Simon Sellars: Sleepy Brain Archives

Interview by Rebecca Cannon

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>Melbournian Martina Mrongovius is a holographer; an artist working predominantly with holograms. Her exhibition Hover was recently featured in the Next Wave Festival, accompanying her Honours Thesis in Applied Physics. A darkened gallery space – so dark that it took several minutes to adjust to the little light emanating from the holograms – housed a collection of mechanical, homemade contraptions, each displaying different versions of a hologram of a dragonfly hovering in mid-air. A display table hidden in the corner of the gallery showed artifacts of the artistic production – including the original dragonfly from which the holograms were derived.

The holograms fluttered in mid-air with the clicking sounds of insects provided by the mechanical devices that Martina wound up every few minutes; close inspection revealed that the images were not what one might think of as a traditional, sci-fi conception of a hologram. Laser light, passing through a holographic film, was beamed on to a piece of glass and it was here that the holographic images were seen. At first I felt as though I had been duped – these weren’t real holograms! Until Martina explained how holograms are actually made…beginning with the fact that the film doesn’t record a miniature version of the picture, as it does with photography; instead, the film records a distortion of light waves…

– Rebecca Cannon, 2004
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How did you become interested in holograms?

When I was very little I wanted to hold lightbulbs, which I did. After the bandages on my hands were removed for a second time, I found alternate ways of playing with light. In high school I spent a lot of time in the photographic darkroom, and through photography I found that I wanted to capture dynamics, which lead me into video and holography. To make holograms I did a degree in Applied Physics. Physics is addictive – the more you learn the more you want to know. It thus became a massive influence on my work. It’s given me many questions which I want to answer, questions in many different forms. But basically I want to understand light.

Can you define a hologram?

A hologram is a recording of the whole (from the Greek root). However, recording everything from everywhere is pointless. For me, expression is all about having a perspective, and then abstracting with style. There are some theories that describe the whole universe and human consciousness as a hologram. It’s a powerful analogy – mainly due to the distributed memory structure.

How do you make holograms?

The type of holographics I make are laser recordings. A light sensitive emulsion/film is used to capture a perspective of a scene. The scene and the emulsion are both illuminated by a single laser beam that has been split and expanded. Because the laser emits pure light it can set up a stable field of electro-magnetic waves. Part of the light is used as a reference, shone directly onto the emulsion creating a 3D grid into which the scene’s optical information can be recorded.

The information/image is distributed over the hologram so that what you record is an interference pattern of two optical fields. To replay this you illuminate with light similar to the reference. Diffraction from the inference pattern, or fringes, causes light to reconstruct as if the scene was still there. These recordings required many very still nights in the dark. Because the Argon laser where I was studying broke just after I began this project, some long exposures were required (3 to 7 minutes of stillness to half a wavelength of light). The reason that this is considered a hologram is that the intensity and direction of light is recorded.

How do people respond to your work when they realise its not like the kind of sci-fi hologram they were expecting?

Holographers have a hard time living up to the expectations of Star Trek’s Holodeck, R2D2’s Princess Leia projection, and Red Dwarf’s Rimmer. These sci-fi holograms all violate basic laws of physics. It is not possible to see light in mid-air unless it is actually coming from that direction. Expectation is a strange thing; most people admitted that they did not know what to expect and sighted that as one of their motivations for visiting myshow. People who did have any expectations lost them pretty quickly. The Hover exhibition gave me an opportunity to observe people’s reactions to the works, which was fascinating. It is baffling how little some people see, when others make a host of connections and launch into a dialogue of ideas.

What’s your favourite hologram?

I like the really simple yet beautifully abstracted stuff, maybe one of Rudie Berkhout’s or one of Andrew Pepper’s cube shadow grams. There are quite a few amazing pieces which I’m still waiting to see in person.

What would your dream hologram be?

My dream project would be a holographic greenhouse/conservatory, perhaps off-planet.

…:: LINKS
Martina Mrongovius
Hover Exhibition
Rudie Berkhout
Andrew Pepper