Living Data

Descent into the Ocean

COMMENTS

Descent into the Ocean 2013
Video: Lisa Roberts
Exectutive production: Ken Wilson

This is the third video in a series titled 'Light response'. As I respond to the light in Sydney I feel closer to my father who loved its strength as a foil to the softer light of Europe. The full title, 'A journey into the Ocean is followed by a return to the light', refers to Conrad's story Heart of Darkness. When I was young I saw my father read that story and I relate Conrad's life-changing journey into Africa to my father's wartime voyages to Tahiti. In many ways my father was like Conrad and his characters Marlo and Lord Jim. Certainly he shared their sombre disposition and recognition of primal forces.

On page 15 of his Introduction to the 1984 Penguin English Library edition of Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902), Paul O'Prey refers to Albert J. Guerard's view of the story as a "a psychological-anthropological 'night journey', meaning,

the archetypal myth ...the story of an essentially solitary journey involving profound spiritual change in the voyager. In its classical form the journey is a descent into the earth, followed by a return to light.

O'Prey's quote (on p.16) of Conrad Conrad explaining methods to expand understanding may be applied to all the srts.

To snatch... a passing phase of life is only the beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes in the light of sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, its form, and its colour, reveal the substance of its truth - disclose its inspiring secret.

Secrets of the Ocean revealed through art and science expand understanding of phtosythesising plants upon which all life depends.

It was photosynthesis, first by some Bacteria, then by Algal cells with green pigment (Protists) in the sea, and much later by Plants on land, that created an oxygenated atmosphere... Earth is the GREEN PLANET where the energy for nearly all Life depends on Photosynthesis.

Big Picture Story, Mary E. White, 2012