[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.24.0″ _module_preset=”default” min_height=”509.7px” custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”30px||||false|false” box_shadow_style=”preset1″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.24.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.24.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_heading title=”Rudie Berkhout (1946\u20132008)” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_heading][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n
When Rudie Berkhout died on 16th September 2008, the holography community lost something special.\u00a0 Not just the \u2018normal\u2019 loss of a friend or a colleague or an associate or a passing encounter, but the loss of someone who believed in the creative aspects of the medium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gabor always thought that his invention was destined for creativity (along with all the more measurable, practical and sometimes salable avenues it developed into),\u00a0 but it was Rudie who helped highlight just how creative it could be. Along with his peers who pushed the boundaries of the medium in the late 1970\u2032s and early 1980\u2032s, he established a benchmark.<\/p>\n
I remember interviewing Rudie in New York some time in early 1981, during my Fulbright Scholarship at the Museum of Holography.\u00a0 He was incredibly generous with his comments and insight.
What was fascinating was his clear understanding that what he was doing deserved a degree of respect from the creative establishment.\u00a0 For some that smacked of arrogance, but it was based on the premise that all work should be treated with respect.\u00a0 It was a time when people were incredibly excited about holography.<\/p>\n
When I asked him how he did what he did (the actual technical process involved in creating something like his seminal piece 12mW Boogie) there was an immediate response, coached with a smile.\u00a0 If he told me that then I\u2019d be able to reproduce his technique which would undermine his own work and sales.\u00a0 I found that shocking, having been \u2018brought up\u2019 for the past 5 years in an excited university environment where art and technology offered the promise of new areas of research and a possible new aesthetic.\u00a0 Sharing cutting edge discoveries was a prerequisite.\u00a0 But in holography, this was a time of \u2018possession\u2019 and keeping techniques close to the chest, just in case the phenomenon became \u2018big\u2019 and you missed out on the millions.<\/p>\n
I thought he was wrong.\u00a0 I had no desire to reproduce what he did, (as much as I admired it), I had my own questions to ask.\u00a0 Later I began to understand what he meant.\u00a0 He did protect his \u2018technique\u2019 for many years, but actually it wasn\u2019t really an issue.\u00a0 There are hundreds of Berkhout look-alike works which neither display the power, soul nor integrity of the originals which inspired them.\u00a0 There will always be pale reproductions of any pioneering work and some of them will be made with a respectful passion, but in the end a Berkhout is a Berkhout \u2013 something we can learn from, feast on and remember with enthusiasm \u2013 like the man who made them.<\/p>\n
\u2018Blazing a trail\u2019 is a bland platitude thrown in the direction of many, but in Rudie\u2019s case it was true.\u00a0 He scorched a path and set his standards high.\u00a0 In a field which was happy to reproduce the \u2018object\u2019 as a demonstration of a remarkable holographic effect, Rudie chose the ephemeral, the condensed and the sensitivity which is only manifest in a balanced work which explores light in its own terms.
He had a quiet calm, and an intense commitment.\u00a0 He will be sadly missed.<\/p>\n
Andrew Pepper<\/p>\n
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