ISI’S “World Brain” by Gabriel Liebermasm:The Worlds First Holographic Engraving

Number 52

Throughout this past year, I havewritten about the many fine works of artwe have instafled to enhance ISI@’smain offices on Market Street in Phila-delphia. t-s Now, I would like to tell youabout the latest addition to the “ISI col-lection”: a unique holographic engrav-ing entitled” World Brain, ” executed forus by artist Gabriel Liebermann ofDallas, Texas.

The title of Liebermann’s engravingwill be familiar to any of you who recallsome of my essays on the concept, q.swhich was first discussed in 1938 byH.G. Wefls in his book Worid Brain.6 Ifirst mentioned the world brain in Cur-rent Contends B (CC”) in 1964, when thiscolumn was called The Informatorium.7Wells argued for sweeping reforms inthe process by which we bring our accu-mulated knowledge to bear on social,economic, and political affairs. He envi-sioned a “World Encyclopedia,” inwhich multidisciplinary research infor-mation of a global nature would begathered together and made availablefor the immediate use of anyone in theworld. It is from this visionary ideal thatLiebermann was asked to develop hisholographic engraving.

The world brain was an impossiblegoal when Wefls was alive. But the com-puter technology of our own day is be-ginning to make such a concept feasi-ble. Similarly, engravings have beenaround for centuries, but only recentlyhas it become possible to create a three-dimensional image with an engraving.

December 28,1981

Holography was first conceived in 1948by Dennis Gabor,~ for which he won theNobel Prize in Physics in 1971. It wasLiebermann who invented a techniquethat applied holography to the ancientart of engraving. Incidentally, bothLiebermann and Gabor were born inHungary.

I first met Liebermann in 1979 whileattending a library convention in Dallas.At the time, we were conducting asearch for murafists who could capturethe information theme for our corporateheadquarters. I The meeting was ar-ranged by a mutual friend, Vicki Lynn,an artist who designs theatrical stagesets. Although Liebermann designscomputer hardware for a living, he alsostudied oil painting at f%cole Nationaledes Beaux Arts, which is part of theUniversity of Pans. He also attended theNorthwood Institute, Dallas. It was atthe latter institution that he met VernonPorter, senior research scientist atTexas Instruments. Porter is also on thefaculty at Northwood, where he lectureson the relationship between art andtechnology. Porter was a major influ-ence in L\ebermann’s unique blendingof art and science.

Liebermann found that his daily con-tact with engineering at work had a pos-itive effect on his art. These interactionsproduced a spate of new ideas whicheventually led to a technologicallybased, new and unique art form. Whenhe told me of his concept of sculptingwith light through holography, I was so

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intrigued that I commissioned him toexecute a work with the world brain as atheme. Porter acted as technical adviseron the many complex problems Lieber-mann encountered while working onthe piece. Like so many other creativepeople, Liebermann also needed ,con-siderable prodding from me and myassociate Calvin Lee to make sure hecompleted one assignment before tak-ing off on another.

Most Americans’ only experiencewith the illusion of depth in an imagecame with the 3-D movie fad of the1950s. In 3-D photography—cafled ste-reoscopy—two cameras were used intandem to film separate left-eye andright-eye images. The two images werethen printed in different complementarycolors on the same strip of film. If theleft-eye image was printed in blue-green, for instance, then the right-eyeimage was printed in red. The two im-ages were then projected onto a metal-lic screen in such a way that they over-lapped. Viewers wore special glasses inwhich the left eyepiece was made of redcellophane and the right eyepiece ofgreen. The red filter allowed the left eyeto see only the blue-green image, whilethe green filter over the right eye al-lowed only the red image through.g

Thk system was inexpensive, but hada number of major problems. Onlyblack-and-white fihns could be made,since the property of color had alreadybeen used for the purpose of image-sep-aration. Also, looking at different colorswith each eye causes an effect known asretinal rivafry, which can causeheadaches and even nausea,g Finally,since the color filters were not perfect,the 3-D movies were blurry. So HoIly-wood producers limited the techniqueto the production of such B-grade fdmsas Bwana Devil and House of WOX.9

The assorted inconveniences and am-ateurishness of the 3-D movies weremore than enough to offset their techni-cal novelty. And although 3-D filmtechnology has become more sophisti-

cated over the years, IIJ it still relies onbasically the same principles of trickphotography to achieve the illusion ofdepth.

Holography, however, bears little re-semblance to stereoscopic photogra-phy. The viewer needs no special equip-ment to see the three-dimensional im-age. Moreover, holographic imagespossess a real size, shape, and positionin space that are independent of any

viewer. 11 But to reafly understand howholograms are made, you fwst have toknow something about the basic proper-ties of light.

Suffice it to say that light is a series ofelectromagnetic vibrations. These vi-brations consist of zones of compressionand rare faction, called waves. Thewavelength is the distance between onezone of compression, the crest of thewave, and the next. For light waves, thisdktance is extremely short: about 55-millionths of a centimeter. Minute var-iations in the wavelength of light are per-ceived by us as changes in color.

Of special importance to holographyis a characteristic of light waves knownas coherence, or the degree to whichlight waves are in phase with one an-other. In ordinary sunlight, incan-descent, or fluorescent light, the rela-tionship between one wave and anotheris completely random. This light is saidto be out of phase-that is, incoherent.In a laser, however, the intense lightconsists of a single, nearly pure color, inwhich afl of the waves are of equal size,move in the same direction, and matchup crest to crest and trough to trough.Thk light is in phase, or coherent. It wasthe development of the laser whichmade holography practical. 11 Inciden-tally, the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physicswas shared by Nicolaas Bloembergen,Harvard University, and Arthur L.Schawlow, Stanford Univemity, for theirwork in laser spectroscopy. Q IS Bothare highly cited and Bloembergen is in-cluded in our recent study of the 1,000most-cited contemporary scientists, 14

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while Schawlow appeared on our list ofthe 100 books most-cited by re-searchersls for Microwave Spectro.rco -py,lb which he coauthored with C.H.Townes.

To make a typical hologram, a laserbeam in a darkened room is directedthrough a special mirror-called abeam-splitter—which, appropriately,splits the beam in two. One haff strikesthe subject, becomes diffracted by itsphysical features, and is reflectedthrough a piece of exposed film. Theother half shines directly onto the filmitself to act as a reference. The distortedwave fronts of the beam reflected fromthe subject combine with the undis-turbed waves of the reference beam tocreate on the film a complex pattern ofwhorls known as “interference fringes, ”These fringes consist of light and darkareas. The brighter areas correspond tospots where the two incoming beams arein phase, while the dark areas resultwhen the incoming waves are out ofphase.

When the film containing this inter-ference pattern is developed, the resultis cafled a hologram. “Hologram” comesfrom the Greek words bolos, “whole, ”and gram, “message. ” The image on thefifm bears no resemblance to the subjectrecorded, but it does contain all the op-tical information in the beam reflectedfrom the subject. When the hologram isplaced in a beam of the same type oflaser light that produced the originalpattern, the light is bent to exactly thereverse of the original conditions. Theresult is an image of the subject, fullythree-dimensional and perfectly de-tailed. 17

Liebermann’s holographic engravingalso relies on the creation of interfer-ence patterns. He became fascinatedwith the idea of sculpting with light anddrawing in space, but for a number ofreasons, conventional holographyproved unsuitable for Liebermann’s pur-poses. 18 Producing a hologram is by nomeans simple.

A special facility is required to elii-nate aU vibration of the equipment in or-ier to accurately record the minute wavekonts. Even a sound in the room can~ause enough vibration to ruin an expo-wre. IT And a hologram cannot depict atwo-dimensional painting or drawing,$ince the laser light must be reflectedkom a three-dimensional subject in or-der to reconstruct a three-dimen-sional image. II Moreover, 12” x 12’[30.48 cm x 30.48 cm) is the maximumsize hologram possible using currenttechniques—far smalfer than Lieber-mann had envisioned. 19 Finally, the ho-logram could only be viewed in a dark-ened room, 11 an impractical considera-tion for publicly displayed art. Inciden-tally, a one-room Museum of Hologra-phy, 11 Mercer Street, New York, NewYork 10013, opened in 1977 and d~playsstate of the art holographic technology.America’s largest such museum is theChicago Museum of Holography.1~

Liebermann overcame these frustrat-ing limitations with an entirely newmethod of creating a three-dimensionalimage. He uses a device of his own in-vention, a modified function plotter,How this device differs from other func-tion plotters is proprietary informationwhich the artist does not wish to divulgeat this time. 19 In mathematics, “func-tion” refers to an equation composed ofvariables and constants. Such equationshave a range of “answers” that will makethem true, and can be substituted forthe variables to satisfy the equation,This range of answers can be visuallyrepresented on a graph, usually as a lineor curve.

By using his special. function-plottingsystem Liebermann draws curved-lineor arc functions, so that the originaldrawing is translated into a complex ar-rangement of overlapping arcs. Thesearcs are then engraved directly into thework surface, where they combine toform elements very similar in form andfunction to the interference fringes of ahologram. The process is designed so

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that the artist can work in real time andwatch his creation take shape before hiseyes. 19

The effect achieved by thk process isshown in Figure 1. The images drawn bythe artist on the plotter screen are re-created, even though the configurationof the arcs themselves does not resemblethe drawing. When bright light is shoneon a surface inscribed with these arcfunctions, it is reflected back off thecurves in such a way that it is concen-trated in front of the surface in theshape of the drawing. 19 Thus, the im-ages are translated into lines of light thatseem to hover at various heights abovethe surface of the work. Moreover, asthe viewer’s perspective changes, theimage itseff changes. While certain linesand figures remain visible from allangles, others seem to appear and disap-pear. (ThB phenomenon is visible inFigures 2 through 4.) Thus the engrav-ing is not just a static work of art, but a

dynamic process. In this way, the en-graving includes itself in the viewer’srelativistic world: it appears differentfrom different angles, yet remainsalways the same.

Liebermann’s techniques representthe kind of practical success that has sofar largely eluded holography itseff.zlWhen the fwst holograms were createdin the early 1960s, the technology waswidely touted as the long-sought meansto literally add a new dimension to pho-tography, movies, and television. Ho-lography almost all but faded from viewas its limitations in this regard were dis-covered. But according to a recentOmni article, in 1976 the Soviet Unionmanaged to create a holographic moviescreen for a short, 70mm 3-D fii. Thescreen was made of elliptical mirrorsthat dwected the image to each seat, sothat if the viewer moved around orstood, he or she could actually lookaround objects onscreen. zo

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I@res 2-3: TWO photos Of “World Brain” show how the image changes with the viewer’s perspective.Some fines and figures remam Ihe same as the viewer moves pasi the work, Othem a~p~art~}shift Or tom.pletely disappear at different viewing angles.

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Fkure 4: ”World Brain” as seen from yet another perspective.

Holography has many applications in science and technology, as well. Since holograms are extremely sensitive to vibration, they can be used as a method for monitoring changes in an object caused by stress, temperature variation, or pressure. Moreover, holography’s ability to record vast amounts of detail hoEds enormous promise for the infor- mation industry.21

Since holography is on the frontiers of information storage techniques it is apt- ly, if not uniquely, suited as a medium for the creation of the “World Brain” for ISI. The work itself consists of a 3‘ x 4 ’ (91.44 cm x 121.92 cm) alu- minum alloy plate, coated with a clear plastic to enhance the natural luster of the metal. It was installed last spring in a dimly lit alcove at IS1 so that the illumi- nation provided by the single spotlight above it is turned to maximum effect.

The engraving (Figures 2 through 4) centers on the image of a human brain enclosed by a globe, nestled in a sea of biomorphic and geometric shapes, hu- man figures, and scientific equations. Especially notable is the large figure in profile emerging from the background to the right of the central image. Nearly as large as the world itself, the figure gazes down on the globe from a slightly higher position in space, while the un- finished gesture of its arm suggests that its hand is directly beneath the world, supporting and guiding it. The fact that the central image is a globe with a human brain at its center indicates the extent to which science is interwoven into the fabric of our lives.

I feel that “World Brain” is a most ap- propriate addition to the works of art at ISI. The very nature of the piece, its skillful blending of art and science, re-

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fleets the eclectic interests of the usersof ISI’s services. Liebermann’s futureprojects for 1S1 include a portablemodel of the “World Brain” holographicengraving and a sculpture of a microcir-cuit. I cordially invite anyone interestedin Liebermann’s holographic etching

technique to come and enjoy this latestaddition to the “1S1 gallery. ”

● ****

My thanks to Stephen A. Bonaduceand Patn”cia Hellerfor their help in thepreparation ofthis essay,

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