Thousands of origami. Voices articulating haiku and radiation traveling as far as it is able to given the presence of tiny particles of gold invisible to the naked eye. The information received from all of these events can drive us to investigate qualities of vision, the transformation of thought and materials and our notions of value and beauty.
A night sky holds in some sense, no less wonder than it did 1000 years ago, yet the wonderment has taken new shapes, is asking different questions. Far from wrathful deities, now time bends supernovae and dark matter exists at the edges of what we comprehend, filling the 'void' and the discovery itself transforming the meaning of the word. Similarly, when a flock of starlings takes to the air at dusk to harvest emerging insects, we no longer seek to know the smartest and most charismatic of these birds. This following of a simple set of algorithms now shows us a mirror. We look to ourselves and to the building of cities, rapid-transit systems and digital networks. We know that these things are related. Connected. That they are all the same.
The framing of our intuitive associations, (some perhaps built into our DNA) with the edge of our perceptive technologies asks us to delve deeply into self-reflection. When do we know things? Why do we feel compelled - through punishing failure and regret - to discover and create for ourselves ? We continue to forge ahead. To try to become new - to redefine ourselves through the advancement of our thoughts and technologies - we imagine, design, make, and we destroy - only to make again. And we accumulate associations as we do memories: as mutable shadows and flickering visions, as we continually develop our sense of the world - discovering over time, what meaning itself is - even as it continues to re-form and be re-defined.
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I think the most fascinating concept of this piece is the idea of transformation, especially that in humans. For example, (an idea sparked by the film "Waking Life") everyone accepts that they were once a baby; people often share childhood pictures of themselves with one another and no one argues that the 2-dimensional image is someone other than the person showing it.
ReplyDeleteBut in truth, the human body completely regenerates its cells every 7 years. So, on a biological level, one could say that a person has lived as three different people by the time they are 21. The mental transformation is extremely apparent when looking back at old journals. The handwriting is foreign, the perspective seems like that of a completely different person. While certain details may seem vaguely familiar and others may seem quite vivid, memories have been known to be unreliable. Of course, many parts of the individual remain constant, but it is strange and bizarre to consider how much an individual changes in a single lifetime.
In conclusion we are not only changing on societal level with each new invention and piece of technology that stretches human capability, but constantly on an individual and elemental level.