Today I would like to talk about the immortality of art. In one of my recent articles I mentioned the well-known phrase: “Our lives are too short to read all the books we want”. Well, let’s not limit this to the art of literature and consider the whole of artistic reality. Of course, there have been people in history who have thought this way. That’s why we have the saying “Ars longa, vita brevis”.
On a more serious note, this way of thinking does not always have to be associated with constant consumption. Think about it: there is more than one branch of art that arouses your curiosity, but you are performing an art in which you can express yourself, and you still see an inadequacy. Maybe it’s about yourself, maybe it’s about the human way of understanding or the limit of our life span. Even though you continue to produce, there are moments when you feel that something is missing.
I began to think that this was not personal, but a social void in the mind and heart. After all, whoever we are, we are definitely uniform in some respects. We cannot change that because of the biological structure of humanity. Because we cannot contribute to it scientifically.
An artist has to have a structure that is critical, constructive, opposing, innovative, forward thinking and different thinking. I think some of these are innate, some come out and nourish us as we learn art, some as we teach or share the work of art. Yes, although the process works this way, the end is controversial. Art is immortal, but artists are not. Or are they?
The instinctive activity of human beings is to ensure the continuity of generations and to do whatever is necessary to achieve this. This leads to developments that leave their mark on the social context as well as on the personal level. Art and science are two of the best examples of this. Both are structures that evolve over time. So why these two? Because of their accessibility to the phenomenon of immortality.
The evolutionary process takes place through the transfer of hereditary knowledge to the next generation. We see this very much in science and art. We are always striving to add something new, better, different, more accurate, more out of the ordinary, to make us think, to raise our awareness, to amaze, to learn and to teach. To me, this is the most beautiful and unique aspect of being human.
That is why art overrides the biological process. Art has no emotions, but it becomes a means of creating emotions. The trace of each work of art will continue to echo in the background of history with the emotions it carries.
Do you think there are artists who work with this kind of thinking? I saw a video about it recently. “Long Art”, with a name created with a creativity that contradicts art itself, touches on this. It is best done naturally, otherwise it is done with repetitive slow movements.
There is a very old experiment by a professor called Thomas Parnell. It’s actually an experiment, but it’s an artistic endeavour, a scientific and artistic structure to go beyond the life of humanity. It is called the “Pitch Drop Experiment”. It started in 1927 and is still going on. You can even watch it from here, it is constantly being recorded live. It involves pouring asphalt in a similar way to a liquid structure. So far it has only flowed a total of 9 times.
The last time was in April 2014 and on average it flows every 10 years. When you look at it, I think you have a lot of thoughts in your head. Does it teach patience, remind you of hope, underline the genius of the experiment, admire the careful continuation? In fact, it can make you experience all of them. “It could fall at any moment. Now! No, now! Now?”
A machine that translates from German as “Dripping Stone Machine” was created in 1996. Its purpose is to create a stalagmite when water droplets pass through some gases in the tube and fall to the ground. The kind you see in caves. Bogomir Ecker wanted to do this not naturally, but consciously, with the help of a machine, but with time and continuity. He was so serious about this that he designed his machine, which he built in 13 years, to work for 500 years and insured it for maintenance during that period. And he predicted that at the end of this period a 5 centimetre stalagmite would form. So far, only a 5 millimetre “hill” has formed.
Strangely enough, such experiments can be set up in laboratories at an unnaturally fast rate. But the realistic structure here helps us get a glimpse of how nature works in its own way. How pure is it when we manipulate it with our own hands? Do we think we can do better than nature or, as we said at the beginning, do we not have the patience to wait? No, we are in a hurry because life is too short. We want to create works of art in our lifetime. We are afraid of losing our attachment to our home, our world, where we spend our lives. But this apparently emotionless machine will stand the test of time, even if it takes centuries, thanks to someone full of emotion and desire.
Photo by Andrés Dallimonti on Unsplash
When the pages of history show October 1993, a concrete rectangle is placed in an empty space somewhere in Germany. This is actually the whole story, there is only a block. But so much so that 10 years later it is placed again. And then again and again. On the 9th of September 2023, a fourth block is put in place and, together with its predecessors, goes to sleep for 10 years.
According to Manfred Laber’s instructions, any kind of material can be used, as long as it is of a certain size. The aim is to build a pyramid. “Zeitpyramide” will end in the year 3183 (32nd century!), but what will happen then is a matter of curiosity. Just thinking about it makes me shiver. It is an unbelievable application. It is planned to build a pyramid of 116 blocks, and the people who will contribute to it are the inhabitants of this town. When the day comes, they will all be partners in it together, witnessing life itself. Children grow up, time passes, the world changes step by step. No one has the power to stop time. Not even the stones.
Because they too have started to wear. Some parts of the first stone are “already” visibly blackened and worn. But it gives me a great feeling to think how the structure of the material will change over the years and how much it can defy time. Even though the idea’s owner passed away in 2018, the project will continue as long as possible. The local people, acting with a sense of togetherness in each block, will take the time to question the course of their own lives when it comes to switching off this alarm that sounds, so to speak, every 10 years. They will wonder and dream about the future as much as they think about the past. They will be one in thought with those around them. They will all be shaped by a person who asks for a stone to be placed on a square. Even though he will no longer be able to see the continuation of the idea, he must have thought about what all this could mean while he was dreaming the idea. It is now resonating in future ideas.
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash
Every object wears out over time: decaying wooden furniture, melted stone steps, blackened bronze busts, discoloured marble columns… But did you know that they all have a story to tell? Who knows how many times you have sat on that fifty-year-old chair, how many soldiers have climbed the stone steps of that tower, how many desperate people have touched and polished those blackened bronze busts, and what a riot of colour those unimaginable sculptures of the past were painted with?
We have mentioned the repeated strokes of nature, the determination of man, the judgement of patience, but the submission of each to the sublime time. Perhaps they are not yet finished, and perhaps, if the artist’s hope is carefully preserved, they will achieve the expected result. I wonder if they will have the same feelings in the future? Will they share our understanding of art? If not, will these cease to be art?
And what happens in the end, what is it all for? Is it to be able to say, “Look, I thought like this, future people, are you like me, can you carry our feelings”? Is it a plea, a cry, a message to the future and a desire to convey that we are here? An invisible, abstract bridge between the past and the future. An example of silent intertemporal communication.
Art comes from the hands of man, but it is greater than man; it will always continue its journey through time, albeit in a way that transcends us. Art is immortal. We, mortal architects of immortal structures, will scratch our anonymous signatures and leave this land of time that we cannot resist.
Sometimes with art, sometimes with science, but always with the hope of transcending the limits of humanity.
“… We’ve grown used to the idea of space And perhaps we forget that we’ve only just began We’re still pioneers Sometimes painful things like this happen It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted It belongs to the brave Nothing ends here …”
— Address to the nation by then US President Ronald Reagan following the explosion of the Challenger spacecraft.
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