Different Ways of Knowing

Beginning at about 12:23 p.m. on April 8, life will pause for many in the Dallas-Fort Worth region when a total solar eclipse crosses a swath of Texas – something that hasn’t been seen in North Texas since 1878.

Brian Fridge MFA’11 has been preparing for the celestial event for months. A Dallas artist and lecturer at The University of Texas at Dallas, Fridge was commissioned to produce an art project as part of a national effort to generate interest in the rare observation of a total solar eclipse.

Organized by the Simons Foundation of New York, the In the Path of Totality project relies on artists from 13 states, spanning from Texas to Maine, where the total eclipse will be visible. These artists are creating works representing their artistic interpretations of the phenomenon. Much rarer than a partial eclipse – one of which was visible in North Texas last year – a total eclipse occurs when the moon completely blocks light from sun for several minutes, a celestial event called totality. It’s estimated that 30 million people in the U.S. will be able to view the eclipse in totality.

“In working on my film, it became like a collaboration with chance and nature, and things emerged that I would never have thought of,” Fridge said. “Sometimes what emerged was something that I could use in the film and sometimes it wasn’t. But I was pleasantly surprised.”

Fridge is known for creating abstract still images and films using almost kitchen experiments in which he records natural processes produced on a tabletop in his home, like crystals formed by ice or what looks like the motion of whirling, milky liquids or a close-up of what could be the iris of an eye.

Fridge’s portion of In the Path of Totality, which he calls View Finder, is composed of three parts – a six-minute multimedia film, eclipse images from the film enlarged on five billboards around Dallas and a publication with an essay written by Lucia Simek, deputy director at the Dallas Contemporary, who is collaborating with Fridge on View Finder.

Fridge also worked with Dr. Mary Urquhart, a planetary scientist and science educator at UT Dallas, to learn more about the science behind a total eclipse. Simons Foundation eclipse art projects are following a triangle concept in which three people partner to produce the work – the artist, a scientist and an arts curator.

“A project like this shows there are truly different ways of knowing,” said Urquhart, an associate professor and head of science and mathematics education in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. “There are different ways of expressing curiosity. Science is one path, and I think art is another. When they work synergistically, you can create something truly special.”

Using educational and science resources and images showing examples of total eclipses provided by Urquhart, Fridge is recreating in his film various stages and views of a solar eclipse that reflect his theme of a view finder.

“In our discussions about my film, we talked about the metaphor of viewing the eclipse through a lens, or a view finder,” Fridge said. “I was thinking about what these events would look like from different perspectives and through different eyes. I wanted to show it as though looking through a window or a car windshield or even showing what an eclipse would look like on the surface of the moon.”

Fridge’s film premiered at the Dallas Contemporary on March 10 and will also be shown at the Texas Theatre. Plans are in the works for other viewing opportunities on campus at the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology where Fridge teaches undergraduate arts classes. Eclipse images from the film are currently on display on five billboards in Dallas. One can be seen on the Dallas North Tollway while other billboards can be found along U.S. Highway 67 north of downtown.

Urquhart said she was excited to work with Fridge on his project because of the power of art to create emotional reactions to science topics. She emphasized the In the Path of Totality art works like Fridge’s film are not meant to illustrate scientific subjects.

“His work is fundamentally an artistic vision that a scientist helped create,” said Urquhart. “The purpose is not to understand the eclipse. The purpose is help us experience it and engage with it in a different way than if we’re just trying to understand it.”

Urquhart is heading up a committee of UTD faculty and staff that is preparing eclipse viewing opportunities for the on-campus University community. Viewing sites on campus will offer eclipse viewing glasses as well as indirect viewing opportunities that allow experiencing the eclipse safely without glasses. Learn more at solar.utdallas.edu/eclipse.

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