- Venue
- Surface Gallery
- Location
- East Midlands
Apeiron: The unlimited, the boundless; the raw stuff out of which all things arise and into which they dissolve again.
The purpose of science in explaining how and bringing to light new phenomena has lead not only to the stripping down and condensing of knowledge and belief, but also to the potential limitation of the imagination in presenting a boundary. In discovering the fragmentation of light through a prism Newton liberated scientific phenomena and revealed more about the essence of light and colour. This received great acclaim from scientists but was reproved by the romantic writer Keats who accused Newton of “unweaving the rainbow by reducing it to a prism”. Is it saddening to hear “Budded-Tyrian” and “Vermillion-spotted” turn to violet and green?
The human body is the finest multifaceted organism in the world, the physical form of which can be pulled apart and analysed. We are a combination of sixty elements, all of which are common within our planet. Water is our primary component, in equal measure as on the surface of earth. Science has previously told us that there is no empty space within our bodies and that every nanometre is used to its potential. The discovery of the atom, however, might change that. The molecular structure of an atom implies the electrons have space to move, suggesting there is empty space within the body.
Whilst the physical form can be analysed with spectrometers and micro-scales, the other element which exists like ether is unquantifiable. Religious texts mention the soul, a spiritual side to our being. We certainly have personalities but how are they defined? We may be able to psychoanalyse and create profiles, but if the soul exists, how do we describe it? Can it be seen as a physical form, or does it dwell in that empty space? Does the idea of a spirit conflict with science, or compliment it? If we cannot contain or define it, does this mean it does not exist?
DG: If faith is choosing to believe without evidence, and gaining evidence means we have knowledge, can we have knowledge and still believe?
AP: Um…
The three major religions tell us we are made from clay, water and/or a clot of blood. That we are made from the earth and it is the earth we go back to when we die. So the idea that there is a common substance that makes up humans and the world is plausible, and not something new.
It is not just present in Judaism, Christianity and Islam but in Hinduism and Taoism. Both prana and ch’i introduce the notion of a life-sustaining force and a vital energy present within all the natural processes of the universe. Hindu’s believe that this is a piece of the almighty being present in every living thing; and ch’i is explained as the “energy that makes the sky blue and the grass green”.
This all-inhabiting energy could be understood as an atom or something even smaller but nevertheless this is what all things, animate and inanimate, have in common. Could we therefore morph from form to form, shape to shape, species to species? Does nature offer us the ability to metamorphose into something else?
Where is the line that distinguishes humans from animals or from any other living thing? If we can replace a human heart with that of a pig’s what else is possible. Should we then be surprised when we hear of the man whose genes caused tree-like roots to grow from his arms?
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Humans and plant sediments are compressed over millions of years, turning eventually into oil and coal. The remains of our ancestors support us today, filling our petrol tanks and fuelling our BBQ’s. Through an artificial acceleration of this process it is now possible to create a diamond from human ashes. Perhaps millions of years into the future, if we do not become a piece of jewellery, a new transmuted race will burn the last traces of mankind’s footsteps excavated through a strata of rock. Perhaps the bodies of kings, queens and emperors will one day provide plugs for barrels.
Humans thrive on putting things in containers; writing labels, defining things by placing a secure boundary to it. The placing of one space within another, like a Russian doll, offers us clarity in defining our location. We understand our relationship with physical space by the container we occupy; I am in an art gallery. We understand physical space by its container; the gallery is a room in a building, in a city, in the world, and so on. Humans are three-dimensional beings, which indicates we exist in and understand three dimensions. As a result we can look at and expand one and two-dimensional things; however it leaves us unable to comprehend a fourth dimension. I’m sat in a toilet cubicle, but the toilet paper is on the outside of the door.
It is not that this doesn’t exist, or that we need to question it, but that the human mind simply cannot comprehend it. We are unable to understand the notion of infinity or timelessness. Space and time are infinite, yet we have a need to categorise and label them, to say I was there at that time. We require such a framework to operate within, this is in part a need to belong, to know where we fit, “you can stand under my umbrella”. Do we raise the ultimate question, what is the meaning of life?
DG: Can we change the world? (Breathing deeply) Um. (He laughs, paces back and forth. Sits, stares into space. Smiles. Head in hand like The Thinker) Okay, like, Does my existence change anything? Or is it just the influence I have on those around me? (Pulls a face) You want more? (Laughs) Is it just that thing where (pause) you live, reproduce, well, live and learn, reproduce your offspring in the hope they will learn more, and, well, they continue the cycle? (Pause) But that’s all a bit, superficial, isn’t it? I mean, surely its deeper than that (pause), I don’t want to say to love, that’s too flaky.
AP: (Sat holding fluffy white elephant says) I think it’s about transition. Leaving physical evidence. There’s life in the womb, with… where you can, as a baby… you can hear what’s going on, feel vibrations of the outside world; prove your existence through ultrasound… and there’s. (Pauses, thinking, throws and catches elephant) there’s life in this world, and today we want to capture everything through photographs, material things. (Pauses, shakes elephant) A symbol of permanence (pause) and then we leave the world unseen. Is there life after time spent buried in the earth? Underground. (Hesitating, throws elephant again) We don’t know. There are no photographs or ultrasounds of this.
Arguably we have the capacity to entertain things we cannot define. We can accept that space is infinite, but to do that we must not attempt to understand it. Quantifying space is a means of orientating oneself, by adding meaning to the world around us but also a means of distinguishing between what we can and cannot fathom. We cannot fathom the concept of infinite space. It stops in the heavens or as far as the imagination can stretch to envisage a universe.
This metaphysical debate could itself go on for infinity, until either a conclusion is reached or definitions are presented to us. As our lives are finite, do we assume all things are?
Alia Pathan and Dan Green.