Dark Energy: Working at the Perimeter of Materiality

Abstract

Dark energy is a theoretical repulsive force that counteracts gravity, possibly accelerating the expansion rate of the cosmos. Physicists propose that dark energy may be a fundamental unseen force in the universe.

Like dark energy, contemporary art forms, especially in print, are expanding, fuelled by the internal energy in artists’ practices that is generated by current technologies, and the refiguring of perceptual possibilities. Like the opposing gravitational field created by dark energy, the outline of contemporary creative practice is dissolving. New ideas include a multi- level understanding of space and matter, working with time-based forms, interdependence, and an increasing distrust of absolutes.

Print originated as a socially kinetic development of ideas using transfers among materials and concepts. It continues to transform with new, porous forms, including the vaporization of material into digital form. This paper considers related concepts in works of four artists: Ingrid Ledent, Oscar Munoz, Robert Smithson, and myself.