2002 – THE YEAR OF DOUBTS/DOUBLES IN ARTPOOL | A KÉTSÉG ÉVE


BESANT, Derek Michael (CDN)

MAIL, etc., FLUX (art) WORLD exhibition

[magyarul]

5 + 1 = 2

Doubleness… the two sides of the brain, left brain/right brain. The purest law of physics states that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. This sets in motion the possibility for mirror-duality; that is that as everything moves forward, its reflection is moving at the same speed, backwards simultaneously. We are, therefore, caught in the continual present tense , impaled on the horns of this duality. I’ve always been intrigued by the mirror that is held up to divide the face into its two selves; the dual personality. Everyone carries these two selves that, when combined, act as our facial façade. However, the two sides, reflected of themselves, reveal two distinct selves that are as unique as two slightly familiar twins. The number 6 is divided by 2 equaling 3; but it really means that there are two (2) equal parts of three that go together to make up 6 (six).

Doubt… I have always heard that travel stirs two emotions in a person…desire and doubt. Doubt is our sixth sense, it keeps us cautious and respectful of fear. It allows us to question the motive. It forgets what it thought it knew and hesitates on the edge of the abyss. Doubt is the conscious inner self that cannot quite believe the outer world as real. Doubt is the mistress of desire.

Symmetries…. The divided self. The highway stretching off into the distance depends on fearful symmetry to move into that space. Two arms, two legs, two hands, two ears, two eyes, two breasts, two testicles, two nostrils, two by two into the Ark… Heaven and Earth. Symmetry is a lie however, for there must be subtle differences that exist by chance alone. The crumbled edge of perfection in symmetrical architecture. The airplane with its wings and wheels and jet engines, must have more molecules of metal in one wing over the other, even though appearances would tell us otherwise. The concept of imagining symmetry is enough to undermine the perfect state it seeks, for in everything there is something unseen, unheard, or untouched…all of which lie to us of the two equals in our mind.

Dissymmetry… the undoing of time. Moving through our contemporary time and space we become selective about the past even to rewrite fact in order to make the case for some current foothold theoretically. But how interesting to go about the theory that two wrongs add up to a right. The balance between two different objects, for example, on the scale that weigh the same… on one side picture a pound of feathers. On the other; a pound of steel… which weighs more?

Paradox… is its own ponderous dilemma. What interests us is the truth. What is more interesting is the false invention of the truth. We can understand the sky being blue, or that a dog can run; however what of those fire sunsets or the bus that goes by with the dog painted on its side? All these signs and triggering devices in which we attempt to name our surroundings, are our language. Language is the largest paradox of all. Language is the gesture whereby we give meaning to all that is really meaningless. You think you understand the meaning because you hear and know the words; but the thing that is real just sits there anyway…uneffected by the sea of language it is drowning in.

(+1) and other parallel realities … we conjure up these “other” realities I order to see by not looking. In a virtual Society, everything will look the same. Nothing will be dated, rather it will always be new because it lives within the digital matrix of the program. The program will become the new religion.. it already has… here I am, praying to the light on the other side of my computer screen, where nothing ever ages… the mother and daughter in the photograph have different ages, birthdays, features… But all this is translated (or, retranslated) into the reality held by the grid of waiting digital pixels in my scanner, that will redefine the daughter and mother into the new language of the same skin. This skin hold the information in itself for us to now read. Everything is the same now. Everything can be output as a parallel reality, a parallel universe if you will. In this world, not only does 5+1=2…it also equals 6. But just as easily it could be 3… the new math will dissolve in a parallel reality. Math will become the grid instead of the symmetrical highway we drive on. If you go faster or slower things will appear to be closer than you are to them. If you have five trains (5) heading in different directions at the same time along miles of the same track (1) … how many directions can they be going? (why, only (2) two, of course). 5 + 1 = 2.