Six Stories from the End of Representation – Images in Painting, Photography, Astronomy, Microscopy, Particle Physics, and Quantum Mechanics, 1980–2000

by James Elkins
Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, 2008
320 pp. illus. 71 b/w. Trade, $65.00; paper, $29.95
ISBN: 978-0-8047-4147-7; ISBN: 978-0-8047-4148-4.

Reviewed by Frédérique Swist
IOP Publishing, Dirac House, Temple Back
Bristol, UK

fred.swist@iop.org

“The images I am interested in show us things we can’t possibly be seeing (…). They are pictures of objects that literally don’t exist – that couldn’t exist as they are pictured – but somehow do. They are abstractions of abstractions (…).”

Six Stories from the End of Representation is a fascinating journey into the limits of representation in selected material from art and science. James Elkins explores the borderline between what can be observed and what can only be depicted, with a particular interest in the limitations and obstacles when the representation of meaning reaches such a place. Avoiding the predictability of re-visiting formal connections between art and science, Elkins successfully utilises both specialised languages in combining technical explanations and humanities literature, in an attempt to attract readers from both fields. In positioning his essay away from a philosophical discourse or simply a contribution to art history, he focuses on the exploration of imagery as opposed to its explanation and offers a distinct and more ‘open’ perspective, allowing the reader to decide how to reflect on a fascinating and complex topic. In terms of historical framework, the material presented is from the period between 1980 and 2000 and comprises images from contemporary art and photography, followed by four specific scientific disciplines (astronomy, microscopy, particle physics and quantum mechanics).

Among the range of concepts explored throughout the book, the reader will find the concept of the sublime, mainly in reference to Kant, proposed in chapter one on painting. Elkins discusses the complexity of the inadequate verbalisation in our attempts to capture meaning in a non-representational artwork. This leads quickly to the central topic of the book: “(…) the negotiations of the limits of the verbal representation of pictures, and the limits of representation in pictures – the sequence leading from the known to the unknowable”. From photographic material (chapter two), four key aspects are presented: blur, darkness, the ruined grid and the anti-optical. As the author explains, these notions are to be considered as ‘operative concepts’ that will enable the reader to better understand the imagery as opposed to represent a full account of experiments with the limits of photographic representation. In their search for ‘a break in representation’, artists are deliberately looking for ways to resist optical representation using techniques of under-exposure, smearing and shallow-focus in image manipulation.

Of special interest to Elkins is the relation with scale, from the infinitely large distances in astronomy (chapter three), to the extremely minute dimensions of particle physics and quantum mechanics (chapters five and six). At each end of the spectrum, it raises fascinating questions on how it has become possible to depict natural phenomena, when traditional observation is no longer sufficient. Modern physics has enabled particles to be detected and ‘visualised’ by their tracks as opposed to the ‘objects’ themselves. The complexity of bubble-chamber images is such that they are accompanied by explanatory graphs, diagrams and mathematical measurements. These pictures are meant to be functional; they are measured as opposed to just being seen, which causes a relation between the way we ‘see’ or ‘read’ a painting or a photograph and an image produced by science to become increasingly unattainable.

Astronomical observation offers images representing entire galaxies at unimaginable scale and distance through light-travel. The material produced is often characterised by blur, pixels and shadowy shapes, which consequently compel scientists to refer to a degree of intuition in interpreting the data, but combined with the production of mathematical models. In microscopy (chapter four), Elkins concentrates on some of the technical characteristics in capturing and depicting pictures produced by different types of microscopes from optical, electron or phase contrast systems. Scale and resolution are paramount aspects to consider in this field, and he explains how images produced are highly dependent on the manipulation of light and the apparatus’ setting in which the resolution and contrast are adjustable and can create shadows and effects that may not always belong to the object placed under the scrutiny of the microscope.

Quantum mechanics, in chapter six, reaches the very limits in the possibilities of representation, where imagery refers no longer to photography, microscopy or particle tracks but instead involves graphs and schematic diagrams. The author uses the notions of unpicturable and unconceivable to take us through the most complex section of the book. Significant obstacles hinder the process of visualisation, starting with the inadequacy of using metaphors, familiar analogies and ‘commonly identified intuition’ for anyone studying quantum mechanics. Feynman diagrams are proposed to illustrate the interaction of particles as schemata, material that helps physicists to calculate the lifetimes of individual particles, the speed of a reaction, or the probability of a reaction taking place. However these figures should not be taken as visually realistic; they are misleading in that the distance or exact position of the elements for instance is not represented accurately. The author informs us that in quantum mechanics mathematics is used to describe ‘objects’ that are permanently inaccessible to the senses. Therefore, unless through highly complex equations, there are no longer objects to depict in the sense that is discussed in previous chapters.

Important questions are raised in this book, from the notion of interpretation of a concept already presented (i.e. re-presented, therefore producing a potential distortion of vital information), to questioning the adequacy of metaphors, or the way scientific imagery is highly dependent on the apparatus used in its production, leaving scientists the complicated task of reading the captured events. Elkins’ essay stands out from other treatments in that he addresses the complex issues of dealing with ‘images of objects that resist depiction’. Scientific imagery can be addressed through aesthetics and visual values (sometimes over its meaning) at one end of the spectrum, and meaning and representation (to the detriment of aesthetics) at its opposite. In this context, the latter seems to correspond to Elkins’s intentions, as he deliberately resists a discourse on aesthetics. In his conclusion he acknowledges the selected imagery to be ‘frail’, lacking any visual qualities. His intention to distance his survey from ‘commercial’ false-coloured imagery as found in astronomy, medical physics or computer modelling for example are justifiable within the framework of the survey; nevertheless, does this strategy imply that aesthetically-enhanced and colour-charged imagery in art and science could not be considered as suitable material for an investigation in the limits of representation?