Algorithmic worlds

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2009-10-05 Fixed edges pattern

2009-10-02 Comment gadget

2009-09-23 Algorithmic architecture

2009-09-22 Multiscale art

2009-09-20 Gigapixel picture

2009-09-19 Emergent patterns

2009-09-17 Anselm Reyle

2009-09-09 Non-attenuated pattern piling

2009-09-06 A book about death

2009-09-03 Euler and Twombly

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September 6th 2009

A book about death

"A book about death" is a common exhibition at the Emily Harvey Foundation. Each artist contributes 500 postcards and visitor can take them freely during the exhibition. The opening will be on September 10 2009 (next Tuesday) from 7.30 to 11pm. I'll be there.

I contributed the following postcard, based on 20090313-1.

Being purely abstract, my works are not meant to illustrate any concept or idea beyond fractal complexity (see my artist's statement). Yet I found the decaying invader pattern of this world appropriate. Browsing quotes about death, I found this beautiful one by Arthur Schopenhauer:

After your death you'll be what you were before your birth.

I like it because, caricaturing a bit, it solves any concern you may have about death in one sentence. Even if it is not necessarily pleasant, there is not rational reason to think otherwise. What is unacceptable or inimaginable for most people adhering to religious myths about death is probably not the biological death, but rather the disappearance of the "soul", or consciousness, to use a more neutral word. Yet this happens every day, when we fall asleep. Sacrifying part of its elegance, the quotation could be sharpened as follows:

After your death you'll be what you are when you're sleeping (and not dreaming).

Enough philosophy...