“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”
Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955.
Tille’s themes are wide and varied. Close to his heart are astronomy, current socio-scientific issues, and technological advances. Guided by his inquisitive mind, he challenges current orthodoxies and continues creating photographic images that inhabit the world of the known, as well as the invisible and intangible.
His latest project comprises the following cycles 'Virgin Writing' and 'Sympathetic Vibrations,’ where Tille conducts research into the preliminary stages of formations in the mind. He records his own brainwaves and translates those into pictorial manifestations. The last sequence belonging to this undertaking is currently in progress. Each cycle forms a separate entity and presents a continuum of Tille’s interest in examining his own intellect. He obtained a scientific licence to operate the EEG equipment that he had purchased in the United States and continues working with this apparatus throughout this assignment.
Neuroscientists have long been engaged in the study of grey matter, researching the neural pathways of the brain involved in motor and muscle control, sensory perception, decision-making, and self-control. From a philosophical viewpoint, Immanuel Kant stated, “that the human understanding is the foundation of the general laws of nature that structure all our experience; and that human reason gives itself the moral law, which forms the basis for our manifold systems.” Immanuel Kant (1724–1804).
For the creation of ‘Virgin Writing,’ Tille attached several electrodes to his skull, recording the currents of his brain whilst surveying the behaviour of his intellect based on his reflections. The researched and documented findings are a voyage into the artists’ mind, indicating the initial stages of creative realisations. He translates the results into tender luminous cloudscapes or thought sketches, conveying intentions rather than solid structures of communication. Tille endeavours to carry viewers beyond the established norms or limits, drawing attention to the peculiar states of the human mind. His nebulous morphing images are a visual account of those early cognitive formations.
'Sympathetic Vibrations’ is Tille’s second new series, where he notes his cerebral activities and commences an inner discourse whilst viewing key paintings of renowned distinguished artists, such as Francis Bacon, Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, and others. He applies special techniques and translates his scientific conclusions into mysterious pictorial manifestations. The artistic outcomes result in semi-abstract, human-like depictions, \interspersed with bluish, whitish, and golden tinted strokes and dots of colour. These traditional characteristics are recognisable from a distance, whereas from close up they observably blend together.
Tille’s abstracted and ghostly metaphors reveal not only his personal responses to numerous artworks by selected masters, they also present an analogy with ‘Synaesthesia’ – the expression of emotions through art and the mixing of senses. The concept was established in the 19th Century, during the rise of Modern Art, and grew in popularity with artists, writers, and composers. Like Tille, they explored innovative ways of portraying an advanced world in the context of broad artistic activities, looking for subjects and techniques beyond traditions. The followers of this movement were especially interested in how sound could be expressed in colours, and vice versa. Best known are the so-called musical paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, which are based on the correspondences between colours and musical compositions.
Commonly, ‘Synaesthesia’ is defined as the perception of two or more sensations as a single experience that happens at the precise same time. Again, Tille’s principal aim is to demonstrate how his intellect reacts whilst being exposed to different visual stimuli. The outcomes of his efforts are highly individual evocations of sensory experiences derived from the intimacy of his brain – echoing a blend of imagination and reality.
‘Sympathetic Vibrations’ is a collection of fine art prints, each of which composes and articulates the filtered layers of perceptive sight, contemplation, and mental vision, which come into play when looking at the artworks, concocting Tille’s encounters. Naturally, these constructions are based on his personal perceptions, feelings, cultural environment and influences.
Both ‘Virgin Writings’ and 'Sympathetic Vibrations’ are new strides of realisation in Tille’s artistic practice, exploring his recorded neuronic reactions of the creative phenomenon. Currently, he is occupied with a third series that he hopes to launch in 2023, where he investigates his emotions while tracking the enigmatic activities of his mind.
Image: Selfportrait, 2022, by Lena Tille.
Courtesy and ©Christ Tille and Renée Pfister Art & Gallery Consultancy, 2022
Video: Courtesy and ©Chris Tille and Renée Pfister (text), Eric Matyas (music) https://soundimage.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Random-Processes.mp3 , with the assistance of Georgia McConnell. All rights reserved.
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