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MORPHIUM. This is the title of a 2001-02 workgroup. Here I am not referring to the drug morphine or to the term morph�, but suggesting instead a fictitious form material, �Morphium�. The work focuses on �Morphium� as a material, static and accurate appearance, but as an amorphous, mathematically incomprehensible expression in the form of a discontinuity of curves.

This contradiction is defined even more precisely in the application of phosphorescent glow paint, so that the objects are shining diaphanously out of the dark. Each sculpture is suspended from one point, by which the impression produced is that of shapes floating freely in space, their radiant light slowly fading. Comparable to an anachronism, a time-shifted reflection of the light that struck earlier is produced, a kind of �delayed light�. From the real- time experience of the world, which assumes spatial proximity, an optical sculpture is created by the afterglow, which even from a distance allows us to absorb actual events, time-shifted and in slow motion, without the filter of electronic media. Surprisingly, recent research brought to light results as follows: Taking a big step in manipulating light, physicist Lene Hau of Harvard University used a superchilled gas to stop a laser beam travelling � like all light � at 186.282 miles a second�. 1. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, Oct. 2001, page 10

In an illuminated state light and shadows behave as usual. In the case of afterglow, however, only self-shadows and projected shadows (occlusion of light from parts of the body to another part of it) are appearing on the side turned away from the light source. However, owing to the hanging fastening, cast shadows (shadows projected onto other objects) can only occur as total or partial

eclipses of the other sculptures, without leaving traces on the walls, floor or ceiling, but, if moved by touch or by draft of air, unlike natural shadows, they are �memorized�. So we have here, to put it in an exaggerated way, almost cosmical circumstances. The �yawning� holes in the light are nevertheless not black holes, they are � voids.