive assumption appears all the more surprising when one considers that it was actually the West that was responsible for inventing dialectics! However between such surreptitious dichotomies the duality of concepts shines through with belief versus reason on one hand and Art versus Science on the other. There is nothing more dismal then to re-experience the painful and bloody tragedy of Cain and Abel, given that in this current context there would be no protagonist nor an antagonist: we would be both equal and in equal measure responsible; “the pot calling the kettle black” comes to mind. We cannot be quarrelsome bed fellows under the same roof. The realm of “Beauty”, is the canon for the ideation of artistic concepts, being also the parametric norms for the attainment of form or shape within which the conception of matter will draw its significance thus enabling its expression. The profound methodological revolution that developed during the conception of quantum mechanics under the direction of L.D. Landau and P.A.M. Dirac and so triumphantly pursued by R. Feynman culminating in the recent conquests achieved by Gauge theories, has overturned the consensus between experiment and physical reality.
The former cannot be considered the only inalienable premise from which the latter can be reliably elaborated and explained, but rather it is understood as an intrinsic aspect of being. It is physical reality itself that is a quantum experiment. Specifically I refer to the formulation of Quantum Mechanics based on the theory of “Path Integrals” which explains the laws of probability that govern the evolution of a complex system regarding the determination of curves (and its fluctuations) in an abstract space, in which a particle travelling from one point to another will express the totality of possibilities compatible with its environs as it travels along its curved trajectory.
Thus I will not succeed in gathering some irreconcilable fractures in the previous argument, when we remember Dirac’s invitation: “It’s more important to have beauty in ones equations then to have them fit experiment...It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in ones equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. If there is not complete agreement between the result of one’s work and experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because the discrepancy may be due to minor features that are not properly taken into account and that will get cleared up with further developments of the theory.... It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one’s equations and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.” Nor can I consider the impossibility of renouncing the striking and definitive assertions made by H. Weyl: “From what can be seen a priori assertions in physics have their origins in Symmetry.” and “Symmetry, as wide or narrow as you may define its meaning, its one idea by which man through the ages has tried to comprehend and create order, beauty, and perfection.” Further, I attend to the solemn and accented preamble with which P.D. Francesco, P. Mathius and D. Senechal introduced their monumental treatise on Quantum field theory: “The aesthetic charm of symmetry has been a guide at times even a tyrannical one, for the philosophy of nature since the origins and development of Science...Modern Science has conferred to symmetry a deeper dominion: that of the laws of Physics.”
Thus it is no coincidence that the above authors should quote the words of Walt Whitman as a preamble to their chapter: “A vast similitude intercorrelates everything, all the distances of space however vast, all the distances of time....” (That Whitman has already anticipated the distinction between Abstract art versus Non Figurative art, decisively resolving it in favour of the latter, I truly desire this to one day be true) Alternatively if I allow myself to be led by the famous words of S. Weinberg: “We have simply arrived too late in the history of the universe to see this primordial simplicity easily....But although the symmetries are hidden from us, we can sense that they are latent in nature, governing everything about us. That’s the most exciting idea I know: that nature is much simpler than it looks. Nothing makes me more hopeful that our generations of human beings may actually hold the key to the universe in our hands - that perhaps in our lifetime we may be able to tell why all of what we see in this immense universe of galaxies and particles is logically inevitable.” Therefore “Beauty” is inscribed in the equations of evolution. Thus it occurs to me to reveal that, the rhythm, and formation of the “internal harmony” individualized locally and encompassing all on a global scale,” or the intrinsic quality of form (that is a priori), doesn’t necessitate a preconceived appearance of figure or shape that is omnipresent, however renewable and resolvable in isomorphisms or equivalent global scales, but rather it is realized (manifested) in the nexus of local universes.
In this sense the act of becoming, or an act of history or even the manifestation of an event, are none other than a violation of Symmetry and their dynamic restoration (from which there is no before and no after), but an immanent “sub specie aeternitates” . Thus a particular choice of a specific route is enabled by the necessity of the factors that induce the selection of a morphological species, within a universe of equivalent possibilities. Therefore this selected path is derived not from the exclusion of the non selected but from the paradigm of the possible, and is contextually suggestive of other options, of other transmuted morphisims. Thus herein lies the artistic “fact”, as an ideation occupying space, in which its concretization and realization is sourced directly from its abstraction. I hope I have not overindulged in your attentive patience and I sincerely wish for us that this initial exchange of views will be a solid foundation for a shared journey of deeper knowledge and reflection. In any case I would like to thank you for the gift of your art work that manifests concretely and presently the morphogenesis of all possible forms, selected by the responsible and discerning choices made by the artist himself.
With fond affection,
Gaetano