The opinions expressed in this essay are the author’s own.
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About the Artist/PhotographerArtist/photographer Nancy Burson’s work is shown in museums and galleries internationally. She has served as a visiting professor at Harvard and was a member of the adjunct photography faculty at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is best known for her pioneering work in morphing technologies which age enhance the human face and still enable law enforcement officials to locate missing children and adults. Her Human Race Machine was used for over a decade as a diversity tool that provided viewers with the visual experience of being another race. |
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A still image from a video recorded in front of the painting, Quantum Entanglement #3 in the dark. This was a 1/60 of a second flash of light recorded between the darkness and the light. © 2021 Nancy Burson
By the mid-1980’s I was known as the pioneer of facial morphing, ironically challenging the notion of photographic truth at the birth of digital manipulation. However, from the mid 90’s, my own ill health propelled me to seek alternative approaches to western medicine. When I began to meditate and study metaphysics, I found I was somehow able to photograph the energy around myself and others. And with my newfound skills, recovering health, and perception of destiny suddenly changed, I was immediately drawn to the documentation of my own personal experience.
Now, my truth in photography lies in what I see, and what I see has evolved. When I began to see tiny snippets of brilliant lights twinkling in white, blue, red, and purple, no one I asked could explain them. I’m a science-based person, so no angelic explanation made sense. My mother was a lab technician, and my favorite memories of my childhood recall our visits to the bacteriology lab where I would do fake experiments with real blood. I left behind the notions of spirituality expressed by my teachers and fully embraced my observations as science.
Through the decades, those luminous flashes of light expanded and eventually began to communicate as well. But I don’t see dead people, or angels, or aliens. I see physics. I see what appears around me as grids of golden threads. I see the “cosmic web” in the darkness and the light of day. I see its emergent patterns sitting quietly on the land as it appears to cover the Earth in a curved weblike structure. I see luminous flashes of light and tiny interlocking spirals of silver light. I see brilliant blue tentacles of electromagnetism with their glowing white nuclei that undulate through the air like jellyfish. I’ve been photographing what I see for over 25 years now. I view it as my collaboration with whatever word you’d plug in that best represents your guidance: Consciousness, God, the Universe, and/or, ... Truth.
The landscapes I took 15 years ago I find are more pertinent than ever today. They constitute documentation of the “balls of light” often referred to as “Orbs,” which appear to be a type of ionized plasma energy. The Orb phenomena have been appearing on digital cameras for over two decades and have also been documented on video using cell phones. I began to see the orbs and photograph them around 2000. They seemed to respond to intention so when I wanted them to appear, they did!
Now, my truth in photography lies in what I see, and what I see has evolved. When I began to see tiny snippets of brilliant lights twinkling in white, blue, red, and purple, no one I asked could explain them. I’m a science-based person, so no angelic explanation made sense. My mother was a lab technician, and my favorite memories of my childhood recall our visits to the bacteriology lab where I would do fake experiments with real blood. I left behind the notions of spirituality expressed by my teachers and fully embraced my observations as science.
Through the decades, those luminous flashes of light expanded and eventually began to communicate as well. But I don’t see dead people, or angels, or aliens. I see physics. I see what appears around me as grids of golden threads. I see the “cosmic web” in the darkness and the light of day. I see its emergent patterns sitting quietly on the land as it appears to cover the Earth in a curved weblike structure. I see luminous flashes of light and tiny interlocking spirals of silver light. I see brilliant blue tentacles of electromagnetism with their glowing white nuclei that undulate through the air like jellyfish. I’ve been photographing what I see for over 25 years now. I view it as my collaboration with whatever word you’d plug in that best represents your guidance: Consciousness, God, the Universe, and/or, ... Truth.
The landscapes I took 15 years ago I find are more pertinent than ever today. They constitute documentation of the “balls of light” often referred to as “Orbs,” which appear to be a type of ionized plasma energy. The Orb phenomena have been appearing on digital cameras for over two decades and have also been documented on video using cell phones. I began to see the orbs and photograph them around 2000. They seemed to respond to intention so when I wanted them to appear, they did!
Phenomenal Landscape Series, 2003. © Nancy Burson
Phenomenal Landscape Series, Day 5, 2004. © Nancy Burson
Phenomenal Landscape Series, Day 6, 2004. © Nancy Burson
A video clip taken on my cell phone of three orbs of light surrounding a friend on Skype. The first orb appears on the left and the second two appear on the right. He turned around when I told him there were balls of light around him. (Face blur is intentional.) © 2018 Nancy Burson
Best viewed at full screen.
Best viewed at full screen.
Perpetual Mary is a glow-in-the-dark figurine that I use as a tool for others to see and experience the energy surrounding her. Shown as an installation/performance in the darkness, most attendees see Mary appear to move in a memorable interweaving of ionized plasma phenomena with a form of visual acuity. Most people also see some aspect of energy in the form of tiny flickers of multicolored light, and/or patches or spheres of light. Many also see the cosmic web as delicate, lattice-like patterns of silvery-grey light. Viewers experiencing these phenomena find it to be profound, as I still do! However, even though Mary seems miraculous, I explain that it’s physics; it’s the energy around Mary that appears to move her.
The Vesica Piscis is an ancient symbol for Mary which consists of two overlapping circles. In physics, those same entwined circles represent quantum entanglement, or what Einstein referred to as “Spooky action at a distance.” Quantum entanglement states that there is a relationship between the smallest of particles, no matter how far they are apart. In fact, scientists just took their first picture of it in July 2019.
The Vesica Piscis is an ancient symbol for Mary which consists of two overlapping circles. In physics, those same entwined circles represent quantum entanglement, or what Einstein referred to as “Spooky action at a distance.” Quantum entanglement states that there is a relationship between the smallest of particles, no matter how far they are apart. In fact, scientists just took their first picture of it in July 2019.
Diptych: (left) the actual photo of Quantum Entanglement’s entangled particles. Courtesy University of Glasgow. Overlay with Vesica Piscis, (right). Courtesy Nancy Burson.
Perpetual Mary video. © 2021 Nancy Burson
Best viewed at full screen.
Best viewed at full screen.
I made three paintings which are formally comprised of thousands of sets of eyes I’ve used to represent the entanglement of particles. The paintings appear to pulse or flash as seen on both high and low resolution video, in both the light and darkness. As such, they seem to function in the same way as quantum theory in wave like patterns that are bright then dark, bright then dark, etc. The color filled particles in the videos of the almost entirely black and white paintings recorded in total darkness spin in different directions, mimicking the way quantum entanglement operates. The lower resolution of a FaceTime video from a person with their cell phone focused on the painting to another viewing it on their cell phone provides an example of quantum entanglement meant to be experiential.
The actual painting: Quantum Entanglement #2. © 2021 Nancy Burson
Short video of Quantum Entanglement #2 with 5 pulses shot in daylight. © 2021 Nancy Burson
Best viewed at full screen.
Best viewed at full screen.
Examples of emergent behavior patterns that I see as the cosmic web.
Left to right:
1. Space taken from Mars, 2020. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
2. The Night Sky. © 2019 Arif Minhaz
3. The Space Around Me. © 2021 Nancy Burson
Left to right:
1. Space taken from Mars, 2020. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
2. The Night Sky. © 2019 Arif Minhaz
3. The Space Around Me. © 2021 Nancy Burson
This video was shot in front of the painting, Quantum Entanglement #2 in the dark. You can see the particles spinning, especially if you focus on the middle. © 2021 Nancy Burson
Best viewed at full screen.
Best viewed at full screen.
I believe that quantum theory holds the keys to the deepest mysteries of the cosmos and that the experience of seeing beyond normal vision brings us closer to the understanding that we are a part of the vastness of space that can in fact be seen all around us. That is my truth in photography and what I’ve been documenting through my images for over two decades.
A still image from another video recorded in front of the Quantum Entanglement #2 painting in the dark. © 2021 Nancy Burson
