Origins Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago July 29-October 16, 2011 Humanity's attempts to understand our origins are inextricably linked with light. Certain faiths hold that God proclaimed let there be light; scientist Edwin Hubble estimated universe's age by observing light wavelengths of distant galaxies. Photography's fascination with light is total, making it an ideal medium through which to explore questions of our beginnings. The recent exhibition Our Origins, at Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, brought together sixteen artists who take various approaches to exploring questions of our inception. Images of cosmic light and energy appear in several of works in Our Origins. For his video projection, The Most Important Picture Ever (2008), Ken Fandell performed a Google search for phrase the most important picture ever; result was Hubble Space Telescope's ten-day exposure of deep space and distant galaxies. Fandell then animated image to reveal galaxies expanding and meshing, appearing like floating paint dribbles and drabs, set to a chilled-out instrumental soundtrack (actually a slowed-down, computer-manipulated version of The Who's stadium anthem Won't Get Fooled Again). The drifting images are soothing, inspiring more relaxation than awe. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Artist team Semiconductor took a different approach to images of outer space with their video piece Black Rain (2009). Black-and-white footage from NASA cameras currently circling sun is shown raw and unprocessed; visual distortions, caused by violent solar flares, abound. The projection was rotated and shown vertically, thus typical left-to-right scrolling of camera instead became an unsettling rise toward blinding light of sun. Solar wind provides a patchy, hissy soundtrack to complete sensory experience. If Fandell's piece invited one to relax and enjoy trippy visuals, Semiconductor emphasized harsh and unrelenting energy that shapes and defines our universe. Aspen Mays offered selections from her Punched Out Stars series: photos of outer space with stars removed by a hole puncher. However it's her piece 1% of this is from The Big Bang (2008) that most boggles mind. The artist created a chromogenic paper negative (and its positive) from light emitted by television static. But this is no ordinary light. NASA claims that one percent of television static is result of radiation left over from Big Bang. The prints invite a meditative gaze while mind reels: this may be as close as we can get to having a camera present thirteen billion years ago at beginning of universe. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Compared to multi-billion year age of universe, Earth and all its contents are cosmic newborns. However, in human terms, ages of objects depicted in Rachel Sussman's The Oldest Living Things in (he (in progress) are astonishing. Her images of individual plants, trees, and other organisms that have lived longer than two thousand years are elegant yet matter-of-fact; Sussman acts as a visually astute documentarian, letting these ancient objects speak louder than artist. Mark Ruwedel's well-crafted silver gelatin prints of fossilized dinosaur tracks in American West convey a feeling of awe similar to Sussman's work. The power of Ruwedel's series is presence: both photograph and footprint are impressions of something having been there. His visual records invite reflection on these creatures' existence as well as relative brevity of human history. Alison Carey also looks to past, but her eye does not seek extant remnants of distant past. Instead, in her series Organic Remains of a Former World (2005), Carey uses clay to sculpt models of visual environment of Paleozoic Era, which she then submerges in an aquarium and photographs. …