Wormhole

Wormhole is a picture about higher-dimensional space.

As you are aware, we live in a universe composed of only three (apparent) spatial dimensions: height, width, and depth. The human race has evolved within this universe, hence we are unable to visualise any hypothetical world composed of four (or more) spatial dimensions. In the realm of mathematics, however, it is a trivial task to extend geometrical equations to four dimensions. And it is possible to use visualisation methods devised at the turn of the century (by Charles Hinton) in order to obtain a glimpse into the world of four dimensions.

We all know what a shadow is: a shadow is a two-dimensional projection of a three-dimensional object. Renaissance art discovered another type of projection - the perspective projection - as another method of displaying three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional plane. In similar fashion it is possible to view the three-dimensional shadow cast by a four-dimensional object. A four-dimensional cube is called a hypercube. It is impossible to visualise a hypercube, but it is possible to display the three-dimensional shadow it casts. Wormhole incorporates the shadow of a four-dimensional hypercube (the large, white, grid-like structure).

So what is a wormhole? A wormhole is a window in space allowing instantaneous travel between different parts of the universe. Imagine opening your front door one morning to discover you are looking at the surface of Mars! It's all a bit like "Mr. Benn", really. Many eminent physicists now believe wormholes could exist which might not only connect two points in space, but might also connect the future with the past. Hence a wormhole could form a kind of time machine. It is also possible that wormholes could provide a gateway to alternative parallel universes. These universes could well be composed of more than three spatial dimensions.

So now to talk a bit about the picture ...

Wormhole is a reworking (updating?) of Marcel Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. Duchamp's picture was composed of two glass panels, one above the other. The upper section was intended to represent the fourth dimension, while the lower section was intended to represent our three-dimensional world. This basic structure is retained in Wormhole (note the rather obvious pun on "Windows". Mine are not made of glass - they're Microsoft!).

Duchamp's picture contained a four-dimensional "bride" in the upper section, and three-dimensional "bachelors" in the lower section. The frustrated bachelors toiled to no avail in their efforts to reach the bride. The picture formed a metaphor for sexual frustration, and struck a pessimistic note about the futility of ever achieving fulfilment in human relations.

Retaining the structure of Duchamp's picture, the bride in Wormhole is represented by the shadow of a four-dimensional hypercube and is positioned in the upper section. We cannot see the bride; we can only see her shadow. The bachelors are trapped down below in a cell in two-dimensional "flatland". Note one of the bachelors pressing against the dividing barrier, unable to break through to the neighbouring compartment. However, at this point Wormhole differs from Duchamp's picture in that one of the crafty bachelors has broken out of his flat world. He has moved "up" into another dimension and met his bride by passing through a wormhole! When he returns to his own world he finds he has crossed the dividing barrier to the other compartment.

In this respect, my picture is optimistic. The idea is that Duchamp's picture can be updated by incorporating new concepts from science and technology, thus providing a happy ending.

Hurrah!

Footnotes

It's interesting to note the Sacre Coeur and the steam ship in the top window (look carefully). This is a reference to Jean Metzinger's The Blue Bird which incorporated both those elements. The Blue Bird was called an example of "epic cubism" in which objects from widely varying geographic locations could be incorporated in the same picture (ie., the Sacre Coeur and the steamer). But this idea is the wormhole again! The steamer (actually the Titanic) has passed through a hole in space and time. This principle is called "simultaneity". Another use of simultaneity is in the movie Titanic as the ship passes backwards and forwards in space and time three times.

The aspect ratio of the windows is 1.618 - the Golden Section, much loved by traditional artists down the centuries. Is this a hankering back to a Golden Age? I'm trying to convey a taste of the epic ambition of the modernists in Paris in the early decades of this century (another reason for the use of the Sacre Couer) and protest against the intellectually-shallow postmodernists.