Omar Khayyam

        For in and out, above, about, below,

        'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,

        Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,

        Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

The Rubayyat of Omar Khayyam

Verse XLVIII

Translated into English in 1859

by Edward FitzGerald

A Westerner and an Arab practicing geometry in the 15th century.

Realm of the Forms 2nd excerpt

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful.

Two mirrors, (60x25cm) one with mirroring removed in places. 

Realm of the Forms (Pyramid)

Pythagoras

Thales

Thales, it is said, was the first to inscribe a right-angled triangle into a circle. He is said to have sacrificed an ox in honour of his discovery.

Thales Theorum: if A,B and C are points on a circle where the line AC is a diameter of the circle , the the angle ABC is a right-angle. 

Realms

Plato divides the world into realms. The realm of the forms was the highest, an intelligible, rather than experiential realm of truths. These forms, for Plato were more real than the everyday world because of their immutability and singularity, as opposed to the multiplicity and ever changing character of the world of men, analogised as the wall of flickering shadows in plato's cave. 

"Plato has a system in which he makes a division between the
material sensible world and what he terms, an other worldly realm of forms; of perfect,
eternal, ideal, non-sensible principles. And those are the things that are
truly real and everything in this world is simply representing it or imitating
it. The ideas is that somehow we must try to get as close to the forms as we can
and particularly the form of the good." Angie Hobbs 

From In Our Time Neoplatonism BBC Radio 4 First Broadcast 19th April 2012 

Hypnosis and sensation

I was watching the star and the star was watching me. We were poised, exactly equal weights, if one can think of awareness as a weight, held level in a balance. This seemed to endure and endure, I don't know how long, two entities equally suspended in a void, equally opposite, devoid of any meaning or feeling. There was no sensation of beauty, of morality, of divinity, of physical geometry; simply the sensation of the situation. 

John Fowles, The Magus p.237

John Whitney

John Whitney MAtrix III

Heraclitus

Over the same rivers,

Stepping into them,

Different and different waters flow.

Strict translation of Heraclitian aphorism You cannot step into the same river twice.

In Our Time 'Heraclitus' Last broadcast on Thu, 8 Dec 2011, 21:30 on BBC Radio 4

Heroism

On the fields of Troy a fallen soldier pleaded with Achilles the Greek hero to save his life. According to Homer Achilles replied,

'Do you not see what a man I am, how huge, how splendid, and born of a great father, and the Mother who bore me immortal? But even I have also my death and strong destiny, and there shall be a dawn or an afternoon or noontide, when some man in the fighting will take the life from me also. Either with a spear cast or an arrow flown from the bow-string.'

With that, Achilles killed him.

Cited on In Our Time 'Heroism', First Broadcast BBC Radio 4, 9:00AM Thu, 6 May 2004

Where do you think you'll end up by taking the Utopian Road? Do you really believe that this is the way out of the mistakes and the misery that surrounds us? Have you forgotten that this road is as long as the existence of man and that no one has ever found resting place along it? Can't you see that it is illuminated by a false light; that the footsteps you can hear advancing are the sounds of dreams; that the lakes you can see from it are a mirage, a shimmering fata m­organa provided by the blinding sun? Superstudio, 1972.

Tower

Digital pinhole photograph/Wooden Structure Dec 2011

Me - In the Studio

Bill Leslie: in the studio from Abstract Critical on Vimeo.

This is an interview with me in my studio made for Abstract Critical. 

Fountain

Fountain from Bill Leslie on Vimeo.

New footage of of Naum Gabo's Revolving Torsion, Fountain 1972-3 in front of St Thomas' Hospital. Developed in my bathtub 'spaghetti style. I'm interested in the different layers - the structure of the fountain, sprays of water, the fog, the sunlight that breaks through toward the end and flares in the lense, and the diffwerent textures of the development process. 

Open Studios November 2011 with Samuel Dowd

Froebel's Gift (2011)

Froebel's second gift. A set of eight building blocks.
Two inch plaster cubes photographed on a mirror
Series of 44 pinhole images. C-type prints in sets of 4, 20x30cm

Perspex Sculpture October 2011

New Pinhole Sculptures October 2011

Hélio Oiticica Maquette for Spatial Relief 1960 Pencil on Kraft paper 195 x 140 mm

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/heliooiticica/rooms/room5.shtm

Hélio Oiticica Spatial Relief (red) Relevo espacial (vermêlho) 1960 Polyvinyl acetate resin on plywood

Hélio Oiticica Spatial Relief (red) Relevo espacial (vermêlho) 1960 Polyvinyl acetate resin on plywood

Hélio Oiticica Spatial Relief (yellow) Relevo espacial (amarelo) 1960 Oil on plywood

Hélio Oiticica Spatial Relief (red) Relevo espacial (vermêlho) 1960 Polyvinyl acetate resin on plywood 1490 x 620 x 85 mm

Hélio Oiticica Spatial Relief (yellow) Relevo espacial (amarelo) 1960 Oil-casein emulsion on plywood

Jaque Lipschitz

Man with a Guitar

Sculpture 1916

Sculpture 1916

josef albers structural constellations

Simon Martin Carlton 2006

This is a film of and about The Carlton Cabinet, bookcase made by the Memphis Collective. 

"An all-purpose vernacular"

"...outlandish, mischievous, heroically quirky"

http://www.phf.org.uk/artists/artist.asp?id=302&sid=2

Froebel's GIfts

3rd Gift 

Two wooden boxes with sliding lids designed by Friedrich Froebel. The first building box (also known as the third Froebel gift) contains eight one inch beechwood cubes. The second building box (also known as the fourth Froebel gift) contains eight beechwood blocks, which are twice as long and half the thickness. Combine all 16 blocks to extend the possibilities for creative play.

6th Gift
This wooden box with a sliding lid (also known as the sixth Froebel Gift) contains 36 beechwood blocks. By dividing the building block in two different ways, two new shapes are introduced to extend creative play. 18 blocks 2 x 1 x .5 inches, 12 blocks 1 x 1 x .5 inches, 6 blocks 2 x .5 x 5 inches

Entropic Forms (geometric hallucinations)