Palazzo Strozzi, the foundation that I run, was created as the first expression to really
refocus on the qualities of Florence, a vital, creative, contemporary city.
When you look out into the world, you see an unbroken view of space, representing what
it looks like to view the world.
It's often a wish to, you know, be able to jot something down in a sketch and capture
the idea as you saw it in the world.
How does that translation happen?
It could have been done hundreds of years ago.
I can't believe that no one has done this before.
So why are young artists here?
Because contemporary isn't about the content.
It's not the picture that's contemporary, it's they are contemporary.
If you were to put a pushpin in sort of on your GPS, a little pushpin on your map, where
does perspective, where is it born?
It would be here.
We're really excited to be here in Florence in the backyard of Brunelleschi, who created
the first written about experiment on perspective that really set the cornerstone of the Renaissance.
He was following a line of inquiry into exploring the nature of human vision, and we came to
our method from following an identical line of inquiry.
There's a tremendous power to realism, but it's kind of a daunting task artistically.
Just measuring all the proportions of the space in front of you, and getting them to
land on the page is a relatively complicated task, especially because it's been done so
many times.
All of these observations came from simply sitting and looking.
Because we're taking the world in with two eyes, we figured out a way to scan with one
eye and plot that image with the other eye.
Billion machine was necessary to use this technique precisely.
The jump to making it into a machine took one key observation.
That observation was noticing the double image, which happens in your vision as a result of
seeing the world with two eyes.
We see in stereo, and that allows us to construct an idea of what three-dimensional space is.
The brain is very quick and very practiced at integrating those two images and interpreting
depth.
We realized that if you could see it in your mind's eye, it was really there in your perception,
and you could use it to create a rendering of the space as you were perceiving it there
on site.
When inside the easel, it appears as though the paper turns clear.
You get the effect that the paper turns clear transparent, and you can trace the scene beyond
it.
You have one pen that you place to the paper, but then when looking past the edge, that
pen appears to divide into two images.
By keeping the paper, it's fairly concave.
Every point on the paper is equidistant and perpendicular.
People do bring up the fact that we're twins, and ask if that has anything to do with considering
so specifically the twin operation of two eyes and the head, and I don't know if it
does or not.
I can't say that we're consciously building on being twins.
These twins are exceptional in the way they communicate, the way they think through things
differently, but their product is common.
And their art is exceptionally crafted, it's contemporary in the fact it's being done right
now, and it's exploring art science boundaries, they're looking at questions that other contemporary
artists are.
We were exploring self-iterative form and kind of thinking in shape.
A couple of realizations collided and keyed us in to this method that we could create
realistic drawings with.
They are people-ing it asymmetrically and asynchronously, with a lot of Florence's most
important and interesting people.
Friends of ours have pointed out that it's a little bit difficult for either of us to
kind of realize how much we appreciate each other.
I appreciate that Trevor is thoroughly thoughtful towards any topic which peaks his fascination.
One of the things I really appreciate about Ryan is he tends to see a sort of wider scope
and a larger realm, a larger picture, which is very complimentary because I tend to focus
in on very small details.
Their work illustrates another perspective on perspective.
And that is what makes this place such a fertile place, is because the city itself has been
able to take many perspectives.
If we get it right for the city of Florence, for the end time, becomes a city of creators
and producers, then it is the Florence it should be.
So I really appreciate this experience.
You
