Dale E. Parson

NeurIPS2020ParsonPhotosynthesis

Photosynthesis (2019) is a 4:52 minute video piece that dives into the layers of energetic interactions between plants and photons. It begins at the perceptual layer of visual investigation of leaf structures, with the rhythm of focus – defocus suggesting the diurnal rhythm of plant activity due to sunlight. It descends into the waveform abstraction, emitting light from leafy images. It briefly projects human observational artifacts, lenses and prisms, that represent observer participation in resolving quantum phenomena. The piece ends by collapsing into the quantum, inspired by recent experimental evidence that chloroplasts select for each photon’s most energetic state before collapsing it into the classical state for consumption.