The
crystal fragments which make up these works were first uncovered while Jas was
excavating on the sunken continent of Mu (Mraur) in Cyberspace during
his expedition there in early 1991. After careful examination and arrangement
they were revealed to be translucent mosaic windows, one in each of the
thirteen chapel rooms in the Palace of Liss.
Jas soon
discovered that each of the thirteen crystal windows utilized the structure of
one of the 13 basic Mraur Glyph sets and named them accordingly. A
Mraur Glyph is a square divided into 16 equal parts (4 x 4). There are
two positive and two negative sections in each glyph. The sum of the two
positive areas always equals the sum of the two negative areas (8). Corners of
the two positive or two negative areas do not touch.
In the
Mraurovian visual language the basic glyphs are those which contain four
aspects of glyph structure - mirror image and positive-negative reversals of
each of the two mirror images. Although the four aspects are unique glyphs,
their structure is the same. All four have given the same name (or title) and
are differentiated as being #1, 2, 3 or 4. The titles of these thirteen works
are also the titles of the basic glyph sets.
It should
be noted that there are a total of 288 glyphs in the Mraurovian visual
language. The thirteen basic glyphs with their sets of four variations total
52. There are an additional nine secondary glyphs which have only two
variations, a mirror image or a positive-negative reversal. These make up
another 18. Finally there are 2 primary glyphs which have no variations. These
three sets combine to form a total of 72 glyphs. Each glyph also has four
different view points. They are consider the cardinal points (N,S,E & W)
of view and are identified in the research as a, b, c and d.
In this
exhibition the four variations of the thirteen basic glyphs are combined in a
maze pattern based on a circle, square, circle, square instead of the usual
square, square, square, square structure. The four variations are first
arranged in a row forming a continuous maze pattern which, if repeated,
continues in an endless maze format. This means that the right end of the row
can be joined to the left end, forming a continuous circular maze
structure.
Each glyph
forms one-quarter of the window. One side of the glyph is reduced to a point,
the opposite side is divided in the middle and becomes the two sides opposite
the point. The positive and negative areas, instead of being a solid colour,
are 'dimensionalized' by dividing the areas with connecting lines at the some
of the angle points. Two colours are then applied to within each area. Each
window therefore contains four colours. This tends to give the windows a
three-dimensional or sculptural effect.
The
thirteen works in this exhibition were originally released as a Cyberspace
'slide show' entitled SQUARES - CIRCLES. This release was in the form
of a signed and numbered limited edition 3.5 micro floppy disk for viewing on
a DOS operating system 2.1 or later with a VGA Monitor and 3.5" High Density
Disk Drive. Please contact the artist regarding the current availability of
these disk and to commission large scale acrylic paintings, stained glass
windows or transparencies of these magnificent discoveries.