Caves create museums.
What do they keep in the Cave of Generosity?
Exploration of the museums creates drawings.
Is there a way to make a perfect copy?
Praxis of drawing creates Atlases.
How do they organize their thoughts?
The abundance of books creates libraries.
What do they keep there?
Libraries create explanations.
How can they share it?
Explanations create schools.
What would be the perfect place?
Public places create private ones.
Where can you establish a study room?
Study rooms create praxis.
What would you do when you are alone?
Praxis creates the self–esteem.
Who is in control of your container?
Understanding the body creates time.
How do you perceive the moment?
The moment is random.
Do you understand the algorithm?
The calculation went well.
Where were you?
I
The past is changing more often than the way we perceive it. The illusion that our world is static supported in the XX century by museums and historians who dig through the ashes of civilizations can no longer stand up to the challenges of today. What do we do with our thoughts if from the very day we are born we are immersed in the synthetic reality of long-held beliefs about values? Do we really want to be taught to accept these established truths and are we to consider the ideas expressed in the books as the basis of our existence?
Museum
Collection
Magic
Faith
Ritual
Artifact
1
In their dark luxurious caves museums store artifacts of memory. When we enter a bright museum room, our gaze falls upon things the museums themselves want to keep in memory. So, what is it all about? What conclusions are we supposed to draw? Whose pottery fragments are these? What do we know about the vase’s owner? Why was it dropped so as to burst into fragments? What was the purpose of dressing the horses? How were people making gold out of mud? What higher powers did they consider their allies? Were they ever scared? Were they satisfied with their lives which were centered around clay or were bronze teeth really not that bad?
2
By copying the observed and building the mirror of our own perception we learn to see certain parts of the world through a drawing. It takes a while to put into practice. We want it to look natural, but usually all we get is some pale copy. You were planning to depict some particular thing, but your hand happened to slip and you got an absolutely different result. But this different thing, does it mean that you made a mistake or that you saw something they had asked you to ignore? Does a misreading mean wrong perception? Why are we made to read only those letters which are visible? Is it forbidden to read between the lines, to read what is left behind the brackets? The most secret and interesting is outside the fence of your neighbour’s farmyard. The most desired things are outside the fence.
3
Okay, good, we found everything. Let’s find out how to put it altogether into a certain system. There must be some general rules, something which works as a part of the whole system. I seem to have discovered a relationship. It may not be immediately visible, but I’ll try to explain. No, no, not that, on the other side. Wait a little. I’m pointing to another thing, what are you all looking at? Yes, I agree, they are similar in shape, and you’re right, it’s absolutely impossible to identify exactly what objects are pictured. There’s no mistake, these are the objects meant to be presented. Precisely. And exactly in that order.
II
The idea of the «here and now» is not the least among us, it has its source in our heart, runs through our feelings and ends at the edge of our thoughts. The fluidity of this idea is constantly exposed to the wind, to voices and to notifications. In order to better understand the flow of time you can try to remove external influences from this formula. The external will come tomorrow, but in the present there is nothing but you. Voilà! Your heart is beating with joy, your breath envelopes the organs, your blood keeps your soul afloat.
Space
Shell
Material
Action
Mindset
Documentation
1
Imagine yourself coming into the classroom 90 minutes late for a lecture. The professor is absorbed in explanation. Nobody’s talking – it’s very difficult to manage to take notes, let alone analyse them. We’re following an invisible hand and pretend to have been there all the time. Tomorrow we are supposed to retell the lecture. How can we retell things we didn’t even manage to understand? The notes are useless. But my interpretation is the fruit of my perception. Do I deserve to have an opinion after all? But the retelling is intended for the asker and his opinion can be different. How should I retell what I understood without being mistaken? Or maybe I have the right to make a mistake?
2
Could the idea of influence, of compound and of decomposition be understood by some other means rather than by touch? Can we touch the other side of the screen? What determines the life of an image behind the protective glass with illusion projection? One touch makes it possible not only to provoke the reaction of the receiving material, but also to study your own receptors. The cat’s rough tongue. Its hair. A ray of sunshine on the cheek. The atmosphere in an old apartment. All this consists of tiny balls. A long time ago thought the sheer willpower of millions of people, we agreed to call these constellations of balls just this way. And each of these combinations has its own characteristics, wishes and will.
III
The future is an illusion, a figure of speech. There is only the now that matters, the now which combines an endless number of options in multidimensional space. It happens that everything around is falling apart and we take it for fate and degradation. But it also happens that objects, people and actions line up in a harmonious image, revealing the beauty of unity and interpenetration. The things we deal with are being created and destroyed, they intermix and on this way they take an unexpected shape. What tools must be created to join together the specks of dust that are endlessly flying at our faces? What is more important: to learn to see them approaching us in advance or to learn to like them murmuring right up to you?
Illusion
Calculation
Lava
Particles
Songs
Hypothesis
1
We tend to think that «a moment» is something difficult to be captured by human perception because there’s practically no room for it on the timeline. That’s why opinions usually differ on whether we should take «a moment» into account or not. But if you try to freeze, to make a pause, to try to examine the moment, you may see many micro-events that affect it. The construction of the moment, for sure, can be expressed by some formula. Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to make such calculations. But nobody can take away our intuition and fantasy.
2
After the algorithms have passed their Machine Learning classes, they would probably be able to think. But what would be the key subject of their search? Would they want to help us become closer to each other? Would they selflessly help us learn how to make the right decisions? While our current questions are likely to be the result of insufficient data, and our strategy for organising our lives is prone to cognitive errors, would a machine be able to free us of them? And even if it did, how willing would we be to trust it? More than ourselves?
3
One day there will be no boundary of the corporeal and everything will break down into pure energy. The only thing remaining from the Earth will be one huge ocean shimmering with the waves of former flesh. Only a few birds will survive, freed from the framework of their cages, but not freed from remembering the human language. They will keep flying over the surface of the ocean in order to unsuccessfully seek an island where they could rest. During the flight they will be willing to repeat the words they had heard in the final days of the old world. In a random order, without understanding the essence, line by line, like sticky music in an unknown language.