“The size of an extremist ‘fringe’ and its relationship to mainstream conceptions of the faith have to be considered as they actually are, not as one might wish, or assume. When given a moment’s thought, all fundamentalisms are not in fact equivalent in their particulars, or the consequences thereof. Yet this is the default prejudice from which many commentators proceed.”

To recap briefly: Cultural equivalence is evident when Tariq Ramadan depicted those who criticise religious intolerance and intimidation as “extremists,” thereby suggesting some parity of derangement between the people who published cartoons of Muhammad, or argued for the right to do so, and the believers who made homicidal threats and set fire to occupied buildings. This echoed Karen Armstrong’s reference to “aggressive” cartoons, published “aggressively” – again, attempting to suggest parity of motive and blame, as if one excused the other or shared the same moral gravity. Perhaps we’re supposed to believe that unflattering cartoons can hurt a person in exactly the same way that, say, fists, bricks and fire do.

Cultural equivalence is also found in superficial comparisons between fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims, as if no significant differences existed or should be sought. In February, Reverend Patrick Gaffney of the University of Notre Dame blamed associations of Islam with violence on a history of anti-Islamic prejudice, insisting “there are parallel behaviours in every tradition.” Gaffney maintained there was little point looking for “distinct features” within Islamic theology that might have bearing on the wave of cartoon-related violence. Attempts to deflect attention away from theological specifics are commonplace, even habitual, though not entirely convincing. One cannot simply assume that all religious traditions are exactly equal in how they deal with various slights and taboos.

One might, for instance, contrast how the Christian Messiah and the Prophet of Islam are said to have dealt with unflattering comments. To the best of my knowledge, the New Testament doesn’t inform believers that Jesus sanctioned the assassination of his critics or mocked their dead bodies. While Muhammad did occasionally forgive those who ridiculed him, this forgiveness was by no means a typical response, particularly in his later career. Al-Nadr bin al-Harith, Kab bin al-Ashraf and Uqbah bin Abu Muayt were killed at Muhammad’s instruction in 624 AD, and the poetess Asma bint Marwan was killed the same year for writing a disrespectful verse. Given there are those who view Muhammad as exemplary in all regards and for all time, perhaps these events shouldn’t be dismissed quite so lightly.

I’m hoping to gradually transfer some of the more popular pieces from my old archive to the new blog. With that in mind, the following profile of the photographer Michael Light was first published March 2004 as a cover feature for Eye: the International Review of Graphic Design. Readers with an interest in visual culture should, of course, subscribe.

“Light contrasts the Apollo project’s unprecedented ambition and marshalling of resources with the unexpected consequences of equipping astronauts with cameras. NASA had initially dismissed the idea of their crews taking Hasselblads to the Moon and early spacecraft designs didn’t even feature windows…”

Given that Michael Light’s most famous photographic works deal with atomic bombs and rockets to the Moon, it seems appropriate to ask why he’s drawn to themes so epic in scale and dramatic in their implications: “Certainly I love high drama,” he replies, “but I think it’s more accurate to say that I’m drawn to the aesthetic of largeness, of all that is beyond ourselves, precisely because we’d be better off if we didn’t go around feeling like we were the biggest and most important things. Artistically, I’m concerned with power and landscape, and how we as humans relate to vastness – to that point at which our ego and sense of efficaciousness crumbles…”

This counterpoint of hubris and humility is a defining feature of Light’s major photographic essays, Full Moon and 100 Suns, as is an implied but poignant commentary on human vanity and its various consequences. His subject matter may be vast – both literally and morally – but Light sidesteps polemical exposition, preferring to let his images invite the inevitable questions and discussion: “Social commentary is an intrinsic, though essentially non-textual, aspect of my work”, he says. “I don’t consider myself an activist, per se, but I am a committed environmentalist and it informs my work as an artist. In my opinion, serious contemporary artistic production dealing with landscape must deal with politics and violence in some way, whether explicit or implied. Otherwise it’s just fluff, decoration for those wanting false comfort and a delusionally ahistorical and apolitical world.”

Full Moon was published worldwide to mark the 30th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing. Drawing on NASA’s archive of over 32,000 negatives and transparencies, Light distilled an extraordinary composite record, one that not only featured many previously unpublished images, but also restored an existential resonance to this most improbable journey made by the Apollo astronauts. In a lecture given to an MIT conference in Greece, Light described the purpose behind the five-year project: “I wanted to reconfigure this event which had been painted in terms of technological triumph, which it certainly was; a nationalistic triumph, which I suppose it was, but really it had been painted in typically egotistical human terms. I was interested in the Moon as a place where we come to the edge of our control, where we lose our egotism and enter into the sublime…”

Speaking of Jake Chapman, a few years ago I wrote a piece for the Guardian called Death of the Gallery. In it, I quoted Chapman lamenting the “commercialisation” of the Saatchi and Tate Modern galleries and their “increased sensitivity to a wider audience.” This broadening of access would, he claimed, “de-skill the potential of serious, discursive art” and could have “a very negative effect on the production of art itself.”

I noted: “The modern art establishment seems gripped by the institutional equivalent of existential angst. The notion of the gallery as the sole repository of artistic integrity is being called into question… The aversion to being associated with the commercial world, except as an ironic commentary, could be viewed as a kind of ‘credibility anxiety’ – a fear among many artists that, should their work be stripped of its official artistic context, very little would remain.”

Galleries and curators long ago lost any exclusive claim to art’s cutting edge. If I think of objects and ideas that inspire fascination and a sense of the possible, I don’t think of galleries or the preposterous theorising of kitsch merchants like Mr Chapman. I think of the commercial world and the realm of R&D. I think, for instance, of Jeff Han, a research scientist for New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. In the clip below Han demonstrates his intuitive touch-driven interface before a suitably mesmerised audience.

“When you have initiatives like the $100 laptop, I kind of cringe at the idea that we’re going to introduce a whole new generation of people to computing with the standard mouse and Windows pointer interface. This is something that I think is really the way we should be interacting with machines from this point on…”

Those with a taste for technicalities can learn more here. Everyone else can simply enjoy the performance and the very pretty pictures. A second showreel of multi-touch interaction can be found here.