Regaining Perspective
Untitled, No 172, crayon and oil crayon on paper.
Emma Kunz.
March 1, 2023
Regaining Perspective…….
An absence of perspective can be devastating in its consequences. It can, for example, lead to a situation in which the dominant species of a planet - the only one known to be inhabited - located in a remote backwater of the universe, can indulge in its darkest, most reckless and destructive impulses, plunging the world into chaos and threatening the very survival of its only home and the continued existence of every life form that has the misfortune to share the same sky and breath the same air.
An absence of perspective can also prove incredibly destructive at a microcosmic, and altogether personal level. It can, for example lead a burnt out, punch drunk, middle aged man to come apart at the seams, lose his bearings and find himself adrift in a world of pitfalls and un-sprung traps, engaged in a perpetual war not only with himself but with friends and enemies, both real and imagined.
This book is the culmination of a decade long attempt by that same middle aged malcontent to come to terms with disorder and a feeling of insignificance and to re-engage with a world in which connections count and the occasional escape route still exists; a quest to find his place in space. This unlikely rehabilitation and reignited sense of purpose, ignited by an unforeseen chain of events and unanticipated interventions, also coincided with the unexpected reawakening of a lifelong, although largely dormant, obsession with the power of imagery, symbol and pattern.
Reconnection with the world of the image, via the gateway drug of early social media, swiftly evolved into an addiction that could only be satisfied by plunging into the the infinite archive of images that was suddenly and freely available online. This unimaginably vast treasury, drawn from every conceivable place, culture and time could now be accessed via the cracked screen of a reconditioned smartphone, or during frenetic, snatched 30-minute sessions in one of the long vanished internet cafes of south east London.
The contents of this book are but a tiny sample of the fruits of ceaseless foraging in the depths of that treasury. Conceived as a journey from the microcosm to the macrocosm, The Cosmic Dance is a universal zoom, panning from microbe to metagalactic space, from quark to cosmos. Like Maria Sibylla Merian’s exquisite studies of of Suriname’s indigenous insects, reptiles and flora, preserved in her astonishing book Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (1705), it reveals natural cycles and relationships between living organisms and it highlights the interdependency that is a vital component of any functioning ecosystem on both a microscopic and macrocosmic level.
Perspective can be recovered, even in the most unpromising of circumstances. In a world that is facing unprecedented peril and unimaginable challenges, the key to its survival is an acknowledgement of the beauty, purpose and patterns discernible in the universe ; of the interconnectedness of all things ; and of the need to restore balance. If we can somehow achieve this collective perspective then we may yet, in the words of William Carlos Williams “see with the eyes of angels”.
Preface - Regaining Perspective
The Cosmic Dance, Finding Patterns and Pathways in a Chaotic Universe
Stephen Ellcock
Beautiful.
As above, so below.
And as within, so without.