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Literature - Essays

Holography, Art, and Science-
A new course to be offered At the Advanced Technology and Education Park

(A satellite campus of California Community Colleges)

 

Holography is one of the rare scientific discoveries that provided a medium for art. As a result, many interesting and unique relationships formed between scientists and artists fostering new ways of looking at both science and art. Since its invention (1948) and reinvention (early sixties) holography experienced multiple false starts, and we can only guess its future course. To date embossed holography stands out as a killer application while many other potential applications still remain as great challenges as well as opportunities. This paper describes a course of study called “Holography, art and science,” beginning date TBA, at the Center for Advanced Critical Technologies (CACT), Irvine Valley College in Irvine, California. The objective of the course is to provide students with graphical knowledge that will allow them to comprehend the fundamental science behind holography as well as to appreciate, enjoy, and judge holograms and holographic art. We will consider the course successful if students become more active participants in any way in the fields of holography or art; The course will be taught with little or no mathematics and will have laboratories in which all students will produce the various kinds of holograms.

The field of holography, now over fifty years old, has seen many ups and downs, bursts of enthusiasm, false starts, and spurts of public interest followed by apathy and abandon. One of the interesting dilemmas in the field of holography is the apparent complacency and disinterest shown by a large segment of the public. Apparently, a primary cause is our failure to educate a potentially large public audience. Quite commonly, people do not see what they do not already know exists. Holography, as we have presented it, is apparently too removed and difficult for the general public, most of whom do not even know that they carry holograms in their own wallets, let alone that there is much more than that to holography. Some of the best holograms are hard to view and are sometimes improperly illuminated even in the shops that sell them. Viewers do not know what to look for or even that there is something to look for. They have not learned how to appreciate, enjoy, and judge holograms or holographic art.

Many holographers and advocates have attempted and continue attempting to change this situation, most with limited success. Fortunately, dedicated evangelists persist[1], and there are glimmers of hope. Newsletters, classes, working groups, holographic art shows, galleries, and commercial ventures have come and gone with seemingly small impact on the larger public. Most galleries, newsletters, and magazines have not survived, though the internet has sparked new life into these through inexpensive virtual exposure. The authors have been preaching the gospel for nearly fifty years, constantly searching for the answer and hoping to witness and be part of a turnaround.

Some interesting questions to ponder are:

1. Where are the applications with greatest potential?

2. Will we ever see 3D movies, TV, and telecoms through holography?

3. Will holographic art ever become a publicly accepted art form like painting, sculpture, and photography?

4. Why did holography museums, departments in universities, research teams, exhibitions, and companies spring up everywhere in the late twentieth century only to become almost extinct in the twenty first century?

5. Why did almost obvious applications of holography like jewelry, decoration, and portraiture flower out and almost die in just a few years period?

6. Why is the only holographic portrait of a U.S. president not hanging in his presidential library?

Now we have lost the three giants, Gabor, Leith, and Denisyuk as well as other major contributors, such as Steve Benton. In honor of these men our efforts to publicize holography continue. This paper describes our latest effort, a course of study, currently planned for the Fall of 2006 at the Irvine Valley College in Irvine California

The purpose of the course is to provide students with knowledge that will allow them to understand, appreciate, enjoy, and judge holograms and holographic art. This course, alone, is not intended to produce expert holographers, artists, or scientists; however, it may encourage and direct students onto a path to becoming expert holographers or to adopt holography as an art medium. We will consider it a success if students leave simply as more active participants anywhere in the field of holography, even if only as a more educated audience. The course, which will address the science and technology as well as the art of holography, will be taught with little or no mathematics and will have laboratories inwhich all students will produce various types of holograms.

The new course will be based on the following premises that, while drawn from our own thoughts and prejudices, will be accepted by some, though probably not all, of our friends in holography.

1. A simple, graphical, non-mathematical, and fairly complete explanation of holography will help a person to become more interested and deeply involved in holography as an artist, critic, collector, teacher, or dedicated spectator.

2. Although very simple holograms are easy to make, a person does not need to make holograms to become interested in and enjoy holography.

3. Good holograms are extremely difficult and expensive to make but are relatively easy to understand given the knowledge described in number 1.

4. Holography has a history that is rich with adventure, intrigue, interesting personalities, and stories of breakthroughs. All of these add to the overall richness of the field and make it more interesting.

A Very Brief History of Holography

No course would be complete without some historical background; however, history will not be the emphasis, except where it is considered extremely relevant. After a very slow beginning with its invention in a very primitive, and not very useful, form by Dennis Gabor in 1947, the field virtually disappeared until it was revitalized independently by Emmett Leith in the United States and Yuri Densiyuk in Russia. Gabor received the Nobel Prize for his contribution in 1971[2], and became widely credited with the creation of holography. These are historical facts. Finding more detailed histories of holography is now quite easy. Paul Barefoot has done a commendable job in his “Holophile” website[3] and Sean Johnson has recently published a “complete” history[4] of holography.

What is much more interesting than the simple historical facts, which are found in any book on holography, is the personal side of holography, known largely by the insiders, and rarely seen in print. (What newscaster, Paul Harvey would call “The rest of the story”). The history of holography is still young enough that many of the pioneers still live, and they have their own varying versions, which often conflict and provide focused perspectives, especially since different holography communities often do not communicate with each other. Since the recent deaths of Emmett Leith (December, 2005) and Denisyuk (May, 2006), the current generation of holographers will be the last to have been contemporaries with the true founders of modern holography.

What Gabor invented was not very useful and was abandoned even by him. He even stated that removing the troublesome conjugate wave was impossible. Some years later in a Gabor interview when he was asked to list his most important achievements, holography was not even mentioned. Gabor, Leith, and Denisyuk invented three completely different things that ultimately all fell under the umbrella of holography because the generalized mathematical description could describe all three. Neither Leith nor Denisyuk used or benefited by any of Gabor’s work to build upon; they were not even aware of it when they made their breakthroughs, nor was Gabor even involved at all in the field. What Gabor invented would have netted little mention in history without the discoveries of Leith and Denisyuk, who are known by insiders to have been devastated to find out that their inventions "had already been invented." After Denisyuk and Leith most developments in holography could be classified as refinements of a science made possible by improved technology. The failure of Denisyuk and Leith to obtain more recognition for their creations and to share the Nobel Prize, while Gabor essentially got blanket credit for inventing holography, is one of the great injustices of science.

This is but one of many intriguing stories in the history of holography[5]. Such stories are an integral part of the course as they are relevant and appropriate.

Art Holography

Although making a hologram is easy (an almost irrelevant fact that holographers proudly advertise), producing excellent holograms requires extremely complex knowledge and hard earned skills. However, a holographic artist or critic does not have to be an expert holographer or vice versa. Defects, recording problems and mistakes are relatively easy to recognize and identify once a viewer understands the characteristics of, and requirements for, producing high quality holograms. A wide gap exists between understanding the source of problems and actually removing them in a holographic setup, a skill that can be acquired only through training and experience. Recognizing and quantifying the quality of the art in a hologram is not as straightforward; however much of the art can be judged by the usual standards of art. The field needs more and better critics who are qualified to do this.

One does not have to be a trained artist to produce good holographic art; however, as with any art form, an artist with knowledge and experience in a particular medium is more likely to produce a great work of art than someone without art training. Artists can produce holographic art with the help of expert holographers, thus placing most of their attention on the art instead of the science, an approach that could be better than one person doing all. Being a good holographer is not the same as being a good artist. This appears to be one of the misconceptions that cause confusion in the holographic art world. Some artists apparently believed that just because they were among the first to employ holography as an art medium, that they should become famous by default. Equally problematic was that some holographers felt that they should have equal credit along with the artist they were helping, and that what they were doing was art. These instances represent a misconception about art, holography, and possibly both. Unfortunately, holographic art has yet to have its Picasso, and the field is badly in need of a Picasso. Salvador Dali employed holography in several works of art, and opened a holographic gallery. He believed that holography was an extremely important medium that would have a huge impact on art. Unfortunately, he began this phase of his art late in life and few people think of holography when Dali comes to mind. Hopefully, an existing artist will assume this role or a new one will appear in time to vitalize the field.

A large, interesting, and useful part of the science of holography can be understood and applied by non scientific people as will be explained in the next section. Even though an artist can apply holography with little knowledge of the science of holography, some knowledge will be an asset. On the other extreme, an artist becoming too involved with the science of holography rarely helps either field. This is not to say that artists have not contributed to the science, because they have indeed.

When artists yield to the temptation to think of themselves as scientists and attempt to behave like scientists the public invariably gets the wrong message and reacts in ways that set back art holography. Art audiences do not want to see science; and science can be intimidating to art lovers. If they wanted to see science they would go to a Discovery Center. An artist spending much time explaining the science of holography is distracting from the art form. Compare this to a painter attempting to explain the chemistry of the paint or, for that matter, even showing much interest in it. Artists should concentrate on the esthetics and message in their work and not on the scientific nature of it. Even if learning more of the science behind holography could enrich the experience, attempting to use the science to get an art audience interested is self-defeating. Holographic art can be extremely powerful and rewarding without the science and should be presented to the art public in that manner first.

That part of the course that deals with holographic art focuses on the potential of the medium for artists by using some of the existing works and demonstrating holographic art critique. Students will learn to appreciate and critique holographic art from both the technical as well as esthetic points of view. Holographic art projects will be discussed. Examples where holography has been or will be employed in architecture will also be discussed, and students will be asked to design a holographic work of art.

The Science of Holography

Beginning in 1968, Professor Tom Gee and one of the authors (Trolinger) developed a series of short courses in holography at the University of Tennessee Space Institute. Lecturers in our first short course included Juris Upatnieks, and John DeVelis (author of one of the first textbooks on holography). At that time none of us had simple, easy-to-understand explanations of holography, coherence, or many of the resulting phenomena. Describing holography with the equations in Develis’ book caused more confusion than it answered. The dissatisfaction with the results of that first experience in teaching holography caused us to search for simpler, non-mathematical explanations. After finding, refining, and testing graphical explanations based on moiré analogies on students as well as ourselves, we all became better holographers.

Much of the science of holography can be understood without mathematics, and even scientists, whose language is mathematics, strive for and benefit from non-mathematical presentations of physical processes. Although simple models and analogies often lack in accuracy and completeness, they can be extremely useful for simple explanations that provide practical insight. We anticipate that some of the students in our class will have no math background beyond algebra, while others will have a command of more mathematics. Therefore, the course will be taught without mathematics, and those students who have a working knowledge of mathematics will be encouraged to do extra work in holographic theory in parallel with the students who do not..

Light can be described as behaving like waves on a pond. The waves can be represented as a series of parallel lines for collimated light or concentric, equally spaced circles for diverging light. When two sets of these are overlaid, they form moiré fringes, much like interfering coherent waves. Because the waves and the fringes shown with the moiré analogy are visible, they are easy to explain and easy to grasp. We have been using and refining these methods to explain (and even understand, in some cases) phenomena in holography, without mathematics since the 1968 short course. These moiré analogies can easily illustrate complex phenomena and concepts including, interferometry, coherence and coherence length, Bragg angles, thin and thick emulsion effects, recording medium resolution requirements and limitations, aberrations, geometrical and many other effects in holography, Snell’s law, and more. Interference between plane waves, spherical waves, and plane waves interfering with spherical waves are easily illustrated with moiré, leading to simple explanations of practically all interference phenomena. A few of these are illustrated in the Figures 1 to 4. Each figure can be used to illustrate many effects and moving the two sets of lines independently extends the explanation ever further.

>Figure 1-Illustrating (upper left), either a collimated light wave or a hologram of two collimated waves, (upper right) two collimated, coherent waves interfering out of phase, (lower left) two collimated, coherent waves interfering at an angle, or forming a thick hologram of two collimated waves, or emulsion thickness effects in holography, or reconstructing a collimated wave from a hologram (lower right) two incoherent light waves interfering, or Doppler effect, or effect of relative motion of a reference an object wave in hologram recording.

We will make extensive use of these methods as well as methods developed by others[6],[7] to provide a working understanding of holography without mathematics.

Individual lectures will be given on the following topics:

1. What is light?

2. Light rays

3. Lightwaves

4. Wavefronts

5. Holograms

6. Things we can and cannot do with holograms.

7. What we can do today.

8. Things that we may be able to do in the future.

   1. Remote window

   2. Information storage

   3. 3-D Movies and television

9. How are holograms made? Is it easy?

10. Practical holography

11. The hardware tools of holography, i.e. Lasers, lenses, mirrors, isolation tables.

12. In class, hands on demonstrations, with each student producing simple holograms

Figure 2- Coherent spherical and collimated wave about to interfere

 

Figure 3 - Collimated and Spherical, coherent waves interfering

 

>

Figure 4-Forming a hologram with a spherical and collimated wave. Emulsion thickness and wavefront reconstruction effects can be illustrated with the figure on the left.

 

Critiquing (and Appreciating) Holograms and Holographic Art

The medium of holography provides almost limitless possibilities to an artist. Holograms deal with light rays directly without the use of absorbing and reflecting pigments, so images and colors can be much richer and brighter. The full three spatial dimensions are available for use, plus time. Scenes can be produced that are completely impossible with any other medium, even sculpture. One measure of the success of an art hologram is the finesse with which the artist exploits the medium.

In displaying the hologram correct lighting is critical, and an artist must design the hologram with lighting in mind. The availability today of good, low cost lighting for hologram display is a fortuitous but major breakthrough for collectors. Tungsten-halogen, high-intensity lamps and LED lamps provide precisely what was needed by the field to make display practical. Before such lamps were available, the choices were expensive and cumbersome. Most available lamps were too extended to create a sharp image.

Like most art, holography can be enjoyed with no training at all, but as with all art, enjoyment is enhanced through additional education. Viewing and appreciating holographic art to its fullest requires knowledge that is unlike anything familiar to us. Specifically, one cannot see the entire holographic scene from one viewpoint, and unless properly illuminated, viewing may be poor or even impossible. Studying the content of a hologram requires the viewer to move about, to stoop, to stand on tiptoes, to move up, down, and sideways, a movement sometimes known as the hologram-viewers tango, quite commonly seen where holograms are displayed. One could conclude on first observation that viewing holograms is difficult when, in fact, holograms just contain more information that requires additional viewing. A viewer should explore the entire volume of the image and study the relationships of all lines and colors to search out the message.

Holographic art employs many of the same tools and vocabulary as other art forms, line, form, color, texture, value, and shape, plus a few more, such as dynamics, concealment, and surprise. The art embodies the artist's communication in more language than is possible with painting and sculpture. The intent may be to provide a religious experience, an emotional reaction, a history, a narrative, an intellectual experience, or some other experience. The art can be symbolic or represent reality directly. A viewer should seek out the original meaning and objective of the artist.

The technical and esthetic qualities of holographic art can be judged independently and require completely different types of knowledge. The following are factors:

1.  Esthetics

a. Visual impact on the viewer

b. The message or meaning

c. Subject

d. Balance, movement, repetition, rhythm, contrast, patterns, and color

2.  Technique

a. Materials and chemistry

b. Technology used in recording and processing the hologram

c. Display technology

3.  Finesse and exploitation of the medium

The esthetic factors, which are more subjective, include those in any art form, and to some extent any art critic can judge them; however, art critics must be trained to judge the technical factors. The technical quality of today's holographic art varies drastically from one artist to another. Occasionally, a holographic artist who displays holograms of poor technical quality will claim that this was deliberate. Although artists should have such license, the art piece will most likely tell the truth itself. Whether or not the "deliberate" poor technical quality adds or detracts from the work is usually quite evident.

An Example Critique

“I Can Feel the Music”, a holographic work of art was exhibited in the Bremen Museum of Folk Art in 2001. During the exhibit, an art professor, upon studying this piece for a while commented that this was only a three-dimensional image and could not be considered art. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is truly amazing how little someone sees when he refuses to look. In the following I provide an example critique of this piece.

Figure 5-“I Can Feel the Music”, Portrait of Saul Bryanston-Cross, Hologram on Agfa Glass Photographic Plate, 22”X24” , By Peter Bryanston-Cross 1993, No. 1 of 3., From the Gallery of J. D. Trolinger, Provenance: From the artist in August, 2002, Produced at Richmond Holographics, London, UK, with assistance of Edwina Orr, Doubly-exposed, ruby laser, holographic interferogram

Saul Bryanston-Cross, 13 year-old (in 1993) son of the artist, is a natural and highly talented musician and composer, one of those rare individuals who can pick up an instrument, like this French Horn, and immediately produce pure notes, with no overtones. When asked how he knows that the note is in its pure form, his response is “I can feel it.”

 

“I Can Feel the Music” is an exceptionally strong art work because it is so rich in almost every aspect of art holography. It will be recognized in the future as a rare masterpiece and a unique example of holographic art for numerous reasons. Here are some of those reasons. It contains an aesthetic subject with deep meaning about a relationship between a father and son presented in an unusual manner. It contains deeper meaning about society in general. It exploits the medium of holography to produce effects that could be obtained in no other fashion. It is of a rare genre that combines scientific knowledge with artistic creativity using complex vocabulary of both. It is of high technical quality. Only three copies exist, and since it is produced on a material that has not been available since the late nineties, no more copies will be produced. It cannot be counterfeited. It is unusually large for holographic portraiture. It is associated with a unique production team that included a highly reputable holographic laboratory and a scientist/artist who is well known and widely published. The team spent many hours conceiving, composing, and producing this hologram. It is interesting and easy to view, to participate with, to analyze, and to discuss. “I Can Feel the Music” will be a highly prized piece in any collection.

The artist, Peter Bryanston-Cross, realizing that his son’s “feeling” might be made observable through the application of holographic interferometry, produced this holographic portrait that displays visually and quantifies, to the trained eye, the feeling process described by Saul. “I Can Feel the Music” is about communication between a boy and his father and the effort and training required by both to communicate in a meaningful way. What the son feels can go completely unknown to a father who is not willing to go the extra mile. If the father listens, believes, asks questions, and strives to understand, then the rewards are great. Here the father demonstrates to his son that he can hear him in ways that he may not understand, since understanding may require him to use language and knowledge of his own that may be completely foreign to the son. This work of art is a testament to the richness of information that can be conveyed between any two individuals whose goal is communication and whose strategy involves trust and employs whatever tools and language they command. The piece also implores us to listen to our own bodies.

This piece is highly successful in exploiting the medium of holography to capture and convey to a sophisticated (trained) observer information, meaning, and emotion that cannot possibly be achieved with photography, painting, or even sculpture. As such it is a highly successful work of holographic art.

The photograph shown here is a mere representation of the actual piece, which must be viewed to study, enjoy and participate with its many features. The ability to capture and display parallax (providing different images and information when viewed from different angles) is a principle feature of holography. Viewer interaction is another. Parallax is, of course available in sculpture, but not in painting or photography (except for stereo photography, where it is still severely limited). The artist makes a very effective parallax-enhancing use of shadows in this composition, a technique known to and used often by seasoned art holographers. Shadows produced by the French horn on Saul’s body move in relation to the part of the horn that creates them when a viewer changes his head position, greatly enhancing and encouraging viewer participation with the piece. The bell of the horn protrudes over a foot in front of the hologram. The artist has chosen to place the face in the plane of the hologram, usually a wise choice in holographic portraiture because of limitations in lighting used during viewing.

The fringes in the horn show how the sound vibrations move the horn, displaying visually what we would have heard if we had been there during the recording. Even an untrained observer can connect the patterns to sound without much imagination. We are effectively seeing the movement that is causing the sound coming from the horn, the same sound that can be heard by the musician, and also the sound trapped in his bones and felt by his body.

Recording two superimposed, minutely different images of an object with holography enables the display of the separation of the two object positions. Such recordings exhibit contour fringes that can detect and display minute movement a subject caused by sound vibrations. From the scientist’s view, a strong resonance can be observed through the fringes in Saul’s collarbone, facial structure, and chest wall. His bone structure, acting like large sound antennae, conveys information to his brain that his ears cannot. The resonances would be felt strongly by him when certain resonant frequencies are achieved, and he would be able to detect easily any overtones present in his bones if he “listens” with his body. Ears are designed to listen in a completely different way and could not provide the same type of information.

This unique piece displays a strong interaction of science, music, and art, employing vocabulary from each. We can share sound and feeling of the music without a sound from the picture. The hologram literally sings to us through fringes. In addition to a strong technical message, the piece offers a strong artistic, moral message. The technical quality of the hologram is excellent, exhibiting a bright low noise image of high resolution. Much of this can be attributed to the production of the piece in Richmond Holographic Laboratories, where the latest in recording technology and chemistry were available. Only in such a highly advanced laboratory could a hologram of this quality be produced. This work of art is also a testament to teamwork, pushing the limits in pulsed laser holography and processing chemistry. In the actual piece an observer can count the hairs on the musician’s head, can focus and examine in microscopic detail over a depth of over two feet, much more than can be achieved in this simple photograph, which is only representative of a single viewing angle and depth. The image is viewable over a wide angle, allowing several viewers to examine and discuss the piece simultaneously.

Holographic artists have a fairly wide range of color choices in a monocolor piece of this type through processing techniques. Artistically, it is extremely important to choose a color that is harmonious with all of the key items in the work. Here, the color choice has not only matched the gold of the French horn, but somehow gives the impression of a pleasing skin color. One of the major problems in this type of portraiture is finding a skin color that compliments the person, since full-color holographic portraiture is still rare even today. Available colors usually do not compliment the person. Providing an acceptable skin color seems easiest with a black model; however, placing the French horn in the scene with a young boy, leaves the viewer with a perception that the skin color is complementary and even flattering. This hologram introduces a green tint in the lower left hand corner of the hologram that seems to move the skin color in the correct direction, while giving the highlights on the horn a definite gold appearance. Even Joseph Albers would have been impressed with this artist for achieving this pleasing effect.

Could so much be said about “just a three dimensional image?”

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to acknowledge Professors Emmett Leith and Yuri Denisyuk for the very existence of holography as we know it and, therefore, all that is in this paper. Without these two men our careers and lives would have been completely different, and we would never have met and become friends and co-workers. This picture was made when we all came together at the Benton Vision Conference to honor Professor Steve Benton. Steve was a major force in bridging the artistic and scientific worlds and his advice and thoughts were inspiring to all holographers. We greatly miss these three scientists, holographers, and friends to whom this conference was dedicated.

 

From left, Vladimir Markov, Emmett Leith, Jim Trolinger, Yuri Denisyuk at the Benton Vision Conference in Boston, November, 2003, in honor of Steve Benton.

Photograph by Pauline Abbott