"As a single proton fills our screen, we reach the edge of present understanding..."
Written and directed by the dynamic duo, Ray Eames and her husband, Charles, for IBM in 1968. Not altogether unlike Hubble 3D, which I saw at IMAX recently. A humbling reminder that my theological grid is perhaps too small. http://www.powersof10.com/
I've posted this elsewhere not too long ago, but I've been feeling a bit down and felt like reflecting on a thing of beauty. I am moved, in part, by this project's sheer impracticality. Would that I were there to have seen it in person. Wonder for wonder's sake. Info on The Sultan's Elephant can be found here.
"I have the strangest feeling today, something in between grief and joy, sad that I will never see that beautiful Little Giant or that gargantuan Elephant and happy that I had the privilege to meet them. Thank you for reminding me how to be a child and for realising that cynicism is not a way of life" - The Londoner
It is sometimes difficult for me to articulate why a work of art may move me the way that it does. It's not uncommon for me to stand transfixed before a work of art, having lost any sense of time, while someone stands idly by, waiting for me to get over it. Caving to social propriety, I'll pull myself out of the way apologizing and say, "It took me somewhere."
Of course, different works may interest us for different reasons, but when I consider the pieces I find most compelling, they tend to evoke in me a profound sense of longing or reminiscence - even a sense of grief - for something I have no awareness of ever having known. It can be at once strange yet familiar, like a passing scent that suddenly overwhelms with emotion, although you can't remember why, or like a vague recollection of a dream you'd forgotten long ago. Occasionally, a work of art will leave me overwhelmed by a sense of loss over something I have no language for, but can only intuit. It is a sadness, yes, but in the sweetest sense; it is a sadness with a tenuous hope that will forever be just out of reach. Within my present framework, I categorize these experiences somewhere within the spheres of the mystical and spiritual. I find them to be other and transcendent.
I was reminded recently of experiences C.S. Lewis was said to have had as a student of ancient mythology many years before his religious conversion. In one instance, while reading Saga of King Olaf, Lewis read the passage, "I heard a voice that cried, 'Balder the beautiful is dead, is dead....'" Describing his response, Lewis wrote, "Instantly I was uplifted into huge regions of the northern sky. I desired with almost sickening intensity something never to be described..." In another, while reading Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods, Lewis wrote that he was engulfed in "a vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic...and with that plunge back into my own past there arose at once, almost like heartbreak, the memory of Joy itself...at once I knew (with fatal knowledge) that to 'have it again' was the supreme and only important object of desire."
The ambiguity of what I'm attempting to reflect upon here gives me pause. I would be remiss in appropriating Lewis's experiences of what he would come to call "Joy" as my own. I simply cannot know that what he experienced with mythology, is what I sometimes experience with art. Still, I do think I discern some similarities, and I find it interesting to consider the possibility that Lewis may have been attempting to describe a similar phenomenon.
But what of all this? I don't know. I suppose I'm just reflecting on the seemingly indescribable place a work of art can take me to sometimes. I apologize to anyone who actually read this; I am beginning to suspect this post was a heap of nonsensical drivel. For what it's worth, there is a video compilation of works by swiss sound artist Zimoun above. Perhaps it will take you somewhere.
The person that has unequivocally influenced me most during my seminary career has been Barry Taylor. He recently shared his thoughts on Theology After Google at Claremont School of Theology. I missed the conference due to finals, so I was thrilled to learn his talk was online...
Friends of mine know that I'm just as likely to be found in an art museum as a religious service on any given Sunday afternoon. I often find a few hours of theological contemplation with art to be more spiritually constructive and edifying than attending a conventional religious service. In part, I suppose this is because I understand art and religion to be asking the same questions, and although different texts may at times hint at divergent conclusions, I believe that art and religion are ultimately endeavors toward the same end. This Sunday, Lauf der Dingeserved as a point of entry into meditations on theodicy, free will, and modes of being. I suspect this piece may serve to inform my thesis project somehow. I'll need to sit with this one a bit...
The Way Things Go (German: Der Lauf der Dinge) is a 1987 art film by the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss. It documents a long causal chain assembled of everyday objects, resembling a Rube Goldberg machine.
The machine is in a warehouse, about 100 feet long, and incorporates materials such as tires, trash bags, ladders, soap, oil drums, and gasoline. Fire and pyrotechnics are used as chemical triggers. The film is nearly 29 minutes, 45 seconds long, but some of that is waiting for something to burn, or slowly slide down a ramp.
The film evolved out of work the artists did on their earlier photography series, "Quiet afternoon," (German: Stiller Nachmittag) of 1984-1985. As the delicately unstable assemblages they constructed for the photos were apt to almost immediately collapse, they decided that they wanted to make use of this energy. The film may also have been inspired by the video work of fellow Swiss artist, Roman Signer. The artists undoubtably saw his video work which was exhibited at the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1981. Signer's videos often document objects performing simple actions that are the result of physical phenomena.
Until 27 January, 2009 it was being shown at the Western Australian Museum in Perth as part of the temporary exhibition "Experimenta Playground". - Wikipedia
