02. Juni |  19:00   |  Linda Henderson (Austin)

Signs of the Fourth Dimension in 20^th Century Art and Culture

One of the most important stimuli for the imaginations of artists during the 20th century was the concept of a higher, unseen fourth dimension of space.  An outgrowth of the n-dimensional geometries developed in the nineteenth century, the concept predated the definition of time as the fourth dimension by Minkowski and Einstein in Relativity Theory.  Only the popularization of Einstein and his theories after 1919 brought an end to the widespread public fascination with the suprasensible fourth dimension between the 1880s and 1920s.  Initially popularized by figures such as E. A. Abbott, Charles Howard Hinton, Claude Bragdon, and P. D. Ouspensky (as well as science fiction writers), the fourth dimension was a multivalent term with associations ranging from science, including X-rays and the ether of space, to idealist philosophy and mystical »cosmic consciousness.«  This lecture explores the differing approaches to signifying higher spatial dimensions among early 20th-century artists, ranging from the Cubism of Pablo Picasso and the Large Glass project of Marcel Duchamp to the Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich.  It then continues by examining the resurgence of interest in the spatial fourth dimension in the later 1950s and 1960s at the hands of such figures as Buckminster Fuller and Robert Smithson.  The talk concludes with the role of computer graphics and new media in more recent approaches to four-dimensional space, including the work of digital architect Marcos Novak.  The material discussed herein is drawn from the forthcoming new edition of my book The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art, which includes a lengthy »Reintroduction« tracking the fate of the fourth dimension as a cultural construct through the 20th century.