Page 11 - Art First: Karel Nel: Observe

In his Helsinki lecture, Nel compares images of the internal structures
of the body, rendered visible through Magnetic-Resonance scans (3) to
the visual translations of data gleaned from the cosmos by means of
the powerful telescopes. The extraordinary similarities of our instruments
for looking are also uncanny: the Subaru telescope points out into the
firmament capturing images of interconnected galactic filaments which
look surprisingly like the complex traceries of nerve tissue within the hu-
man brain itself (4). All those translations are abstractions, a rendering in
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2-dimensions, of either internal cerebral architecture or the vast, galactic
structures captured as infrared variance, x-rays or radio waves. The trans-
lations are not mapped as aural intervals or into variations of pressure or
temperature to be perceived by the ear or as sensation on the skin: they
become visual maps. In astronomy, the same phenomena – as perceived
by the different types of astronomy – infrared, x-ray and radio – are often
stacked one over the other, serving as confirmation of the different forms
of perception, and sometimes highlighting inexplicable – at least for now
– anomalies.
4 Stepped stellar messages suggests the layering of the images – mes-
sages from far distant galaxies – elusive clues which need to be pieced
together. Shimmering subtly with a scatter of specularite, the location and
orientation of the image is difficult to read, as an inter-galactic void fills
the lower portion while the opaque silvery messages lie stacked above.
Without the defining linear grids, the information and the possibility of
comprehension collapse.
In Nel’s studio, there are a few places where works, created over
LEFT: Stacked images detail four decades, are stacked and stored, the knowledge and thought they

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